Carlos Baleba\u2019s arrival has already been framed as an important piece of Manchester United\u2019s midfield rebuild, but his shirt choice has added another layer of interest. The 22-year-old joins with a $95.5 million (\u00a370 million) fee attached and is expected to settle quickly after a summer that has also brought Youri Tielemans and Andrey Santos into the midfield picture.<\/p>\n
Baleba has been given the No. 20 shirt, a number that initially appears unremarkable but has built up considerable meaning across United history. Diogo Dalot was the most recent player to wear it, having made the same switch that Gary Neville made in 1996 when he had established himself as Sir Alex Ferguson\u2019s first-choice right back and moved to No. 2.<\/p>\n
The number became more notable after Neville gave it up and it was passed to Ole Gunnar Solskj\u00e6r, the Norwegian striker who became known as the \u2018baby faced assassin.\u2019 Solskj\u00e6r wore No. 20 when he scored the stoppage-time winner in the 1999 Champions League final against Bayern Munich, and he kept the shirt throughout a United career that brought 12 major trophies, including six Premire League titles.<\/p>\n
Robin van Persie also made No. 20 part of United history. He wore it during the 2012\u201313 campaign, when he won the Premier League title and Golden Boot after scoring 30 goals in his debut season following his move from current Premier League champions Arsenal.<\/p>\n
Baleba is not being asked to match that sort of output. His value lies elsewhere. The expectation is that he will add athleticism, energy and dynamism to a midfield that has lacked those qualities for some time. In turn, that should help United press more effectively, win possession more often and transition forward with greater purpose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Baleba\u2019s No. 20 shirt has a rich United past, with Solskj\u00e6r and Van Persie among its standout wearers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18762,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,2019],"tags":[182],"class_list":["post-18763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","category-manchester-united-news","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18763","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=18763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}