Pete Graves, Dharmesh Sheth and Raphael Honigstein looked back on the most recent transfer window following Monday’s transfer deadline during the latest edition of Sky Sports’ Transfer Talk podcast and they spent some time talking about Manchester United’s signing of Atalanta attacker Amad Diallo Traore during the show.
United agreed a deal to sign the 18-year-old Ivorian on deadline day after they are said to have ‘been tracking’ the player for over a year. Thus far in his young career, the attacker has made just three Serie A appearances for Atalanta, scoring once in that time. He is reportedly expected to join up with his new club in January.
During this recent edition of Sky Sports’ Transfer Talk podcast, Sheth shared his thoughts on this transfer, saying: “This one did come as a surprise towards the end of the night on deadline day, it was actually the biggest deal of them all as well, if you look at the price.
“United have reached an agreement with Italian club Atalanta for their winger Amad Diallo. He’ll arrive, as I said, in January. United will pay £37.2m – that includes all of the add-ons for Diallo.
“It remains subject to Diallo passing a medical, agreeing personal terms and then being granted a work permit – all three of those issues not thought to be a problem.
“This has been something that Manchester United scouts have been looking at for a little while. Last season, though, he showed great promise in the youth team at Atalanta, scoring seven goals and 11 assists in just 24 games. [It’s a] big outlay though, you’d have to say, for a player that hasn’t played too much senior football.
“They’ll be hoping he can make an impact when he arrives in a couple of months. I just wonder, given the profile and the age of the player, if United have got high hopes for him, you wonder if that means the Jadon Sancho deal is off for good.”
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TIF Thoughts…
So, judging by what Sheth had to say, it seems that he believes that the size of the fee that United are paying for the 18-year-old Atalanta man might suggest that they will end their pursuit of Borussia Dortmund winger Jadon Sancho, who was reportedly their ‘main target’ during the most recent transfer window.
Given that both Sancho and Diallo are considered to be natural right-wingers, and that United ended up signing Diallo over the Englishman, perhaps the Atalanta man was one of their alternatives to the 20-year-old England international and if so, then maybe Sheth is right in saying that this signing might mean that the Red Devils won’t go back in for Sancho, and it will be interesting to see if that is the case.