Match of the Day’s Ashley Williams and Alan Shearer look at the performance of Manchester United’s Amad Diallo and the challenge of fitting him into Ruben Amorim’s system after the Red Devils’ 2-2 draw at Nottingham Forest.
WATCH MORE: Late Amad volley earns Man Utd point in thriller at Forest
Available to UK users only.
On the surface, all this seems positive. Certainly, reports from inside the club say the sports science team were delighted with the numbers from the early training sessions after Amorim’s players returned for the start of pre-season on 7 July.
This, they reasoned, suggested the players had stuck to a pretty detailed and strict fitness programme to work on during their time off.
This is Manchester United, so there were some commercial appearances, but they have reduced from previous tours.
In fact, potentially the most significant commercial event as far as the club was concerned had no player involvement at all as Lord Coe, chair designate of the Mayoral Development Corporation (MDC) for the Old Trafford regeneration project, was part of a delegation who addressed an audience of Wall Street investment banks and US financiers in New York to try to generate interest in helping to fund the planned £2bn new stadium project.
The fact neither Coe nor chief operating officer Collette Roche, who spoke at length to travelling media about the stadium plans in Los Angeles 12 months earlier, met the press this time suggests strongly nothing significant has changed and the feeling is growing United will not meet an initial five-year timeline minority owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe spoke of in March.
That is not Amorim’s concern, of course.
He must deliver on the pitch. And to that end, United did look much better than last season.
It was obvious the much-discussed three-man defence splits when Amorim’s team have the ball so, when the build-up begins, the right and left-sided defenders operate as normal central defenders with the middle man of the three – Matthijs de Ligt is in pole position for that role – moves into midfield alongside the deeper of the two chosen for those jobs.
Matheus Cunha definitely brings more invention to Amorim’s attack and Amad Diallo, if selected, is a massive danger offensively at right wing-back, even if questions are asked defensively.
It is clear Amorim feels he can find an upgrade on Rasmus Hojlund, even if many would argue a better use of the funds United do have would be to find someone who can bring physicality and energy to midfield.
Watching the industry of Bournemouth’s Alex Scott emphasises it is a significant weakness in Amorim’s squad.
Nevertheless, as tours go, this has been a fairly calm one. Amorim’s group of players, in general, seem happy enough and the positive spirit needed for any team to be successful does exist.
Yet the reality of modern football is that everything in seen through, and judged by, the prism of results.
The walk through might be an advancement. If United win it will be seen that way. If they lose it will be written off as a terrible idea – even though it is the exactly the same process.
Conceding the winning goal to Tottenham in the Europa League final through a flick off Brennan Johnson – that took a deflection at close range off Luke Shaw and then squeezed in at the corner despite Onana’s desperate attempt to keep it out – has nothing to do with training and everything to do with the small margins managers across the league talk about.
This does seem to be a better United. Amorim is getting his ideas across.
But Arsenal’s upcoming visit to Old Trafford and the 37 Premier Leagues games afterwards will decide whether the progress is real or if pre-season 2025 was just another false dawn.
Manchester United have had an improved bid worth up to £62.5m for Bryan Mbeumo rejected by Brentford.
United have bid £55m plus £7.5m in add-ons for the 25-year-old.
They had a bid of £45m plus up to £10m in add-ons for the Cameroon forward turned down earlier this month.
United are looking to add goals to their side having already signed forward Matheus Cunha from Wolves for £62.5m.
Sources have suggested Brentford would want at least the same fee as Wolves have received for Cunha up front before they agree to the sale of a player who still has a year left on his contract.
Mbeumo scored a career-best 20 goals for Brentford last season and contributed nine assists.
United may face competition from elsewhere, with new Tottenham manager Thomas Frank keen to be reunited with Mbeumo, while there has also been interest from other Champions League clubs.
An international colleague of United goalkeeper Andre Onana, Mbeumo is likely to miss four weeks of the 2025-26 campaign because of Cameroon’s participation in the Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco.
Cameroon play Gabon in their opening group game on 24 December.
Mbeumo joined Brentford from French club Troyes in 2019, when the Bees were still in the Championship.
He has scored 70 goals in 242 appearances in all competitions, helping the west London club earn promotion to the top flight in 2021.