Football News: Thoughts on the Manchester United Transfer Window

As it's a boring international break, I thought I'd give my thoughts on the summer transfer window now it has slammed shut. For me the Manchester United transfer business is a tale of two halves. Personally I feel the recruitment has been pretty much spot on.

We've signed two players with EPL experience, character and quality who are just entering their primes and who do the job that we struggled with most last year (create and score goals) . Cunha and Mbeumo are stellar signings, especially given our current position.

I also really like the signings of Sesko and Lammens, two lads who are 22/ 23 years old, have shown that they have elite level talent in weaker leagues who hopefully can step up and become top class stars with us. Typically throughout our history it has been this sort of signing that has been the most successful for us.

Both will take a little time to adjust and acclimatise to the EPL, and both will make mistakes over the next couple of seasons as they develop. However, if they can reach their potential then we would have two absolute top class players who could be with us for the next 5-8 years or longer putting in top level performances.

We also brought in the young lad Diego Leon, who looks like he's settling in well and from the social media the club and players have shared he is a player the current lads have taken under their wing. Much like the signings of Kone, Obi, and Heaven I feel he will be a slow burner who can develop in the background for a year or two before hopefully kicking on and really pushing for a first team place. These are the guys who in a couple of years time are providing quality squad depth and even challenging for those starting places.

From a recruitment perspective this has to be one of our better transfer windows. We've signed a mixture of proven EPL talent and potential world class players, all seem well suited for the manager, they address the major and priority issues from last season, and they all seem to have the right attitude.

Obviously there are still weak areas in the team, in reality we were never going to be able to fix everything in one summer. While I'm disappointed that we weren't able to get a deal for Baleba across the line, I actually really like the clubs approach of choosing to not sign an alternative. At that point without any sales signing a player would have put us under financial pressure, which was something the club were only willing to do for a long scouted player who they felt was the perfect option. Which makes sense. Putting us under financial pressure to sign a 2nd or 3rd choice option that hasn't been as well scouted and who still lacks in some areas would have been foolish.

So that's the positive side of our transfer window, on the flip side our outgoings have been a challenging and potentially disruptive influence this summer. Although to be fair the new management were always up against it to clear out the deadwood and problem players. In some cases they didn't just have one hand tied behind their back but both.

I fully understand the managers perspective of not wanting the players who he feels aren't good enough and who created issues in the team with their attitude and application, as part of his squad during a vital pre-season. In fact despite everything I actually feel he was right to leave the so called "bomb squad" out of the tour and training.

Having players who aren't committed to the club be amongst the rest of the team while he's trying to get them all up to speed and to fully buy into his vision would have potential derailed our pre-season. Which actually went very well and the whole feeling within and around the club was very positive at the start of the season.

However, while isolating the problem players who needed to leave was the right thing to do for the team. For the club it made it much harder to negotiate their exits. Some of them needed to be sold for above a certain fee to avoid the club taking a loss which would have further restricted us in the transfer market. While most of them were on high wages that they were never likely to get matched by any of the clubs that would come in for them, especially as most of them were on the back of at least one if not multiple poor seasons worth of form.

This meant that the players had far more power and an ability to force the club to sell to the players preferred club. Which was always going to make it difficult to get the kind of fees we might have hoped for.

That said, we've moved Rashford on to Barcelona on loan we get a loan fee and their is a conditional obligation for them to sign him permanently next summer for a further 25m. Far below what we would want for a player of his ability and age in the current market. But given his wages and recent poor form and attitude it does count as profit and moves on a player who was contributing very little while amongst the clubs top earners. Effectively the club save something like 16m in wages, and we have received a further 5m as a loan fee. Making us 21m better off this season with the potential of a further 25m next summer.

Garnacho and Antony refused to sign for other clubs despite their being better offers. Ultimately the club did well to come up with a creative deal to make sure we broke even on Antony. While Garnacho brought in 40m with potential for future profit with a sell on clause.

Sancho is an odd case, clearly the lad is suffering from mental health issues. That was clear as far back as when EtH took the unusual approach to send him to the Netherlands midway through the season for individual training and effectively a "break" from the club. He screwed up the chance to sign permanently with his boyhood club, he then flirted with several clubs agreed terms with several only to then decide he didn't want to move to them. Some have suggested it was due to him wanting the club to pay up the remainder of his contract, something the club refused to do. However, I feel like it's more to do with his mental state. Turning down opportunities to go to Chelsea, Dortmund, Juventus and Napoli only to sign on loan to Villa right at the end of the window offers a glimpse into his mental state in my opinion.

We also managed to find a solution to move on Højlund without taking a loss. I find his who United career to be a bit of a shame. He's a talented lad who in the right team in the right set up will do well. He had a very promising first season with us only to go right off the rails when EtH was replaced with Amorim. He isn't suited to how Amorim wants his strikers to play and I feel that too much too soon was expected of him. He was only 20 when he signed, but was expected to carry the line for us with absolutely no support or guidance from a senior pro. That would be tough at most clubs, but at one like ours with the media glare it's an impossible task. I think due to the saved wages and the numbers reported, along with United not having to pay the maximum fee to Atalanta due to certain clauses not being met, and the way amortisation works, we actually make a small profit on the books for him.

We also saw players like Evans, Lindelof, and Eriksen leave on frees. Which led to big savings on wages for players who were having little to no impact in the first team.

There are a few players that we would have liked to sell that we didn't manage to, Malacia being an obvious one, while you'd imagine we'd like to have moved on at least one of Onana or Bayindir (ideally both), I also think the club would have happily moved on Casemiro if an appropriate offer came in. Alas with all the outgoings that were needed and the significant amount of time taken up try to get deals for the likes of Sancho, Rashford, Antony and Garnacho completed it was always going to be difficult to get all the sales completed.

While given the context I think the club did about as well as we could in the situation with moving players on. The harsh reality is that we didn't raise enough money from our sales and more importantly they took far too long and took up far too much of our time. While also being an unhelpful distraction during the summer and start of the season. Speaking of which I'm not a fan of the season starting before the transfer window closes. In theory you could have a player play for one club and score a winner against a title challenging side in the first game or two of the season before moving to a title rival and helping them win the league. While situations like Isak does not create a fair and even playing field at the start of the season. We might have benefitted from the chaos it created at Newcastle, but that's hardly fair.

If I was to grade our window I'd give our incomings a 8 out of 10, we fixed the biggest issues, and it looks like we have recruited well in terms of fit for us and our needs.

I'd grade our outgoings as a 5 out of 10. We done well to remove all the problem players, but we didn't raise enough and it took far too long.

Written by Shappy September 07 2025 10:49:39