The last 10 players Man Utd signed from European powerhouses – & how they fared
Matthijs De Ligt and Noussair Mazraoui are the latest signings Manchester United have made directly from a massive European club.
But how have their last big-name signings from European royalty fared at Old Trafford? The Red Devils have a mixed record of recruiting proven quality from giant clubs on the continent. There have been some notable successes, but in all honestly there have been more flops.
We’ve looked at the last 10 players that United have signed from massive European clubs and assessed how they’ve fared.
Note: Inevitably, we’d expect some pushback and debate on what constitutes a “European powerhouse”.
For the purposes of this article, we’re talking any European club (not including fellow Premier League sides) that have been in a Champions League final since 2010 – with apologies to clubs like Porto, Benfica, Ajax and Villarreal.
Andre Onana
It shocked precisely nobody when Erik ten Hag opted for a player he’d worked with before to succeed David de Gea between the sticks last summer.
The Cameroon goalkeeper had been outstanding in Ajax’s unforgettable run to the Champions League semi-finals in 2019 and was just as strong when Inter made it to the final four years later.
Onana started out shakily, with a series of gaffes that proved costly as United finished bottom of a Champions League group that featured FC Copenhagen and Galatasaray.
But he improved as the campaign went on and now looks an assured presence in net, proving an upgrade on De Gea in terms of his distribution and ability on the ball while the jury on his shot-stopping remains out.
“We’re used to playing for big clubs and we’re used to playing in big games,” Onana told Manchester United’s official website ahead of the 2024-25 campaign.
“We are here because this challenge is huge, this is why they brought me and other important players here. Also young players, to be honest we were like them years ago. We give them experience, we take the responsibility when the team needs it and also we give them freedom.
“As the end of the day, football is about freedom and they have to be free. We are there to take all the bullets.”
All the right noises. Now let’s see if he delivers.
Marcel Sabitzer
The one loanee on this list, Sabitzer wasn’t a world-beater but he proved himself a useful enough addition to Ten Hag’s squad in the latter half of the 2022-23 campaign after falling out of favour under Thomas Tuchel at parent club Bayern Munich.
He appeared off the bench to help see out the Red Devils’ 2023 League Cup final victory over Newcastle United, but he didn’t quite show enough to make his stay at Old Trafford permanent.
Sabitzer has since demonstrated his quality in the right set-up by featuring prominently in Borussia Dortmund’s run to the Champions League final last term, having been sold by rivals Bayern.
Casemiro
There were plenty of sceptics in the media when United paid a hefty £70million fee to sign a 30-year-old Casemiro, with massive wages on a four-year deal, following a disastrous start to Ten Hag’s reign in the summer of 2022.
But the four-time Champions League winner soon demonstrated his class to silence the critics, enjoying an excellent debut campaign where he proved pivotal in United ending a six-year trophy drought and getting back into the top four.
Even we declared the Brazilian a “transformative signing”.
Critics like Jamie Carragher had cause to fire back last season, though, with Casemiro looking particularly off the pace as United endured a dismal eighth-place campaign – their lowest placing of the Premier League era.
It doesn’t appear that United will be offloading Casemiro any time soon. It will be interesting to see whether he can regain form or whether his legs have gone for good.
The early signs in 2024-25 are positive – he cuts a svelter figure, having enjoyed a rare summer off after being omitted from Brazil’s Copa America squad.
Cristiano Ronaldo
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s Manchester United looked on the up back in 2021. They finished second in 2020-21, made some exciting signings, and kicked off the following campaign with a statement-making 5-1 thrashing of Leeds.
Then they signed Cristiano Ronaldo.
We’re being a tad churlish there. Ronaldo’s many acolytes on social media will not-unjustifiably point out that the five-time Ballon d’Or winner ended up United’s top scorer in 2021-22 with a respectable tally of 24 goals in all competitions.
Ronaldo wasn’t the only problem, but his immobile presence up top and lack of pressing ability in his twilight years surely contributed to Solskjaer’s departure and United eventually registering a lower points tally than the cursed David Moyes season.
