“The conclusions that people draw from this game are not important to me because they could be misleading,” Ruben Amorim said in between dodging a tantrum from Gary Cotterill and make a joke about Sir Alex Ferguson Too many people took it too seriously.

What have we learned? That a Manchester City, which is one of the best in Europe, can dominate a football game against a Sporting team in 34th place – even if several key players are missing due to injury? And still make absolute nonsense of it.

That a Manchester City squad that cost over a billion pounds to put together is capable of controlling the ball, but also increasingly capable of moving, compared to a squad built for a sixth of the cost to shoot right between the toes? And then reload and do it again.

Realistically, we’ve also learned that turning a game into a memorial to a departing hero doesn’t help the mourners start the game at any pace; Sporting were 1-0 down within four minutes and City danced through them with ease in a first half in which Amorim’s now famous back three consisted more of a back five and often a back seven.

For about 37 minutes, we also thought we had learned that Viktor Gyokeres really isn’t everything, even though he is the top goalscorer in 2024 across Europe. He squandered a one-on-one chance by gently throwing the ball into the hands of a very grateful Ederson before being dispossessed by a 19-year-old debutant.

But Gyokeres is clearly not the man to make the same mistake twice and his second chance was awkwardly but effectively deflected into the ground and over the head of the now less grateful Ederson. When Maximiliano Araújo scored a confident second penalty, he had made it 2-1 within seconds of the start of the second half. Now it was 3-1 and City was reeling.

This is how we expected Amorims Sporting to play: with pace, with aggression, with intensity. And the inevitable conclusion will be that Amorim’s half-time team talk was the catalyst for a complete change of gear. With a smile on his face, he challenged the Sir Alex comparisons, but the English media will pick up on this concept and pursue it, just as Gyokeres charges towards the City goal.

Amorim couldn’t possibly have dreamed that City would go up in flames so spectacularly, wasting two ridiculous penalties on both sides, while Manchester City missed their own through an out-of-form Erling Haaland.

How much of this remarkable result is due to the genius of Amorim and how much of the fallibility of a Rodri-less Manchester City is lost in the excitement of Sporting beating Manchester City by a barely believable result. And it’s difficult not to get lost in the captivating narrative.

It is difficult to draw any meaningful conclusions about Amorim as Manchester United manager from this result, as he will never be in that position again: as outgoing manager of the champions against a City team that was in a defensive car crash. Emotions quickly turned to naivety and the explosion was heard throughout Europe.

What we may I come to the conclusion that Amorim will not manage a boring Manchester United team. He will have days when he makes teams as good as City look like complete Muppets. He will bring shape and purpose to a group of players that have seemed lost for far, far too long. He could definitely turn Rasmus Hojlund into a real striker.

Shit, he’s definitely the new Sir Alex Ferguson.