After signing Joshua Zirkzee and Leny Yoro, Manchester United have shifted their attention to defensive midfield, where Manuel Ugarte looks like the chosen one.
It was recently reported that United have agreed personal terms with the player, with the club continuing to hold talks with Paris Saint-Germain over a fee.
If he arrives, a new spine of the team will be put into place around which the squad can be built.
Of course, stylistically, Ugarte is extremely different to Casemiro, despite both being defensive midfielders on paper. Here’s how United will adjust to that and why he is exactly what the club needs-
Manuel Ugarte style of play
No two defensive midfielders are the same. Unlike positions in a video game, football in real life is largely dictated by the role a player performs, instead of the position they are shown at on a teamsheet.
A Frenkie de Jong is different from Sergio Busquets, despite both being lynchpins of teams that play possession football.
Busquets sat back, pinched the ball through positioning and interceptions, and played raking, line-breaking passes to the front line.
De Jong, on the other hand, is a line-breaker himself, as he prefers carrying the ball up the pitch himself instead of passing, attracting the press and laying it off to teammates in space.
Similarly, Manuel Ugarte and Casemiro, the man he is supposedly replacing, are two different defensive midfielders despite playing as No. 6s in a transition team (United and Uruguay).
Casemiro played as a pure defensive midfielder at Real Madrid, where his job was to win the ball back and pass it off to Toni Kroos or Luka Modric. That changed at United.
The club gave him more freedom to work with the ball and he showed his passing repertoire, as well as his penchant for crashing into the box at the right time.
Ugarte is more like the Real Madrid version of Casemiro than the one that ultimately became a burden to United’s style of play.
That is because, with Kobbie Mainoo’s emergence, they need a “destroyer” No. 6, whose main job should be to win the ball back and pass it to players who will take it forward. Too much duplication of skills, like both midfielders having the tendency to fly forward, will lead to occasions seen countless times last season where United had no midfield out of possession.
Ugarte fits that template perfectly. He ranked in the 99th and 96th percentile for tackles and interceptions in the league last season. He was also in the 95th percentile for pass completion percentage but only the 31st percentile for progressive passes.
That speaks of a player who wins the ball back but whose first instinct is not to take it forward or even play it forward, it’s to circulate possession and keep the tempo in control.
That will come as a huge relief to fans traumatised by last year’s ping-pong games of United.
Most important position
We decoded earlier as well why, to make Leny Yoro a successful signing, they need to sign Ugarte next. The defensive lynchpin of the team connects the defence to midfield. The attacking lynchpin connects the midfield to the attack.
Bruno Fernandes already does the latter, but the absence of a reliable former after Casemiro’s decline laid bare the problem last season.
With Ugarte, they will fix the most important position with the ideal type of player. Had Mainoo not emerged, they would have probably looked for a more adventurous No. 6, as evidenced by Erik ten Hag’s obsession with getting Frenkie de Jong.
As it stands now, a simple and functional one will do. Ugarte is flashy at being functional!