Are Yoro, Zirkzee signings proof of positive changes to Man United’s transfer policy?
Credit to Author: Mark Ogden| Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2024 07:18:30 EST
Mark Ogden assesses Manchester United’s hopes of signing Leny Yoro from Lille. (2:28)
Manchester United‘s £52.1 million signing of 18-year-old defender Leny Yoro is the game-changer in minority owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s attempt to reset the club’s recruitment policy and make decisiveness, rather than desperation, the new guiding principle at Old Trafford.
For the first time in longer than anyone cares to remember — potentially as far back as 2008 and the pre-Abu Dhabi ownership days at Manchester City — United have beaten a major rival to the signing of a player regarded as one of the brightest young talents in the game.
Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain had both made efforts this summer to sign the France under-21 international from Lille, but neither were prepared to match United’s eventual offer for a player who had just 12 months remaining on his contract at the Ligue 1 team. Yoro had even expressed a preference to move to Madrid, potentially running down his contract and leaving for the Santiago Bernabéu at the end of his contract for little more than the compensation fee due to clubs when players under the age of 24 leave the team that developed them.
But United’s persistence and readiness to pay a fee now for the player convinced Lille to do a deal, with Yoro persuaded that Old Trafford and the Premier League would be the perfect destination for the next stage of his career.
United have signed plenty of young talent in recent years, but none those players have been the target of a significant rival. Jadon Sancho (£73m, Borussia Dortmund), Antony (£80.9m, Ajax) and Rasmus Højlund (£72m, Atalanta) all arrived at Old Trafford for excessive fees despite United having no obvious competition for each player. In contrast, attempts to sign Erling Haaland and Jude Bellingham during the 2019-20 season from FC Salzburg and Birmingham City respectively came to nothing, as United were unable to persuade either player that they were a better option than Borussia Dortmund.
Yoro is different. Not only did United win the race, but they’ve negotiated a realistic fee and wrapped up the deal before a ball has even been kicked in preseason, rather than allowing talks to drag into August and precede the panic deals that have defined the club’s recent transfer business.
So what has changed? Ratcliffe simply wants United to target top young talent and move more quickly to get deals done. The days of wasting fortunes on ageing players on big wages are over.
“I would rather sign the next [Kylian] Mbappé rather than spend a fortune buying success,” Ratcliffe said in March. “It’s not that clever buying Mbappé. Anyone could figure that one out. More challenging is to find the next Mbappé, next Jude Bellingham or next Roy Keane.”
The roots of United’s new approach can be traced back to the audit undertaken by Ratcliffe’s INEOS team almost a year ago after buying a minority stake in the club, and running the football operations, from the Glazer family.
During the protracted period of due diligence scrutinising United’s finances, Ratcliffe charged senior advisors including Sir Dave Brailsford, Rob Nevin and Jean-Claude Blanc with assessing the past five years of player recruitment at Old Trafford. One source told ESPN that the audit identified excessive over-spending, indecision that led to inflated transfer fees and a flawed policy of extending player contracts simply to avoid players becoming free agents. The view was that the latter policy alone has left United with a squad bloated by some players who should have been moved on two or three years ago.
This summer has already seen a change in that approach. Defender Raphaël Varane and forward Anthony Martial left at the end of their contracts, while £40m has already been raised by departures of forward Mason Greenwood (Marseille), defenders Willy Kambwala (Villarreal) and Álvaro Fernández (Benfica) and midfielder Donny van de Beek (Girona). More players exits are likely to follow, with United displaying a ruthlessness that has been absent since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement as manager in 2013.
Sources have told ESPN that defenders Harry Maguire, Victor Lindelöf and Aaron Wan-Bissaka, plus midfielders Scott McTominay and Christian Eriksen — all out of contract in 2025 — can leave for the right offer this summer, while former Madrid midfielder Casemiro is also available, despite still having two years remaining on his contract. Misfiring forward Antony will be allowed to leave on loan if a club is prepared to cover his £70,000-a-week salary. It has the feel of a clear-out, but it is something United have largely resisted in recent years due to the policy of the Glazers.
