As long as it's the position and role that Ugarte played rather than his ability to play that position.

We don't like Ugarte, but, I gotta say, if he was in a team that wasn't looking for anything other than making a defensive action in front of the back like and then making a short pass sideways to someone else… I think he'd do well. Unfortunately for him, that's more of a bottom-half team kind of a role. (We did buy him after that crappy second ten Hag season where we were giving up like 25-30 shots per game it seemed like; we obviously over-compensated).

I think a Moyes-type team would love him. (I mean… this was Thomas Soucek in Moyes' West Ham, basically, no? LOL)

Soucek actually provides decent offensive output though

On and off. It's like Maguire, some years yes, some years no, but he's not really there for goals.

(P.S.: go here and put in Soucek and Ugarte if you doubt lol; I was actually surprised how similar the shapes were:
https://datamb.football/midfielders/ )

If someone can teach him to become positionally aware and read the game better, he'd be fine. But he's always good for a couple of WTF moments where he's pressing way too far up the pitch and leaving space in behind or trying some stupid ball progression that he's not capable of. Just need to put a pole on edge of the 18 yard box and tie him to it with a 25 yard chain. Stay there. Tackle anything that comes at you. Pass to the first guy you see wearing your jersey if you win the ball. That's it. Do only that.

If Ederson is indeed the Ugarte profile but (hopefully) better, then they still need a 3rd new midfielder, IMO, even if Fernandes and Ederson are signed. I doubt Jack Fletcher is ready to be the 4th midfielder in a team that will be playing twice a week for at least the first half of the season. I'm guessing he gets loaned out. I guess Mount could be your 4th midfielder but he's never really looked the part there in spite of what EtH bought him for 3 years ago.

I don't think Ederson is the Ugarte profile at all. Really, honestly, the only target that is like a traditional 6 is Tchouameni. The others are more like 8's that help defend. Maybe Anderson, but honestly, I really think he's like West Ham Declan Rice in that he's doing a lot of defending just because of the team he's in, but at another club his other capabilities will take more priority. And Tchouameni isn't just a pure defensive midfielder, but I don't think he's really needs to be a creator or a ball carrier at Real Madrid.

Carl Anka described Ederson as "good Fred" in this week's TOTD podcast. Fred self-described his strength as carrying a piano up the pitch for the artists to play. That clearly was not Ugarte; when he gets the ball, you want it to go to someone else soon.

(I guess it is kind of difficult to know exactly what he meant, but when I think of "good Fred" I personally think of someone who had a lot of energy and covered a lot of ground. Maybe he meant something else, but Ugarte doesn't amaze me with his ground coverage; it was a real problem this year first half because Casemiro and Bruno aren't either. I guess the bad of Fred is that he could be out of position; that part of Fred was not absent from our midfielders at least in the Amorim part of the season. Hopefully he's not bring that.)

To clarify, I think Ederson is intended to fill the role that they hoped Ugarte would fill adequately but hasn't.

But I'm going strictly based on summarized data analysis that I didn't create. I certainly haven't watched him play. The data has Ederson high on on-ball movement mostly because he keeps his passing short and front foot defending, but below average at press resistance, carry progression, and creative threat. To me it sounds like what they wanted Ugarte to do but he seemed to get lost anytime he got out of his own half and his passing was too often misplaced.

I don't think he is filling the Ugarte role though. Ugarte was the Casemiro squad player option who could be the deepest midfielder. We don't really know who the new Casemiro player is, but I don't think he's the squad option replacement for that position. Will he be a squad player? Yes. So will someone else (probably Fernandes). If we were lining it up, the last signing replaces Casemiro, the next signing replaces Ugarte, and Ederson replaces someone that doesn't even exist.

Lammens has been very good, and I'm thrilled to see him develop for us. But, if he was coming in following, say, de Gea, I'm not sure the contrast is stark enough to win "signing of the season." So backhanded assist to Onana (and Bayindir) lol.

Making an instant impact for his new club ❤️@ManUtd’s goalkeeper Senne Lammens is @BarclaysFooty Transfer of the Season 🙌 pic.twitter.com/SG0Saqr6Gd

— Premier League (@premierleague) June 1, 2026

Deal done
Edit: Fee is 35M GBP base, 4M GBP add-ons

🚨 Manchester United reach agreement with Atalanta to sign Ederson. Price for 26yo midfielder €40.5m fixed + €4.5m of potential bonuses. Personal terms in place on 4+1yr deal. Must still do medical & all parties plan to complete early July @TheAthleticFC https://t.co/OgkmPEYVg7

— David Ornstein (@David_Ornstein) June 2, 2026

Showstopper said:

