{"id":1086919,"date":"2026-07-13T16:50:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T16:50:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1086919\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T16:50:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T16:50:31","slug":"what-manchester-uniteds-midfield-makeover-reveals-about-their-transfer-strategy-under-michael-carrick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1086919\/","title":{"rendered":"What Manchester United\u2019s midfield makeover reveals about their transfer strategy under Michael Carrick"},"content":{"rendered":"

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At least Manchester United<\/a> should have a specialist in the subject overseeing matters. Their summer midfield overhaul is being conducted with a midfielder at the helm. He has started with his old role. Michael Carrick<\/a>\u2019s first buy has been Andrey Santos, for an initial \u00a348m. His second is set to be Youri Tielemans<\/a>, for \u00a335m. It appeared it would be Ederson, for a similar fee, but United have put a move on hold after the Brazilian failed a medical. <\/p>\n

So the midfield merry-go-round at Old Trafford appears to have accelerated. Or, some would say, veered off course, given the change in names. There will be no Elliot Anderson or Mateus Fernandes; nor, seemingly, Aurelien Tchouameni<\/a>, who has signed a new contract at Real Madrid. It is hard to escape the sense that United are down to the second tier of targets or that a club who have long been big spenders are being outbid, forced to operate on the cheap. If so, they have further reasons to regret overspending in the past. Last year was the summer of the \u00a370m forward for United; this, so far, is the window of the \u00a330m-\u00a350m midfielder.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"YouriYouri Tielemans appears set to join Manchester United (PA)<\/p>\n

The numbers feel instructive. For once, United have been blown out of the water by rivals. Tielemans and Santos have a combined cost of around the \u00a385m Tottenham paid for Mateus Fernandes. Even had they added Ederson, it would be little more than the \u00a3116m Manchester City will fork out for Elliot Anderson.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"AndreyAndrey Santos, left, has joined Manchester United and Youri Tielemans, right, could soon follow (PA)<\/p>\n

Even as United have moved a little closer to building their \u00a32bn stadium, there is a sense of an enforced austerity to the rebuild on the pitch. Some of their plans have not come off. They can\u2019t sell Manuel Ugarte<\/a> yet, because he was injured at the World Cup<\/a>, while Barcelona did not take up their option to buy the big earner Marcus Rashford<\/a>. Andre Onana has been loaned to Trabzonspor again, but not sold. United may be running out of ways to bolster the budget.<\/p>\n

And meanwhile, the midfield market was inflated: in part by Tottenham, committing \u00a3100m to Tonali and then a further \u00a385m to Fernandes. United have boxed clever in some respects: Ederson has a year left on his Atalanta contract and he looked a value-for-money option. Tielemans has a release clause in his Aston Villa contract and, in the age of the \u00a3100m midfielder, <\/a>passers of his calibre are rarely sold for a third of that. But he is 29; it is not a repeat of paying \u00a363m for Casemiro<\/a> when he was in his thirties, but United may end up again with a player with no resale value. <\/p>\n

But there is a logic to signing him. It weakens a rival; United and Villa could end up contesting a Champions League place and, with Amadou Onana sidelined by a cruciate ligament injury<\/a>, Villa\u2019s midfield looks weakened. Tielemans could prove a difference-maker. His three years under Unai Emery were a success. United would probably settle for their next three bringing Champions League qualification twice, a run to its quarter-finals and a European trophy, with Tielemans\u2019 own form such that he won the club\u2019s player-of-the-year award once, for his superlative 2024-25 campaign. Tielemans\u2019 talismanic qualities were apparent both in the Europa League final against Freiburg, when he scored Villa\u2019s opener, and when he powered Belgium\u2019s comeback against Senegal with two goals. <\/p>\n

\"YouriYouri Tielemans scored for Aston Villa in the Europa League final (Getty)<\/p>\n

If United harbour regrets about Tielemans, they may be that they did not sign him sooner, or cheaper. It remains a mystery why other clubs overlooked him in 2023, allowing Villa to recruit him on a free transfer, as meanwhile midfielders were starting to command \u00a3100m fees. United, among others, should have gone for him then. Instead, they loaned Sofyan Amrabat and bought Manuel Ugarte the following summer; each more of a defensive midfielder, but neither of Tielemans\u2019 class.<\/p>\n

Santos represents a very different case, and not merely because they will scarcely intend to replicate Chelsea\u2019s season, whether in the fractiousness or the 10th-place finish. The damning interpretation is that United have signed the third-choice midfielder from a mid-table team, even if the pair ahead of the Brazilian, Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo, are two of the \u00a3100m brigade.<\/p>\n

\"ManchesterManchester United are hopeful Andrey Santos can fulfil his potential (PA Archive)<\/p>\n

Santos only started 13 league games last season but United noted his high pass completion rate and the fact he completed the most progressive passes per 90 minutes of any midfielder under 22 in the Premier League<\/a> last season. He has potential, but the fee still feels high.<\/p>\n

And even with the addition of Tielemans, it could look as though United still have not replaced Casemiro.<\/a> The Belgian, like Kobbie Mainoo, is more of a player to partner the defensive midfielder rather than to be it. It may leave the inexperienced Santos as an automatic choice by default. <\/p>\n

\"CasemiroCasemiro has perhaps still not yet been properly replaced (PA)<\/p>\n

But United have not ruled out going back in for Ederson. Maybe getting two relatively cheap additions leaves money in the kitty. Certainly, even with two central midfielders arriving, there looks a need for a third. <\/p>\n

And while their top targets are going elsewhere, the danger is that the overhaul United long envisaged and which may have been planned around Tchouameni, Anderson and Fernandes ends up with compromise choices and with lesser options in the centre of the pitch than some of their rivals. Theirs doesn\u2019t look a midfield of the standard of Arsenal\u2019s or City\u2019s. Maybe Tottenham\u2019s costlier makeover will give them more quality.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"MichaelMichael Carrick will begin his permanent tenure at Manchester United with a new-look midfield (PA Wire)<\/p>\n

But Carrick\u2019s dozen years and 464 games in the United midfield ought to give him an idea what the job entails. The challenge for Tielemans, Santos and any future additions will be not just to impress their manager, but to prove worthy successors to him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1086920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8813],"tags":[268872,748,251751,47671,393,299,10534,4884,44888,46409,2465,47681,147743,2249,85217,87919,252301,297167,10031,252297,93,273143,253307,5807,16,252300,15,297168,44813],"class_list":["post-1086919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manchester","tag-aston-villa-f-c","tag-britain","tag-club-soccer","tag-color-image","tag-england","tag-europe","tag-final-round","tag-great-britain","tag-horizontal","tag-istanbul","tag-manchester","tag-match-sport","tag-motion","tag-photography","tag-sc-freiburg","tag-scoring","tag-scoring-a-goal","tag-shooting-at-goal","tag-soccer","tag-soccer-player","tag-sport","tag-taking-a-shot-sport","tag-turkiye-country","tag-uefa-europa-league","tag-uk","tag-union-of-european-football-associations","tag-united-kingdom","tag-vodafone-park-turkey","tag-youri-tielemans"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1086919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1086919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1086919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1086920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1086919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1086919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1086919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}