The search for the heir to Matic's throne

By @UtdNiamh, published on 22/08/21

Overall, the transfer window has been a success for the club, with Jadon Sancho and Raphael Varane boasting the club's title hopes. One position remains where an upgrade is required, and that is the defensive midfield position where the club only has Nemanja Matic, who is ageing. United is looking out for the heir and has been rumoured to look at Declan Rice and Edwardo Camavinga. These two are looking unlikely this summer with the price of Rice and the uncertainly about whatever Camavinga wants to come to England or not. In this article, I will be looking at cheaper, more realistic targets that united could look at.

(All credit to Fbref, and Sofa Score, who I will be taking stats from for the article)

Boubacar Kamara

The young french DM that plays for Ligue 1 side Marseille is an old-fashioned defensive midfielder who will do the dirty work to win the ball back for his team and progress the unit forward. His stats are impressive, with him completing 86.7% of passes per 90 and 4.5 progressive passes per 90. He is also superb defensively, with him completing 2.86 tackles per 90 and 1.77 blocks; he also won 65% of his aerial duels, which could be significant with the league's physicality. He is the kind of profile that Ole would love and wouldn't cost that much with Ligue 1 in financial trouble. This would be a deal I believe that would be realistic and could be easy to achieve if the club went in for him.

Teun Koopmeiners

The closest thing to a Nemanja Matic regen in real life is the 23-year-old Dutch Midfielder Teun Koopmeiners, who currently plays for AZ Alkmaar in the Eredivisie. The stats show that he is purely a defensive midfielder, with his average passing and ball progressing stats. Compared to Kamara, who completed 86.7% (72nd Percentile) of his passes per 90, Koopmeiners completed 75.6% (8th Percentile) of passes per 90 which wouldn't be up to standard for a Man United player. The one stat that impressed me with Koopmeiners is his clearance stat; he completed 4.83 clearances per 90 which is above the average for a player. Overall looking at the stats for Koopmeiners, I don't think he would be a good fit for Man United as he lacks the attacking qualities that United desire in a defensive midfielder.

Julian Weigl

The last name I will be talking about in detail in this article comes a bit left field, and that is Benfica midfielder Julian Weigl moved to Benfica from Dortmund in 2020. The German has reportedly wanted out of Portgual for a while. A transfer to England could appeal to him. Last season in Liga Nos, he accurately passed the ball 91% (With 56.1 passes per game) and created 0.4 key passes per game. He has tackled 1.5 times a game and won back possession 0.6 times a game. Worryingly he has been dribbled past 0.9 times a game in Liga Nos in the 2020/21 season. He has completed 0.7 (90%) successful dribbles per game and has won 55% of his duels. He has only won half of his air duels and just more than that with ground duels. As I said before, this is a left-field suggestion that I do not think will happen. Still, if Benfica doesn't make the Champions League, then Weigl could be forced to move on to get back into the German national team, and if the price was right, United could try and get a player they were linked to back in 2016.

These are the three players that I think could be affordable and realistic for united in the last few days of the transfer market. If United were to go for someone now, it would be someone on the market or someone we fans haven't heard of. If you think someone else should have been on this list, comment below in the comment section with who you would have liked to see.