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Deal done
Edit: Fee is 35M GBP base, 4M GBP add-ons

🚨 Manchester United reach agreement with Atalanta to sign Ederson. Price for 26yo midfielder €40.5m fixed + €4.5m of potential bonuses. Personal terms in place on 4+1yr deal. Must still do medical & all parties plan to complete early July @TheAthleticFC https://t.co/OgkmPEYVg7

— David Ornstein (@David_Ornstein) June 2, 2026

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Nice Nice to see deals being done in June and not August

They've been tracking Ederson for well over a year. No idea if he'll be a success on the pitch but they executed this transfer in a way that we've never really seen in the last 15 years. Tracked the guy for well over a year, good age profile, very reasonable fee, done early in the transfer season, and fills a specific and glaring need.

Holy smokes… dare to dream…

Some members of the billionaire Glazer family have been debating whether to sell their stake in Manchester United FC, after more than 20 years of ownership that has often been blighted by fan protest https://t.co/yn8zjFzVG5

— Bloomberg (@business) June 3, 2026

My initial reaction is that means they think their shares have increased in value to the point where cashing out would be attractive.

Reuters story:
https://www.reuters.com/sports/soccer/glazer-family-members-studying-manchester-united-stake-sale-bloomberg-news-2026-06-03/

My only concern would be that the only entities likely to be able to afford their asking price are people like Chelsea's owners or people like City/PSG owners. But maybe that's just the reality of modern football when it comes to any super club that comes up for sale. I find that reality distasteful but unlikely to ever change.

BTW, nice Ederson hype piece in the Athletic. In summary, it gave him a lot of credit for the success Atalanta had under Gasperini. Had a rough year last year partially due to injury and partially due to Gaperini leaving and the club as a whole taking a step backwards. But the tempo that Atalanta played at under Gasperini should make it easier for him to adapt to the EPL.

I'm a little surprised there has been as much negativity towards Ederson on Twitter as there has been. I'm not saying he will 100% work out, but he's been pretty good statistically, and if he doesn't work out we can move a 35M player on relatively modest (for us anyway) wages on fairly easily so long as the problem isn't injury.

I mean, he's coming in to be an option… not to win the Ballon d'Or.

Dre_00 said:

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My only concern would be that the only entities likely to be able to afford their asking price are people like Chelsea's owners or people like City/PSG owners. But maybe that's just the reality of modern football when it comes to any super club that comes up for sale. I find that reality distasteful but unlikely to ever change.

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the only people that will buy MU be either a US backed consortium or a ME owner(s). most likely it will be a US backed consortium like BlueCo. that's just reality.

Furlock Bones said:

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Dre_00 said:

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My only concern would be that the only entities likely to be able to afford their asking price are people like Chelsea's owners or people like City/PSG owners. But maybe that's just the reality of modern football when it comes to any super club that comes up for sale. I find that reality distasteful but unlikely to ever change.

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the only people that will buy MU be either a US backed consortium or a ME owner(s). most likely it will be a US backed consortium like BlueCo. that's just reality.

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Man, sign me up for state ownership if that's the choice. BlueCo have arguably been worse than the Glazers. I mean, I could be wrong, but that seems like a bubble that bursts when they aren't able to keep revenue from player turnover up high enough. Which seems inevitable since there are only a small handful of clubs that can even pay their asking prices.

Showstopper said:

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Furlock Bones said:

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Dre_00 said:

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My only concern would be that the only entities likely to be able to afford their asking price are people like Chelsea's owners or people like City/PSG owners. But maybe that's just the reality of modern football when it comes to any super club that comes up for sale. I find that reality distasteful but unlikely to ever change.

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the only people that will buy MU be either a US backed consortium or a ME owner(s). most likely it will be a US backed consortium like BlueCo. that's just reality.

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Man, sign me up for state ownership if that's the choice. BlueCo have arguably been worse than the Glazers. I mean, I could be wrong, but that seems like a bubble that bursts when they aren't able to keep revenue from player turnover up high enough. Which seems inevitable since there are only a small handful of clubs that can even pay their asking prices.

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on the flipside, Fenway Sports Group has done pretty well with liver******.

Yeah but FSG is a normal business. They are just a regular sports conglomerate that has bought a portfolio of teams to run more or less ongoing. BlueCo is different; it's not that. They gathered capital from a bunch of sources and then invest it in a limited time frame seeking above market gains during that period. The difference being that you buy a business expecting to exit it for a huge profit in 5-10 years. Whatever they are doing at Chelsea, I don't think it's working because I don't really think Chelsea is worth much more now than when they bought it. I don't know what they are planning to do when the funding term ends.

