Manchester United have abandoned their pursuit of Atalanta\u2019s \u00c9derson and moved to secure Aston Villa midfielder Youri Tielemans by activating his reported \u00a335 million release clause. Villa are said to have offered the 29-year-old a new contract as they tried to retain him, but United have triggered the clause and are close to completing the signing.<\/p>\n
The transfer provides immediate reinforcement to a midfield that has been substantially altered in recent weeks. Casemiro left on a free transfer and Manuel Ugarte, who had been available for sale, is sidelined long-term with a knee ligament injury. That sequence has left Kobbie Mainoo as the only natural central midfielder in Michael Carrick\u2019s current squad.<\/p>\n
United have already agreed a deal to sign Andrey Santos from Chelsea, but Santos was not expected to be the sole addition in midfield. With \u00c9derson no longer joining, the club identified Tielemans as the alternative and moved decisively to secure him.<\/p>\n
Tielemans arrives with significant Premier League experience. Between his time at Villa and earlier spells at Leicester City he is approaching 250 appearances in England\u2019s top division and has spent three of his eight seasons in the league competing near the top of the table.<\/p>\n
Although Tielemans still has two years left on his Villa contract, the existence of the release clause has surprised a number of Villa supporters and represents a market value well below what many expect for a player of his background. The clause offers United a relatively low-cost option that reduces immediate financial pressure compared with a nine-figure outlay on a midfield recruit.<\/p>\n
Questions remain about how Tielemans will fit into Carrick\u2019s system. Carrick used two deep midfielders last season, with Mainoo featuring as one of them. Pairing Mainoo and Tielemans is possible, but that configuration does not deliver elite defensive cover and Tielemans\u2019s limited agility is a recognised limitation in his game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
United trigger Tielemans’ \u00a335m release clause to reinforce midfield after \u00c9derson pursuit ends soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17176,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1083,1513],"tags":[944,1776],"class_list":["post-17177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-man-utd","category-man-utd-transfer-news","tag-andrey-santos","tag-youri-tielemans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17177","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=17177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}