Manchester United received an approach from Ajax over Manuel Ugarte as the January 2026 window nears its final week. The Amsterdam club have enquired about the possibility of taking Ugarte on loan for the rest of the season, seeking a No. 6 to bolster midfield options while avoiding anything long term because Jordi Cruyff will begin as the club\u2019s new sporting director at the start of next month.<\/p>\n
United\u2019s internal situation helps explain their response. The departure of Ruben Amorim and the appointment of interim manager Michael Carrick have reopened the door for Kobbie Mainoo to re-establish himself as a starter after being kept on the fringes by the former boss. That dynamic means Ugarte\u2019s playing time could continue to be affected, but United are cautious about weakening central-midfield cover midseason.<\/p>\n
The report states that the Ugarte proposal and has been \u201cso far declined.\u201d Letting Ugarte leave would require a replacement to be signed to plug the gap. The Uruguayan has rarely started this season but remains the first point of cover in central midfield behind Casemiro and Mainoo.<\/p>\n
United remain keen to add a central midfielder ahead of next season, but January is rarely for marquee signings. Negotiating deals for Elliot Anderson, Carlos Baleba or Adam Wharton is not straightforward. Going after any one of them, each potentially valued at \u00a3100 million ($134.2 million), requires the time afforded by the longer summer window.<\/p>\n
The only transfer United were believed to be interested in this month was Antoine Semenyo, a move driven by an attractive release clause rather than necessity. As soon as the Ghana international made it clear he wanted to join Manchester City, the Red Devils backed off and made the decision to keep their powder dry rather than throw money at someone else. For now, United prefer to preserve midfield depth through the remainder of the campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ajax asked about a loan for Manuel Ugarte and United have declined the proposal, for now. this month<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6149,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1348,1163],"tags":[216,801,215],"class_list":["post-6150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united-news","category-transfers","tag-adam-wharton","tag-antoine-semenyo","tag-carlos-baleba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6150","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=6150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}