Background
In the 20/21 season both transfer windows for Manchester United, at least before any of the players donned the colours of the Manchester United shirt, could quite fairly be described as underwhelming. An unsuccessful pursual of Jadon Sancho that was somehow more laborious and dull than Tenet, alongside current Premier League starlet Jack Grealish, made the window we actually had seem immensely disappointing.
In reality, we saw the arrival of a (perceived) washed Edinson Cavani, a potentially promising but not necessarily reassuring Donny van de Beek, and left-back Alex Telles, in terms of signings that could arguably make a first team impact. Pairing this alongside the signings of young players such as Facundo Pellistri and a £30m Amad Diallo (after not being able to reach the asking price for Sancho) who would join from Atalanta in January, didn’t save the window in the eyes of many Manchester United fans.
However, some were optimistic about the window, and in some respects could be regarded as being proven right. Concerning other players signed in this summer window though, even the low expectations set were not met.
Edinson Cavani
Edinson Cavani has notably turned out to be the key signing of the summer, becoming a cult hero at the club without even playing in front of the fans for the mass majority of the season. His endearing passion and true number nine instincts saw one of the best Manchester United chants in recent memory be created in order to celebrate his goalscoring prowess, alongside one of the best Manchester United goals with the fans return against Fulham.
The Uruguayan made 38 appearances in all competitions for The Red Devils this season (a large amount of those being substitute appearances earlier on in the season), scoring 16 goals and getting 6 assists in that time. As said, considering the nature of his start at Manchester United, initially being used as a sub, and often being brought on late at that, his numbers are frankly incredible for a man of his age playing at this level. Once he was given a run in the starting eleven due to both his own promising signs in his substitute appearances, alongside the poor form and injury to Anthony Martial, El Matador took his chance and ran with it. In the process, proving to be a crucial element to United’s progress under Solskjaer this season.
Cavani has almost acted like a free trial to a subscription service Ole is interested in, that service being a traditional number 9 to spearhead this Manchester United side. Despite Martial’s best efforts, and a seemingly promising shift to the striker role based on the 19/20 season (at least considering his goalscoring record that season), it’s clear that the Frenchman is not a traditional number nine, and even more so that he’s flat out not comfortable in that nine position. His all-round game has made slight improvements, as he has become marginally better at holding the ball up, and has seemingly made an effort to improve his aerial ability somewhat, scoring a couple of important goals with his head.
However, these attributes simply don’t come naturally to him, it’s obvious to viewers and it’s obvious to defenders playing against him. Hence, he gets exploited by defenders applying pressure on him which weakens his already poor passing ability, and he can’t shake defenders as he doesn’t make instinctual and intelligent runs to get on defender’s blind sides.
Without trying to sound like Barry from the local, Cavani does all the fundamental’s extremely well, “he’s a proper number nine”. Having a player who makes those runs, can create for others with his hold up play, and is a threat on multiple levels with his clinical finishing and aerial ability; it allows for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s tactics and chance creation to flow far more fluently and efficiently.
Overall, Cavani has been a revelation for Manchester United in my eyes, and should we sign someone of his mould post his contract expiring, we will continue to be extremely dangerous on the attacking end of the pitch.
Donny van de Beek
There was (and definitely still is) so much promise with Donny van de Beek, with him being viewed as the most exciting signing by the end of the window as he arrived for £35Million. As someone who was a big fan of Jesse Lingard’s off the ball movement, work rate and tactical nous, I was excited to see Van de Beek join Manchester United as he mirrors a lot of those important but often underappreciated attributes. So, whilst yes admittedly Lingard went through a long period of bad form and off the pitch issues affecting his performances, and him and Donny play different positions. It did perplex me as to why a lot of fans who’d criticised Lingard so heavily, were extremely hyped about the Dutchman.
Unfortunately, the Dutch international had a rather unfulfilling debut season for Manchester United, as he made 34 appearances in all competitions, 19 of which were in the Premier League. However, in those 19 premier league appearances, Van de Beek was only in the starting eleven 11% of the time.
