Sporting had not won their league in 19 years so it's a huge achievement, and this season he does have a game in hand so he could be 4 points clear.
It's an achievement yes, but Sporting is the 3rd biggest club in Portugal even in those 19 years, and I don't think the gap in size between Sporting and Benfica/Porto is as great as Dortmund and Bayern - even when Dortmund where winning Bayern were taking their best players that's the size disparity
Didn't realize the game in hand tbf
To be fair to Amorim, Klopp had the better side. Likes of Hummels, Reus, Gundogan, Lewandowski have proven to be top quality footballers.
He did absolutely. I am trying to view it in terms of comparison. Should that Dortmund team have reach a CL final, it's maybe an overachievement. Should that Sporting side reach last 16, probably at a minimum and then it all depends on who you get, Portuguese sides tend to get to Quarters quite regularly but they came up against City so no one expected them to get past that.
Also needs to be said, he won the league, they were second the next season with the same points total (85), then they lost Palhinha and Matheus Nunes, fell off quite a bit that season and now look to be strong again, they also lost Ugarte last summer. Jurgen also struggled with losing key players during his time at Dortmund. 13/14 for example, Gotze went to Bayern and Gundogan missed the entire season through injury.
We can’t predict injuries, but I’d like to think any manager coming here should feel sound in our ability to keep players for their peak years. If we don’t, there’s a strong chance we’ll reinvest it well.
Yeah absolutely, I didn't think you can call anything that Amorim has done at Sporting bad, worst you can say is in Europe he hasn't exceeded expectations but met them, everywhere else he has exceeded.
What I am saying is the level of that achievement I don't think is as great as the achievement Klopp had at Dortmund - even if you factor in for size and quality I don't think it's quite as great as Klopp's at Dortmund.
And again I mention the thing with him, he is very young and doing this in a lower league, he's probably going to need a good few years to grow both dealing with tactics at this level, expectations, and managing this level of player. Not having players consistently rotated out due to transfers is itself a change in the norm for him.
He is far from a finished article or a surefire bet, much like if we bring a 21 year old player from the Portuguese league, we should also set our expectations for the manager and not expect him to challenge or get anywhere near what Klopp has done with us for a fair while I would say