Manchester Uniteds £52.1 million signing of 18-year-old defender Leny Yoro is the game-changer in minority owner Sir Jim Ratcliffes attempt to reset the clubs recruitment policy and make decisiveness, rather than desperation, the new guiding principle at Old Trafford.

For the first time in longer than anyone cares to remember -- potentially as far back as 2008 and the pre-Abu Dhabi ownership days at Manchester City -- United have beaten a major rival to the signing of a player regarded as one of the brightest young talents in the game.

Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain had both made efforts this summer to sign the France under-21 international from Lille, but neither were prepared to match Uniteds eventual offer for a player who had just 12 months remaining on his contract at the Ligue 1 team. Yoro had even expressed a preference to move to Madrid, potentially running down his contract and leaving for the Santiago Bernabéu at the end of his contract for little more than the compensation fee due to clubs when players under the age of 24 leave the team that developed them.


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But Uniteds persistence and readiness to pay a fee now for the player convinced Lille to do a deal, with Yoro persuaded that Old Trafford and the Premier League would be the perfect destination for the next stage of his career.

United have signed plenty of young talent in recent years, but none those players have been the target of a significant rival. Jadon Sancho (£73m, Borussia Dortmund), Antony (£80.9m, Ajax) and Rasmus Højlund (£72m, Atalanta) all arrived at Old Trafford for excessive fees despite United having no obvious competition for each player. In contrast, attempts to sign Erling Haaland and Jude Bellingham during the 2019-20 season from FC Salzburg and Birmingham City respectively came to nothing, as United were unable to persuade either player that they were a better option than Borussia Dortmund.

Yoro is different. Not only did United win the race, but theyve negotiated a realistic fee and wrapped up the deal before a ball has even been kicked in preseason, rather than allowing talks to drag into August and precede the panic deals that have defined the clubs recent transfer business.

So what has changed? Ratcliffe simply wants United to target top young talent and move more quickly to get deals done. The days of wasting fortunes on ageing players on big wages are over.

"I would rather sign the next [Kylian] Mbappé rather than spend a fortune buying success," Ratcliffe said in March. "Its not that clever buying Mbappé. Anyone could figure that one out. More challenging is to find the next Mbappé, next Jude Bellingham or next Roy Keane."

Culled from ESPN

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