Manchester United have completed some more important business in this year’s summer transfer window after confirming the double signing of Matthijs de Ligt and Noussair Mazraouias well as the departure of Aaron Wan-Bissaka.
The defensive duo both played under Erik ten Hag during his time in charge of the impressive young team from 2019 and were heavily linked with an estimated £60 million joint-move from German giants Bayern Munich to Man United last week.
With injuries to fellow new signing Leny Yoro, who is now set to be out for up to three months, the club had little choice but to re-bolster their backline with another centre-back and full-back, especially given the extensive list of players that ended up on the physio table last season.
As a result, it looks as though new sporting director Dan Ashworth and co have moved quickly ahead of the 2024/25 campaign getting underway this Friday, 13 August and pulled the trigger on both defenders, with de Ligt and Mazraoui unveiled as new United players virtually in tandem on Tuesday night.
Then their youngest-ever captain, de Ligt was one of the most admired players in the aforementioned Ajax squad that ten Hag led to the Champions League semi-finals. He was one of several rising stars snapped up as the promising side was raided by big teams around Europe over the months following.
After lifting the latest in a long line of Dutch titles that year, he then joined Juventus for around £65m, where he also won the league and a Coppa Italia, before joining Bayern in 2022 and winning a domestic double there too.
However, despite winning everywhere he’s been so far, the 25-year-old struggled to find his best form in Serie A and dropped out of the line starting XI as Munich conceded the Bundesliga trophy to Bayer Leverkusen in the 2023/24 campaign.
While club legend Paul Scholes has expressed concerns over de Ligt’s recent lack of playing time and the fact that former Spurs star Eric Dier’s introduction into the back four has rendered him a “second-rate” defender, the hope is clearly that he will once again shine under his previous coach.
As for Mazraoui, the 26-year-old Morrocan right-back is effectively set to replace Aaron Wan-Bissaka, who has been in and out of the United squad with injuries and simply falling second fiddle to the more attacking wing-back talents of Diogo Dalot.
Having now officially unveiled both new signings, they pair mark a total of 11 transfers that ten Hag has made involving a player either from the Netherlands or who has represented a team in the Eredivisie since arriving at Old Trafford.
Wan-Bissaka officially joined West Ham on Tuesday, 13 August in a deal reportedly worth around £15m, a full £30m less than what they paid for him back in 2019.
He made nearly 200 appearances for the Red Devils.
Having already brought in two players in Yoro and another Dutch connection with Joshua Zirkzee, de Ligt and Mazraoui are the third and fourth signings of the summer, as well as the new INEOS era.
Speaking on the move, de Ligt said: “Erik ten Hag shaped the early stages of my career, so he knows how to get the best out of me and I cannot wait to work with him again. I know what it takes to succeed at the highest level, and I’m determined to continue that record at this special club.”
Adding similar in his own welcome statement, Ashworth described Mazraoui as “a dynamic, attacking full-back who can play on both the right and left side of defence”, adding, “His experience and versatility will make him an excellent addition to our squad.
Elsewhere over in the blue half of the city, Premier League champions and freshly-crowned Community Shield holders Manchester City have bid goodbye to striker Julián Álvarez after they reached a club-record deal with Atlético Madrid.
Pep Guardiola hints at when Manchester City fans can expect to see their latest arrival
Danny Jones
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has given supporters a rough timeline as to when they can expect to see their new signing, or at least their latest arrival, make his first appearance.
The Blues wrapped up the January transfer window with four major signings: their new attacking number seven, Omar Marmoush (who has already bagged a hattrick on his home debut) promising defensive duo, Abdukodir Khusanov and Brazilian Vitor Reis, as well as their ‘mini-Rodri’, Nico Gonzalez.
However, the club has had another late arrival who was technically signed back at the start of last year but who has spent for the last 12 months or so loaned back to his previous parent club, River Plate in Argentina, waiting to make the move over to the Etihad Stadium – and now he’s here in Manchester.
Speaking on his touchdown in 0161, Pep said Claudio Echeverri won’t be thrown into first-team action straight away but did give a rough estimate as to when City fans could expect him to get involved. You can see him discussing the integration plan in his post-match press conference following the Spurs win.
The mention was only brief but there’s still plenty of reason for Man City fans to be excited by the late January signing.
“Yeah, he [Claudio Echeverri] is going to start to train and mainly will be for the end of the season, maybe the [Club] World Cup and as soon as possible [that] he arrives he can adapt quick for the future.”
