The £51m midfielder who could solve Man Utd’s problems and get the best out of Mason Mount

If Manchester United were poor against Wolverhampton Wanderers on the opening weekend, they were worse still in the tepid 2-0 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur. A team which should be most of the way through an expensive overhaul to Erik Ten Hag’s specifications looks as disparate and disorganised as it ever did under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer or José Mourinho.

There are no shortage of specific problems, but one that stands out is the misuse of Mason Mount. Having spent his career to date operating either as a swashbuckling number ten or a left winger, darting between the lines and operating in the half-spaces outside the box, Ten Hag now has him carrying the water in the heart of the park. It is not a role which suits him.

And it seems especially strange when you consider how thin the squad looks at wide forward. With Marcus Rashford the only fit and ready central striker, Antony and Alejandro Garnacho are starting. The latter is young and has much to learn, and the former has been a persistent disappointment since arriving for over £80m from Ajax. The penny has not yet dropped with either player.

So United could really do with pushing Mount up to wide left to cover for the inexperience of Garnacho and the continued struggles of Jadon Sancho – but Ten Hag seems reluctant, perhaps partly because only Christian Eriksen can really play the role in the squad. It isn’t the Dane’s most natural position, either. There are quite a few square pegs in round holes, and certainly more than there should be over a year into the project.

Which may explain United’s apparent sudden interest in Marco Verratti. The 30-year-old Italian has found himself on Luis Enrique’s list of undesirables at Paris Saint-Germain and is no longer training with the first-team – and it had been expected that he would complete a move to Saudi Pro League side Al-Ahli imminently, but now both United and Bayern Munich have been linked with eleventh-hour bids of their own.

Bringing in an experienced and hugely competent central midfield like Verratti would make a ton of sense, not least because he’s an expert water-carrier, a Rolls Royce version of Jordan Henderson. Who is, of course, an extremely underappreciated player, so maybe this is the special edition with the souped-up engine and the champagne cooler under the central console. And a few more years left on the clock…

Such a signing wouldn’t solve all of United’s problems, of course. It won’t get their defence re-organised and it won’t sort out Bruno Fernandes’ horrible early-season form. But it might fix the shape of the midfield, and in turn might make all of United’s possession rather more meaningful. Verratti is a far better passer than Mount, especially when it comes to doing the simple things and making sure possession is retained – and he’s also a better defensive player, with considerably better tackling and interception statitsics.

A lot of that, of course, is just down to more than a decade of playing as a genuine central midfielder, asked to do a bit of everything to carry his team. Mount is a truly gifted player, and is much better at the kind of quick interchanges and wriggled half-yards of space around the box that a more attacking player needs, but isn’t used to recycling possession quickly and confidently and doesn’t know where to run in order to plug the next attack from the opposition. Verratti knows exactly how to do those things.

Nor is there any real reason to believe that Verratti is on the wane, despite what Enrique might believe. There’s an argument that his 2022/23 season was his weakest for PSG, but it’s pretty relative. His underlying numbers were still excellent, his performances still solid. There is no real reason to think that he couldn’t do a very fine job in the Premier League for a few more years yet. The engine remains intact.

He also has a slightly undeserved reputation for injury problems, and while he did miss a lot of football between 2020 and 2022 with a seemingly endless string of knocks, he only had three injuries of note last year – a minor calf strain, a similar hamstring tweak, and a dead leg. None are recurring or old injuries, and his track record of time in the treatment room seems to be the product of bad luck rather than a breaking body. He missed a total of six weeks of last season – not ideal, but frankly no worse than many other 30-year-olds. Give it another few years and see how your knees feel after an hour’s jogging, Marco…

In terms of the transfer itself, PSG have reportedly asked for a fee of up to €60m (£51m) although it isn’t clear whether Al-Ahli were planning on paying that or trying to knock the fee down a little bit. It still won’t be a cheap transfer, but with PSG have publicly exorcised him from the squad, they have essentially forced themselves into a position where they have to sell – so don’t be surprised if the eventual price is substantially lower than the asking. The Italian has three years left on a contract worth an estimated £235,000 per week – a contract he only extended in December.

So this certainly won’t be the best bit of business all round from the French club, who are beginning a rebuild of their own with Neymar gone and Kylian Mbappé likely to follow in the not-too-distant future. Verratti, one of the less starry but most significant players of the club’s first failed attempt at European dominance, will be a part of the changing of the guard – and could be a very smart pick-up for a club like United, who desperately need to rebalance a squad that is starting to look a little lopsided.