Without necessarily dropping any awful performances, Van de Beek overall proved to be very middle of the road this season, not really providing anything both positively or negatively. Could a longer, and/or more consistent run in the starting eleven helped build up his momentum, and potentially have saw a turn in form? Possibly. However, in a lot of the games he played in, particularly the ones he started, the central midfielder looked unfit, appearing exhausted by the 60th minute in a lot of those starts.
With that being said, should he be given more opportunity, I do believe there is a quality player in there who could be a crucial tactical trick up the sleeve for Ole Gunner Solskjaer, however, this season has not been one to remember for Donny van de Beek.
Alex Telles
Telles once again seemed like a promising option at left back, and a potential upgrade to the first team given Luke Shaw’s consistent inconsistencies, lack of attacking impetus and defensive lapses (at least at the start of the season).
Quickly post-signing, Telles caught Covid-19 which we can’t tell truly how it affected his debut season at the club, with various top level athletes in different sports reporting both cases of little impact, alongside cases where it has seriously impacted a players physical capabilities.
However, we can only evaluate what we’ve seen, and its honestly been a bit of a mixed bag regarding the Brazilian left-back. Earlier on in the season, Telles was given opportunities especially in the Europa League, and wasn’t anything special. His crossing and delivery looked good, however, in those games he often wasn’t paired with Edinson Cavani who could utilise those good crosses, so he didn’t reap the rewards of his efforts.
Defensively was where the issues came through, his positioning was suspect at best, with a problem keeping concentrated on his runners. A prominent example of these defensive lapses being against West Ham away in the Premier League.
Combine Telles’ inconsistencies with Luke Shaw’s rise to stardom, with many hailing him as the best left-back in the Premier League based off of his end of season form, the Telles signing has looked rather minor in hindsight. At least he was cheap though.
Pellistri
Not much was expected, or even known of Facundo Pellistri upon his arrival to Manchester United, and we weren’t given much time to get acquainted with the 19-year-old Uruguayan before he was loaned out to Deportivo Alaves in La Liga.
For the Spanish side, he made 12 appearances in La Liga, however, was only in the starting eleven for 28% of those games, and was unable to grab a goal or an assist.
Despite this, his short time in Manchester United’s reserves saw some promise, as he bagged 4 goal contributions in 8 games across the Premier League 2 and the EFL Trophy.
Overall, there isn’t much to evaluate when looking at Pellistri’s season, but hopefully he can kick on and turn into a first team player.
Amad
Manchester United football twitter’s starboy Amad Diallo has gave everyone some cautiously optimistic hope with his brief appearances at Manchester United this season.
For the reserves, Amad quickly made it apparent that he was a level above his opposition, and even his peers, scoring 4 goals and getting 3 assists in the Premier League 2, prompting his rapid inclusion into the first team squad.
Whilst his first team contribution of eight appearances and only two goal contributions in all comps may not sound mind-blowing, in nearly every game he’s played (with a lot of those being a couple minute long substitute appearances) the Ivorian has had an impact and has impressed in some form.
His goal in the Europa league was a superb, Chicharito-like reverse header, looping over the keeper who’d rushed out in an attempt to claim the ball. Against Leicester City towards the end of the season, him and Anthony Elanga looked extremely bright and seemed like some of the best players for Manchester United on the pitch.
The lofty price tag attached to Diallo is certainly one where if relative success is not achieved, such as a comfortable first team squad place within a few years time, this could be seen as quite a poor transfer. However, in the short amount of time he’s had to impress in the first team, he’s done exactly that.
Summary
Speculation turned into reality with the transfers in this season, as many feared, with the signings largely being unimpactful especially regarding the first team. However, with some unexpected surprises such as the quality of Edinson Cavani at this age, and the potential shown by Amad Diallo, there has been some positives from the players brought in. The real disappointment however, wasn’t who we signed necessarily, but who we didn’t. The logic of signing the players we did made sense, however, there was more needed to truly challenge this season, and the board failed to match the ambition of the fans.