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PSG boss explains the ‘context’ behind selling Manuel Ugarte to Manchester United
When it emerged that Paris Saint-Germain were willing to sell Manuel Ugarte after just one season in France, the Manchester United faithful would have been forgiven to expressing a few concerns.
If the Uruguay international really was the answer to Erik ten Hag’s midfield problems, then why were PSG happy to cash in just a year after taking him to the French capital from Sporting Lisbon?
Why had Manuel Ugarte been bombed out of first-team training by manager Luis Enrique?
Why had he played only 45 minutes of football across Paris Saint-Germain’s final seven games of their 2023/24 Champions League campaign?
But it is this exactly sort of situation – Manchester United paying an initial £42 million for Ugarte on deadline day – which proves that football is rarely a case of black and white. Sometimes, there are shades of grey.
And there certainly exists a reality in which both points can exist simultaneously; Ugarte can help fix Man United’s midfield while also being ill-suited to life at PSG.
Manuel Ugarte in line for Manchester United
Former Barcelona and Spain boss Enrique, after all, is a manager who prides himself upon a possession-heavy system.
And while Ugarte is better in possession than some would have you believe – hitting back at the likes of Paul Scholes when defending his on-the-ball qualities – the tough-tackling 24-year-old is perhaps not a natural number six in a team who play Enrique’s death-by-a-thousand passes style.
Ugarte is far more suited to a fast-paced, transitional brand of football. The type in which Erik ten Hag hopes to make Man United the masters of, with Ugarte hopefully the all-action, ground-eating, bone-rattling enforcer capable of holding his often ramshackle team together.
Speaking to Sport Italia, PSG’s Football Advisor Luis Campos insists the decision to cash in on both Ugarte and centre-back Milan Skriniar was not a reflection upon their abilities.
Instead, it simply highlighted the club’s willingness to construct a team in Enrique’s own image.
“You have to understand the context for (selling) Skriniar as for Ugarte,” says Campos, the former Real Madrid scout who helped lay the foundations for the title successes of both Lille and Monaco.
“There was a change of project last year. A new way of playing.”
Erik ten Hag preparing for Southampton trip
It is telling that, in Ugarte’s place, came Joao Neves.
Linked frequently with Manchester United earlier in the year, Neves is a midfielder almost tailor-made for Enrique. While he lacks Ugarte’s physicality, the former Benfica wonderkid is a supreme technician who slots seamlessly into a side who come up against deep blocks most weeks.
Neves, flying out of the blocks in Paris, provided a record-breaking four assists in his first two Ligue 1 outings. That is more than Ugarte managed in 37 PSG appearances.
Then again, at Man United, the attacking duties will be left to Bruno Fernandes, Kobbie Mainoo and Mason Mount. Ugarte is the one who will provide the platform and give the freedom his more advanced midfield partners need to do what they do best in the final third.
Playing down concerns over his fitness following successive starts for Uruguay during the September international break, Ten Hag must now decide whether to throw Ugarte in for his Man United debut against Southampton in Saturday’s early kick-off.
“Manuel Ugarte, you will have seen he played for Uruguay, he returned (to United on Thursday),” Ten Hag said during his pre-match press conference, via Hayters TV on YouTube.
“So, he is available for this game.”
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