Doesn't sound like a Fernandes deal will come early if it even comes at all. West Ham are digging in at 80m GBP and I would be surprised if that was anywhere near United's internal valuation (rumored to be 50m GBP).

We've seen this play before where United have dragged out a negotiation by waiting to make an initial offer that was way below the selling club's valuation, selling club telling them to get lost, and then United slowly making small incremental increases in their offers before eventually paying pretty much the same price that the selling club asked for. In theory, United should have some relative strength in this specific situation as Fernandes idolizes Bruno and, unlike previous times, the selling club does have some financial pressure to sell. Curious to see United have learned anything or if it plays out similarly to previous times.

Well, since WHU is now in the Championship, I sure hope they have contract protections for wages on these players they want to play hardball on.

Let's see if United have truly changed their tactics and refuse to overpay. Go find other players that fit the system and tell WHU to pound sand.

I mean, I can't really blame them. Real Madrid's Florentino Perez is saying he will bid 150M Euros on someone if he is reelected. If that someone were Vitinha or Neves of PSG, they would suddenly need a midfielder pretty badly, and would have plenty to spend. I can't say that waiting a little on Fernandes is the wrong call for West Ham.

Edit: I wouldn't hold on to him until August if I were them, but there's a lot of crazy trying to sort itself out right now, and if you are a seller, a bunch of crazy money may be about to come into the market, which may raise prices downstream.

I'm also not above taking Real Madrid's castoffs.

If you truly believe the player is worth 50 and WHU think he's worth 80, move on. And move on publicly so WHU gets the message.

If you think he's worth 70-74 and offer 50 as a low ball negotiation and WHU says 80, pay the 80 now and get it over with.

Offering 50 when you know you will end up at 80 in 3 months is just dumb. Thats the motus operandi that needs to change.

Mathguy64 said:

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If you truly believe the player is worth 50 and WHU think he's worth 80, move on. And move on publicly so WHU gets the message.

If you think he's worth 70-74 and offer 50 as a low ball negotiation and WHU says 80, pay the 80 now and get it over with.

Offering 50 when you know you will end up at 80 in 3 months is just dumb. Thats the motus operandi that needs to change.

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I would add that that was not the "motus operandi" last summer, and there are no indications that it is now. 80 for a defensive midfielder is above market, and West Ham need to be careful on overplaying their hand. Remember they are the club who mismanaged their roster bad enough that they were relegated, so don't be their lifeline now.

I think 50-60(edit: million lol) GBP would be about market. I think he and Alex Scott of Bournemouth would be close in value. I think Mateus has a higher ceiling, but Scott is a little more polished right now (and homegrown). I don't think Bournemouth needs to raise money urgently because they sold Semenyo in the winter and several players last summer, plus they have Europa now. But Scott is entering the last two years of his deal, doesn't want to resign apparently, so this year would be the year they could sell and still get more or less full value. Which is a long way to say that a deal may or may not be tricky as well depending on whether Bournemouth would want to sacrifice some on the sale price to use him next year while they are in Europa (which being EPL instantly makes a team basically one of the favorites to win it all).

The other factor is that while United are seemingly casting a wide net, Fernandes is likely the player that has the fewest hurdles to clear even with the large valuation gap between West Ham and United. I can't think of anyone on the list of midfielders that United have consistently been linked with that feels like an easier target than Fernandes at this point in time. Maybe Baleba but hard to say if he's even on their list still after the season he had.

I kind of think we were thinking Baleba's bad year would drop his price. Andy Mitten said he hadn't heard anything in a long time regarding Baleba, but there were reports that player terms under the same terms as last summer were acceptable. Then, once the year ended… that went ice cold. So they maybe didn't think a bad year should move the price lol. I haven't seen anyone else really being linked to him either beyond a little light Spurs talk. He's going into the final two years of his contract with an option for a third, so if they don't sell this year, they will just about have to next year because those option years are typically set with conditions that the club really doesn't want to use the option for selling clubs.

Edit: I want to say Laurie Whitwell has an article around the end of the season saying that last year we would have gone to 70-75M, but Brighton wanted 100M. He was saying United was thinking 50M this year… but since the news has gone cold. Which makes you wonder if they didn't say, "Yeah, we are still thinking 100M" lol. Pure speculation, but it seems ice cold on Baleba right now.

Edit2: Also, not to be a jerk, but if Spurs really go after him, we could probably let them negotiate the deal, and then swoop in at the end and take it from them like Arsenal did with Eze. I think it's safe to say they wouldn't go to 100M; they are cheap for a "Big 6" club

Ederson called in to Brazil WC squad to replace Wesley. Great for him obviously but selfishly was looking forward to him getting a full pre-season with his new club.