Manchester United knew they needed to overhaul their defense in the summer transfer market after fielding one of the worst back fours in the Premier League last season.
In came Leny Yoro and Matthijs de Ligt to pair with Lisandro Martinez, the only holdover from the 2023/24 season talented enough to continue playing a key role in the 2024/25 season under INEOS.
Yoro’s preseason injury meant that de Ligt would get all the starts next to Martinez, and, so far, the Dutchman has started four of six matches for Manchester United. However, the 50 million euro signing from Bayern Munich has been a mixed bag to this point.
Many Manchester United fans cynically asked why Bayern were trying to sell off de Ligt in the first place if he were so good. New manager Vincent Kompany didn’t seem to rate de Ligt at all, neither did the club’s executives.
Even before that, Thomas Tuchel had given de Ligt the cold shoulder and avoided starting the former Juventus man, even benching him in favor of former Tottenham backup Eric Dier.
De Ligt was a top young leader for Ajax and had some good moments at Juventus, but even the Bianconeri didn’t beg too much to keep de Ligt, instead significantly upgrading over him with the cheaper Gleison Bremer signing.
Bremer, by the way, was actually the dream center back transfer target for Manchester United last summer; it’s just that Juventus weren’t going to sell him for a reasonable price.
Although de Ligt is completing nearly 90 percent of his passes and has looked like a star center back at times, there have been other matches in which de Ligt has drawn heavy criticism from Premier League icons like Paul Scholes and Jamie Carragher.
No matched earned the 25-year-old center back more criticism than his display in Man United’s 3-0 loss to Tottenham in the Premier League this past weekend, as Spurs took advantage of the Dutch defender’s poor positioning time after time.
De Ligt was blasted by former coaches at Juventus and Bayern for never taking the next step to true stardom because of his overly aggressive play. He leaves massive gaps behind him with no derivable benefit to his team.
He cost Manchester United multiple goals against Tottenham with just one tackle to show for his aggression. This season, de Ligt isn’t even averaging a tackle per game, which is a terrible statistic for a center back who tries to boast a more active playing style.
Calling de Ligt a flop through six appearances would be unfair, and, again, he hasn’t been bad, per se. But Manchester United signed him for 50 million from Bayern expecting consistency and true star quality next to Martinez. Instead, de Ligt hasn’t even been materially better than free agents Lloyd Kelly and Tosin Adarabioyo.
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. His work has been featured in ESPN, Bleacher Report, Yahoo! Sports, NBC Sports, and other major outlets. You can contact him at the site’s official Twitter handle @TrivelaEffect or via the site’s official email thetrivelaeffect@gmail.com.