Manchester United have been linked with Rennes forward Mohamed Kader Me\u00eft\u00e9 after Patrick Dorgu suffered a hamstring injury against Arsenal last weekend. The Guardian reports the 18-year-old France youth international has emerged as a possible addition this month and is valued at \u20ac30 million (\u00a326.1 million, $35.9 million). Rival interest from Al Hilal is thought to complicate any pursuit.<\/p>\n
Me\u00eft\u00e9 is not a like-for-like replacement for Dorgu. The stocky Danish winger who has featured for United is a different profile to Rennes\u2019 teenage centre forward. At 6’4″, Me\u00eft\u00e9 has been used exclusively through the middle, operating as one of a front-two in Rennes\u2019 3-5-2 rather than as the wide attacker Dorgu provides.<\/p>\n
There are clear adaptation questions. Me\u00eft\u00e9 has limited experience operating as a single striker inside United\u2019s 4-2-3-1, but his underlying data is eye-catching. The towering France Under-21 forward ranks second for expected goals among Ligue 1 players with more than 500 minutes this season, indicating an ability to get into high-quality scoring positions. No player in Ligue 1 to have contested more than 10 aerial duels can match Me\u00eft\u00e9\u2019s win-rate of 77%, underlining his presence in the air.<\/p>\n
Even at a club where Sir Jim Ratcliffe described it as “the last century” last season, Me\u00eft\u00e9\u2019s figures are hard to ignore.<\/p>\n
Should United pursue the striker, he would most likely be brought in for a central role, which could free Bryan Mbeumo to cover the left flank. That is a plausible internal solution given the balance Erik ten Hag\u2019s successor has sought: the partnership between Mbeumo and Bruno Fernandes has been a defining feature of Carrick\u2019s United transformation, combining for the opening goal against Manchester City and both delivering direct goal contributions in the win over Arsenal.<\/p>\n
In Carrick\u2019s recent matches Matheus Cunha has been introduced from the bench to replace Mbeumo through the middle with Dorgu on the left. If Me\u00eft\u00e9 does not arrive, Carrick may still be forced into an attacking reshuffle that nudges Mbeumo to the flank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
United weigh signing Rennes striker Mohamed Kader Me\u00eft\u00e9 after Patrick Dorgu’s hamstring injury this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6304,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,1163],"tags":[1162,342,260],"class_list":["post-6305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","category-transfers","tag-analytics","tag-bruno-fernandes","tag-bryan-mbeumo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6305","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=6305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}