Ranking every post-Fergie Man Utd manager’s first signings as Amorim closes in on Leon
We had never heard of him before this week, have never seen him play and therefore have no idea whether Diego Leon will be a good first signing for Ruben Amorim or not.
A left-back seems like a wise choice given the perennially crocked options the new Manchester United boss has to choose from, or rather doesn’t have to choose from, and the Paraguayan fits with the Sir Jim Ratcliffe-instigated remit of signing young players on the cheap.
Leon also won’t have much difficultly in usurping the first signings of the other Manchester United managers since Sir Alex Ferguson. We’ve ranked them.
5) Tyrell Malacia (Erik ten Hag)
A slightly out of character move by Erik ten Hag given he had never played for Ajax, but not too great a leap for the Dutch boss to make a Dutchman his first signing.
Malacia made his return for Manchester United in November after 18 months out having had an operation on a torn meniscus at the end of the 2022/2023 season, followed by another operation to fix the botched first one and then a gruelling period of rehab, with a big chunk spent away from the club as United didn’t have the resources to give his recovery the attention it required.
“I have a lot of patience but, in this process, I learned that I have more patience than every other person in the world at this moment,” Malacia said. Not half.
Impossible to rank based on his quality – in truth we don’t really know how good he is – and only bottom because of a lack of impact beyond his control.
READ MORE: Man Utd NOT ‘writing off’ £80m despite Ruben Amorim ‘progress off the pitch’
4) Dan James (Ole Gunnar Solskjaer)
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer signed both Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Harry Maguire in his first transfer window for a combined £130m but landed James from Swansea for what initially looked like an absolute snip at £15m.
He scored three goals in his first four games for United, including one on debut against Chelsea, but failed to find the net in the remainder of that first season, contributing six assists while starting the majority of Premier League games.
James fell out of favour in his second season as Mason Greenwood was promoted to the first team, and was sold in 2021 following Cristiano Ronaldo’s return to Old Trafford.
No skin off Old Trafford noses for a change though with Leeds paying £25m for his services, making him one of very few players sold for a profit by Manchester United.
“I got bought for my direct play, running in behind, running with the ball, trying things and not being afraid to lose the ball but slowly I started to come away from that and play a little safe,” James said when reflecting on his time at United.
“When I stepped back it was remembering to be direct, to be that person. Safe is dangerous in the position I play. You’re not there to do that – you’re there to score goals and make assists and run yourself into the ground on and off the ball.”
Sounds very much like another winger who’s thriving elsewhere having escaped Old Trafford, and another who would be wise to do the same.
3) Eric Bailly (Jose Mourinho)
“Of course, I’m glad that someone compares him to me and I hope he will be a player who does very well for us,” That was Nemanja Vidic, responding to the comparisons with Bailly from various impetuous and fanciful Manchester United pundits yet to be burned by dozens of further Next Manchester United Great claims about players then cursed to fall by the wayside.
They were premature but not wholly preposterous predictions of excellence. Having picked up the Man of the Match award in United’s 2-1 win over Leicester in the Community Shield, Bailly impressed through much of his debut season, helping Jose Mourinho’s side keep clean sheets at Anfield and the Etihad.
And we do sometimes wonder how good he might have been without quite such a horrible injury record, though his propensity for calamitous mistakes makes for only brief periods of such whimsy.
We were half expecting him to come off the bench as Erik ten Hag’s tenure drew to a close, such was his obligation to the old guard of Manchester United centre-backs. And there were certainly times when watching the multifarious Red Devils back fours under the Dutchman when we thought Bailly may have done a better job, which is a damning indictment of the displays of those defenders still at United as their former centre-back sits on Villarreal’s bench.
READ MORE: Marcus Rashford tempting for Arsenal as Jadon Sancho proves Man Utd are the problem
2) Marouane Fellaini (David Moyes)
“You can ask my staff – the last thing I wanted was for Marouane Fellaini to be my first signing,” David Moyes said in 2017. “I knew, coming from my old club, the look was never going to be good. I’ve got to say we looked at Matic as well. He hadn’t done well for Chelsea and had gone back to Benfica. He was a consideration.”
Moyes rarely fails to mention the players he nearly signed in the countless and therefore tedious interviews he’s done in the decade since his 10-month spell at Manchester United. We’re not blaming him by the way, but the unbridled obsession with What Might Have Been for Red Devils fans and the media outlets that prey on that fascination.
Matic joins Leighton Baines, Cesc Fabregas, Gareth Bale and Thiago Alcantara in quite the list of missed transfers in the summer after Sir Alex Ferguson handed the reins to Moyes, who admitted to hitting a since-worn-out panic button on deadline day to bring in Fellaini as his only summer transfer.
The big Belgian became something of a stick to beat Moyes in his doomed post-legacy boss reign at Old Trafford, with fans seeing him as a symbol of a demise they thought was reaching its nadir. Sweet summer children.
The midfielder-cum-big-f***er-in-the-box was expected to leave following Moyes’ departure but went on to make over 150 appearances for the club, scoring big goals under both Louis van Gaal and Jose Mourinho.
“My first season in Manchester was difficult, but I left as a respected player,” Fellaini said. “I gave my very best for this club, played so many games and almost only scored important goals. I worked with super players and managers at one of the biggest clubs in the world. Then you can only look back with a smile.”
Miss you, Marouane.
1) Ander Herrera (Louis van Gaal)
We can add Herrera to the list of players Moyes wanted but didn’t get as United refused to pay his £30m release clause in the summer of 2013, but the Scot wasn’t deterred and laid the groundwork for the midfielder’s arrival the following summer.
Louis van Gaal gave the go-ahead for the deal to be completed but never gave him a consistent run in the first team, with Herrera starting roughly half the Premier League games in each of his two seasons under the Dutch boss.
Jose Mourinho gave him more of a run in the team and the Spaniard became a fan favourite thanks to his work rate, passion and commitment to sh*thousery.
The midfielder was reduced to tears when discussing his exit from Manchester United: “I got the Player of the Year award by the fans and the club didn’t call me that summer to sign a new contract, and they did with other players. That was painful for me, honestly.”
Herrera won the individual gong on the back of United’s most successful post-Sir Alex Ferguson season, in which he played a key role in their League Cup and Europa League titles under Mourinho, and memorably man-marked Eden Hazard out of a clash with Chelsea in perhaps the defining game of his Old Trafford career.
But the new contract didn’t arrive after that season and a lame offer as his deal came to a close was comfortably improved on by PSG.