Rúben Amorim handed Viktor Gyökeres transfer boost as club ruled out of Manchester United battle

Rúben Amorim has been handed a transfer boost after one club has been ruled out of the running for Manchester United target Viktor Gyökeres.

Manchester United are searching for a new striker in 2025 after goals have shown themselves as hard to come by under Rúben Amorim so far.

Despite Rasmus Højlund scoring five in his opening five appearances under the 39-year-old head coach, he has failed to score in his subsequent six matches, despite starting five of these.

New striker signing Joshua Zirkzee has also netted just two, both in a 4-0 win over Everton, while Alejandro Garnacho is struggling to nail down a space in the team and Marcus Rashford is potentially on his way out in January.

Amad Diallo has been the side’s only consistent forward in the last six weeks, and the club are looking to add new firepower to assist the Ivorian attacking midfielder.

Amorim handed fresh Gyökeres transfer boost

Amid the club’s search for a new striker, they have been consistently linked with Amorim’s striker at Sporting CP, Viktor Gyökeres.

The 26-year-old scored 62 goals for club and country across 2024 and opened his account for 2025 with a hat trick amidst a 4-4 draw with Vitória S.C. in the Portuguese league.

Reports earlier this week claimed that United had been hit with a fresh blow after Bayern Munich entered the race for the Swedish international, although this has now been denied.

German Sky Sports correspondent Florian Plettenberg reacted to the news in a slightly cryptic fashion, providing a cross and thumbs-down emoji, signifying that the information is incorrect.

It had previously been claimed that Bayern Munich were ready to pay the £80 million release clause that Sporting have demanded in January, but with Plettenberg ruling them out of the race for now, this allows Amorim and United to potentially drum up an offer.

Amorim wary of signing Gyökeres in January

However, Amorim has previously said that he is wary of signing any Sporting players for United in the January window, with Gyökeres a key part of their title challenge in Portugal.

“I’ve just made peace with the Sporting fans, I’m not even going to make a joke about it,” Amorim replied when asked directly in November if he was going to take the striker to United.

“Gyokeres is a Sporting player, which is a great club, he did a lot for it, he was in the second division, he just has to stay and finish the season at Marques.”

Asked the same in a separate interview, Amorim replied: “No, no, no. I cannot be funny with that in this moment.

“It was tough for me to leave, if I start joking about that with Gyokeres, I’ll have problems. This is my city, this is my country, I will respect.

“Viktor has to stay until the end of the season and then his life is going, maybe, somewhere else.”

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