Manchester United have continued their central midfield overhaul by signing Youri Tielemans from Aston Villa.
The 29-year-old midfielder costs the Red Devils a reported £35m.
The Belgian international joins United a day after Michael Carrick’s side signed Andrey Santos from Chelsea for around £48m.
Tielemans isn’t likely to appeal to Fantasy managers: last season brought zero goals and four assists from 21 starts and four substitute appearances. An expected goal involvement (xGI) of 4.50 suggests this was about par.
Never before has he exceeded 10 attacking returns in a single campaign – and he no longer has penalty-taking duties to count on.
However, his ability to break the lines with his (Carrick-esque!) passing should benefit other United attacking assets.
As for Andrey, it remains to be seen if United add any more central midfielders this summer or if he’ll be more of a regular starter than he was at Chelsea. Carrick already has Kobbie Mainoo to call upon, although Casemiro has now departed and Manuel Ugarte is surplus to requirements.
Andrey scored one goal and provided zero assists in 2025/26 – but of course, that’s not really his game. Could he instead do the Casemiro donkey work?
While his DefCon returns per 90 minutes in 2025/26 weren’t great (8.84), it’s worth pointing out that he sometimes featured further forward in midfield for Chelsea. He’ll be at the base of the United midfield this year, where he delivered 12.85 DefCons per 90 at Strasbourg.
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