MANCHESTER — Carlos Baleba has signed a five-year contract with Manchester United for £70m from Brighton, but an ankle injury means they may have to wait until after the international break for the 22-year-old Cameroon midfielder to make his debut. The pressure is already building at Old Trafford, where United are 12th in the Premier League with just one win and five points from their opening five games and were knocked out of the EFL Cup after Brighton came from 2-0 down to deservedly beat them at Old Trafford.
Baleba was by far the most expensive of United's three major summer signings and is earmarked for the holding midfield role head coach Michael Carrick has had trouble filling effectively following Casemiro's exit in May. "Very quick," is the assessment from one United insider of their first impressions of Baleba. "He covers the ground really well." A handful of training sessions before he was named on the bench for the 1-1 draw at Fulham on 20 September, and a closed-doors game against Swiss League outfit Lausanne-Sports on 2 October when United's international contingent were absent, is a small sample size, but his speed should bring positive benefits. Andrey Santos has it; less so Kobbie Mainoo and Youri Tielemans, who have been paired together by Carrick in the last four league games due to their superior technical abilities.
United have been too easy to play through and danger has not been spotted quickly enough. Carrick's side are one of only four in the top flight yet to keep a clean sheet and have conceded twice in four out of their seven games in all competitions. Off the pitch, sources say an understandable initial shyness and nervousness is being overcome. Baleba is not the most confident English speaker but has improved significantly since he moved to Brighton from Lille for £23.2m in 2023. He has struck up a friendship with Amad Diallo while the pair have been going through recovery work together, and was laughing on a video he uploaded to social media after poking fun at Amad following Cameroon's friendly win over his Ivory Coast on 3 October. A former team-mate of Leny Yoro at Lille in the 2022-23 season and Bryan Mbeumo at international level, he was also joking with Patrick Dorgu after the final game of last season at the Amex Stadium.
Baleba made 112 appearances and scored four goals in three seasons with Brighton, lighting up the 2024-25 campaign to earn suggestions of a potential move to Real Madrid before often below-par performances last term. Suggestions he had his head turned by late interest from United in the summer of 2025 have been dismissed by Brighton sources, although an alternative reason for the dip has not been offered. United's data and recruitment teams had done background work 12 months ago and, after missing out on Elliot Anderson and Mateus Fernandes and deeming other options unsuitable, moved for Baleba just before the shock opening-day defeat at Hull, completing the deal on 25 August just afterwards. Having been quoted significantly more than £100m for the midfielder in August 2025, they regard £70m as good business, though as Fernandes has shown in his disappointing early performances for Tottenham, any assessment should wait until he steps on the pitch.
It will be fascinating to see how Baleba and Fernandes match up if they start at Old Trafford this weekend, when defeat for either side has the potential to turn early-season disappointment into a near crisis before United face three away trips in a row, with Champions League encounters at Atletico Madrid and Como falling either side of a journey across the Pennines to face Leeds. Baleba's natural jocular personality should help his preparation and he will hope to show off his back-flip goal celebration, even if finding the net is not why United bought him. More importantly, he has a powerful determination to succeed drilled into him by his dad through punishing training sessions when he was younger, and is still motivated by a promise he made to his mum to build her a house in Douala, tragically fulfilled a few months after she died before he left Lille.