Ruud van Nistelrooy may never lead Manchester United in cup competition again, so ending on the right end of a 5-2 goal-fest as the interim manager can warm him in his dotage.

Two from Casemiro – the opener a screamer – and Bruno Fernandes plus one from Alejandro Garnacho wipes away the dog-days gloom of Erik ten Hag’s tenure, and is an apt gift to Rúben Amorim should he be in place for Chelsea’s visit on Sunday.

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Newcastle (probable 4-3-3) Pope; Krafth, Schar, Kelly, Hall; Tonali, Longstaff, Joelinton; Willock, Isak, Gordon.

Subs: Dubravka, Livramento, Burn, Alex Murphy, Guimaraes, Almiron, Miley, Barnes, Osula.

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Relatively unknown outside his native country? Tick. Domestic success in a league to which few if any English fans pay much attention? Tick. A proven ability to improve young players in his charge so the club can move them on for inflated fees? Tick. A reputation for playing attractive football on the front foot? Tick. As the assorted qualities Rúben Amorim is expected to bring to Manchester United when his appointment is finalised continue to be talked up, Football Daily can’t help but notice that the only obvious difference between the Sporting manager and the hapless Dutchman he is being brought in to replace is a full head of thick, dark hair.

Sporting head coach Rúben Amorim confirmed that the decision on his future lay with him amid interest from Manchester United. 'There is an interest from Manchester United, there is a release clause and then, when there is something more concrete, I will come here to assume my decision because at the end it is my decision, but as I haven’t taken any decision yet it is not worth talking about it', the Portuguese manager said. He added 'We have to wait a little bit more to explain everything I need to explain. It will be very clear'. Amorim said he expects to still be in Lisbon on Sunday, when United hosts Chelsea in the Premier League, but when pressed he laughed and said 'I don't know'

• Manchester United’s pursuit of Amorim held up by 30-day notice period

• United want him in place for Chelsea’s visit on Sunday
• Negotiations held with Sporting in search for solution

Manchester United’s push to appoint Rúben Amorim as their manager is being held up by negotiations with Sporting regarding his 30-day notice period.

United have informed the Portuguese champions of an intent to pay Amorim’s €10m (£8.3m) release clause and want him in place for Sunday’s visit of Chelsea but this may not be possible unless there is a breakthrough in discussions.

Portuguese built his name on consistency and charisma but can he transfer his watchwords to the Theatre of Dreams?

The parallels are there and Manchester United have certainly considered them. Few managers go into a club during the season when everything is rosy but, even by the low standards of the trade, Rúben Amorim’s arrival at Sporting in March 2020 stood out.

The Lisbon giants were at a horribly low ebb. Fourth in the Primeira Liga, 20 points off the leaders, Porto, they were on to their fourth manager of the season and their previous title from 2001-02 was a speck in the rearview mirror.

No more than a handful of the players at Old Trafford would be considered for selection across town at the Etihad

Erik ten Hag is culled while players paid millions to realise Manchester United’s on-field product remain, posting heartfelt “thank you boss” farewells on social media while still collecting their lucrative pay-packets.

It will remain ever so, but to gauge how culpable the squad are for Ten Hag’s sacking, United sinking to 14th place in the Premier League and 21st in the Europa League, a simple question can suffice: how many of the listing group left behind by the fifth post-Sir Alex Ferguson manager removed by the club would Pep Guardiola take for his supreme Manchester City XI?

• Club release statement to market commission
• Reserve team coach João Pereira ready to take over

Sporting have confirmed that Manchester United have made an approach for their head coach, Rúben Amorim. In a statement to the Securities Market Commission (CMVM) in Lisbon on Tuesday they said the Premier League club “had expressed an interest” in hiring the 39-year-old and that United are prepared to pay the release clause of €10m (£8.3m).

Earlier in the day, United’s hopes of appointing Amorim increased with Sporting agreeing a deal with João Pereira to take over from the 39-year-old should he leave.

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Ali Maxwell, Sanny Rudravajala and Andy Mittento discuss Erik ten Hag’s departure

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On the podcast today: Andy Mitten from United We Stand joins us for part one to dissect Erik Ten Hag’s tenure at Manchester United. Where did it all go wrong and where do they go from here?

• Rúben Amorim has indicated he wants to take the job
• Books need balancing if more lavish spending targeted

Rúben Amorim or whoever succeeds Erik ten Hag as Manchester United’s manager will have a limited budget to strengthen the squad in January.

After Ten Hag was backed in the summer with a £200m spend on five players – Joshua Zirkzee, Leny Yoro, Matthijs de Ligt, Noussair Mazraoui and Manuel Ugarte – there is only modest finance to try to turn around the side’s fortunes in the winter window.

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Club’s preferred candidate has a stellar reputation but rebuilding incoherent squad and culture is an almighty task

At least there isn’t a recent example of Manchester United gazumping Manchester City to sign a 30-something Portuguese and it turning into an expensive farrago. The Sporting manager, Rúben Amorim, had been heavily touted to join City next summer should Pep Guardiola decide to stand down, particularly after the club’s director of football, Hugo Viana, was named as the successor to Txiki Begiristain at the Etihad Stadium.

