Manchester United have bought luxury items before the bare necessities - although it is not their defence I am most worried about
The good news for all those members of lower-paid staff who lost their jobs during Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s vast cost-cutting exercise is that it was not all in vain.
It was reported as necessary in February to avoid Manchester United going bust, but between that and a feel down the back of the sofa the club have found £200m for transfer fees.
United have also done so without selling anyone for actual money, a remarkable situation given the “sell-to-buy” leaks of the spring. Turns out that there is a magic money tree after all. It just doesn’t allow for daft things like matchday ticket prices not to go up exorbitantly.
At its most basic logical level, United’s rebuild of their forward line works. Ruben Amorim’s team scored 44 league goals in 2024-25, their worst record in Premier League history and more than only Everton of those who avoided relegation last season.
It is a pointedly simple equation: United had lots of shots but badly underperformed their expected goals, so they have signed Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo, two of the three Premier League players who most overperformed their xG.
Rather than Chris Wood, the other in the top three, United have spent £74m on Benjamin Sesko. This is exciting and fresh, dynamic even.
It also represents a significant flexing of muscles by a club subjected to so much frothy-mouthed lament over the last few years, not least by their own supporters and former players.
If you can’t win actual football matches, what better than the dopamine hit of beating rivals with Champions League football to the signing of players? From “This is Manchester United we’re talking about” to “We are Manchester United”.
The pertinent question is whether it actually makes good sense. Presuming that Manchester United do actually have to start selling some players before buying more new ones, there remain myriad problems that shiny new forwards cannot solve.
Andre Onana is not good enough; we and I suspect they know that now. The shot-stopping is below par and the distribution fails to atone for it. Amorim has the same central defenders, of which he now intends to pick three a match. Amad Diallo as a wing-back suggests that the right-sided centre-back will have plenty of room to cover.
But it’s in midfield where this strategy of high-intensity dynamism really begins to make your head hurt. This is the prism by which we should view Manchester United’s grand on-pitch decline, after all; central midfield has always been a mess.
From the make-dos who weren’t (Marouane Fellaini and Morgan Schneiderlin) to the older heads who lost their legs (Christian Eriksen, Nemanja Matic, Casemiro). From the loanees (Sofyan Amrabat and Marcel Sabitzer) to the academy products (Kobbie Mainoo, Paul Pogba (twice), Scott McTominay).
Ander Herrera was good for a while and McTominay is plenty good enough now he’s left, but no manager has ever quite nailed the midfield balance.
Amorim’s system demands a lot of those two deeper-lying midfielders, not least because they will very often face three opponents between them. The arrival of Cunha and Mbeumo, we are told, will lead to Bruno Fernandes dropping into one of those two roles.
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Now Bruno is many things, but a box-to-box midfielder or sprinting tackler are not any of them. So the player next to Bruno better be press-resistant, an excellent passer, positionally faultless and prepared to speed to put out fires for 90 minutes all in one.
I don’t think that it’s hugely controversial to conclude that neither Manuel Ugarte nor Casemiro are these things and Amorim sees Mainoo as a more advanced midfielder.
This week has brought interest in Carlos Baleba, although Brighton don’t want to sell, a deal may be hard to pull off and United may finally have to sell first. Which suggests two things: 1) Amorim knows that he badly needs someone there, and 2) it might have been a good idea sorting that priority issue before one of the three forwards.
There is a suspicion here that Manchester United have got their transfer window back to front. They have purchased luxury items before the ones they need.
This cinema-sized screen and four-feet deep jacuzzi are lovely, but the washing machine leaks and the fridge is making a horrible whirring sound.