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It’s been described as a ‘huge coup’ for Manchester United, and for the first time in a very long time, we agree.
Leny Yoro decided on Tuesday to move to Old Trafford from Lille for £52m plus add-ons and the 18-year-old looks set to play for Erik ten Hag under Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his team of INEOS-assembled directors, who have provided a collective shot in the arm for the Manchester United fanbase by luring the centre-back to the club.
Paris Saint-Germain were interested and reports claimed Liverpool made a £42m bid before deciding the transfer was ‘impossible’ as the teenager’s preference for Real Madrid appeared to have made this a one-horse race. But United knocked as Lille kept the door ajar in a bid to land a significant transfer fee and persistence has paid off.
We assume the credit for Yoro goes to new sporting director Dan Ashworth, who has already secured the signing of striker Joshua Zirkzee – another talented young player – for £35m from Bologna. But Yoro hits different. It’s the first genuine Manchester United transfer coup we can remember.
They’ve bought plenty of players for big money who we assumed at time of purchase would be great additions. Rasmus Hojlund, Jadon Sancho, Donny van de Beek, Paul Pogba, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Angel Di Maria all fall into that category. But signing a good player doesn’t make it a coup. Signing a good player for a cut-price fee does, but come on guys, This Is Manchester United.
Yoro is a transfer coup because a) he’s a very good footballer and b) United persuaded him to join them over other clubs of their level or higher who also wanted to sign him.
They had no competition for Sancho or Pogba, obviously not for Antony, while Casemiro and Di Maria arrived in moments of panic, Manchester City didn’t really want Cristiano Ronaldo, Jose Mourinho sent Juan Mata packing from Chelsea, nobody was going to match their bids for Harry Maguire or Hojlund, and for some reason there was no competition for Bruno Fernandes.
READ MORE: Harry Maguire second in ranking of every Man Utd centre-back post-Sir Alex Ferguson
The naysayers will claim it’s the same old case of money talking for the Red Devils, who in trademark style have offered more than any other club was willing this summer, but Yoro need only have waited a year for his contract to end in order to get his dream move to the Bernabeu. It’s not quite as cut and dried as him choosing Manchester United over Real Madrid, but it’s not a million miles off, and bodes very well for future deals under the new regime. Amazing what a proper football structure can achieve, eh?
We would love to know what Ashworth or other members of his recruitment said or did to persuade him. The Europa League will count for nothing as Yoro would have been in that competition with Lille in any case. The history of the club and opportunity to win big silverware must have been a hard sell to someone who was seven the last time United won the Premier League and barely out of nappies for the 2008 Champions League win. We all know how a tour of the training ground will have gone down.
Their gambit presumably featured mainly ‘project’ promises like those that duped countless young talents to join the dumpster fire at Chelsea. And their struggles at Stamford Bridge should serve as a warning to Yoro, Sir Jim, Ten Hag and the fans.
£52m is a helluva lot of money. It would make Yoro the second-most expensive teenager in Premier League history behind Romeo Lavia (£53m), who broke Anthony Martial’s eight-year stranglehold on that particular accolade when he joined Chelsea last summer. Only Kylian Mbappe (£166m), Joao Felix (£113m), Jude Bellingham (£88m) and Matthijs De Ligt (£68) have cost more as teenagers in world football.
That’s a lot of pressure for a young man moving to a new country and joining a squad now with no fellow Frenchmen after Raphael Varane’s exit. It will take him time to adapt and like those many, many young stars who joined Chelsea in a similar state of flux to United, it may not work out.
But we’ll put the negativity and slam pieces on ice at least until our knee-jerk predictions a week into the new season. For now, Manchester United, Ashworth and the fans can bask in the glory of a first genuine transfer coup since, we dunno, Robin van Persie?
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