Forget Adam Wharton: Manchester United may have a £25m alternative in their sightsplaceholder image
Forget Adam Wharton: Manchester United may have a £25m alternative in their sights | Getty Images
Manchester United may have a cheaper alternative to players like Adam Wharton on their shortlist - but is Christos Mouzakitis a player they should sign?
Manchester United are gearing themselves up to spend an awful lot of money on their midfield in 2026. Whether it’s in January or in the summer, they are widely reported to ready to break the bank to sign the kind of young, high-energy box-to-box midfielders who would suit Ruben Amorim’s demanding system: Adam Wharton, Carlos Baleba, Elliot Anderson and many more are supposedly on their shortlist.
The problem is that players like Wharton won’t come cheap. All three of those mentioned are likely to fetch prices in the ballpark of £100m, and while the new financial rules replacing PSR from next season are less restrictive, there are still going to be limits to how much United can spend at one time.
Given that, it makes sense to see them linked with another, even younger player who might be a little cheaper - Christos Mouzakitis. Is the Greek midfielder the cut-price alternative to the Whartons of this world that United need to be targeting?
Why Christos Mouzakitis could be Manchester United’s ideal Adam Wharton alternative
The primary source for Manchester United’s alleged interest in Mouzakitis is The Daily Mail, who reported that the Red Devils had scouts watching as the 18-year-old impressed for Olympiacos against Real Madrid in the Champions League. Real themselves are also meant to be interested.
Supposedly valued at £25m, Mouzakitis already has seven caps for the Greek national team – one of the most promising players in what has the potential to become a golden generation for Greek football – and was last month awarded the Golden Boy Web award, winning a public vote to be named as the most promising young men’s player in Europe alongside Desiré Doué, who was chosen by sports journalists to win the main award. Mouzakitis’ name is now up in lights.
He is certainly blessed with many of the same attributes that make Wharton such a remarkable talent. He has a similar passing range and the ability to split defences open with precise through balls, and is equally energetic and effective out of possession, forcing turnovers and making himself a headache for opposing players.
His movement and knack for finding space is also impressive, and the result is a player who has a significant impact on all three thirds of the pitch, helping to build attacks, creating a high volume of chances and breaking up opposing teams’ attacking plays. He seems well-suited to the all-action role Amorim’s two-man midfield system requires.
He doesn’t yet have Wharton’s capacity to drive the ball through midfield with the ball at his feet, but has plenty of time to develop such skills – and is already proving that he can hold his own against team like Real Madrid and on the international stage.
Will Manchester United sign Mouzakitis soon – or will they miss out?
When you consider the fact that he may cost as little as a quarter as much as Wharton, then it’s scarcely hard to believe that teams like Manchester United would be interested, not that they’re likely to be alone in courting the youngster.
As well as United and Real, a host of teams have cropped up in the gossip columns in recent weeks, ranging from Napoli and AC Milan to Arsenal, Chelsea and Brighton & Hove Albion, who have already invested significantly in young Greek talent. It certainly seem unlikely that he remains at OIympiacos for much longer.
It’s not clear whether there is any chance that a move might take place in January, but he would certainly fit more easily into the budget of a side like United who still have to abide by the old PSR rules until the summer and who are unlikely to have the funds available to buy a player like Wharton.
For their part, there are no immediate signs of Olympiacos attempting to pin Mouzakitis down to a new deal to keep potential suitors at bay for a while – he is already under contract until 2029 and they are likely to accept the need to cash out sooner rather than later. Still, they are not in a financial position in which they will be compelled to sell and given that he is playing a key role in the Superleague title charge and European campaign, they may force teams to wait until the end of the season to negotiate.
At some point, a bidding war will break out and it’s too early to be certain which teams will be involved – or who the favourites might be. If Mouzakitis himself has any strong feelings about his future, he seems to have kept them private for now.
It’s impossible to say at this point that Manchester United are among the favourites to get a deal done, but it would be one which made a lot of sense for them – a player with long-term value who would help them to complete their planned overhaul of the midfield without breaking the bank. It would certainly be tricky to make the case against attempting to sign one of Europe’s most promising young players.
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