Manchester United strengthen midfield with Tielemans and Santos as Carrick closes on Baleba ahead of Hull trip
Manchester United have added Youri Tielemans and Andrey Santos to their squad and are closing in on Brighton’s Carlos Baleba as Michael Carrick prepares for his first full season in charge ahead of Saturday’s Premier League trip to Hull. The arrivals are billed as a rebuild of a midfield area the club have long identified as problematic.
Ed Woodward told MUTV in July 2015: "When people see Bastian Schweinsteiger on the teamsheet, that’s going to send some shivers down the spine," a prediction that did not materialise as Schweinsteiger made 35 appearances and scored two goals before leaving for Chicago Fire two years later after a period training with the youngsters under José Mourinho, Van Gaal’s successor. Carrick himself arrived as a player from Tottenham in 2006 for £18m and is cited as the last elite-level midfielder United bought who reached his peak while at the club, in a lineage that includes Roy Keane, Paul Scholes, Paul Ince, Bryan Robson and Nobby Stiles.
United have signed Youri Tielemans for £35m from Aston Villa and Andrey Santos for £48m plus £2m in add-ons from Chelsea, with Carrick also reported to be closing in on Carlos Baleba from Brighton for a fee "in the region of £70m." The squad construction would see Santos operate as a No 6 and Tielemans as a No 8 competing with Kobbie Mainoo in central midfield.
The club’s recent midfield transfer record is detailed in the article: Paul Pogba was bought by Mourinho a decade later for a club-record £93.2m but failed to deliver consistently, while Casemiro arrived from Real Madrid in 2022 as a five-times Champions League-winner and departed Old Trafford in May after four years in which, the piece says, only the first and last seasons could be rated as high level. Other midfield signings cited include Fred, Morgan Schneiderlin, Ander Herrera, Sofyan Amrabat, Daley Blind and Manuel Ugarte.
Kobbie Mainoo is presented as the home-reared exception, having scored the winner in United’s 2024 FA Cup final triumph against Manchester City and started England’s 2-1 Euro final loss by Spain that summer; the article notes he was discarded by Ruben Amorim before Carrick’s mid-January appointment, after the Portuguese’s sacking saved his United career. Mason Mount is also mentioned as a midfield option who "operated with accomplishment" in pre-season before sustaining an injury in the draw with Paris Saint-Germain earlier this month.
Speaking about Mount, Carrick said: "First of all Mason is a top player – we have seen that he was one of our best players in the first games," adding: "He was outstanding and has picked up a bit of a knock. But there are no dramas. He has missed some football over recent years and he wants to be fit and be in full rhythm and we want to help him. Mason will be back soon." Carrick branded as "ridiculous" the view that United’s opening fixtures against two newly promoted teams represent an easy start.
The schedule sees United travel to Hull on Saturday and host Ipswich a week on Sunday, with a trip to Everton their third game before Manchester City arrive at Old Trafford on 13 September; the article describes this run as an opportunity for United to stake a claim as a potential title contender. Carrick’s revival of the side after Ruben Amorim’s departure, taking over with the team already out of both domestic cups and not in Europe and navigating 17 games as caretaker to finish third last season, is contrasted with his current task managing a full programme of Premier League, Champions League, Carabao Cup and FA Cup fixtures. If Baleba is added alongside a left-back — Newcastle’s Lewis Hall and Arsenal’s Myles Lewis-Skelly are named as targets — by 1 September Carrick would have been bolstered by four major transfers, though the article adds there remain question marks over the centre-back unit and that "ultimately the manager can have no excuses."
"That is the beauty of the new season, for teams coming up there tend to be a few changes, that is the challenge playing against them – we are fully aware of that. Mentally and physically we have done a lot of work" is how Carrick described facing Hull, and at 12.30pm on Saturday at the MKM Stadium the picture of how effective United’s midfield surgery has been "will begin to emerge."