Welcome to the heights (or depths) of the summer silly season, as the major international tournaments are now over. It’s all preseason friendlies and transfer window talk for the next month, until the season begins. Let’s take a look at the latest narratives churning in the Manchester United transfer rumor mill.
For the most part, it’s been a dreadfully boring this transfer window, but United are the club who completed the biggest splash signing, in getting Jadon Sancho from Borussia Dortmund. For the latest United transfer rumors go here.
In this post we’ll cover the latest news and notes from United’s second preseason friendly, a 4-2 loss at the hands of Queens Park Rangers yesterday. Yes, despite fielding a decently strong first team, United shipped four goals to QPR, and looked pretty bad overall.
Then again it is preseason, so there isn’t much to read into these results, and the two sides were level at 1 heading into the break.
The only highlight for United in the second half was Anthony Elanga scoring a goal, so congratulations to the 19-year-old forward who came on a substitute.
Anthony Elanga vs. QPR:
88% pass accuracy
31 touches [5 in the box]
3 shots [3 on target]
2 big chances
2 fouls won
1 goalA really bright cameo. ?? pic.twitter.com/iesNy7PU3T
— Statman Dave (@StatmanDave) July 24, 2021
Elsewhere it appears back-up goalkeeper Lee Grant won’t be getting much playing time this season. Not that we thought the fourth choice goalkeeper actually was going to feature in any meaningful match, but wow, did he have a dreadful outing when he came on for Tom Heaton at halftime.
Grant conceded three times within six minutes, and obviously a lot of that is due to faulty defending in front of him, but still yikes!
One winner, on an individual level, was winger Jesse Lingard, who scored to give United an early lead. It appears he won’t be leaving the club this summer, as had been previously rumored, and given all the trials and tribulations he had at the club, before he had a purple patch in his West Ham United loan spell, it’s great to see him succeed.
Even if it was just preseason.
The Red Devils’ next preseason friendly is against recently promoted Brentford at home on Wednesday night.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank, partnered with News Now. Banks, 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,” has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune.
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