A former Manchester United scout has delivered a scathing verdict on Ruben Amorim‘s first signing at Old Trafford. The Portuguese manager has presided over two transfer windows during his year in charge, bringing in five senior players for close to £250million all-told.
This summer saw the arrivals of Benjamin Sesko, Matheus Cunha, Bryan Mbeumo and Senne Lammens, with each recruit showing promise to varying degrees. Patrick Dorgu became Amorim’s maiden acquisition when he completed a £29.2million switch from Lecce during the January transfer window.
The Denmark international seemed ideally suited to Amorim’s wing-back formation, yet he has found consistent starting opportunities hard to come by this campaign, especially when Amad features on the other side. Piotr Sadowski, who served as United’s Central European scout for seven-and-a-half years, has since expressed serious doubts about Dorgu, with particular criticism aimed at the transfer fee.
“Honestly, having recently worked at Blackburn Rovers and operating on a much lower transfer budget, I would have had no problem finding a few players of Dorgu’s level for United but, for £25m, you could get four,” he stated in an interview with Polish publication Przeglad Sportowy.
“Now, United are wary of bringing in youngsters. Amorim was supposed to be the one to do this, but the results haven’t been right, so he prefers to buy ready-made players.”
Sadowski has been equally forthright in his assessment of Alvaro Carreras, who is now flourishing at Real Madrid following his departure from United for just over £5million to Benfica. Within 12 months, the Portuguese club sold him on for approximately eight times that figure.
“He [Carreras] came to Manchester United when he was probably 16 (in 2020),” Sadowski added. “A very hard-working and ambitious boy, he learned the language quickly – I know because I met him personally. “Initially, his career path was quite good. He was loaned to Preston, and received good reviews, and (then) United gave up on him, selling him to Benfica for a small fee.
“Carreras is a truly top-class player. There’s a good chance he’ll become the best, or one of the best, left-backs in the world. He scored a beautiful goal recently against Valencia in La Liga. It was a huge mistake for United to let him go. Something is missing here and I think that something is United’s lack of courage in investing in young players.”