On Monday, though, Amorim emerged as the preferred candidate to replace Erik ten Hag after the Dutchman was dismissed.

In sacking the Dutchman Ineos has gone full Woodward – those in charge are either incompetent or cowardly. Or both

It was about half an hour after the final whistle at the FA Cup final when I had my exchange with Sir Jim Ratcliffe. He was still in the royal box at Wembley, savouring the win against Manchester City. And I managed to worm my way past security to get close enough to shout at him.

To his credit, he came over and shook my hand, though he said nothing when I implored him: “Don’t sack Ten Hag!”

Club had chance to make a clean break but kicked the can down the road, which has only set them back further

They got there in the end. In an entirely predictable turn of events Manchester United have finally found the gumption to follow through on a decision that was made a long time ago. They have sacked Erik ten Hag, who can have no complaints after another dreadful sequence of results, but the question for Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s sprawling executive team is why it has taken so long when they had the opportunity to make a clean break last summer.

United had decided that Ten Hag’s time was up before last season’s FA Cup final against Manchester City. The outcome of that game was not supposed to make a difference. The message was that even a 4-0 win would not save the Dutchman. United, who had finished in eighth in the league, were talking to multiple managers about taking over and there was no denial when the story was put to them a day before the final.

Manchester United cannot afford to carry on being this version of a football club: the history boys, a fading heritage exhibition

Well, that’s finally happened then. On, now, to the next glorious two-year plan. The last few months of Erik Ten Hag’s time at Manchester United have felt at times like a throwback to the dog days of the Soviet Union, when the Secretary of the Central Committee always seemed to be either dead or dying, wheeled out grudgingly to oversee a parade every three months, the human face of this vast, dying red bureaucracy basically a corpse in a coat propped up in front of some missiles.

As of Monday afternoon we finally have clarity. The latest man in black is no more. That frowning bald Dutchman with a way of standing on the Old Trafford touchline that conveyed a strangely tender kind of pathos, a man to whom the world is simply doing things, will now receive the large payoff governed by an utterly insane two-year contract signed this summer, at a point when he was already clearly just a pair of legs in a suit.

Despite his inexperience the Dutchman has strong ideals learned from some of the greatest managers

Björn van der Doelen says he can easily tell the state of mind of his former PSV teammate and the new Manchester United interim coach Ruud van Nistelrooy. “Sometimes I see the old Ruud on the sidelines,” says the midfielder, who played for PSV between 1994 and 2001. “His chin goes up. I know then that he doesn’t like it at all, he’s boiling inside and he’d rather run on to the pitch.

“When he was a player, he would get angry for a while when his chin went up. Now that he’s older, he seems calmer. Now that chin quickly goes down again.”

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Like the shock you get when you touch an electric fence deliberately, Erik ten Hag’s dismissal from his role as Manchester United manager was entirely predictable but still came as a bit of a surprise. Binning off the Dutchman is certainly the most significant decision the new breed of Ineos go-getters have made since Big Sir Jim Ratcliffe bought his stake in the club, doubling up as an embarrassing admission that they could scarcely have got their previous biggest decision more wrong. While United’s FA Cup final win might have been impressive enough to cover over a multitude of gaping fissures, it seems that only Ratcliffe and the kind of “world class” high-performing executives with which he likes to surround himself were too dumb to see that offering Ten Hag a new contract in July was ever going to end in anything other than salty tears.

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Defeat at West Ham was the final straw for the club hierarchy, who relieved the Dutchman of his duties

There were plenty of times over the past 14 months when sacking Erik ten Hag would have been justified but Manchester United clung on in the hope he could somehow turn things around. Patience and excuses finally ran out at Old Trafford after another dismal defeat at West Ham on Sunday, leaving them 14th in the Premier League and increasingly fearful of another season outside the Champions League.

Losing for a third straight season in east London was the straw that broke the camel’s back, forcing the club’s most senior figures to discuss terminating his contract because they were no longer confident of a top-four finish. The trigger may have been pulled at any point in recent times but Sunday’s performance was indicative of events on the pitch. Mistakes were made at both ends to ensure another limp loss and a unanimous decision was taken by the club hierarchy, before Omar Berrada and Dan Ashworth informed Ten Hag on Monday at Carrington.

The Guardian's Manchester football correspondent Jamie Jackson explains why Erik ten Hag has been sacked as Manchester United's manager despite being backed by the club in the summer. After only a handful of games, Manchester United's 2024-2025 season didn't get off to a promising start, with the team sitting 'closer to relegation than the top four'. Ten Hag spent £200m in the summer but the new players have been unable to impress so far and Ten Hag hasn't been able to progress the team

The bubble has burst for the Dutchman at Old Trafford. Here are the most notable events of Ten Hag’s reign