Andrey Santos is who Man Utd have “settled” on after losing out on Mateus Fernandes and Elliot Anderson, but is that the whole story?
The midfield rebuild of Man Utd is clearly not going according to plan, as there was concrete interest in Elliot Anderson and Mateus Fernandes.
Someone like Andrey Santos struggles to get the pulses racing after two snubs like that, leading to many writing him off as a panic target.
However, that’s not the case, because Santos is a result of a Man Utd meeting held in March of this year while Michael Carrick was working his magic.
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Andrey Santos and Man Utd’s meeting in March 2026
There’s no running away from the fact that in an ideal world, United would have had either Anderson or Fernandes in their ranks by now.
Therefore, the optics of a deal for Santos are in the backdrop of a club struggling to get its act together.
Having said that, writing off Santos as a panic target doesn’t paint the whole picture, because he’s a result of careful background work by Ineos dating back to March of this year.
During this time, United’s links to Newcastle’s Bruno Guimaraes were unexpectedly gaining pace.
Fabrizio Romano reported at the time that there was nothing to those links, and United were, in fact, talking to Guimaraes’ agency, Bertolucci Sports.
He said that ‘other players’ from the agency are under his consideration, a fact that wasn’t thought of much at the time.
Four months on from the revelation, it’s clear who that “other player” was, as Andrey Santos is represented by the same agency.
United had already been working in the background for Santos, and it’s quite possible that the Chelsea man would have been signed with or without Fernandes/Anderson.
Santos can, by no means, be the final midfield signing, but to write him off as a panic target where the window hasn’t even been open for three weeks is disingenuous.
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