Man Utd welcome their new Brazilian midfielder to the club as Andrey Santos joins from Chelsea!

Look, I'm gonna spare you the details as by now, you should know them all. The key parts of this deal were the price () and contract ().

Another key detail is that he will reportedly wear the no 17 shirt.

Santos has also already trained with those who are preparing for pre-season. This is another positive of doing this deal quickly as he can link up with his new teammates.

Here are his quotes after joining the club:

“Everything about Manchester United is special; it is an incredible feeling to join a club that some of my biggest idols have represented.

“As a midfielder, I am really excited to have the opportunity to learn from Michael Carrick, he is the perfect coach to help me take the next step in my career and push to achieve my dreams.

“Everybody told me about how ambitious the club is and the amazing environment that has been created here. I know just how strong the squad is and I cannot wait to fight together to compete for the biggest trophies.”

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Really great words particularly the part about learning from Michael Carrick.

But let me give you my honest, unfiltered thoughts about this deal:

I'm finding it difficult to start this one. It's really hard to not come across as negative and that I dislike Santos.

That's not true.

I don't actually know whether I like him or not as I've hardly seen him play.

But let me just get this out the way:

He is a good player. You can't be a crap player and play for Chelsea although subject 49 👀.

Generally though, you have to have some quality about you to play for a club like the Blues.

What else is giving me encouragement is that Chelsea fans in the main, are quite upset that they've sold one of their midfielders and to United no less. They viewed Santos in high stead and while he was never really going to take the places of either Moises Caicedo or Enzo Fernandez, he was a more than capable backup, which is why Chelsea fans are annoyed as they had the perfect midfield situation.

The Brazilian is also young at just 22-years-old meaning that he has his entire career ahead of him and could potentially stay at United for a long time.

Again, another big positive.

I'm not going to go too much into stats but from what I've seen and heard, he's the next Andrea Pirlo.

Sorry for the sarcasm. I can't help myself 😭.

But his stats are good.

We are undoubtedly getting a good player and one that could become a great.

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However, my issue isn't with the player himself.

My issue is with this deal, and what it represents.

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He almost does have to turn into prime Pirlo because as per Ben Jacobs, Santos is to be the Casemiro replacement.

That is a HUGE amount of pressure on a young player who isn't even a first team regular.

To have to takeover from the best CDM of the past decade and a player who was loved by United fans is an unfair task. This is NOT what we should be doing to young players.

Ideally, you'd want him to be learning from Casemiro. I don't know why we do this thing of trying to replace a player after they're gone, especially someone as good and important as Casemiro. Surely you bring in their replacement whilst they're still there so that the new player can learn from them before eventually taking up the mantle?

That's what most clubs would do anyway.

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The fact that he's not a first team player for Chelsea as well is a problem.

Yes, it is difficult to displace Caicedo and Fernandez. They are one of the best midfield pairings in the league who actually compliment each other really well.

That's the type of midfield we need at United.

But Chelsea's bench option??? Really?!

If we went for Caicedo or Fernandez, that would make sense. But their third-choice midfielder who is also a youngster besides wasn't really the level I was expecting to come in and be the main man in midfield.

I don't think he was on the club's radar for this role either.

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Why are we also funding a rival?

This is another aspect of this transfer that just doesn't sit well with me. I don't think it sits well with any one of us.

£50m for a player that Chelsea paid £17m for and sits on their bench is overpaying, don't you think?

That word overpaying is italicised because it was something that prevented United from signing other players.

And by prevented, I mean we chose not to do it because it was seen as too expensive by the club.

But paying three times the initial value of a rival's bench option was okay??

It seems to me that as long as the overall price of a player isn't over £75m or so, then it's fine, even if in relation to their own fee it's overpriced, but because Santos was below that £75m (which is just a guess on my part btw. I don't know if this is true), then all is well.

I hope that makes sense.

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Was Santos also a player that the club were genuinely looking at when the window opened?

Reports would suggest not.

Everything we saw linked us to Elliot Anderson, then Mateus Fernandes, Sandro Tonali and once all three of them were gone, Aurelien Tchouameni was next on the list.

And btw, didn't you find the timing of this Santos Ornstein bomba and Tchouameni signing a new deal at Real Madrid a little coincidental?

It's almost like the club knew they weren't gong to get the Frenchman, that this new deal of his was going to be announced, and so caused United to react and put out some positivity as the uproar at the news that we wouldn't be getting Tchouameni would have been pretty loud.

Put it out there that we're signing Santos and that noise gets a little quieter.

Which is exactly what happened.

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But at no point was Santos a name heavily linked with us. Murmurs perhaps but nothing as prominent as what we saw with those other four midfielders.

It appeared very panicky from United especially when you consider how quickly this deal was done. It was only last week (5 July) that the first major links to Santos were revealed. Fast forward a week, and here he is.

At this point of writing, it's not official yet but he did his medical today and hoping that all went well, he should be announced soon.

So we can do quick deals is what this has shown.

But it's also shown that deals can be done quickly, when it suits us.

