With just seven games remaining of the Premier League season and Man United fans enjoying a second-half revival that will hopefully see them return to the Champions League, it begs the question: Who will they sign this summer?
Last summer, United reinforced up front with Mateus Cunha, Bryan Mbeumo, and Benjamin Sesko. Now, with Casemiro leaving and United desperate to fill that massive loss, you would imagine they will be trying to sign at least one marquee player plus one more, as United look to play 10–15 more games next season.
This visualization shows radar charts of the current United midfielders, elite midfielders from around the world, and potential targets linked with United and other clubs over the last couple of months.
I think everyone can see how Elliott Anderson is the standout; he leads in duels won percentage and recoveries, and he is elite at driving the ball up the field. He will be most people’s first choice, but if he goes to City, who are you signing? Who else would you like to see bolster the midfield, and which players based on these charts do you think will complement Bruno Fernandes and Kobbie Mainoo?
Personally, if we can’t sign Anderson, I’d love to get Boubacar Kamara. He really offers the defensive attributes we’ll be missing, as he wins a lot of duels (7+ per game) and aerials (2+ per game), too. We can clearly see that James Garner has been having a fantastic season; it’s a shame ten Hag let him go, and the fact he signed a new contract is frustrating, as I’m sure most fans would love him back.
Adam Wharton is also a name on most clubs’ transfer lists this summer. His defensive stats aren’t quite up there with Anderson or Kamara, but he does have more of an eye for a pass, with his expected assists being among the highest in this group.
Carlos Baleba and Lucien Agoumé have similar stats (both are defensively very sound), but Baleba is listed at more than six times the market value. Would it be worth taking the risk on Agoumé, or do you pay the likely high price for Baleba—who, let’s face it, has struggled a little this season? Even Anton Stach offers similar stats to these two for a lower cost than Baleba; however, I’d imagine it would be tough to buy him from Leeds, especially if they stay up.
We’ve been heavily linked with Sandro Tonali, but his stats compared to the other midfielders in this dashboard don’t seem as impressive. Are his intangible attributes, like his leadership, seen as more important? His teammate, Bruno Guimarães, is impressive in both areas and is having another excellent season, but both he and Tonali would likely be very expensive options.
For cheaper options and reinforcements, I think going for either Mateus Fernandes or João Gomes (my personal choice) would be smart moves. With both their clubs facing relegation, this leaves a great opportunity to potentially secure a cheaper deal. We can also see Ibrahim Sangaré here, who possesses great defensive stats; however, his FotMob rating being below 7.0 indicates we might want to find better quality, as he lacks in other areas despite being defensively sound.
Angelo Stiller is also on a lot of teams’ radars this season. He is not only decent defensively but also offers creativity, as he is only behind Fernandes and Kimmich for expected assists. He could be expensive, and a lack of Premier League experience could be a turn-off, but could he be the next big star?
This window will be vital for Man United to get right, as they have needed an elite central midfielder for a long time. If the last few years have told us anything about the midfielder market, with Declan Rice, Moisés Caicedo, and Enzo Fernández all costing £100M+, there’s one thing for certain: United will have to spend big to get the player they believe is the man for the job.
by heardc10
29 Comments
Whomever your “top line” priority order is from the Anderson-Tonali-Wharton-Baleba group, I feel it’s essential to also add a Sangare or Agoume type to the depth chart. Essential to shift Ugarte but find a physical #6 for depth and rotation.
I want to see more mentions of Hackney.
He’s the best player and captain for a great Middlesbrough team and only 23.
He’s ready to make the step up.
Where would Pablo Barrios be on this scale?
I want to just pop in there high quantity duelers like ugarte are not the direction we want to go if we want to be a top club. FDJ Rodri types that can duelers but mostly control the game through tempo to me are way more important. Baleba and Tonali together would make a ton of sense imo but may just lack a little bit of that line splitting pass. Im not sure an option outside of Anderson will actually be as complete that is also obtainable. (Would love bruno g but do not see him leaving)
I don’t see how Mateus Fernandes is going to be a cheap option. He cost them 44 million to sign last year so even if they are relegated it will be around 50 million plus.
Just looking at the stats is also not helpful. Wharton is an option – but if you have a midfield of Wharton, Mainoo and Bruno, there’s barely any physicality in that team. We have to work with a 3 man midfield which always has Bruno in the first team and will play Mainoo a lot. Mainoo still has a lot of deficiencies which the new player has to compensate for. It’s why Tonali and Anderson are first choices, they are constantly running and physics throughout the match. Baleba is also talked about for that physicality because we are lacking in that through the middle.
This makes me sad how poorly the Ugarte deal has been so far, we really shouldn’t have to replace him now but I personally don’t even think he’s good enough as a squad player – unless he was better suited to European games next year
Nice write-up. Imo a trio of Kamara, Mateus and Baleba would be a fantastic summer. Not back breakingly expensive, a mix of profiles and ready to come in and compete right away. I don’t see Kobbie as the 1st choice midfielder yet – he still has to round off his game, and I think overplaying him in his current state would be detrimental to his development.
A pivot of Kamara and Mateus competes against all but the very best PL midfields, whilst giving a pathway for the (imo) bigger talents in Kobbie and Baleba less pressurised minutes to develop into what could be our long-term midfield pairing.
Unlike many, I still see Baleba as having a supremely high ceiling. His physical talents are unmatched, and his technical ability is really strong also. Mentally there are question marks, but given his age I wouldn’t see those as reasons not to move for him due to his huge potential.
