Manchester United appear to be on the rise after Ruben Amorim’s appointment to replace Erik ten Hag, and some of the new faces from the last summer transfer window are beginning to show that they can make a serious impact.
Although fans can’t get too ahead of themselves after three games against relatively benign opposition, the initial steps are nonetheless encouraging. As Man United look to build a top-four contender under Amorim, here are three players they can’t afford to leave behind during the summer 2025 rebuild.
LM Diogo Dalot
Fullbacks are at a premium, and Diogo Dalot has taken the ball and run with it Old Trafford after Cristiano Ronaldo saw the greatness lying beneath a player once discarded by AC Milan as a bust.
Fast forward to the 2024/25 season, and Dalot is an indispensable starter for Manchester United who has made himself even more valuable by excelling on the left-hand side as an inverted wide man.
Dalot’s performances will be valued equally by fullback-needy teams, and Goal.com recently reported that the mighty Real Madrid are showing interest in the Portuguese international in case they cannot secure impending free agent Trent Alexander-Arnold of Liverpool.
Manchester United are going to get calls for Dalot from more top clubs than just Madrid next summer, but they must hold firm. There is only one player who can do what Dalot does better in world football, and that is PSG’s Achraf Hakimi.
Dalot is worth at least 50 million euros, if not close to 80, as a dual-threat, dual-sided fullback and wing back who is just starting to hit his prime at the age of 25. If anything, with around four combined tackles and interceptions in the Premier League this season, his defensive contributions have become underrated.
It looks like Dalot is among a handful of players benefiting considerably from the formational switch, too, as his technical quality, work rate, and attacking threat out wide – even when inverting – is suited better in a wing back role.
That should only increase Dalot’s value to Manchester United – and other clubs around Europe. Dalot is a role player who can help Man United win bigger championships than the FA Cup one day, and that’s absolutely worth holding onto over the next five seasons.
RM Amad Diallo
Amad Diallo is the only significant expiring contract on Manchester United in the 2025 or 2026 summer transfer windows, so that makes him THE clear priority for the Red Devils to sign to a lucrative extension.
Perhaps no single player has broken out more strongly or even benefited more significantly from Amorim’s appointment and switch to a back three than United’s somewhat surprising new right wing back.
Diallo has excelled in this role, producing Man of the Match-caliber performances against both Ipswich Town and Everton. He already has five assists this season despite not starting every game and is averaging 1.8 tackles and 1.7 key passes per game to show his all-around excellence.
If anything, the Ivorian international’s numbers would be even better if he didn’t split time between the starting lineup and bench, and when you adjust his statistics per 90 minutes, he is averaging a jaw-dropping 2.6 key passes and nearly 3.0 combined dribbles completed and fouls drawn per contest.
Defensively, Diallo is putting up 2.7 tackles per 90 minutes, and that sort of ball-winning is a tribute to his intensity, speed, and work rate. Diallo, like Dalot, is one of the hardest-working players in the Premier League, and you can’t even put a price on what that means to a team, especially one like Manchester United that is trying to climb out of the “fallen giant” hole.
So the sooner Manchester United can get Diallo signed to a long-term extension, the better. The Red Devils need to keep a gem like him in their side, particularly because players who work as hard as he does all-around are very resilient to ebbs and flows in form or “busting” outright.
That makes Diallo just as “safe” of a young player to Manchester United as he is exciting, and it is wise for Amorim to begin to make extending the right-sided player his priority following that massive performance against Everton.
DM Kobbie Mainoo
While we have yet to truly see the best of Kobbie Mainoo in the 2024/25 season after his breakout campaign last year, the 19-year-old midfield sensation became the second-fastest rising star in England after Real Madrid’s LaLiga Player of the Season Jude Bellingham for a reason.
Like Jude, Mainoo has a knack for coming up in the clutch, and you can’t discuss Manchester United being in the Europa League this season without bringing up Mainoo’s contributions, specifically his goal in the FA Cup Final win over Manchester City.
Mainoo is an all-around monster in midfield who defends and attacks at a high level, winning possession and progressing play as well as any box-to-box midfielder in the English top flight.
He is averaging 2.0 tackles and 1.9 interceptions per game while being dribbled past just 0.6 times per match from midfield, and on a team with Casemiro and Manuel Ugarte in his position, he is still clearly the best player in this role.
Offensively, he’s been even stronger from a progressive standpoint in Year 2 with 1.8 dribbles completed and 1.5 fouls drawn per game across eight starts, and you can praise Mainoo just as effusively as Dalot and Diallo for being a well-rounded machine who works his socks off.
Mainoo is going to get transfer interest from the top clubs in Europe by virtue of his upside, maturity at his age, all-around excellence, character, clutch goal-scoring, and positional value.
Defensive midfielders like Mainoo are becoming more in-demand just as they remain scarce. Manchester United have a special one on their hands, and perhaps moreso than any other player in their team, the Red Devils need to make sure they do not lose him to anyone for the foreseeable future.
That’s why Man United inked Mainoo to a new, long-term contract with a hefty pay raise a couple of months ago in order to ward of any potential bubbling interest in the England international.
The managing editor of The Trivela Effect, Kevin has 15 years of experience in digital media. He covered Real Madrid from 2019-2022 for The Real Champs as a site manager. You can contact him at the site’s official Twitter handle @TrivelaEffect or via the site’s official email thetrivelaeffect@gmail.com.