This summer, Manchester United went “aggressively” to sign Cunha and Mbeumo. Agreements with the players were made before negotiations started with Wolverhampton and Brentford respectively. The strategy succeeded. This did not succeed earlier in the transfer window.
Bourmemouth star Antoine Semenyo was long linked to Manchester United, now the English journalist tells about the “story behind” the transfer that collapsed.
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“He was ‘aggressively’ chased by Manchester United,” Castles begins in The Transfers Podcast.
“It started back in March. Both Omar Berrada and Jason Wilcox had direct talks with Bournemouth about signing the striker, who was in the category of players who already knew about the Premier League and who could point to statistically good numbers in the Premier League that Manchester United focused on this summer.
Semenyo had impressed in the 2024/25 season in the Premier League with big games, 11 goals and 6 assists.
“In those talks with Bournemouth, United said they would not pay more than £55 million for the player. They used the same strategy as with Cunha and Mbeumo, to agree personal terms with Semenyo before attempting to agree a transfer fee with Bournemouth. They even had Rúben Amorim take him to a meal in London at the end of the season, so that Amorim could judge his character – again a similar process to that of Cunha and Mbeumo.
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A lot of resources were put in to sign Semenyo, but Bournemouth pushed up the price until the Red Devils had to give up the signing hunt. United signed Cunha and Mbeumo, while Semenyo ended up extending his contract with Bournemouth until 2030.
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