Manchester United have now finally joined the rest of the football world, as they are now participating in the 2023 summer transfer window. Chelsea midfielder Mason Mount will become the club’s first summer signing, as he’ll have his Man United medical on Monday. Hope you like the taste of M&Ms, with all the Ms in that sentence (or the headline for that matter).
News of the Mount medical was first reported by Matt Law of the the Daily Telegraph.
? – #mufc have scheduled a medical for Mason Mount on Monday.[@Matt_Law_DT] pic.twitter.com/HOyXtSMx20
— UtdXclusive (@UtdXclusive) June 30, 2023
Law also provided an insightful analysis of this transaction, at this link, writing: “Chelsea must hope and pray they never see the £5million in add-ons for Mason Mount – otherwise what is currently an embarrassment will have been an unmitigated disaster. Closest comparison I could think of was Ashley Cole.”
It’s true, Chelsea’s outrageous spending, in both of the last two transfer windows, left them with an insanely bloated squad, and thus, the need to sell off a whole host of players. And with some of those players nearing the end of their contracts, and with no interest in renewal, the west London club had to let some players go at a price that was far below their true and just valuations.
And given what the market seems to deem fair for English players these days (see Declan Rice’s record-breaking move) the £55 million fixed fee, plus £5m in add-ons, seems like a bargain basement price for Mason Mount. We did an analysis of what this deal means to United, yesterday, over at this link.
But in short, Mount helps to fill their long-standing void in the middle of the park, and he helps to provide depth and additional options in the position group. He’ll mostly be used in platoon with Christian Eriksen, as it’s not likely manager Erik Ten Hag will use both players in the lineup at the same time.
Speaking of Ten Hag, he is now pushing hard to make Inter Milan goalkeeper Andre Onana the next summer signing for United, as David de Gea becomes a free agent tomorrow. So watch this space on that.
Paul M. Banks is the owner/manager of The Sports Bank. He’s also the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
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