One more thing to note is that with Licha fit(🤞 🤞), our midfielders don’t need to be the most progressive passers. All of the guys in that quartet would be comfortable receiving in a block/under pressure (I think Baleba can be one of the best in the world at this, he has Moussa Dembele levels of ability here) and playing the ball on to a red shirt, which is more important for Carrick’s associative play.
Extend current Bruno Fernandes contract.
Sign Bruno Guimaraes and Mateus Fernandes that way we have 2 Bruno’s and 2 Fernandes and then we have be very specific on who we’re talking about and I think that would be funny.
A big thing INEOS have been focusing on is Premier League proven. I think we’ll get Gomes fairly cheap and then an expensive option like Tonali.
I’d like to see a similar rebuild to what we saw with the attackers last summer – a good mix of high floor “PL Proven” experience while still adding young players with the potential to grow into gamebreakers in the future. Exact names probably depend on external factors too much to guess but it’d be great to snag a player who ticks both boxes like Elliot Anderson.
I do feel Bruno Guimaraes is the best midfielder who could conceivably be sold this summer, but he’s a few years older than Cunha and Mbeumo when they signed – not too far off from where Casemiro was when he signed, as a matter of fact – so there’d be significant pressure to get your other signings right so you’re not just kicking this can down the road another 2-3 years.
Reckon Sevilla would take Ugarte for Agoume?
If money was no object and every player was willing to come there is no way Elliot Anderson would be in top 5 choices
Adam Scott? Camavinga?
Casemiro has a unique wheel. No one blocks and heads like him.
Give me 3
Dude this is great, how did you create this? I see that data is from fotmob!
Nice graphic 👌
Your graphic shows Ibrahim Sangaré (Forest) but the only links i’ve seen are to Mamadou Sangaré (Lens)
[](https://www.fotmob.com/teams/8588/overview/lens)
Mateus Fernandes, Tonali, and Ndiaye
Do we have any buyback clause on Garner? He would be ideal as one of the two midfield signings.
realistically, we need someone to replace current casemiro’s long range passing. We also need someone to do what we THOUGHT case was going to be used for, a back 4 screening defensive presence who can receive under pressure. A third one can be multifunctional swiss army knife, that can occupy the defensive half-space on either flank and “space the floor” with ball carrying. In a realistic world, we NEED one of those three positions to be prem proven, the other two and more fluid. Stiller wharton are the same archetype for distribution i.e the long range case passing. Neither can be trusted as the base of the pivot. Matheus Fernandes/Joao Gomes would be our midfield shuttlers who can do a bit of everything. For the base i still like agoume even though sevilla are having a stinker. I think his game would translate better to the pl than the more technically intensive la liga. Brighton will want the moon and the stars for baleba and he simply is not worth that. 50 at most.
Why did you choose goal and assist based stats? Those might be useful to measure 10 with, but the targets are for the double pivot.
Offensive stats for double pivots would be progression based – carries and passes – and passing based.
If Garner has another good season, he is going to go to one of the other big boys. I suspect Arsenal or Chelsea.
1. Angelo Stiller
2. Tonali
3. Matheus Fernandes
Not sure where some of these numbers are sourced from, but Ugarte’s “value” at 10m higher than Bruno’s is a complete joke. There are already plenty of reports out about how he’s unlikely to be sold because no club will be willing to pay 30m for him and no one outside of the big clubs in Europe could cover his wages anyway.
Also, Tchouameni and Gravenberch cannot be considered anywhere near “best in the world” territory. Football is more than bar graphs and there’s a reason neither of those players are considered close to that tier. Caicedo was definitely playing like one of the best in the world for a lot of this season, but his form since Rosenior came in has not been the same.
Kamara struggles with the same things Ugarte does, but does the “good” things better at a Premier League level. He’s jut not good enough under pressure or at progressing the ball to be a viable option for a top team, which is why he wasn’t widely targeted when his contract expired and Villa signed him. His lack of athleticism definitely presents an issue as well, but it’s not a problem for Villa since they’re largely content to sit in a mid or low block defensively instead of really pressing.
Also, please don’t just take Fotmob ratings as gospel. “They have this rating on Fotmob” really does not mean anything
Glad to see someone finally noticed Agoume and Stach. Would also be glad with some stats for my other 2 favourites, Thuram and Pape Gueye. Also wouldn’t really say no to one of Bergvall / Miley / Archie Gray as the 2nd DM.
I have done *so* much research and I still can’t see past Anton Stach as our starting destroyer-capable CDM/6. We need a no weakness player and he is exactly that, doing it in the premier league. He is fast, strong, remarkably agile for his size and covers so much ground. He is great in regard to tackling, intercepting, short passing, long passing, ball-carrying, dribbling, two-footedness, aerial duel winning, blocking and set-piece delivering. He needs to learn to be more proactive and United would have to focus on helping him with that, but that is nothing in comparison to his vast skillset
As far as pure capability, after a preseason he is by far the closest I have found to keeping a good hold of Casemiro’s strengths while introducing the mobility, carrying and dribbling ability that he lost in the final years of his career. Having that ability is important because it was Casemiro’s only weakness for us and with some tactical tweaks I think that gives players like Stach a huge opportunity to be similarly effective in their overall on pitch performance
For our younger destroyer-capable CDM/6 that would replace Ugarte my shortlist includes Jorthy Mokio, Nathan De Cat, Chema Andrés (though his Real Madrid buy back option may complicate it), Ezechiel Banzuzi, Johan Manzambi, Andrey Santos and Shea Charles
I know we don’t play Barcelona a lot and we’re not after him but anytime we have in recent years played Pedri he was shite.
Aguome looks very interesting.