By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail’. Never has a quote been resembling a football club than this one with Manchester United and their transfer business.United are back to square one this summer after investing in Erik ten Hag this time last year. After the board decided parting ways with Ten Hag was the right decision, the Dutchman instead signed a new contract and was backed in the transfer market.
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by Josh Holland
13:00, 21 Jun 2025
Ruben Amorim
Ruben Amorim’s Man United project needs serious work(Image: Getty Images)
‘By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail’. Never has a quote been resembling a football club than this one with Manchester United and their transfer business.
United are back to square one this summer after investing in Erik ten Hag this time last year. After the board decided parting ways with Ten Hag was the right decision, the Dutchman instead signed a new contract and was backed in the transfer market.
Despite previous deals not working, the newly-formed recruitment team brought in two more players that had previously worked with Ten Hag with Matthijs de Ligt and Noussair Mazraoui. Leny Yoro and Joshua Zirkzee were signed and the priority position, a No.6, was not through the door until the third game of the season in the shape of Manuel Ugarte.
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Ten Hag was sacked and United went on to suffer their worst season in 51 years with a 15th-placed finish in the Premier League. Some would argue that United opting to keep Ten Hag when he should have gone was never going to work but the failure to get in the right players early in the market certainly played a huge role.
12 months later and United are faced with a similar problem. Today (June 21) marks one month to the day that Ruben Amorim’s men suffered defeat in the Europa League final to Tottenham, their rock bottom. It’s also one month until the first pre-season game against Leeds United in Sweden.
At the start of the month, it looked as though United were going to move with power and authority in the transfer window. Matheus Cunha’s arrival from Wolves was the first of many hopeful signings this summer and Bryan Mbeumo rapidly becameHowever, going into the final week of June, United are in the exact same spot as they were after Cunha’s was announced. Mbeumo isn’t through the door, for whatever reason, and their hunt for a new prolific striker hasn’t gathered pace. For United and the people at the club, that isn’t a problem.
the next priority.We’re going to do our best to do more signings quickly,” Omar Berrada recently told The Athletic. “Sometimes when you’re not quick, it’s because you’re negotiating and you’re trying to make sure you get the right value for money. So being efficient or quick isn’t necessarily the best thing for the club.”