“Joel and Avram [Glazer] would be happy to get rid of Wan-Bissaka or Lindelöf,” a source told ESPN. “But they would look at the numbers and ask ‘How much could we get for them and how much would it cost to replace them?’ When they were told that it would cost half as much to keep the players until the end of their contract rather than get rid and sign a replacement, the answer would always been to keep them for another year.
“They would rather pay £10m in wages and lose the player on a free than spend an extra £20m to sign a better player to replace them.”
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That policy has now been consigned to history. Ratcliffe has hired Omar Berrada (CEO), Dan Ashworth (sporting director) and Jason Wilcox (technical director) to head up the football operations teams at Old Trafford and the three men have driven the slicker and swifter approach. John Murtough, who left his role as football director in April, had drawn up a list of targets alongside director of negotiations Matt Hargreaves earlier this year and that has formed the blueprint of United’s summer strategy. The club is specifically targeting players entering the final year of their contract due to the ability to take advantage of clubs needing to make a financial decision rather than a football one.
The difference this year is that Ashworth and Wilcox are working in a structure led by Ratcliffe and Berrada — the former Manchester City chief operations officer who structured City’s deal for Haaland in 2022 — rather than the sclerotic regime run by the Glazers.
Another key element is that manager Erik ten Hag now has a reduced role in the player recruitment process. Although he retains an involvement and input, the key decisions and actions are undertaken by Ashworth and Wilcox.
It is a significant shift. In his first summer in charge, Ten Hag had identified Barcelona‘s Frenkie de Jong as his priority target, telling United that he had been assured by the former Ajax midfielder that he wanted to move to Old Trafford. But despite Ten Hag’s insistence, sources have told ESPN that the De Jong camp made it clear to United executives a month before the transfer deadline that, having endured almost two years of COVID restrictions during his time at Camp Nou, the Netherlands international wanted to experience life in the Spanish city in normal times and would not be moving to United.
Ten Hag continued to insist a deal could be done, but by the time it was clear that De Jong would not leave Barcelona, there were few options available, United had lost their first two games of the season and panic set in, which led to the £70m signing of Casemiro from Real Madrid.
That scenario will not happen under the new structure and the policy of moving on quickly if a deal cannot be done has been seen in the move for Yoro. Having had two bids for Jarrad Branthwaite rejected by Everton, Ashworth and Wilcox decided to increase their offer for Yoro and seal a deal for the Ligue 1 player instead. United may yet return for Branthwaite or step up interest in Bayern Munich‘s Matthijs de Ligt, but they have at least resolved one key area of recruitment by signing Yoro.
At 18, sources have said that Yoro was regarded as an opportunity United couldn’t miss. He was a player on their radar — the club been quietly laying the foundations for a move since before the end of the 2023-24 season, with club leaders and the manager holding multiple meetings him to outline how he would fit. Having been outmanoeuvred by Real when attempting to sign Eduardo Camavinga from Rennes in 2021, United chose to move quickly on this occasion and have been rewarded for doing so.
United’s first summer signing was the £36.5m deal for Bologna‘s 23-year-old forward Joshua Zirkzee. The Netherlands international is regarded as player who can play in several attacking positions and help alleviate the goal-scoring burden on Højlund — he also fits the profile of being young and relatively inexpensive.
With over six weeks left in the summer transfer window, United still have areas to address in their squad. They are targeting a defensive midfielder and additional centre-half, and may seek other reinforcements if they are able to offload more senior players.
Whatever happens from here, the reset button at Old Trafford has been firmly pressed by Ratcliffe and his team. United are moving more quickly, more decisively, spending less money and being more clinical when moving players on. The sense of panic and ineptitude has gone, but ultimately, the success of the new approach can only be judged on what happens on the pitch.
For the first time in years, though, the signs are promising at United.