‘We have very good scouts’ – Andre Onana explains why Man Utd will find value in £52m transfer for teenage defender Leny Yoro

Eyebrows have been raised after the Red Devils invested heavily in a teenage defender who has just 60 senior appearances to his name at club level. Yoro caught the eye in his native France with Lille, but United have taken a calculated gamble on his potential.

Yoro made his bow for the Premier League giants in a 2-0 friendly victory over Rangers, with Cameroonian goalkeeper Onana telling Sky Sports of the youngster operating just in front of him: “When you have the opportunity to be a Manchester United player that's when you have a lot of quality. He already showed this in the first half. Great guy, very young player. Good on the ball. We will enjoy him this season. We are here to help him, no matter what is going on. Us as leaders, he's a young player, we're going to give him time. He's going to be alright because we have very good scouts here, so if they made him come that means he has a lot of quality.”

United are now heading to the United States for meetings with Arsenal, Real Betis and Liverpool, with Onana looking forward to the 2024-25 campaign as fresh faces join the ranks at Old Trafford and Erik ten Hag remains at the helm. He added: “It’s very exciting, not only for the coming games in pre-season but for the rest of this season. It’s going to be difficult but we are well prepared, we are preparing well this season and it’s going to be really nice. We are going to fight for everything this year, last season we already know what happened and of course we ended very good but it was a difficult season for all of us. So this year, nice things are coming.”

The Red Devils ended last season with an FA Cup final win over arch-rivals Manchester City, with Ten Hag claiming his first piece of silverware as boss. More money is being invested now that INEOS chief Sir Jim Ratcliffe is a part-owner, with there the promise of more transfer business to come before the deadline.