Manchester United
Carrick sets Baleba debut window amid ankle setback
Carrick says Baleba could debut before the September break after an ankle issue delays his United start.
Michael Carrick has outlined a cautious timeline for Carlos Baleba’s Manchester United debut, saying the new summer signing could be ready before the September international break despite an ankle problem.
United had been in the market for Baleba last summer, but Brighton’s £100 million valuation at the time made a deal unrealistic. The midfielder’s price later fell after a less consistent 2025-26 campaign on the south coast, allowing United to land a player they had tracked for some time.
For now, though, supporters will have to wait. Baleba will not be involved against Ipswich Town this weekend, with Carrick explaining that the Cameroon international arrived carrying an ankle issue that should keep him out for another couple of weeks.
“He’s got a little ankle issue,” Carrick told reporters. “So, maybe a couple of weeks or so [until he debuts], maybe three weeks, we’ll see. But we knew that before, so it’s no major issue. It’ll be great to have him back when we can.”
When asked whether Baleba could feature before the break, which begins on Sept. 21, Carrick kept the message measured. “It’s obviously new, you know, having the break to deal with. But we’ll wait and see. We’ll wait and see. We’re hopeful, but I don’t want to put any deadlines on it just yet.”
United’s opening league outing offered little encouragement. A trip to newly-promoted Hull City looked manageable on paper, but the performance was poor and ended in a 2-0 defeat at the MKM Stadium.
Santos and Tielemans, making their competitive debuts, both struggled before being replaced in the 67th minute. Baleba’s energy and defensive edge might have helped, but he will instead be introduced to the Old Trafford crowd when fit.
The broader concern is familiar enough for United. Second matches have often been problematic in the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era, and the club have not won their second Premier League game of a season since a 4-0 victory over Brighton & Hove Albion in 2020-21.
Brighton & Hove Albion
Premier League’s priciest teenage transfers, led by Bouaddi record
A look at the Premier League’s costliest teenage transfers, with Bouaddi setting a new record.
Premier League clubs have long shown a willingness to spend heavily on teenagers rather than wait for them to emerge through their own systems. The biggest deals have frequently involved familiar names, but the record list is not limited to English football’s most powerful sides.
The latest benchmark was set during the 2026-27 summer transfer window, when Manchester City paid £86 million ($117 million) for 18-year-old Ayyoub Bouaddi. The fee reflected both his rapid rise at Lille and his excellent World Cup with Morocco, placing him at the top of the list of the most expensive teenage signings in Premier League history.
Manchester United also appear prominently. Their £52 million ($67.6 million) move for Leny Yoro from Lille sits near the top end of the rankings, and it is only a little above the £50.4 million ($77.1 million) they spent on Anthony Martial from Monaco in 2015. That Martial deal, according to the Manchester Evening News, was based on the conditional add-ons he actually achieved at Old Trafford.
Chelsea are represented more than once. Roméo Lavia’s switch from Southampton in 2023 cost £58 million ($73.9 million) and stands second on the list. Geovany Quenda and Jorrel Hato are also included among the top 10, underlining how active the club has been in this market.
Elsewhere, Tottenham Hotspur, Brighton & Hove Albion, Everton and Wolverhampton Wanderers all feature through notable teenage moves. Luka Vušković joined Brighton & Hove Albion from Tottenham Hotspur for £46 million ($62.5 million), while Tyler Dibling’s move from Southampton to Everton and Fábio Silva’s transfer from Porto to Wolverhampton Wanderers complete the lower end of the ranking.
The omission of Estêvão is explained by his transfer structure, which included an initial fee of £29 million ($37 million) from Palmeiras and could rise to £51.4 million ($78 million) with add-ons.
Brighton & Hove Albion
Baleba’s Brighton Farewell Underlines the Character Behind United Move
Baleba’s United move came with a heartfelt Brighton farewell and clear signs of his character.
Carlos Baleba’s move to Manchester United has brought a fresh chapter, but his farewell to Brighton revealed as much about his character as it did about his new club. On Tuesday, Baleba described United as “the club of my dreams” and said it would be a “real honor” to wear the red shirt at Old Trafford.
Before turning to his new start, the midfielder chose to reflect on the club that shaped him. Brighton signed him as a teenager in 2023 for $31.5 million (£23.2 million), after Moisés Caicedo had left for Chelsea in a deal that was then a Premier League record. Baleba was asked to step into that role, and the demands that came with it never appeared to shake him.
Rather than simply posting a brief message online, Baleba used his first words after the United announcement to write, in effect, an open letter to Brighton supporters. He made clear that the club’s influence on him would last well beyond his departure.
“I never said very much while I was here. I am not going to pretend that changes today. So, Brighton took a 19-year-old, who could not speak the language, gave him a shirt and gave him the time to grow up,” Baleba reflected. “Nobody had to do that. I will be looking for your result every week for the rest of my life. Thank you, Brighton fans.”
He also explained how he responded to the expectation of replacing Caicedo: “Nobody tells you what you are supposed to do with that, so I did the only thing I know how to do. I trained, I went home. I came back the next day and trained again.”
Baleba said he spent a lot of his first season waiting for opportunities, but the breakthrough arrived in 2024–25 when he scored against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. “We lost 4–2, so nobody outside [Brighton] remembers that goal. I remember that was the day I stopped feeling like I was wearing somebody else’s shirt,” he said.
He also recalled a 92nd-minute winner against West Ham United and, later, a painful 22-minute outing against Aston Villa, when he was substituted early in a difficult 2025–26 campaign.
Manchester United
Fernandes earns peer approval despite missing out on the league title
Fernandes topped the peers’ vote, completing a clean sweep of English football’s big individual awards.
Bruno Fernandes was judged the standout player of the 2025-26 Premier League by the people who had to face him every week, even though he did not finish the campaign with the title.
That verdict mattered because the PFA award is decided by players rather than journalists, supporters, sponsors or panels. It carried extra weight, then, even if the result still stirred disagreement. Fernandes had already collected the FWA Footballer of the Year and the Premier League Player of the Season, and the PFA honour completed a clean sweep of the major individual prizes in English soccer.
Not everyone accepted the outcome. “Ridiculous,” said celebrity Arsenal fan Piers Morgan after Fernandes received the large PFA trophy in London, adding that Rice “should have won this.”
Declan Rice had been the most obvious alternative, helped by his role in Arsenal’s first Premier League triumph in 22 years. He still finished with recognition of his own, earning a place in the PFA Team of the Year alongside four Arsenal teammates: William Saliba, Gabriel, Jurriën Timber and goalkeeper David Raya. Fernandes also gave a hint of where his own vote went, saying on stage: “I won’t say who it was but I voted for [an] Arsenal player,”
Yet the pattern behind the voting was familiar. The best individual performer is not always a title winner, and the award history backed that up. Fernandes’s treble followed a run in which the top honours often matched the same player across different bodies, but not always from a champion side.
Rice had an excellent season and was central to Arsenal’s title run, but Fernandes was the more influential figure overall. Manchester United finished third, though that did not stop the captain from being recognised by his peers as the best of the lot.
