Liverpool have sent Man United transfer warning about Viktor Gyokeres to Ruben Amorim

Recording a hat-trick against their arch rivals is the perfect way to endear Manchester United fans.

Many will be excited by the prospect of a possible approach for the Sporting CP star given his links with Ruben Amorim. His agent has outlined that he only moved to Lisbon because of the coach, adding further fuel to the speculation fire.

Nine goals in three games - including seven in his last two - means Gyokeres now has 23 strikes in 17 matches this season. This follows his tally of 43 in 50 outings during last campaign’s title success.

READ MORE: What Sporting players did for Amorim

READ MORE: Gyokeres was once sold by Ashworth - now he has destroyed City

The thought of United signing an exciting talent from Sporting may evoke a sense of romanticism given the ties with Cristiano Ronaldo. The successes of Nani and Bruno Fernandes also strengthen that emotion.

A treble against the Premier League champions indicates that Gyokeres can be a threat in Amorim’s current system if deployed at United. But reality must also be sought.

While his first goal against Man City was excellently taken, the other two were penalties that he didn’t win himself. And before his opening strike, the Swede missed a glorious one-on-one chance by chipping straight into the arms of Ederson.

Man City had two 19-year-olds playing in the back four, with John Stones, Ruben Dias and Kyle Walker not used. Meanwhile, Gyokeres completed just seven of his 12 attempted passes.

Portugal’s top-flight is ranked as only the seventh-best league in Europe behind France and the Netherlands. Outside of Benfica and Porto, the domestic competition is pretty poor.

United can look at two examples for a reference guide to how strikers from the Portuguese league fair once moved to a higher-quality league. The first and most obvious is Darwin Nunez at Liverpool.

Nunez netted 26 goals in 28 league games for Benfica in the 2021/22 campaign. He also scored two against Barcelona and Liverpool in Europe, as well as one against Bayern Munich. He recorded three hat-tricks that season.

Many had high hopes upon his £85million move to Anfield that summer, but he could only muster nine goals in 29 Premier League outings. In all, he scored just 15 in 42.

His undercooked maiden season was put down to his rawness, aged just 22 upon his arrival. Last term, he kicked on with 17 goals across all competitions before the end of March. But he managed just one further goal for the rest of the season amid a crucial run-in period.

In his final 10 matches under Jurgen Klopp, he failed to net and was actually benched for the last four league matches of the campaign as his manager somewhat conceded defeat with his mega-money recruit. It means he has yet to record a 20-goal season in England.

Nunez is loved by Liverpool fans but often leaves them frustrated with his wrong choice of pass or decision to shoot. He showed in Liverpool’s 4-0 win over Bayer Leverkusen on Tuesday that he still carries those discrepancies.

He is not the only example. On a slightly lesser scale, Goncalo Ramos scored 19 goals in 30 Portuguese league matches in his final season at Benfica, which extended to 27 in 47 across all competitions.

He grabbed the attention at the 2022 World Cup when scoring a hat-trick on his first senior start for Portugal during the 6-1 knockout win over Switzerland, while also bagging an assist in his 74 minutes on the pitch.

Ramos netted just 11 league goals in 29 matches last season upon his switch to Paris Saint-Germain and only 14 goals in 40 outings overall.

Perhaps Raul Jimenez is the only central striker to come directly from the Portuguese league to come good, his 27 goals for Wolves in the 2019/20 season memorable. As with the Dutch League, the transition from Portugal to the Premier League is not a path well trodden.

Of course, Gyokeres could buck the trend and prove doubters wrong. But with an £84m price tag, United must assess whether he is a risk worth taking.

Liverpool have already provided an example of when the punt doesn’t go exactly to plan.