\u00c1lvaro Carreras left Manchester United in 2024 when the club sold him to Benfica for \u00a35 million. He flourished in Lisbon and that progress prompted Real Madrid to pay \u20ac50 million (\u00a343.6 million) to bring him to the Spanish capital. United made a profit from the sequence of moves\u2014approximately \u00a38.6 million\u2014but the trajectory raises questions about why he departed Old Trafford in the first place.<\/p>\n
Carreras had already built a profile at United. He won the Reserve Team Player of the Year award for the 2021\u201322 season, trained regularly with the senior squad and was an unused substitute in United\u2019s clash with Chelsea in April 2022. Despite that, BBC Sport\u2019s Simon Stone reported that the view inside the club was mixed when it came to his readiness for the Premier League.<\/p>\n
“My understanding is Erik ten Hag felt Carreras was not quick enough for the Premier League and struggled against quick players\u2014and that he was more suited to a back three defensive formation,” wrote Stone back in July. “There was no queue of Premier League clubs looking at him, which is how he ended up on loan, first at Granada and then Benfica.”<\/p>\n
United retained a route back when they inserted a \u00a317 million buy-back clause in his Benfica contract, but they chose not to exercise that option. Instead the club spent around \u00a330 million to sign Patrick Dorgu from Lecce last January. Stone asked the obvious follow-up: “My question is why, given United spent the latter half of the 2023\u201324 season without a recognised left back, they didn\u2019t bring him back to Old Trafford last summer, when Ten Hag concluded Harry Amass was not strong enough,” he wrote. “That would have seemed sensible from a business perspective, knowing Carreras\u2019 value had risen and with a half-decent season behind him, they would get a higher fee if they opted to sell at the end of the season.”<\/p>\n
Tactical preferences played a part. Ruben Amorim favours a back three with attacking wing-backs and Carreras\u2019 profile would have suited that approach. Carreras is now playing under Xabi Alonso in Madrid. Alonso, who developed as a manager at Bayer Leverkusen, has moved away from a consistent back three to accommodate a front three featuring Kylian Mbapp\u00e9, Vin\u00edcius J\u00fanior and Rodrygo and a midfield that includes Jude Bellingham and Aur\u00e9lien Tchouam\u00e9ni once injuries are resolved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
United sold \u00c1lvaro Carreras to Benfica in 2024; his rise and Madrid move exposed policy errors. plus<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3071,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1027,179,987],"tags":[1021,1078,1079],"class_list":["post-3072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-benfica","category-manchester-united","category-real-madrid","tag-amorim","tag-buy-back-clause","tag-transfer-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3072","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=3072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}