After experiencing the thrills of Sporting’s amazing 4-1 victory against Manchester City in the Champions League on Tuesday, Amorim knows he will be engaged in more mundane European fare, at least in the short-term, this season.
Following on from the Bodo/Glimt match, there are trips to face Czech side Viktoria Plzen and Romanians FCSB, either side of hosting Scottish giants Rangers.
The key target from those four games is moving up from their current 15th place into the top eight. That will mean United avoid the February play-offs in this expanded 36-team competition and qualify straight into the last-16 in March.
The knock-on benefit is freeing up a couple of midweeks that could prove priceless for Amorim when it comes to actually working with his new charges because he would have an incredible seven midweek games in his first eight weeks should his side beat Tottenham in the EFL Cup quarter-final on 19 December.
However, Amad’s efforts apart, it is not entirely clear who will score enough goals to make United consistently competitive and move them up the table.
Yet again, Rasmus Hojlund failed to find the target. His only decent chance was a first-half header that he failed to connect properly with and succeeded only in sending it straight to Kotarski.
But this was another good night for Ruud van Nistelrooy, who now has two wins and a draw from his three games in interim charge, although sacked Erik ten Hag might conclude he could have achieved the same results if United’s ownership had kept faith with him a little longer.
Senegal
