18-year-old defenders cost €62m now

You can start furiously browsing FlightAware, because Leny Yoro has a medical booked in Manchester. Various people are reporting that Manchester United are close to signing the French talent from Lille, with the most reliable among them probably being David Ornstein.

Despite Yoro favoring a move to Real Madrid, they apparently have failed to pay up, while Man United were willing to put down €62m in guaranteed cash. Does that sound like a lot for an 18-year-old center back with one year as a first choice starter in Ligue 1? That’s because it is, but United aren’t necessarily wrong to pay it.

You’ve probably opened this post looking for the radar, so I’m going to give it to you now.

This may not immediately scream “BUY BUY BUY,” but it also notably has no horrific red flags for an 18-year-old that pops on tape. Any questions his numbers raise are pretty quickly and convincingly addressed. He doesn’t play a ton of long balls, but that’s probably a stylistic choice, as his 93% passing accuracy suggests. The ones he plays are impressive, and he completes them at a 60% rate.

Aerials, similar deal. His 70% win rate suggests he’s capable of winning more if he’s put into positions where he needs to, and he’s pretty tall at 190cm/6’3”. He’s definitely a bit skinny for the Premier League and might have some physical challenges in his first season, but that’s nothing that chicken and protein shakes can’t fix.

If you haven’t seen Yoro play, you’ve probably read the above and thought “OK, impressive young center back… but €62m? What makes him so special?” Besides the aforementioned impressive long balls, I’d say the other two standout qualities he has are his confidence carrying the ball forward, and his quick burst over 5 or fewer meters, which allows him to recover from mistakes or clean up other people’s very well. Yoro has a combination of physical talent and confidence with the ball you don’t see in 18-year-old center backs very often.

That’s the rose-colored glasses version of this transfer. Obviously there’s plenty of downside risk. That he’s already been a consistent performer at Ligue 1 and UEFA Conference League level makes him feel a lot less risky than a lot of teenage wonderkids, but United is still counting on a lot of improvement for Yoro to ultimately present good value at the price they’re paying.

For Yoro to be worth it, he’s going to have to bulk up quite a bit. He’s going to need to improve in the air. He currently goes to ground to win tackles a little bit too often, and he’ll need to learn how to be a more effective defender without taking that risk as much as he does right now. He’ll need to get better with his medium range, breaking the first line passing; he’s not bad at it, but he currently plays mostly safe passes or long balls. This is a lot for a €62m player to need to improve.

But I’ve got no criticism for the player himself. He’s currently outrageous for 18 years old. His coaches and senior teammates have directly compared him to William Saliba and said he has the ability to be one of the best center backs in the world. United are taking on a significant risk, but one with an enormous potential payoff, and plenty of signs that it’s going to hit.

I would be a bit more risk averse if I was United’s director of football, but that’s a personal problem. There’s no reason to hate this. Man United fans should be excited.

—KM

News and rumours

• England manager Gareth Southgate has stepped down, and the rumour race to pick the new England manager first has heated up. What should not be lost here is that the best agents are leaking their client’s “interest” to the media as quickly as possible, not so that THEY will be the next England managers, but so that they can get their current employers to deliver raises and extensions out of cycle. Eddie Howe is probably a competent candidate to replace ol’ Gareth, but Steven Gerard and especially Frank Lampard are probably not.

• Jonathan Tah to Bayern Munich was allegedly a Done Deal earlier in the summer, but that deal seems to have hit an iceberg. Which is the perfect opportunity for Manchester United to now step in and hope to steal him away. But said theft would presumably be dependent on Man U giving up their pursuit of Mattijs de Ligt, whom Bayern Munich are hoping to sell in order to afford to buy Jonathan Tah from Bayer Leverkusen.

• Glen Kamara has moved from Leeds to Rennes for a 10M fee. "His last season was also described as “good” which, well, he played a lot of minutes. Leeds certainly looking to improve their output at that position while Rennes are looking to uh… probably replicate midtable obscurity again this season.

• We apologise if the rumour mill is Manchester United heavy. Even in normal summers, they tend to get All the Clicks™, but in a summer where they need to rebuild the entire squad… anyway, they are allegedly trying to hold out for £30M for Scott McTominay. Potential destinations include Fulham and waves hands vaguely “Turkey.” We know waves hands vaguely “Turkey” are not paying that type of fee, while Fulham’s plans remain a bit of a transfer enigma. One thing that was certain at the end of the season is that they needed to get younger, which McTom would not help with.

• Alvaro Morata is set to join AC Milan on a 4-year deal. We like him, even at age 31. 4 years is probably a year too long, but the Italian air does seem to extend decent careers slightly.

• Arsenal are still interested in signing Mikel Merino. Ted is firmly of the opinion that Fabian Ruiz is a better option at a similar age, especially if Joshua Kimmich isn’t moving this summer.

• Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is close to joining Al-Qadsiah in the Saudi Premier League. Normally, this would be a place where we write something snarky about “one final attempt to capture a giant bag" in his career,” but MUCH TO OUR SURPRISE Auba was genuinely fucking good at Marseille last season. So the joke is on us, and we not only apologise for our cynicism, we want to wish him well on his extended desert holiday.

• Romano reporting Juventus will bid for Atalanta’s Teun Koopmeiner’s just as soon as they have sold Matias Soule. This is only notable here, right now because when I look at Soule’s shot map, all I can hear is Andros Townsend’s music.

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