Manchester United started their USA leg of their pre-season tour with a 2-1 win over West Ham United, where one player played like a man possessed.
Bruno Fernandes stole the headlines with a brace, including a wonderful finish, while Matheus Cunha continued his ascent into a key player in quick time.
The scoreline didn’t do justice to the performance, especially for the team that started the game, as Man Utd played with zip and physicality.
Nobody quite personified those two traits more than a player who was ‘absolutely everywhere’.
Manuel Ugarte puts in talismanic display
The idea behind facing Premier League teams in pre-season was to get the Man Utd squad used to playing against what was their Achilles’ heel last season.
United struggled to get to grips with the physicality and intense nature of playing Premier League opponents, and Manuel Ugarte personified that struggle.
Despite arriving with a reputation as a hardened ball-winner, the pace of the league clearly caught him by surprise, and he looked a second behind the game.
After a season of ups and downs, he has come for the 2025/26 campaign like a man on a mission, and West Ham saw the best of him.
As per MUTV pundits on commentary during the game, Ugarte was ‘absolutely everywhere’, which was an apt description of a performance that was different class.
The Uruguayan broke up the play with tackles and interceptions, as is expected of him, but also showed silky dribbling skills and zippy passing repertoire to pleasantly surprise those watching.
He almost had a beautiful assist for Amad, entirely of his own making, as he won the ball back, left one defender on the ground with a silky dribble before finding the Ivorian with a brilliant pass.
Amad was offside, but that passage of play summed up a player who is growing in confidence.
Ugarte can be Ruben Amorim’s new leader
Amorim asked for more leadership in the dressing room last season, but it was hard, since a struggling team has struggling players, and struggling players don’t have loud voices or lead by example.
In Ugarte, he has the player with the warrior-like mentality and playing style who can get the whole team going with a piece of play.
Due to his history of playing under Amorim at Sporting, he knows exactly what the Man Utd manager wants from the team.
Now that he’s used to playing in England, he can back those instructions up with performances, as he did against West Ham.
That will naturally increase his standing in the dressing room. Ugarte was once dubbed Amorim’s own Roy Keane, and praise at Man Utd for a midfielder doesn’t come much higher than that.
It was more of a hopeful optimism than anything grounded in reality at the time. This season is where it might all come together.
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