What if Cancelo had joined Man Utd instead of Man City?

Stefan Bienkowski

• Updated: 8 Nov 2021 15:17 GMT
• 6 min read

Manchester United may be someway off Manchester City on the pitch, but off it both clubs continue to wrestle with one another over players in the transfer market.

Indeed, the Old Trafford club are still one of the richest sides in the world and can match their cross-city rivals pound for pound on any player. The real issue comes from who they decide to spend their money on.

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Unfortunately for Man Utd, that’s where things begin to fall apart. With the most recent example being that of defender Joao Cancelo, who could have apparently made the move to Old Trafford before becoming a Man City player.

When did Man Utd miss out on Cancelo?

Prior to making his move to Man City in 2019, Cancelo spent one year at Juventus. But before that he was a Valencia player, where Gary Neville once had an unfortunate managerial spell.

While Neville would be the first to admit that he didn’t achieve much at the Spanish club, he did recently reveal that he immediately realised how good Cancelo would be and made Man Utd aware of the young defender.

“I love him as a lad," Neville explained on his Sky Sports podcast. "I absolutely loved him when he was out there. There was a vulnerability about him when he was out there because he was so young.

"He's so hard on himself, in training, I don't know if he is still the same now. He used to be his critic. If he made a mistake, he'd throw his arms on the ground and start cursing himself and I used to say to him, 'give yourself a break'.

"It's hard enough in football as it is without being too tough on yourself, you will give the ball away, you will make mistakes, you will give goals away.

"I had him as a very young player at Valencia but you could just see exceptional talent.

"I made calls back to England, you could imagine to which club I'm talking about, [saying], 'if you'd ever take a young player, he's one you'd take'."

What if Man Utd had signed Cancelo?

There would certainly be very few Man Utd fans that would struggle to take Cancelo in their current team and had the club signed the Portugal international in 2019 they would have perhaps been in a much better position.

Capable of playing on the left or right flank, Cancelo is arguably a better full-back than both Luke Shaw and Aaron Wan-Bissaka. And had he joined the club in the summer of 2019, it would have perhaps been in place of the latter, who cost Man Utd no less than £50m that summer.

It’s impossible to say just how much Cancelo would have improved Man Utd’s team, but he would have certainly filled a hole on the right flank that many consider to still be an issue to this day.