Leny Yoro's Crucial Season at Manchester United

Leny Yoro has been at Manchester United for two seasons now, long enough for the anticipation to turn into a question: when does the potential become reality?

So far, it hasn’t. Not fully. Not in the way a £52million signing, wrestled away from Real Madrid at 18, is supposed to reshape a defence. But this summer, the pieces are moving in his favour.

Out of position, but in the picture

United’s pre-season opened with a defeat to Wrexham, and Yoro found himself in an unfamiliar role at right-back. It was a functional outing rather than a showcase, a job done rather than a statement made. He will want the centre of defence, not the flank, and he will want it quickly.

He might have to wait a little longer.

With no major names back at Carrington this week, Michael Carrick is expected to take a similar squad to Trondheim to face Rosenborg to the one that played the Championship side in Helsinki. That likely means another stint for Yoro on the right, another game where his main task is fitness, not flair.

Yet he already holds a small advantage. He reported back on day one of pre-season. Others didn’t. In a squad where opportunities are often decided by availability as much as ability, that matters.

The opening day trip to Hull City is not far away. The race to be ready for it has started.

A vacancy at the heart of defence

Against Wrexham, Harry Maguire and Ayden Heaven lined up together in central defence and could do so again in Trondheim. Matthijs de Ligt remains at Carrington, still working his way back from back surgery, and he will not be fit for the start of the new campaign.

Lisandro Martinez rounds out what, on paper, looks like a strong group of centre-backs for Carrick. But the reality is more complicated.

Martinez has just come through the emotional high and brutal low of a World Cup. Named in the team of the tournament, he ended his campaign with his shirt over his face, forced off with injury. He has since gone on holiday, a sign that the issue is not thought to be serious, but as of Wednesday, he still did not know the full extent of the problem.

Even if the diagnosis is kind and he returns to training in early August, sharpness is another matter. Being fit enough to train is not the same as being ready to start a Premier League game on August 22. Hull away may come too soon.

If Martinez is short, a gap opens up. Someone will stand next to Maguire at the MKM Stadium. That spot is there to be claimed.

The talent that hasn’t quite taken off

On the left side, Heaven, just 19, offers a Martinez-style profile with his left foot and composure. Yet inside the club, there is still a sense that Yoro is further along in his development than the former Arsenal defender.

When United pushed the boat out to sign Yoro from Lille in the summer of 2024, they were buying the future. One of the most coveted young defenders in Europe. A teenager with the calm, range and reading of the game that had top clubs circling.

“Leny is one of the most exciting young defenders in world football; he possesses every attribute needed to develop into a top-class centre-back,” Dan Ashworth, United’s sporting director at the time, said when the deal was done.

Those words still ring true. The attributes have not gone anywhere. But the trajectory has stalled.

Across two Premier League seasons, Yoro has started only 30 games. There have been glimpses of the player United thought they were getting, flashes of anticipation, one-v-one authority, the ease on the ball that marked him out at Lille. Yet they have been just that: flashes.

More often, he has watched. He has been named on the bench 28 times in the league since arriving. For a defender billed as a generational talent, that is a frustrating statistic.

A season that could change everything

Yoro turns 21 in November. For a centre-back, that is still young. But careers can pivot at this age. Especially when the international picture is shifting as well.

France are preparing for a change in the dugout, with Zinedine Zidane set to replace Didier Deschamps. A new coach, a fresh hierarchy, new eyes on the depth chart. Yoro knows what that means. A strong season at United and he is not just part of the conversation; he is in the squad.

First, though, he has to nail down his place at club level.

If he starts at Hull, it becomes more than a selection. It becomes a statement. Carrick’s success last season was built on consistency. He trusted a core group and rarely moved away from it. For players like Yoro, on the fringes of that strongest XI, the door stayed largely closed.

At centre-back, the trusted pair was Maguire and Martinez. When everyone is fit, they remain the favourites. De Ligt will also arrive back with his own agenda, his own point to prove after injury.

Yoro has to cut through that traffic.

Inside the dressing room, there is a sense of what he could be. Maguire has spoken about Yoro and Heaven as a partnership of the future, United’s answer to Gabriel and William Saliba at Arsenal, who have grown into the Premier League’s most formidable defensive pairing.

That is the vision. Two young defenders, one right-footed, one left-footed, growing together, anchoring a new era.

But visions need minutes.

This feels like a decisive season for Yoro. He is starting the summer shunted out to right-back, doing a job for the team, keeping himself in the frame. He will want to end it somewhere very different: in the centre of defence, on the first team sheet of the new campaign, no longer the promise of tomorrow, but the pillar of today.