Manchester United’s season under Ruben Amorim is a write-off, at least in the league and the focus turns to the summer window but what if they already had the ideal player and sold him?
Manchester United have been an actively selling club under Ineos so far, being ruthless in their transfer decisions which, at times, has been a welcome departure from the Glazers’ dithering.
However, in the process, some sales have aged badly, like Scott McTominay, who’s thriving at Napoli in the midst of a title race.
Still, there’s at least the mitigating factor of McTominay thriving in a new league in a new system but what about a player who was dubbed the “best in the league” when sold and is now thriving in a system like Ruben Amorim’s?
Ruben Amorim could’ve used Aaron Wan-Bissaka
Manchester United’s lack of long-term planning can be summed up in a single phase where they sold Aaron Wan-Bissaka because they wanted a more attacking right-back, only to buy Noussair Mazraoui who’s not attacking enough to play as a wing-back now that the coach has changed.
Cue Mazraoui playing as the right-sided centre-back and Diogo Dalot huffing and puffing his way through games since there’s no backup for him.
Meanwhile, Wan-Bissaka, dubbed as “best in the league” by Ryan Giggs due to his tackling abilities, seems to be a player reborn in West Ham colours.
Sold for just £15 million, Wan-Bissaka is playing the exact role in Graham Potter’s system at West Ham that he would’ve had he stayed at Old Trafford.
He’s the dynamic right-sided wing-back in a back-three setup and already has more goal involvements than Dalot despite, like Dalot, playing under two different managers in a routinely struggling team.
Aaron Wan-Bissaka architect of West Ham’s win vs Arsenal
With one more goal involvement than Dalot despite playing 12 fewer games, the balance of the trade was already clear in favour of West Ham.
However, any doubts that remained were cleared up recently after his pinpoint cross for Jarrod Bowen in West Ham’s 1-0 win over Arsenal had fans in delirium.
“Aaron Wan Bissaka thriving in a wing-back system creating chance after chance,” said one user on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“You will not see many better crosses than this from Wan Bissaka all season long. Absolutely inch perfect,” said another as a third argued, “Absolutely mental that Wan Bissaka doesn’t have a single England cap.”
“Man what I’d do to have Wan Bissaka on the right instead of Dalot in this setup,” lamented another as someone agreed, “Wan Bissaka doing step overs he never did at United for West Ham??”.
It continues a trend of players getting better after leaving United but this one will hurt particularly more since Dalot’s form has fallen off a cliff and West Ham play a back three system too.
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