{"id":27336,"date":"2025-07-27T07:22:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T07:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/27336\/"},"modified":"2025-07-27T07:22:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T07:22:12","slug":"manchester-united-are-not-responsible-for-their-best-transfer-business-of-the-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/27336\/","title":{"rendered":"Manchester United are not responsible for their best transfer business of the summer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Man United won 2-1 against West Ham in the Premier League Summer Series.\"Steven<\/p>\n

Steven is a senior writer and covers Manchester United for the Manchester Evening News. You can follow Steven on Twitter at @StevenRailston.<\/p>\n

Fernandes scored twice against West Ham.(Image: 2025 Emilee Chinn – Premier League)<\/p>\n

Manchester United won 2-1 against West Ham in the Premier League Summer Series.<\/p>\n

United started their pre-season tour of the United States by facing West Ham at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, and Bruno Fernandes opened the scoring in the opening five minutes.<\/p>\n

Fernandes converted a penalty and netted again in the second half. West Ham responded through Jarrod Bowen, but they lacked quality in the final third and were unable to produce an equaliser.<\/p>\n

United<\/a> will take on Bournemouth next before ending their tour against Everton. Here are five talking points from the West Ham victory.<\/p>\n

Fernandes is the main man<\/p>\n

United have splashed \u00a3127.5million on Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo, but it could be argued their best piece of business will be retaining Fernandes after interest from Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

Al-Hilal were in contact with Fernandes’ representative about a move to Saudi Arabia. The midfielder considered the proposal and his future at Old Trafford was in doubt, but he decided to stay at United.<\/p>\n

Keeping Fernandes was imperative and he was the main man again on Saturday, scoring twice against West Ham.<\/p>\n

The second goal was a world-class strike – Fernandes’ technique around the box is outstanding – and it was another example of the 30-year-old providing the goods to secure a victory.<\/p>\n

The system looks better<\/p>\n

Amorim failed to oversee improvement following his appointment from Sporting Lisbon and some pundits suggested he needed to abandon his philosophy to secure results last season.<\/p>\n

United were hopeless, but Amorim did the right thing by sticking by his formation. He should (theoretically) reap the rewards in the new campaign because the players have already spent six months learning its tactics.<\/p>\n

The game was 1-0 at half-time against West Ham, but the scoreline did not reflect how comfortable United had been.<\/p>\n

Leny Yoro, Matthijs de Ligt and Ayden Heaven are a superb combination for orchestrating build-up play, and they are now seeing patterns unfold ahead of them when they look to play a pass.<\/p>\n

United’s pressing of the opponent was also notably better. United looked fitter than West Ham and they forced them to surrender possession on a handful of occasions.<\/p>\n

United looked sharp against West Ham.<\/p>\n

The latest on Mainoo<\/p>\n

Amorim discussed Kobbie Mainoo in his pre-match press conference, touching on his position in his system and his expectations for the youngster. Mainoo suffered with injuries last season and wasn’t helped by the tweaking of his role, which made it difficult for him to find his groove in a new formation.<\/p>\n

The No.10 experiment had merit, but the evidence towards the end of the season suggested Mainoo should be relocated deeper in midfield and Amorim seems to have come to the same conclusion.<\/p>\n

Mainoo came on from the bench to play in the pivot against Leeds in Stockholm and he started in that role against West Ham, hinting Amorim might have finally decided on his position.<\/p>\n

Amad at right wing-back<\/p>\n

There has also been a discussion about which role Amad will predominantly feature in, given he can effectively operate as a right wing-back and in the right-sided No.10 role.<\/p>\n

Mbeumo, who was absent against West Ham due to fitness, is expected to play on the right side of the attack and Mason Mount can play there, so there is strong competition.<\/p>\n

Amorim wants competition for places and it’s certainly a good headache to have, although Amad’s importance in the dressing room soared last term and most fans would have him in their strongest XI.<\/p>\n

Amad started at wing-back again and it will be fascinating to see whether Amorim believes that can be his permanent role.<\/p>\n

Amorim played Amad at wing-back.<\/p>\n

Avram Glazer shows his face<\/p>\n

Avram Glazer last attended a match at Old Trafford against Fulham on the opening day of last season. The 64-year-old has deliberately made limited visits to Manchester and has been a more regular attendee at Wembley.<\/p>\n

He was unlikely to face a hostile reception in his homeland, though, and it was no surprise to see him attend the MetLife Stadium to watch United’s game against West Ham.<\/p>\n

United fans are planning another anti-Glazer protest before facing Arsenal on August 17, so it’s unlikely Avram Glazer will attend the opening Premier League game for a successive season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Man United won 2-1 against West Ham in the Premier League Summer Series. Steven is a senior writer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27337,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,5692,9686,561,82],"class_list":["post-27336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-manchester-united-fc","tag-ruben-amorim","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}