Spending weeks and months on the likes of Anderson and Fernandes only for them to go elsewhere really was a waste of time. How quckly Spurs of all clubs came in and swooped Fernandes and Tonali is incredible tbh.

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This whole Santos transfer reeks of desperation.

I mean no offense to the lad and it is unfair on him but it is an uninspiring signing.

You know, United needed a big player to replace Casemiro. We need a big player full stop. We are Man Utd after all and a club like this deserves those special talents.

Andrey Santos can be that talent, but is he what we need now?

And that's another problem with this deal.

Too expensive, young, isn't on the level of Casemiro or what we actually need.

For everyone saying that he is a top prospect, I agree with you. But is he going to take us to where we want to be which according to the CEO, is challenging for titles in the next season or two, or will we have to wait for this player to come good in a few years?

Speaking of the CEO, Omar Berrada said in his recent interview with MUFC that the club want to replicate last season's window. That was seen as one of our better windows in many years as all four of Matheus Cunha, Bryan Mbeumo, Benjamin Sesko and Senne Lammens proved to be hits rather than misses.

At this moment, we haven't actually signed anyone.

But when looking at the news, we know that Santos and backup goalkeeper Karl Darlow will be United players and potentially Ederson as well, although who knows how that one will end up.

Take a look at his complete timeline with United here.

Is that 'replicating' last season's window?

I know there's still time. I know that whoever we sign could prove to be superb but right here, right now, how confident are you that this will be the case?

This was done before the news about Youri Tielemans.

Now that we have the Belgian, I do feel a lot better about the midfield situation because it feels as if we sort of ticked the boxes of the types of midfielders we needed.

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As Santos is potentially that Casemiro replacement, it means that he will most likely partner up with Kobbie Mainoo.

I don't like this pairing.

Not because they're shite. Not because I don't think they can't work together.

But because they are inexperienced.

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Between them they started just 29 games in the Premier League last season. I know there is context as for half the campaign, we had Ruben Amorim as manager who appeared disgusted with Mainoo. Okay, maybe not disgusted but YKWIM. Santos also had Caicedo and Fernandez ahead of him. He was never going to displace them.

Yet even still, this lack of experience in a season where they are probably going to be our two starters doesn't fill me with much confidence. Remember, we also have the Champions League to contend with and while Santos does have experience in that, Mainoo does not, at least not with the new format. His experience was also three seasons ago in 23/24.

When it comes to either of them, because of their potential, ideally, you would want someone with a lot more experience next to them and someone who can get the best out of them.

We saw that when Mainoo was paired with Casemiro, he had almost the perfect partner. A pity unc was an unc when playing with the United youngster.

But put someone of that quality in their prime next to him and all of a sudden, you're looking at one of the best up-and-coming no 8s in the league.

Put another prospect next to him, the chances of getting the best out of Mainoo, or indeed, Mainoo getting the best out of Santos, becomes less likely.

One positive for them though, is that they do have a former great midfielder in Carrick as their manager. If anyone can unlock them, it will be him.

And just on Santos being a potential great for us in a few years, what's to say he doesn't fancy a move to Barcelona or Real Madrid?

You think if he isn't performing well those clubs won't come in for him?

And if they do, do you not think that Santos will want to join because you know how these South Americans are when it comes to playing for Spain's big two.

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You look at the ambition of the club and Andrey Santos, Ederson, these types of players don't really scream title charge next season.

We always come into the window quite optimistic even if we know deep down that the club could fail us.

But this is perhaps one of the most underwhelming windows so far and mainly because of the amount of chances we had to sign that player we desperately needed.

You know how last season there was a plethora of good strikers to sign? That's what we had this window with top midfielders.

They're all impossible now.

I feel that there is no way the club can truly salvage the window now. All of those marquee midfielders are gone with those available are probably around the tier two level. Ederson, Santos, Manu Kone who we've been linked to recently as well, aren't really Casemiro quality, are they?

We also need to sign players in other positions as left-back, backup striker, left-winger, are all areas that need improving. They might not be top priority but we certainly could do with a couple players in those areas.

So if we take this long on the midfield but don't end up signing no 1 targets anyway, what are we going to do with the rest of the signings?

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Again, I will back him. Santos is one of us now and I hope he turns into the next big thing.

But this isn't who we truly wanted. He wasn't a name being mentioned at the start of the window but all of a sudden he's to be our Casemiro replacement.

I believe the club as well are hoping that he turns into something special.

But 'hope', 'could be' 'potential' aren't really the words you want to associate with a player in such a key position and for such an important season.

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This isn't on you, Andrey. I do think you have loads of talent and I'm happy that you are a Red Devil. It's the club who I'm angry with. At least if you were linked with us from the start of the window then this deal wouldn't be so upsetting as we would've known you were a target for a while and we actually signed a player who was part of the plans.

But anyway, welcome to Manchester United.

I know that this may not feel like much of a welcome and I apologise for that, yet I am excited to see what you can do now that you're one of us.

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Andrey Santos officially joins Man Utd | Image via Manchester United official X (@ManUtd)