\u00c9derson has spoken publicly for the first time since his proposed transfer to Manchester United collapsed earlier in the summer, and the midfielder says he still cannot explain why it never materialised.<\/p>\n
The Atalanta player looked to fit the profile United were after: an aggressive, athletic defensive midfielder whose contract situation appeared to keep his price in check. Yet in the same week that the move away from Manchester United disappeared, the 27-year-old agreed a new extension with Atalanta.<\/p>\n
While United moved quickly to complete the double arrival of Andrey Santos and Youri Tielemans, the club still found itself needing a more defence-minded midfielder. That has now pushed them towards Brighton & Hove Albion\u2019s Carlos Baleba as well.<\/p>\n
Revisiting the deal that never went through, and doing so before Atalanta begin their UEFA Conference League qualifying campaign on Wednesday night, \u00c9derson gave a clear account of his own uncertainty. He said: \u201cI honestly don\u2019t know what happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always had interest from other clubs, and I could\u2019ve gone to another English team. The [medical] tests went well, I don\u2019t know what changed. I\u2019ve been with Atalanta for four years and always played.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00c9derson had missed four matches early last season because of a meniscus injury, but there had been nothing to indicate a current knee issue that would have forced United to step away. It remains possible that concern over future problems played a part in the collapse.<\/p>\n
Explaining why he moved swiftly to commit his future to Atalanta, he added: \u201cI could\u2019ve waited to see what happened, but the great rapport with the club convinced me to stay and sign a new contract.\u201d<\/p>\n
United needed extra depth after last season\u2019s shortage in midfield, as well as the departure of Casemiro and the long-term injury to Manuel Ugarte. In the second half of 2025\u201326, Casemiro and Kobbie Mainoo were used virtually every minute, helped by the club\u2019s lack of other competitions. Ugarte was the only senior cover available.<\/p>\n
If Baleba arrives, United will have four strong options for the two midfield roles, plus academy graduate Tyler Fletcher. The most likely pairing in 2026\/27 appears to be Baleba, Tielemans or Mainoo, depending on the demands of the match, with Santos offering useful all-round cover.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00c9derson says he still cannot explain why his proposed move to Manchester United fell through.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18623,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,1163],"tags":[242,180],"class_list":["post-18624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","category-transfers","tag-injury","tag-player-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18624","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=18624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}