Manchester United are said to be assessing Tottenham Hotspur centre back Micky van de Ven as they look to strengthen their defence ahead of the summer window.<\/p>\n
Since Michael Carrick took charge in mid-January, United have been focused on Premier League fixtures after exiting both domestic cups prematurely. The run of positive results has removed any hope of a lighter schedule next season, making depth across the back four a priority for the club.<\/p>\n
The report indicates United want a left-footed centre back to help ease the burden on 19-year-old Ayden Heaven. Lisandro Mart\u00ednez remains the in-house option but has battled injuries over the last two seasons and his contract runs until the summer of 2027. Injuries have also plagued Matthijs de Ligt at times, Harry Maguire is on the wrong side of 30, and pairing inexperienced talents such as Heaven and Leny Yoro to lead a return to the Champions League may be too much to ask.<\/p>\n
Van de Ven\u2019s season has been difficult, as it has for many at Tottenham, but his Premier League experience keeps him on United\u2019s radar. Durability is a clear strength: the Dutchman led Spurs\u2019 outfield players in appearances and minutes this season and reached 40 games across all competitions for the first time in his career.<\/p>\n
At his best, Van de Ven offers notable pace, tenacity defending in space, and competence on the ball. He is able to progress play as a ball-carrier or pick passes from deep, and he has contributed offensively with seven goals this season.<\/p>\n
Bringing Van de Ven to Old Trafford will not be straightforward. United face competition from other major clubs that have been linked with the defender. Liverpool have been mentioned previously, Chelsea have been linked amid defensive concerns, and Barcelona are expected to be active in the centre back market, with Van de Ven floated as an option if their pursuit of Alessandro Bastoni does not succeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Manchester United are considering Tottenham centre back Micky van de Ven as defensive reinforcement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12775,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1083,187,1163],"tags":[1484,181,1393],"class_list":["post-12776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-man-utd","category-tottenham-hotspur","category-transfers","tag-appearance-record","tag-ayden-heaven","tag-centre-back"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}