Hat-trick from sir Fabrizio Romano as he said those famous three words three times on the trot.
Within a 45 minute period of each other, Romano dropped three here we go's all related to one club: ours. I don't think I've ever seen that from him.
First up was Aaron Wan-Bissaka's move to West Ham. After not traveling with the squad that would take on Man City in the Community Shield, everyone had their suspicions on the reasoning with one of them being a move to the Hammers.
Romano says that the medical tests have been booked for Sunday. A fee in the region of £15m is what West Ham will have to pay for the services of the right-back.
He also adds something interesting that would further increase the speculation that his absence from the match-day squad was due to this move. Fabrizio says that "Man United authorized AWB to travel."
This indicates that the club were happy for him to not be part of the team that faced City.
Half an hour later, Romano said 'Here we go' for Wan-Bissaka's immediate replacement Noussair Mazraoui.
He says that this move was planned once AWB moved to West Ham. Mazraoui will cost United €20m with add-ons included with the Moroccan signing a five year deal plus the option for an additional year.
His now ex-Bayern team-mate Matthijs De Ligt will join him at United as 20 minutes later, Romano goes three for three with a 'Here we go' for De Ligt.
A fee worth €45m + €5m in add-ons was a deal that United and Bayern could finally agree upon after this long and frustrating saga.
Romano also says that the payment for De Ligt is spread over three years.
Much like Mazraoui, De Ligt has penned a five year deal with the option of a further year but the Dutch defender will have to wait for authorization to travel before he can complete his move.
Final Thoughts
Geez, that's some good timing by United.
To have three 'Here we go's' not long before basically the first game of the season is pretty unusual.
Nevertheless, these are a couple of deals that we have been waiting for for a loooooonnnnnnnggggg time. It feels like forever ago that we had personal terms agreed with both Mazraoui and De Ligt but finally, they're ours.
None of the three deals were surprising as everyone has known for a while that this was to be the likeliest outcome but the time it took to get them done was the annoying bit.
AWB to West Ham is a good move for all parties in my opinion. I don't think he was going to get much game time at United (or as much as he would've wanted) and after five years at the club, it was probably time to part ways.
I think he would do a good job for West Ham as he is better than their current right-back Vladimir Coufal and the Hammers are more his level.
While they have brought in a new coach in Julen Lopetegui, I don't think his more possession-based style of football would be something too difficult for AWB to fit into.
The price of £15m is a little low but with one year left on his contract and not being a mainstay in United's first-team, the club were always going to have to take a loss.
Both Mazraoui and De Ligt are good moves for United as well. We need strengthening in several departments especially in defence.
With the unreliable Luke Shaw and the injured-for-over-a-year Tyrell Malacia, United were definitely short on options at left-back. Bringing in Mazraoui not only sures up that spot as he can play left-back pretty well despite being a right-back, but also potentially push Diogo Dalot for that first-team right-back spot. I certainly believe he would push the Portuguese a lot more than Wan-Bissaka.
We get two players in one with Mazraoui.
We've seen just what a different team United look like when they don't have that modern centre-back pairing. In 22/23 with Raphael Varane and Lisandro Martinez, they sort of revolutionized our defence in that we could actually play out from the back well, push the defensive line forward and were quite solid defensively.
Take one of them out, and we got a problem. Both out, forget about it.
That's what happened last season.
Whenever it was one of Varane or Martinez and another, we just didn't have that same feel to our game, we weren't as comfortable building up from the back, the defensive security was just lacking.
Bring in someone like De Ligt though, and he gives us more of a chance to play how we did with Varane and Martinez. Leny Yoro would also allow us to play a more modern style but as he is out for three months with an injury, we needed someone to come in asap.
Another advantage of Mazraoui and De Ligt is that they've both played under Erik ten Hag at Ajax (of course 😐). This will mean that they will both already be very familiar with the manager's style of play resulting in a quicker integration period.
This will also mean that our back line will almost entirely consist of ex-Ajax players should Mazraoui start ahead of Shaw which at the moment, is highly likely. We will have Andre Onana in goal, Noussair Mazraoui at left-back, Lisandro Martinez (LCB) and Matthijs De Ligt (RCB) with only Diogo Dalot at right-back being the odd one out.
This familiarity will allow everyone to quickly develop an understanding and allow United and ten Hag to play a style that the manager wants a lot sooner than expected.
I'm pretty happy with these deals and hopefully we get them completed quickly so that we could perhaps see them in that Fulham game although that maybe a stretch.
However, with our injuries though, we might just need them.
Background Image: Noussair Mazraoui and Matthijs De Ligt at Bayern Munich | Photo by ANP via Getty Images - Bavarian Football Works