Manchester United's £52.1m signing of 18-year-old defender Leny Yoro is a radical departure from 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 can remember (possibly since 2008 and the days when Manchester City owned Abu Dhabi before he moved in) United have beaten a major rival to sign a player regarded as one of the brightest young talents in the game.
Both Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain had made efforts this summer to sign the France Under-21 international from Lille but neither were willing to match United's final offer for a player who had just 12 months left on his contract at the Ligue 1 side. Yoro had even expressed a preference for a move to Madrid, with the possibility of running out his contract and moving to the Santiago Bernabeu at the end of it for little more than the compensation owed to clubs when players under the age of 24 leave the club that produced them.
But United's persistence and willingness to pay a fee now for the player convinced Lille to complete a deal, and Yoro was convinced that Old Trafford and the Premier League would be the perfect destination for the next stage of his career.
United have signed plenty of talented youngsters in recent years but none of them have been targeted by a major 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. By contrast, attempts to sign Erling Haaland and Jude Bellingham during the 2019-20 season from FC Salzburg and Birmingham City respectively came to nothing, with United unable to convince either player that they were a better option than Borussia Dortmund.
Yoro is different. United not only won the race, but negotiated a realistic fee and got the deal done before pre-season began, rather than allowing negotiations to drag on 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 focus on the best young talent and rush deals into the bargain. Gone are the days of splashing out on big-wage veterans.
“I prefer to sign the next one [Kylian] “Mbappe, rather than spending a fortune on buying success,” Ratcliffe said in March. “It's not so smart to buy Mbappe. Anyone could see that. It's harder to find the next Mbappe, the next Jude Bellingham or the next Roy Keane.”
The roots of United's new approach go back to the audit carried out by Ratcliffe's INEOS team almost a year ago after he bought a minority stake in the club and ran the Glazer family's football operations.
During the lengthy due diligence period examining United's finances, Ratcliffe commissioned senior advisers including Sir Dave Brailsford, Rob Nevin and Jean-Claude Blanc to assess the past five years of player recruitment at Old Trafford. One source told ESPN the audit identified overspending, indecisiveness leading to inflated transfer fees and a flawed policy of extending player contracts simply to prevent players becoming free agents. The view was that the latter policy alone had left United with a squad bloated by some players who should have been moved two or three years ago.
This summer has already seen a shift in that approach. Defender Raphael Varane and striker Anthony Martial have left at the end of their contracts, while £40m has already been raised with the departures of striker Mason Greenwood (Marseille), defenders Willy Kambwala (Villarreal) and Alvaro Fernandez (Benfica) and midfielder Donny van de Beek (Girona). More player departures are likely to follow, with United showing a ruthlessness that has not existed since Sir Alex Ferguson retired as manager in 2013.
According to ESPN sources, defenders Harry Maguire, Victor Lindelöf and Aaron Wan-Bissaka, plus midfielders Scott McTominay and Christian Eriksen – all out of contract in 2025 – can all leave if they receive a suitable offer this summer, while former Madrid midfielder Casemiro is also available, despite still having two years left on his contract. Striker Antony, who has underperformed, will be able to leave on loan if a club is willing to cover his £70,000-a-week wages. It seems like a clean sweep, but it is something United have largely resisted in recent years due to the Glazers' policy.
“Joel and Avram” [Glazer] “They 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 it would cost half as much to keep the players until the end of their contract rather than getting rid of them and signing a replacement, the answer would always be to keep them for another year.
“They'd rather pay £10m in wages and lose the player for 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 (chief executive), Dan Ashworth (sporting director) and Jason Wilcox (technical director) to run the football operations teams at Old Trafford and the three men have pushed for the more skilful and swift approach. John Murtough, who left his role as director of football in April, had drawn up a list of targets alongside director of negotiations Matt Hargreaves earlier this year and that has formed the blueprint for United’s summer strategy. The club are specifically targeting players entering the final year of their contract because of the ability to take advantage of clubs’ need to make a financial decision rather than a footballing 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 operating officer who structured City’s deal for Haaland in 2022) rather than the sclerotic regime run by the Glazers.
Another key element is that coach Erik ten Hag now has a reduced role in the player recruitment process. Although he remains involved and influential, key decisions and actions are made by Ashworth and Wilcox.
It is a significant change. In his first summer in charge, Ten Hag had identified Barcelona's Frenkie de Jong as his priority target, telling United that the former Ajax midfielder had assured him he wanted a move to Old Trafford. But despite Ten Hag's insistence, sources have told ESPN that De Jong's camp made it clear to United executives a month before transfer deadline day 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 when it became clear De Jong would not be leaving Barcelona there were few options left, United had lost their first two games of the season and panic set in, leading to the £70m signing of Casemiro from Real Madrid.
That scenario will not happen under the new structure and the policy of moving quickly if a deal cannot be reached has been seen in the signing of Yoro. Having had two bids for Jarrad Branthwaite rejected by Everton, Ashworth and Wilcox decided to increase their offer for Yoro and complete a deal for the Ligue 1 player instead. United can still go back for Branthwaite or increase their interest in Bayern Munich's Matthijs de Ligt, but they have at least resolved a key area of recruitment with the signing of Yoro.
According to some sources, at 18, Yoro was seen as an opportunity that United could not pass up. He was a player who was on their radar – the club had been laying the groundwork for a signing since before the end of the 2023-24 season, and club officials and the manager held multiple meetings with him to work out how he would fit in. Having been outbid by Real Madrid when they tried to sign Eduardo Camavinga from Rennes in 2021, United decided to act quickly this time around and have been rewarded for it.
United's first signing of the summer was 23-year-old Bologna striker Joshua Zirkzee for £36.5m. The Dutch international is regarded as a player who can play in a number of attacking positions and help ease the goalscoring burden on Højlund, and fits the profile of being young and relatively inexpensive.
With more than six weeks to go until the end of the summer transfer window, United still have areas to improve in their squad. They are looking for an additional defensive midfielder and centre-back, and could look to further reinforcements if they can offload older players.
Whatever happens from now on, Ratcliffe and his team have firmly pressed the reset button at Old Trafford. United are moving faster, more decisively, spending less money and being more cynical about moving players forward. The sense of panic and ineptitude has disappeared, but ultimately the success of the new approach can only be judged by what happens on the pitch.
However, for the first time in years, the signs are promising at United.
