Manchester United Target £80m Mateus Fernandes Amid Liverpool's Catastrophic Deal

Manchester United and Liverpool spent last summer throwing heavyweight money at the market. A season on, the verdict is in – and it makes for very different reading on either side of the divide.

The Athletic has ranked all 189 Premier League signings from the 2025/26 campaign. United’s business lands comfortably in the upper tier. Liverpool’s contains the deal branded the very worst of the lot.

United’s window quietly stands up to scrutiny

For all the noise around Old Trafford, United’s four headline additions have been judged a collective success. All of them landed in the top 40 of the list.

• Matheus Cunha came in at 40th
• Bryan Mbeumo at 38th
• Benjamin Sesko at 29th
• Senne Lammens an eye-catching 9th

Between them they gave United energy, goals and a spine that had been missing.

Cunha’s work rate and movement knitted attacks together. Mbeumo offered width, running and end product. Sesko, still raw, brought a different profile up front. Lammens, slotted straight into the pressure cooker, handled it with a composure that belied his debut-season status.

None of those deals, though, carries the intrigue of the midfielder now in United’s sights.

Mateus Fernandes: relegated, but ranked elite

Eighth on the list sits Mateus Fernandes, the £40m Portugal international who left Southampton for West Ham and promptly became the heartbeat of a sinking ship.

West Ham went down. Fernandes’ stock went up.

With Lucas Paqueta departing in January, the 23-year-old took on the role of chief playmaker in a side sliding towards the trapdoor and refused to shrink. He tackled, he duelled, he recovered, he hit long-range strikes, he split lines with passes. When everything else around him frayed, his performances held.

That blend of bite and artistry has not gone unnoticed in Manchester. United are now giving serious consideration to a move, with Fernandes openly idolising their captain, Bruno Fernandes. The idea of pairing the two countrymen – one the established leader, the other the rising force – is an enticing one for a club still rebuilding its midfield identity.

West Ham, staring at life in the Championship, know what they have. TEAMtalk reports they now value Fernandes at around £80m. Relegation weakens their hand, but not enough to turn this into a bargain-bin raid. If United want him, they will have to pay a fee in keeping with a player ranked among the very best signings in the division.

Personal terms? That part is expected to be straightforward. The real question sits in the Old Trafford boardroom: is this the midfielder they choose to build around, and where does their valuation stop?

Liverpool’s record outlay, mixed returns

Across the divide, Liverpool’s transfer window looks far more uneven.

They smashed their transfer record twice – £116m for Florian Wirtz and £125m for Alexander Isak – in a bold attempt to refresh an attacking core. The rankings paint a picture of promise blunted by circumstance.

Wirtz scraped into the top 100 at 97th, flashes of class but not yet the transformative presence that fee demands. Isak, ravaged by injuries, slumped all the way down to 172nd out of 189. The talent is unquestioned; the availability has been anything but.

Around them, the supporting cast fared slightly better. Milos Kerkez emerged as the pick of the bunch at 49th, with Hugo Ekitike close behind at 50th. Giorgi Mamardashvili, signed to strengthen the goalkeeping department, landed at 73rd. Freddie Woodman followed in 89th.

Jeremie Frimpong, expected to be a turbo-charged weapon from full-back, found himself mired down in 119th. Giovanni Leoni, cruelly, barely had a chance to show anything at all, his ACL tear on debut consigning him to 143rd and a season written off.

All of which would have made for a mixed, if not disastrous, assessment of Liverpool’s recruitment. Then came the loan that propped up the entire table.

Elliott’s Villa move slammed as ‘catastrophic’

Dead last. 189th out of 189. That is where Harvey Elliott’s loan from Liverpool to Aston Villa landed.

The move was described in brutal terms: “A catastrophic deal for both clubs and the player.” Villa surged through a superb season under Unai Emery, but Elliott never got close to its core.

The analogy was cutting. If Emery was Villa’s brain and John McGinn their heart, Elliott was likened to an appendix – present, but ultimately deemed unnecessary.

He managed just three starts. Emery simply did not trust him enough to carve out a regular role. Attempts in January to cut the loan short went nowhere. So did February talks aimed at removing an obligation-to-buy clause, which was due to trigger after 10 appearances. Elliott made his ninth in March and then stalled, stuck in limbo while Villa dealt with an injury crisis without truly turning to him.

For a 23-year-old attacking midfielder of clear talent, it was a shambolic outcome. Liverpool did not develop their asset. Villa did not meaningfully use him. The player lost a vital year of momentum.

Xhaka tops the list as Sunderland shock the league

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Granit Xhaka claimed top spot.

The former Arsenal midfielder, written off by some when he left the Emirates, drove Sunderland to a stunning Europa League qualification in their first season back in the Premier League. Experience, leadership, control – he gave them all three, and the ranking reflects just how transformative his presence proved.

That is the kind of impact United now hope to buy in Fernandes. The kind Liverpool thought they were securing with their record outlays.

One club’s targets are being validated by the data. The other has just seen one of its boldest gambles branded the worst move of the season. The next window will show who has really learned from the verdict – and who is about to repeat their mistakes.