{"id":18545,"date":"2026-07-18T15:01:32","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T15:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=18545"},"modified":"2026-07-18T15:01:32","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T15:01:32","slug":"michael-carrick-opens-up-on-andrey-santos-manchester-united-transfer-fantastic-player","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=18545","title":{"rendered":"Michael Carrick opens up on Andrey Santos&#8217; Manchester United transfer &#8211; &#8216;Fantastic player&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<h2 class=\"LeadText_lead-text__wd_PA __className_007aa3\" data-testid=\"leadtext\">Man Utd announced the signing of midfielder Andrey Santos from Chelsea at the beginning of the week.<\/h2>\n<p><button type=\"button\" class=\"SlideViewerButton_slide-viewer-button__BDJoG\" aria-label=\"Open image viewer\" aria-haspopup=\"dialog\" aria-controls=\"image-lightbox\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"ImageEmbed_image-embed__0T8WX ImageEmbed_image-lead__Ti3qQ\" data-testid=\"leadimage\" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-articleid=\"34313447\">\n<div class=\"ImageEmbed_image-container__2AIQm\">\n<figure class=\"Figure_figure__Uce4f\" style=\"--figure-aspect-ratio:1.5\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Carrick has named Santos in his starting XI\" loading=\"eager\" sizes=\"(max-width: 508px) 508px, (max-width: 615px) 615px, 1200px\" src=\"https:\/\/i2-prod.manchestereveningnews.co.uk\/article34313447.ece\/ALTERNATES\/s1200f\/0_GettyImages-2286001441.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i2-prod.manchestereveningnews.co.uk\/article34313447.ece\/ALTERNATES\/s508\/0_GettyImages-2286001441.jpg 508w, https:\/\/i2-prod.manchestereveningnews.co.uk\/article34313447.ece\/ALTERNATES\/s615\/0_GettyImages-2286001441.jpg 615w, https:\/\/i2-prod.manchestereveningnews.co.uk\/article34313447.ece\/ALTERNATES\/s1200f\/0_GettyImages-2286001441.jpg 1200w\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"ImageCaption_caption__j7HRu\" data-testid=\"image-caption\">\n<p aria-label=\"Carrick has named Santos in his starting XI\" class=\"ImageCaption_caption-title__ccyQU\" data-testid=\"caption-title\">Carrick has named Santos in his starting XI<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<p><\/button><\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh\" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">Michael Carrick described Andrey Santos as a &#8220;fantastic player and character&#8221; ahead of his pre-season debut for Manchester United. Santos completed a \u00a350million move from Chelsea on Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh\" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">The deal was structured as an initial \u00a348million for the 22-year-old, with a further \u00a32million in add-ons, and he signed a five-year contract at Old Trafford.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh\" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">Santos was behind Moises Caicedo and Enzo Fernandez in the midfield pecking order at Chelsea, but a move to Manchester will give him the opportunity to kick on in his career following Casemiro&#8217;s departure.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"Factbox_factbox-container__hSMOa\" id=\"factbox\" tabindex=\"0\" aria-label=\"Entering Factbox content\" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-articleid=\"34068266\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"factbox\" data-testid=\"factbox\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" sizes=\"(max-width: 615px) 615px, (max-width: 810px) 810px, 1168px\" src=\"https:\/\/i2-prod.manchestereveningnews.co.uk\/article34068146.ece\/ALTERNATES\/s1168v\/0_Screenshot-2026-06-04-at-163123.png\" srcset=\"&#10;        https:\/\/i2-prod.manchestereveningnews.co.uk\/article34068146.ece\/ALTERNATES\/n615\/0_Screenshot-2026-06-04-at-163123.png 615w,&#10;        https:\/\/i2-prod.manchestereveningnews.co.uk\/article34068146.ece\/ALTERNATES\/n810\/0_Screenshot-2026-06-04-at-163123.png 810w,&#10;        https:\/\/i2-prod.manchestereveningnews.co.uk\/article34068146.ece\/ALTERNATES\/s1168v\/0_Screenshot-2026-06-04-at-163123.png 1168w&#10;    \"\/><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"HeadingThree_heading-three__PBHLs Factbox_heading-three__NXU52 __className_8e0495\">Get YOUR Man United Newsletter<\/h3>\n<div class=\"Factbox_content__xdMV8\">\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh\" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">Get the best United news, updates and analysis straight to your Inbox courtesy of the Manchester Evening News!<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh\" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">To get it, it&#8217;s a simple one-two punch.<\/p>\n<ol class=\"NumberedList_numbered-list__oytz_\" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"ordered-list\">\n<li class=\"LiItem_li-item__IF4xI\">Head <strong class=\"Strong_strong__e2x35\">THIS WAY<\/strong><\/li>\n<li class=\"LiItem_li-item__IF4xI\">Enter your email and hit <strong class=\"Strong_strong__e2x35\">Subscribe.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh\" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">The Brazilian will make his pre-season debut against Wrexham in Helsinki on Saturday afternoon. Michael Carrick spoke to MUTV ahead of that game, and he was asked how Santos had settled in this week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh\" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">&#8220;Yeah, he&#8217;s settled in really well,&#8221; Carrick said. &#8220;Fantastic character. Settled in so quickly and he&#8217;s buzzing to be here. You can see that. He&#8217;s a fantastic player, so again, you know, not expecting anything crazy special today.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh\" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">&#8220;It&#8217;s just a step, you know, get your eye in, get back on the pitch again, and he&#8217;ll do really well for us. So I&#8217;m really looking forward to the progression that will show the longer he is here, to be honest. But today, the first one, it&#8217;s nice to get that first one out of the way.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh\" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">Carrick also explained his team selection, adding: &#8220;I&#8217;m just trying to get the understanding between the relationships a little bit and the boys knowing each other and trying to develop that as we go through pre-season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh\" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">&#8220;I think the senior kind of senior boys that we&#8217;ve had that haven&#8217;t been away kind of make up a good team, so yeah. It fits quite nicely, you know? Sometimes you overload in certain areas and it fits quite nicely, so I think it makes sense to go with that and then look forward to the younger players&#8217; second half.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Man Utd announced the signing of midfielder Andrey Santos from Chelsea at the beginning of&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18546,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18545","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\/18545","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=18545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}