Man Utd and their calculated left-back gamble

As 23:00 BST ticked by on 1 September and the suspicion became reality, many Manchester United fans thought the same thing – what about a left-back?

Since the 2025-26 season ended, and United's summer transfer strategy started to be debated, it seemed obvious the club would move to address a perceived weakness in Michael Carrick's squad.

Luke Shaw is their only senior orthodox left-back. He started all 38 Premier League games last season, which given his previous injury record was phenomenal.

But as back-up Tyrell Malacia had unsurprisingly been allowed to leave when his contract expired at the end of June, and it is widely accepted 31-year-old Shaw will not be able to play repeatedly in a new campaign that could stretch beyond 60 games, a reinforcement was expected.

Various targets were identified, including Newcastle's Lewis Hall, Barcelona's Alejandro Balde and Racing Santander's Jorge Salinas. Finally, it came down to an attempt to get Rayan Ait-Nouri to cross the great Manchester divide by joining on loan, but City said no.

For that move to have progressed, United would have had to include an obligation to buy at a later date, but have instead chosen to bide their time for their first-choice targets.

Now the deadline has passed and, at least until the winter window opens in January, United and Carrick must stand or fall by what has to be viewed as a calculated gamble.

Firstly, it must be acknowledged Manchester United really like Lewis Hall.

Had they been able to do a deal with Newcastle for him, they would have done.

However, raided by Premier League rivals for their star men this summer, it became obvious in discussions around the highly-rated 22-year-old if Newcastle were to be persuaded to strike a deal, the transfer fee would be huge.

Faced with the reality of the situation, they opted to maintain their focus on the 'priority' midfield area and eventually committed £70m to bring in Carlos Baleba from Brighton.

Hall, it was concluded, is someone they are prepared to wait until next summer for.

United would have been prepared to take Balde on loan. Barcelona would only sell him. Salinas had a relatively low release clause, but Atletico Madrid were favourites to sign him. By the time they moved on to Argentina defender Nicolas Tagliafico, who they missed out on anyway, United had moved on themselves.

Their decision to belatedly act on an initial approach made by an agent around Ait-Nouri was an admission they are not totally certain of the path they have chosen.

Effectively that is Shaw as first-choice left-back, with Noussair Mazraoui as back-up, in a position he admittedly plays in for Morocco, supported by Diogo Dalot, who has switched flanks before, and Harry Amass.

The Amass case is a strange one. A natural left-back in United's academy, who did well in a loan spell at Sheffield Wednesday last season, then got injured straight after switching to Norwich in the winter window, Amass, 19, impressed many observers with his performances during pre-season, when he shadowed Shaw.

In the summer of 2024, then manager Erik ten Hag opted not to pick the teenager in his squad for the Community Shield, even though Amass had given a creditable account of himself up against Mo Salah in a pre-season game in the United States just a week earlier.

Ten Hag felt, physically, Amass was not at the level required. In theory, the two years that have elapsed since then should have made the defender bigger and stronger.

There have been multiple expressions of interest in Amass. Even heading into deadline day, his omission from United's Premier League 2 game against Leicester on Monday reinforced a widespread belief he would leave, probably on loan.

But that has not happened and it is not clear what his role will be within the senior squad.

The willingness to view Mazraoui as a left-back option was helped by the performances of Leny Yoro in pre-season.

Signed from Lille for £52m in 2024 as a central defender, Carrick used Yoro mainly as a right-back this summer.

Against Ipswich on Sunday, that was the slot Yoro was introduced into as a replacement for Dalot, at the same time as Mazraoui was coming on for Shaw.

At just 20, Yoro has plenty to learn about the right-back role. However, he has pace, is strong and is good on the ball. United supporters only have to look at how Josko Gvardiol has adapted to the full-back role at Manchester City after signing as a central defender to realise switching positions can have a positive outcome.

What they absolutely did not want to do, having taken a hardline stance all summer on the fees they were willing to pay, and a refusal to spend more than they thought a player was worth, was end up making a signing like Alex Telles, or Matteo Darmian, or Sergio Reguilon, who all arrived in recent years but were evidently short of the standard required.

But that is a view taken away from the emotion of matches and the rollercoaster of results. And the reality is they will be the deciding factor in whether it was a good decision or not.