Michael Carrick has sent a clear message to the Manchester United hierarchy by telling them to "keep pushing" for more transfers this summer.
United have signed Youri Tielemans and Andrey Santos, from Aston Villa and Chelsea respectively, to strengthen their midfield, while Karl Darlow arrived from Leeds on a free transfer to become the back-up goalkeeper. But their total expenditure of £85million lags way behind their Premier League rivals.
It has now been a month since United announced a new signing and, with just 19 days left until the transfer deadline on September 1 and nine until United's first game of the 2026/27 season, Carrick has made his feelings clear.
Carrick's transfer plea
"I think we've got a pretty good balance in all when you lay the squad out, but we would like more, we need to keep pushing for more," he told the Manchester Evening News.
"There's one or two areas where we'd like to improve and we feel that there's the possibility to improve, but again, that needs to be something that we can do that makes us better and improves the group, whether that's quality or whether that's a little bit of depth. That's something we've got to manage. That's pretty obvious."
Carrick wants to sign a left-back to compete with Luke Shaw, with Newcastle's Lewis Hall the top target, as well as another central midfielder. His squad only had to compete in the Premier League following his arrival as interim boss in January to replace Ruben Amorim and Carrick knows the upcoming campaign will be more demanding, with United back in the Champions League and cup competitions.
Record fees and Santos impact
This summer has seen huge transfer fees become even more normalised, with Morgan Rogers, Elliot Anderson and Sandro Tonali all moving for £100m or more. Remarkably, United's record transfer remains the £89m they paid Juventus for Paul Pogba in 2016.
Asked if United may need to break that record this summer, Carrick said: "A little bit depends on what position that is and what you've got and what dynamics you need at certain points. Sometimes you do need that if it's the right player."
"Again, it's not purely on money, the money doesn't guarantee you, it needs to be the right player and a better player for what we've got. It's something [that] over time we need to be pushing to look to enhance the squad all the time in different ways."
Carrick has been delighted by the impact that Santos, in particular, has made since joining for £50m from Chelsea. And he stressed that communication with director of football Jason Wilcox and chief executive Omar Berrada remains good.
Ongoing communication
"It's constant communication of where, what work we need to do, where we want to improve," he said. "We're pretty clear in the messages that we need to keep pushing and there's certain things that we want to try and do, but it needs to be right as well."
