{"id":18012,"date":"2026-07-16T17:46:36","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T17:46:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=18012"},"modified":"2026-07-16T17:46:36","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T17:46:36","slug":"alan-shearer-says-man-utd-are-taking-a-risk-with-50m-transfer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=18012","title":{"rendered":"Alan Shearer Says Man Utd Are Taking A &#8220;Risk&#8221; With \u00a350M Transfer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<article>\n<p><em>This article contains affiliate links. We may earn a small commission on items purchased through this article, but that does not affect our editorial judgement.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>BBC<\/em> pundit Alan Shearer says Man Utd have decided to take a \u201crisk\u201d by splashing out \u00a350m on Andrey Santos.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Brazilian international was not able to prove his credentials at Chelsea, and Shearer believes the Red Devils are hoping that he can realise his potential at Old Trafford:<\/p>\n<div class=\"sra_unit\"><link rel=\"stylesheet\" id=\"block-sra\" href=\"https:\/\/manunews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/snack-related-articles\/dist\/css\/snack-related.min.css?230424-120838\" type=\"text\/css\" media=\"all\"\/>\n<aside class=\"sra-group sra-related-list\">\n<h2 class=\"sra-group-head\">Most Read on ManUNews.com<\/h2>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cThe signing of Andrey Santos by Manchester United is really difficult to judge because, from the player\u2019s point of view, there are not many who are going to get in ahead of Enzo Fernandes and Caicedo in the starting XI.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cClearly there\u2019s a talent there, and United have been willing to take that risk. I guess it\u2019s a lot of money for someone that hasn\u2019t played on a regular basis, but I think the ability is there with him and given time and given regular playing time, he could be a good buy for United.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Santos has it all to prove<\/h2>\n<p><smartframe-embed customer-id=\"1ffbae35d432d0d71911ca2a0b209fbb\" v=\"f216f6d5d0b6ef819f6e02bf8357cefd\" image-id=\"prsiwvnbltQG\" theme=\"iy-theme\" style=\"width: 100%; display: inline-flex; aspect-ratio: 1.500833796553641; max-width: 5400px;\"\/><!-- https:\/\/smartframe.io\/embedding-support --><br \/>We did a <strong>deep dive<\/strong> into the 22-year-old\u2019s stats last week, and his numbers did not compare particularly favourably to Mateus Fernandes.<\/p>\n<p>As Shearer points out, though, Santos wasn\u2019t given regular starting opportunities at his previous team, and that clearly affected his performances. United are taking the gamble that, with more game time, he will flourish.<\/p>\n<p>Buy a brand new 2026\/27 Man Utd authentic home shirt from Fanatics here<\/p>\n<h2>Man Utd are not putting all of their eggs in one basket<\/h2>\n<p>While the move for Santos is full of risk, Director of Football Jason Wilcox has also decided to bring in another midfielder with more proven quality \u2013 <strong>Youri Tielemans<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>There are also reports that United are hoping to land a <strong>third new addition<\/strong> in the middle of the park before the transfer window closes, so it is clear that the onus won\u2019t be completely on Santos to fill the huge void left by Casemiro.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Want more news on Man Utd? Add Man U News as a preferred source on Google<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/article><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This article contains affiliate links. We may earn a small commission on items purchased through&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18013,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}