Will Man Utd move for Hall?

As 23:00 BST ticked by on 1 September and the suspicion became reality, many Manchester United fans thought the same thing – what about a left-back?

Since the 2025-26 season ended, and United's summer transfer strategy started to be debated, it seemed obvious the club would move to address a perceived weakness in Michael Carrick's squad.

Luke Shaw is their only senior orthodox left-back. He started all 38 Premier League games last season, which given his previous injury record was phenomenal.

Firstly, it must be acknowledged Manchester United really like Lewis Hall.

Had they been able to do a deal with Newcastle for him, they would have done.

However, raided by Premier League rivals for their star men this summer, it became obvious in discussions around the highly-rated 22-year-old if Newcastle were to be persuaded to strike a deal, the transfer fee would be huge.

Manchester United's summer transfer budget was finite.

Faced with the reality of the situation, they opted to maintain their focus on the 'priority' midfield area and eventually committed £70m to bring in Carlos Baleba from Brighton.

Hall, it was concluded, is someone they are prepared to wait until next summer for.

United would have been prepared to take Balde on loan. Barcelona would only sell him. Salinas had a relatively low release clause, but Atletico Madrid were favourites to sign him. By the time they moved on to Argentina defender Nicolas Tagliafico, who they missed out on anyway, United had moved on themselves.

Their decision to belatedly act on an initial approach made by an agent around Ait-Nouri was an admission they are not totally certain of the path they have chosen.

Effectively that is Shaw as first-choice left-back, with Noussair Mazraoui as back-up, in a position he admittedly plays in for Morocco, supported by Diogo Dalot, who has switched flanks before, and Harry Amass.