Carlos Baleba is expected to make his Manchester United debut against Tottenham Hotspur at Old Trafford, although the ankle injury United knew about when they signed him means they may have to wait until after the international break to see him play.
The 22-year-old Cameroon midfielder joined from Brighton on 25 August and signed a five-year contract. At £70m he was by far the most expensive of United’s three major summer signings, and he is the player earmarked for the holding midfield role Michael Carrick has had trouble filling effectively since Casemiro’s exit in May.
United were not expecting the circumstances that greet him. Carrick’s side are 12th in the Premier League with one win and five points from their opening five games, and Brighton came from 2-0 down at Old Trafford to knock them out of the EFL Cup. Tottenham arrive at Old Trafford bottom of the table, after which United face three away trips in a row — Champions League encounters at Atlético Madrid and Como either side of a journey across the Pennines to face Leeds.
United’s midfield has been a specific problem. Carrick has paired Kobbie Mainoo and Youri Tielemans in the last four league games because of their superior technical abilities, but United have been too easy to play through and danger has not been spotted quickly enough. Baleba’s speed is seen as something that should bring positive benefits: one United insider describes him as “very quick”, a player who “covers the ground really well”. Andrey Santos has that quality; Mainoo and Tielemans less so. Carrick’s side are one of only four in the top flight yet to keep a clean sheet and have conceded twice in four of their seven games in all competitions.
The evidence on Baleba so far is thin. He had a handful of training sessions before being named on the bench for the 1-1 draw at Fulham on 20 September, and played in a closed-doors game against Swiss League side Lausanne-Sports on 2 October while United’s international contingent were away.
Those around him say an understandable initial shyness and nervousness appears to be being overcome. Baleba is not the most confident English speaker, but he has improved significantly since moving to Brighton from Lille for £23.2m in 2023. He has struck up a friendship with Amad Diallo, helped by the pair going through their recovery work at the same time; Amad even laughed along with a video he uploaded on social media of Baleba poking fun at him after Cameroon beat his Ivory Coast in a friendly on 3 October. Baleba also has other relationships at Carrington, having been a team-mate of new France international Leny Yoro at Lille in 2022-23 and of Bryan Mbeumo at international level, and he was joking with Patrick Dorgu after the final game of last season at the Amex Stadium.
The key for United is which version of Baleba they get. His 2024-25 campaign lit up and earned suggestions of a potential move to Real Madrid; last term he was often below-par. Suggestions that his head was turned by late interest from United in the summer of 2025 have been dismissed by Brighton sources, although no alternative reason for the dip in form has been offered.
United’s interest was not new. Their data and recruitment teams did background work 12 months ago, and after missing out on Elliot Anderson and Mateus Fernandes, with other options deemed unsuitable, United moved for Baleba just before the shock opening-day defeat at Hull and completed the deal just afterwards. Having been quoted significantly more than £100m for him in August 2025, they regard £70m as good business — though, as Fernandes’s disappointing early performances for Tottenham show, any assessment of what constitutes a good deal should wait until Baleba has actually stepped on the pitch.
Baleba’s determination comes from his dad, who pushed him through punishing training sessions when he was younger; Baleba has said that was integral to him becoming a professional. He has already fulfilled a promise to his mum to build her a house in Douala, though tragically she died a few months before he left Lille and never saw it. He is still pushing, still motivated to do well for her, as he recounted in an interview with the Guardian in April 2025. He made 112 appearances and scored four goals in three seasons at Brighton, and will hope for the chance to show off his back-flip goal celebration — even if finding the net is not why United bought him.
Speaking to French football magazine Onze Mondial in September 2023, Baleba explained that his passions outside football include manga, with his favourite series Fist of the North Star, whose hero Kenshiro, he said, never gave up. It was an attitude he said he liked.