{"id":833319,"date":"2026-03-18T05:30:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T05:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/833319\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T05:30:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T05:30:15","slug":"manchester-uniteds-biggest-weakness-is-becoming-a-strength-thanks-to-one-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/833319\/","title":{"rendered":"Manchester United’s biggest weakness is becoming a strength thanks to one man"},"content":{"rendered":"

Man Utd’s recruitment from last season suggests the penny may have dropped with transfers at Old Trafford.<\/p>\n

Benjamin Sesko with Jason Wilcox.(Image: 2025 Manchester United FC)<\/p>\n

As a general rule, Sir Jim Ratcliffe would be better off keeping his mouth shut, but Manchester United fans nodded along when they listened to his interview about the club’s recruitment last year.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the BBC, Ratcliffe launched a scathing attack on United’s transfer business, saying: \u201cIf you look at the players that we are buying this summer, that we [Ineos] didn\u2019t buy, we\u2019re buying Antony, we\u2019re buying Casemiro, we\u2019re buying Onana, we\u2019re buying Hojlund, and we\u2019re buying Sancho.”<\/p>\n

Ratcliffe<\/a> went on to reference the transfer fee instalments United still had to pay. “These are all things from the past, whether we like it or not, we\u2019ve inherited those things and have to sort that out,” he added.<\/p>\n

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“For Sancho<\/a>, who now plays for Chelsea [on loan] and we pay half his wages, we\u2019re paying \u00a317m to buy him in the summer. It takes time for us to move away from the past into a new place in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked to expand on players being overpaid, Ratcliffe said: “Some are not good enough, some are probably overpaid. But for us to mould a squad, that we are fully responsible for, and accountable for, will take time.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got this period where we will move from the past to the future and we are in the middle of that period. There are some great players in the squad as we know. The captain is a fabulous footballer. We definitely need Bruno [Fernandes]. Without him it would be really tough.”<\/p>\n

Casemiro was hard done by to be included on Ratcliffe’s hitlist, but nobody could blame the United co-owner for feeling frustrated at still having to pay fees for the likes of Antony, Onana and Sancho.<\/p>\n

United paid a combined \u00a3206million<\/a> for those three players, the kind of transfers that prevent a club from challenging for a Premier League title. You cannot compete with the best when you waste millions of pounds on signing players who would not get a kick for bottom-half teams.<\/p>\n

Antony scored nine goals for United, while Sancho mustered 12. Onana made several costly errors between the sticks. United got close to zero return on their investment.<\/p>\n

It was no secret that United’s transfer strategy needed to be overhauled. Ratcliffe spoke about hiring the ‘best in class’ in the boardroom when he acquired a minority stake in February 2024, and recruitment has gradually improved since Ineos gained control of football operations.<\/p>\n

Ratcliffe’s regime has made dozens of mistakes in different areas, but last summer’s signings suggest the penny may have finally dropped with transfers at Old Trafford<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sesko, Mbeumo, Leon and Cunha pictured during their unveiling.(Image: 2025 Manchester United FC)<\/p>\n

Jason Wilcox, sporting director, has been crucial behind the scenes and deserves praise for overseeing a successful transfer window, in which Matheus Cunha, Bryan Mbeumo, Benjamin Sesko and Senne Lammens were signed.<\/p>\n

United splashed a combined \u00a3215m (not including add-ons) to sign those four players, a sum not a world away from the combined transfer fee (\u00a3206m) they paid for Antony, Onana and Sancho.<\/p>\n

It was fascinating to see the blend of transfers last summer. United’s biggest problem was scoring goals, and the decision was made to sign two Premier League-proven forwards. Cunha had just scored 17 goals for Wolves, and Mbeumo had netted 20 for Brentford. They were low-risk deals.<\/p>\n

Sesko and Lammens arrived in the second half of the summer transfer window. They were different signings to Cunha and Mbeumo, arriving with no Premier League experience, but the numbers were crunched on both players.<\/p>\n

United sources pointed to Lammens’ underlying statistics when he signed. When Sesko was announced, the press release noted he’d scored the most goals of any player under the age of 23 in Europe’s top five leagues over the past two seasons.<\/p>\n

Lammens has proven to be a wonderful addition, and Sesko is the Premier League’s most in-form striker in 2026, meaning the transfer hit rate from last summer is close to 100 per cent.<\/p>\n

Diego Leon is the only doubt. The 18-year-old has spent the season with the Under-21s, and it remains to be seen whether he’s cut out for life in England, although he was signed for just \u00a33.3m, meaning it would not be a disaster if he failed to make the grade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Man Utd’s recruitment from last season suggests the penny may have dropped with transfers at Old Trafford. Benjamin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":833320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8813],"tags":[748,393,4884,10761,2465,423,9060,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-833319","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manchester","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-jason-wilcox","12":"tag-manchester","13":"tag-manchester-united-fc","14":"tag-manchester-united-transfer-news","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116248540817906374","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833319","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=833319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/833320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=833319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=833319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=833319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}