MISSION IMPOSSIBLE

IT was wonderful to see the adulation and warmth towards Ruben Amorim as he bid farewell in his final home game as Sporting Lisbon manager.

And yet despite that stunning 4-1 win over Manchester City, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him.

At Sporting he has achieved incredible success with two Portuguese Primeira Liga crowns — the first of which ended a 19-year title drought.

Understandably he is adored by the fans, even when they knew he was leaving and there is a clear bond between him and the players. He looked a man genuinely content and happy with his life in Lisbon.

“Don’t do it Ruben, stay where you are” . . . but it was too late.

Amorim had already opted to throw himself into the managerial meat grinder known as the modern-day Manchester United. He only has to look at the disgraceful treatment of his immediate predecessor to know what he is going into.

There was something very unsavoury about the way Amorim was being welcomed to United with all those club social media postings.

It was as if he had arrived as a great liberator to take the club into the light after a dark time. Erik ten Hag was a good man. One of the best I have met in my 25 years covering the Red Devils.

He did everything he could to drag that club back up, winning two trophies and getting to another final along the way in his two full seasons.

Yet it was clear the new broom being swept through Old Trafford by part-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe was going to take the Dutchman along with it.

Even after that so-called show of faith in him over the summer, after everyone else they tried to get to do the job ran a mile.

He was always staring at the exit door at a time when 250 staff have brutally been made redundant, against a back drop of cuts that is gradually ripping away a bit more of the soul of this great club.

No matter how good he is the squad is poor, for which Ten Hag has to take a major part of the responsibility. Although he never wanted Joshua Zirkzee, an Ineos signing, and we can see why.

If Amorim can get a tune out of this lot, then he will be the Ludwig van Beethoven of football. All the while he will have to cope with everything that comes with being United boss. A club that stopped being able to match expectations the moment Sir Alex Ferguson left in 2013.

Amorim is the sixth permanent boss since then. They all arrive with a smile and believe they can be “the one”.

They all leave with their reputations in the dustbin and their lives changed.

Ten Hag is still coming to terms with what happened. I’m not sure if David Moyes ever will.

Even baby-faced assassin Ole Gunnar Solskjaer looked his age by the end.

Sometimes, if you find contentment in your life — and a job you love with people around you who love you — that’s when you have really reached the pinnacle.

Amorim had that. And in two years’ time my bet is he wishes he never turned his back on it. — Sun.