Rio Ferdinand has defended Manchester United’s decision to go into the season without signing another specialist left-back.
The former Manchester United defender acknowledged that the position needed strengthening, particularly with the number of games ahead, but he doesn’t think the club should have spent heavily simply to add another player.
“My timeline been going mad about Utd not getting another left back in. Yes we needed someone to compete with Luke Shaw with amount of games we will play this season – but if the right profile & player wasn’t available, it would be mad to go spend 30/40m on plan F just for the sake of it.”
Ferdinand’s argument is based on United’s transfer history. He believes the club has already made the mistake of paying over the odds too many times without getting the desired result.
Rio Ferdinand backs United’s current options
He also confirmed that Lewis Hall and Lewis-Skelly were among the players United would have wanted, but neither Newcastle nor Arsenal were prepared to sell.
“Yes we would have been targeting Lewis Hall / Lewis Skelly – however, their teams refused to sell. We would have had to pay 80m plus….”
With those deals unavailable, Ferdinand believes United were right to avoid forcing another signing. Instead, he pointed to the players already at Michael Carrick’s disposal.
“Heaven, Amass, Dalot, Mazraoui, Dorgu can cover. Let’s see how it plans out.”
United will still have to manage the workload at left-back, but Ferdinand’s view is that spending a large fee on a player who was not the club’s preferred option would have created another problem rather than solving the existing one.