His tantrums under Ten Hag and ripped-up contract before going to Saudi Arabia were an unbecoming spectacle for all concerned, and in hindsight best avoided.
“It was a decision that was very difficult to turn down and I felt we had to take it, but it turned out wrong,” Solskjaer later admitted in an interview with The Athletic.
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Raphael Varane
It feels like a long time ago that Varane was presented to the Manchester United fans at the start of the 2021-22 campaign. For one, Solskjaer was still in the dugout. Not to mention it took place ahead of a match against since-relegated Leeds United.
The Frenchman arrived in Manchester with four Champions Leagues and a World Cup under his belt, with a well-earned reputation as one of the finest centre-backs of his generation.
In hindsight, you’d have to say Real Madrid probably knew what they were doing in allowing him to move on at the age of 28.
Los Blancos have since won two La Liga titles and two Champions Leagues in the three years since Varane departed, while he tended to struggle with injuries in Manchester.
It wasn’t all bad – he did win two cups in his three seasons at the club, which is about as good as it gets in the post-Ferguson era. And he was in exceptional in both the League Cup and FA Cup final victories over Newcastle and Manchester City.
But the fact that he was allowed to leave for free, and has since signed for a newly-promoted club – albeit an ambitious one in Como – tells you a thing or two about the trajectory of his career.
You imagine his recent injury record warded off any of the major European clubs this summer.
Jadon Sancho
Ah, Sancho.
The Manchester City academy graduate’s goals and assist output at Borussia Dortmund saw him rightly regarded as one of the most talented youngsters in European football.
A protracted transfer saga finally came to an end in the summer of 2021, for a hefty fee of £73million… but a return of just 12 goals and six assists in 83 appearances for United leave a lot to be desired.
Sancho and Ten Hag appear to have buried the hatchet for now, but at this point it’s difficult to imagine the 24-year-old kicking on and making himself a success at Old Trafford. Never say never, though.
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Edinson Cavani
Following in Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s footsteps by leaving PSG as their all-time top goalscorer (since eclipsed by Kylian Mbappe) before signing for Manchester United on a free contract as a proven, prolific veteran.
The Uruguayan striker enjoyed a fine debut 2020-21 campaign, notching 17 goals as a heavily-rotated squad option. But he cut an awkward figure once Ronaldo arrived to take his place and probably stuck around one season too many.
Paul Pogba
Where do you even start?
We could begin and end with the fact that Pogba remains Manchester United’s record signing for a fee of £89million and yet has left the club twice on a free to sign for Juventus.
It would probably be a disservice to say that the mercurial French midfielder had his moments. On his day, Pogba was a wonderful footballer who lived up to the hype as one of the most talented of his generation.
And yet you don’t have to be Graeme Souness or Jose Mourinho to conclude we never saw that day often enough in a United shirt.
He showed too much to ever be dismissed as an out-and-out flop, yet ultimately his second departure was met with a sigh of relief and a sense of regret that we never quite saw the player he could (should?) have been.
There’s a fascinating alternate reality out there where Pogba went to Real Madrid or Bayern Munich as opposed to United back in 2016. Who knows what his reputation might be today had he landed in a less dysfunctional environment?
Zlatan Ibrahimovic
“You could see why he’s won so much. He was a born winner. Whether it was on the pitch in games or training, every single game we played he would always want to win,” Luke Shaw reminisced on Zlatan’s late-career stint at Manchester United.
“His mentality was beyond anything I’d ever played with before,” added Marcus Rashford, in an article published on United’s official website following Ibrahimovic’s retirement.
“He didn’t care what anyone would say or what anyone was saying about him. In terms of mentality, he was key to my development.”
We can’t say any fairer than that. It’s a shame that Ibrahimovic’s time in England was derailed by a serious injury, because when fit and firing he was loads of fun. He’s surely got to be considered among the better signings of this lot.
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Henrikh Mkhitaryan
The Armenian winger has been good to great wherever he’s been, except for England where he proved distinctly ordinary for both Manchester United and Arsenal, having been traded for the similarly underwhelming Alexis Sanchez in January 2018.
Still, he won both the League Cup and Europa League during his one and only full season at Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United. Not bad at all, that.