First, let's deal with the reality Amorim finds himself in now.
He joked before the game when he said a Sporting win over City would give United a new feel Sir Alex Ferguson arrived.
There was a lot of additional interest in the game in Manchester. United supporters, fans and club officials alike, were thrilled by what they saw. For some it was a mockery of City's private insistence that Amorim was not on their wish list if Pep Guardiola eventually leaves.
But no one, Amorim said, should read too much into the events at Jose Alvalade Stadium.
“I’ve said before that you can’t transfer one reality to another,” he said. “At Manchester United you can’t play exactly like that. You can't play so defensively, so we have to adapt. Obviously it's really difficult to beat this team and Pep Guardiola. And he's no worse manager than me.
“It will be a completely different world, a different team, we will not have as much time to train and we will start from a different starting point. People can make their own judgement, but I say to the people of Manchester that this was an isolated incident.”
Amorim's observations in his defense are worth considering.
The most obvious difference, which is widely analyzed, is that Amorim plays three center backs.
Against City it became a five-man chain for long stretches of the game.
But that's one of the attractions. United think it's too simplistic to describe Amorim as someone who plays with three centre-backs.
How this manifests itself can change, it is argued. This could be done through inverted full-backs, more orthodox full-backs – which is what Geovany Quenda and goalscorer Maximiliano Araujo tried to be when they weren't pushed back – or through centre-backs pushing into midfield areas.
In front of them are two sitting midfielders, behind them two narrow strikers and at the top the excellent Viktor Gyokeres.
If Amorim sticks with the formation, does he have the personnel to implement it effectively?
If not, he will have to compromise to the same extent as Erik ten Hag, where his later team had no connection to the style he was expected to bring with him from Ajax.
