Manchester United have plugged a massive hole in their squad, adding a sorely needed athletic defensive midfielder. Carlos Baleba has signed from Brighton for £65m + £5m in add-ons, ending a long pursuit that started last summer.

Brighton were reportedly asking in excess of £100m for Baleba a year ago, but a poor 2025-26 campaign lowered his value. Two seasons ago, though he was primarily a ball-winning monster, he showed enough carrying and passing ability to suggest that he was developing into an elite No. 6 ala the man he replaced, Moises Caicedo. But his on-ball contributions regressed significantly last season, which probably led Brighton to the conclusion that it was a good time to cash in.

Man United are making a bet that last season was a blip, and that Baleba still has the ability to improve his dribbling and carrying significantly. He needs to, because at present, he looks a heck of a lot like the man he was bought to replace. A man who was dropped for not offering United anything on the ball.

There’s no question that Baleba improves Man United’s transition defense by several orders of magnitude, which, on the evidence of their poor performance against Hull City in the opening match of the season, is something they’re sorely in need of. But a team of United’s ambitions is not going to be able to carry a central midfielder who gives them genuinely negative passing value.

United better be really sure that their scouts are right about Baleba’s capacity to improve on the ball, and that their coaches are good enough to bring it out of him. I do not think that this is impossible, given the flashes of ability that he showed in the 2024-25 season. But personally, if I was a United fan, I would be scared.

Usually, we wait until we have 5 weeks of data to gamble on the Premier League over at Variance Betting. But given the high level of turnover in the league this season, Ted thinks there’s a lot of value to be found in the early season lines, and things have already kicked off this week. Ted has 4 bets on this week’s Premier League games, liking the lines on 1 favorite and 3 underdogs.

We’re also still betting on MLS, and we’ll start up with the UEFA Champions League and EFL Championship soon. If you’d like to learn how to become a smarter better and avoid getting screwed by the bookies, subscribe to Variance Betting.

Brentford midfielder Mamadou Sangare is one of the most popular new transfers in for FPL players this week, and he’s got some play among experts too. If you are buying in on Sangare, this should probably be more of a DefCon bet than one that he’ll get any points from assists going forward.

Sangare wasn’t a huge tackles + interceptions volume guy on a good Lens team last year, but he previously was absolutely that kind of player at Rapid Vienna. On a Brentford team that’s expected to be about mid-table and fairly direct, and where he’s the most defensive midfielder, I’d expect these numbers to tick up a bit.

He had an assist against Tottenham, but his key passes from last season don’t suggest he’s going to be a monster in that regard. He had 3 assists from 1.9 xG assisted, and none of those came from passes into the box. So if you buy this week, you are paying a small premium for something that’s unlikely to continue.

But a big reason to like Sangare right now is a set of fairly neutral-to-plus fixtures. According to Solio’s betting market based model, Brentford have the 7th best projected GD between now and GW6, but a home game against Sunderland is doing a lot of the work there. The others are close to even odds, which should be good for a combative defensive midfielder who’s counting on DefCon to score FPL points.

Also, related to the above, I think I’ll be finding a way to get Bruno Fernandes out of my team and Erling Haaland into it for GW3. I’m undecided whether that will be a pair of transfers or a chip, but that Coventry (H) fixture is too good to pass up.

Bayern Munich vs. Stuttgart — The Bundesliga opener is not exactly guaranteed to be competitive, but it’s still a decent opponent for Bayern, who are always entertaining.

Tottenham vs. Newcastle — Two teams undergoing heavy squad makeovers who I do not know how to evaluate at the moment. Really looking forward to learning more about both of them.

Sevilla vs. Atlético Madrid — Sevilla have looked much improved in their opening fixtures, while Atléti really struggled to a draw away to Villarreal in their last match. The Julian Alvarez drama might be dragging down Los Rojiblancos.

Monaco vs. Marseille — PSG’s main challengers both started the season very strongly (and have a lot of players who could move to England on deadline day)

Napoli vs. Como — Neither team looked good in Week 1, and can’t afford too slow of a start in what’s likely to be Europe’s tightest race for a Champions League place. Napoli did win their opener, but with under 1 xG, and needed some heroics from Kevin De Bruyne off the bench.

Caleb Gearty at Scouted dove into the evolution of the fullback position, and teams emphasizing carrying ability.

Grace Robertson at Grace On Football details the financial and on-pitch reshaping of Liverpool, who do not have an obvious direction at the moment.

Oliver Hopkins at Opta Analyst looks at who got the easiest and hardest Champions League draws. Spoiler: Man City got unlucky.

Matthew Doyle at Tactics Free Zone proposes 8 MLS transfers he wants to see before the window closes.

Kieran Doyle at American Soccer Analysis tries to project how MLS Next Pro players might translate to the next level based on their data from the youth competition.

Kieran Maguire at The Guardian argues that SCR rules unfairly benefit clubs who make a lot of revenue from non-football events, and punishes clubs that don’t.

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