Man Utd could do with Pedro Goncalves, but they must avoid another drawn-out transfer saga
By Mitch Wilks
Where there's a top footballing talent, there's a transfer rumour. And where there's a transfer rumour, there's Manchester United working to complete a move in some capacity.
The latest in the rumour mill concerns United's search for a right winger. Sporting attacker Pedro Goncalves has been identified by the club as a result of a blistering maiden season with the Portuguese side that's seen him net 15 goals in 26 appearances so far.
Those sort of numbers, combined with the fact that he's taken on the moniker of Sporting's shining light as they charge towards their first league title in nearly two decades, mean the 22-year-old right winger has been likened to Bruno Fernandes, emerging as his natural replacement at the club.
It only makes sense, then, for United to move for him considering the club merely ceases to exist without Fernandes, right? Obviously.
Joking aside, it goes without saying that United fans would snap your hand off for a team of 11 Fernandes'. Combine that with the desperate need for a right-sided attacker, and it feels like a match made in heaven. There's more to life than right wingers, though, and United must remember this heading into the summer transfer window.
Their pursuit of Jadon Sancho in summer 2020 was the worst kept secret since wrestling being fake and, truthfully, the most laborious transfer 'saga' in football. United played possum with Borussia Dortmund all summer long in hope that the asking price would drop for the England international and, besides signing Donny van de Beek, forgot to actually conduct any other very important transfer business.
That same summer, United still needed to replace Romelu Lukaku and ideally shore up defensive areas, but there's no fun in that when you can tease fans for weeks on end with a deal that looked less and less likely the longer it dragged on. United were a free transfer away from panicking and signing Odion Ighalo to a three year deal.
Despite holding firm and not coughing up a big money fee for Sancho, the saga has still proven costly to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's side this season. The lack of a right-sided attacker has been glaringly obvious with United's best plays exclusively coming from the left. Consider also that Edinson Cavani has only been able to show quality in glimpses and Anthony Martial continues to...well we're not actually sure what he's doing, because he isn't scoring goals.
United still can't quite nail down a consistent defence, either. Solskjaer continues to switch between Victor Lindelof and Eric Bailly in searching for a partner to Harry Maguire, with neither of the duo particularly doing enough to stake their claim in the long term. All these problems and United are still sitting second, 14 points better off than they were last season after 29 games. Now imagine how much better they would've looked if they actually had their heads screwed on last summer.
Would caving in and signing Sancho for Dortmund's asking price have been the right thing to do? No, and it was refreshing to see the Red Devils opt against being bullied into coughing up. But they did need signings. Proper signings, too, not deadline day appeasements to pop the crowd, without disrespecting Cavani or the exciting Amad Diallo.
Shortlisting Pedro Goncalves feels about right. United still desperately need someone to play off the right flank and the 22-year-old fits the profile of what Solskjaer is building; young, highly rated and likened to Fernandes. They can't get drawn into another saga, however. Goncalves has a £51.7m release clause, and if the Red Devils like what they see, they simply need to pay it and move on.
There is plenty of work for United's re-jigged hierarchy to be getting on with in summer. Expensive or not, the team needs to finally replace Lukaku with someone who has more miles left in them, while also shoring up the other end of the pitch with a defender and a defensive midfielder that can actually pass the ball forwards.
Goncalves or not, United need a right winger as well. Whoever it is, the club needs to act with more efficiency and to avoid a mess like last summer and instead make good on the progress that has been made so far.