As mentioned, the 19-year-old Argentinian attacking midfielder from Resistencia officially put pen to paper with CFG back in January 2024 and was quickly dubbed ‘the next Messi’.
Now, although the football world is often quick to jump the gun with these things and he isn’t the first and certainly won’t be last to be slapped with this premature title, he’s done more to back up these claims since then than he has rubbish them.
Starring at the 2025 Under-20 South American Championships, netting six goals in nine games to finish the tournament as the second highest scorer thanks to notable braces against Brazil and Uruguay as the young Argentine’s finished as runners up.
He also notched 48 senior appearances for River Plate thus far, netting four goals and grabbing eight assists in that time, not to mention having already captained his national team at the 2023 Under 17s World Cup, where he scored another five.
Safe to say there’s plenty of talent to be tapped in this lad.
Once again, Echeverri won’t go straight into the senior set-up for a little while yet, barring a major injury crisis, but he’ll be a more than exciting addition to the City Football Academy and for future first-team lineups for years to come.
Who knows, maybe he’ll be included in an FA Cup matchday squad? Nevertheless, you can expect him to not just come of the bench but hopefully show what he can do at the Club World Cup this summer.
City‘s first fixture as reigning champions of the competition will be against Moroccan side Wydad AC on 18 June 2025.
You can watch Echeverri’s first full interview as a Man City player down below:
The new Man City signing is excited to be finally be part of the club 13 months on from agreeing his contract.
‘Nothing is eternal’: Is Pep Guardiola hinting at the end of Manchester City’s supremacy?
Danny Jones
Pep Guardiola looks to have suggested that more than a decade of Manchester City’s supremacy and Premier League dominance at the very least might be coming to an end.
Speaking in his post-match press interviews after City were knocked out of the Champions League by serial European Cup winners Real Madrid, Guardiola cut a somewhat more deflated figure than usual following the 3-1 defeat.
A Kylian Mbappe hattrick which was closed out within an hour of play was enough to stretch the aggregate score to 6-3 over the two legs and Madrid doubling their lead across the tie proved yet again why, not unlike City domestically over the last decade, they’re the kings of the continental competition.
In contrast, however, Pep seemed to accept the loss much more easily than perhaps we’ve seen in the past and rather than appearing familiarly frustrated or defiant in the press conference; instead, he seemed rather reflective, responding to one reporter: “Nothing is eternal”.
🗣️ "Nothing is eternal" – Pep Guardiola.
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Insisting that they have to decide whether a significant rebuild is needed to keep competing at the very top level consistently as they have done since the 54-year-old arrived back in 2016, he argued that it is only with that they’ll be able to determine what comes next.
As for the result itself, he made no bones about Carlo Ancelotti’s side having “deserved it”, stating simply that “the best team won” and that fans and players alike have to “accept the reality: they were better.”
Having been a familiar foe for Pep long before he arrived in Manchester, both at Barcelona and Bayern Munich – not to mention City having faced Los Blancos a dozen times before Tuesday night since 2012 – there have been less surprising outcomes for supporters to come to terms with.
“With time, the club and everyone is going to accept what it is but for now we have 30/40 games for the Premier League next season to try and be here [in the Champions League] and to improve. Nothing is eternal”, said the Catalan coaching genius.
On the other hand, he also went on to add that it was merely a reflection on the night itself and not what his team have achieved in recent years.
He went on to remark that “when we were playing outstanding it hurt more” to be knocked out of the UCL when he felt they deserved to stay in it, but still insisted: “We have been unbelievable and we have to try step by step to get better from today.” Tonight just wasn’t the night.
Who knows? Perhaps it was just some more melodrama from a manager with an undeniable flare for pageantry and playing into/in the face of narratives when he doesn’t come out on top – which hasn’t happened all that often until their dip in form this season.
Plus, there’s certainly still plenty for him and the fans to be positive about; not only has the arrival of their ‘Egyptian Prince’ and the media’s Mo Salah successor, Omar Marmoush, got plenty of people excited – especially after that first-half hattrick against Newcastle – but so too have the other January signings.
In fact, for all of his downplaying in this particular presser (which you can hear in full HERE), it felt like there were only upsides after their victory over Newcastle, even going so far as to dub new signing Nico Gonzalez a ‘mini-Rodri‘.
You can watch the highlights from the game down below:
Pep is right, nothing is eternal – but sometimes you just come up against talents like Mbappe and there’s very little anyone can do about it.
Danny Jones -
13th August 2024 
