Erik ten Hag’s options in midfield have been thin this season at Man Utd but there’s a summer transfer window coming.
It’s fair to say Manchester United’s attempts to reshape their midfield in the summer of 2023 missed the mark.
Having landed Casemiro in what looked like a marquee deal in 2022, United needed to do more. Yet at almost every turn, their decision-making has been proven seriously questionable.
Mason Mount is a fine footballer and could still come good at Old Trafford, but £60million was excessive for a player United didn’t necessarily need. Mount has endured an injury-plagued campaign but his best position is usually occupied by Bruno Fernandes in any case.
United also offloaded Fred for just £12.9million (including add-ons) and opted not to extend Marcel Sabitzer’s loan from Bayern Munich. Sofyan Amrabat was brought in for an £8.6million loan fee and that was the end of United’s midfield business: two out, two in, with plenty resting on the shoulders of then-untested academy product Kobbie Mainoo.
Had United sold Scott McTominay to West Ham as well – which was on the cards for a good while – they might have made another midfield move. As it was, their midfield was left threadbare from the get-go, with Mainoo injured in pre-season and Mount soon sidelined too.
That Ten Hag has picked Amrabat so seldom this season, even amid all the injury issues, speaks volumes about the midfielder’s struggle to adapt to the Premier League. Yet this is a player who starred at the 2022 World Cup with Morocco, whose passing statistics shone like a beacon in Serie A and who Ten Hag had worked with in the past, at FC Utrecht.
United surely knew what they were getting from Amrabat, but he’s spent much of the season out of action, away for a time on Africa Cup of Nations duty and then either injured or simply unfancied.
The Moroccan has improved the balance of the United midfield in recent weeks, a run of form that’s been as unexpected as it is inconsequential to his future at the club.
The chances of United triggering the option to buy him permanently are still slim to nothing. It would cost close to £20million to do so. Other options will surely be sought, amid an INEOS-powered forensic transfer sweep.
Analysis of United’s performances against Arsenal and Newcastle, however, will draw the conclusion that Amrabat – in this form at least – is actually an upgrade on Casemiro, McTominay and Christian Eriksen, the three men who have usually started ahead of him next to Mainoo in recent months.
Amrabat has a skillset that is useful in Ten Hag’s chaotic system, where covering ground and making tackles are highly valued attributes. He could well have earned himself a start in the FA Cup final against Manchester City. Even if United have enough centre-backs fit to oust Casemiro from his recent emergency role, it shouldn’t be a given that the Brazilian comes back into midfield. Amrabat is in superior form.
Ten Hag has admitted Amrabat has offered United’s midfield something they’ve rarely had this season: control.
“Keeping the team together, keeping the team compact and [having] good moments to press so we can control the game more,” said the Dutchman on Amrabat after the Newcastle win.
So, with the summer purse strings likely to be tight, for reasons pertaining to Financial Fair Play, might United consider extending Amrabat’s loan?
It would have been unthinkable a few weeks ago, but his late-season surge of form could prompt a change of heart from the United hierarchy. It may prove to be a smart acquisition to begin the much-needed summer midfield rebuild.
