Man Utd star Ugarte admits major flaw

Cameron Smith

• Updated: 14 Oct 2024 11:58 BST
• 3 min read

Manchester United summer signing Manuel Ugarte has admitted that he “lacks certain things” when playing as a defender.

The 23-year-old moved to Old Trafford from Paris Saint-Germain for an initial transfer fee of €50 million this summer, but he has endured a tough start to life in England.

Ugarte has only started one Premier League match since his arrival, while he has been an unused substitute in Man Utd’s previous two games.

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His struggles continued on international duty with Uruguay as Ugarte was played out of position by Marcelo Bielsa.

The Man Utd star was forced to play in the middle of the back three on Saturday, due to the absences of Ronald Araujo and Jose Gimenez, and Uruguay suffered a shock 1-0 defeat to Peru.

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What has Manuel Ugarte said?

After the loss, Ugarte told ESPN: “It was not a good match. We did not play well, it was a shame because I still believe that we are much better, but the match was ugly for us.

“The dressing room was strong before the match, the atmosphere was nice, but little by little we faded and we did not show good things in the match.

“Everyone can play and has the conditions to do so, but many times, when changing players it takes a little [time] to adapt. It is not an excuse either, the team's performance dropped. We need to go deeper, as we saw against Peru, we have to keep working.

“Honestly, I felt good with the ball, but I lack certain things as a defender. These are things that always enrich a player and we will see what happens on Tuesday.”

Uruguay haven’t tasted victory in 90 minutes in any of their last seven matches, and they will hope to end their winless run against Ecuador on Tuesday evening.