Paulo Bento: This club is going nowhere ..maybe it's time I got going

Mar 30 2008 By Gavin Berry In Lisbon

Rangers V Sporting Lisbon Thursday, Kick-Off 7.45pm Live On Stv And Itv 4

SPORTING LISBON boss Paulo Bento dropped a bombshell on the Portuguese club just days before their Euro showdown with Rangers after revealing he'll consider his future at the end of the season.

Bento is a highly-rated young coach but has found it difficult to work under the financial constraints placed on him at the Jose Alvalade Stadium and the frustrated gaffer hit out at the running of his club on national TV.

Sporting are struggling domestically this season after losing the League Cup Final to Vitoria Setubal last week while they are languishing in fifth place in the league - 20 points behind table toppers Porto. Bento's patience is wearing thin with the club continually selling off his best players to fund their crippling debt while the 38-year-old watches rival bosses at Porto and Benfica get more and more cash to splash every year.

The manager's outburst has stunned Sporting fans but the timing couldn't be better for Walter Smith and his Light Blues side in the run-up to the first leg of their UEFA Cup quarterfinal tie at Ibrox.

Last season Bento watched top stars such as Nani, Ricardo, Marco Caneira and Rodrigo Tello leave the club without receiving big money to replace them.

Now with more rumours of top players being sold off the brassed-off boss is looking for cast-iron assurances from club chiefs that he will not face the same situation again.

Influential Portuguese midfielder Miguel Veloso has already been linked with a megabucks summer move to Manchester United and Brazilian striker Liedson is believed to be a target for Seville.

Bento has had enough and wants answers from the club on whether he can hold on to his star men and build a team for the future.

The Sporting boss - who took over from Jose Peseiro in 2004 - is contracted until next year but he could leave this summer if the situation doesn't improve.

Bento said: "At the end of the season we are going to make an evaluation and then we will decide what is to happen.

"The club had been doing well and the team was going in the right direction until this season.

"Now I am being asked to do more with less money.

"Last season we lost important players. Now, almost a year later, people are still talking about all the players who left.

"We lost Nani to Manchester United, Ricardo to Betis and Marco Caneira to Valencia and we didn't have the financial capacity to keep Rodrigo Tello and lost him to Besiktas.

"After losing four players we had to find others to take over and they needed time to get to know their new team-mates and get used to our style of play.

"Next season the situation with Miguel Veloso is very important.

"If he stays I will be able to make a team. If he goes I will need to bring in other players.

"To make a team with Veloso is one thing - to make a team without Veloso is another thing altogether.

"I need to know now if I can put together a team for next season."

Bento won a domestic cup double last season and knows Sporting will be reluctant to sack him despite his outburst on live TV at the way the club is being run.

And Bento added: "I have the confidence of the people who are working wi th me, the club's management, the players and my other coaches. I am not stuck here.

"What is for sure is I have one more year left on my contract and I feel the people have the will to let me see out my contract, no matter what happens."