What Is Going Wrong for Leny Yoro at Manchester United?

Manchester United beat Liverpool, Real Madrid and PSG to Leny Yoro's signature in the summer of 2024, paying Lille close to £60m for an 18-year-old who'd played 44 games the previous season without a single injury. 

Two years on, he's fighting for a place in a back line United keep rebuilding around him, not with him. Something has gone badly wrong for him, but how?

The Injury That Started Everything…

Yoro broke his foot in a preseason friendly against Arsenal before he'd even made his competitive debut, an injury PSG had apparently seen coming, with L'Equipe reporting the French giants pulled out of the race over fitness concerns United dismissed at the time. 

He missed the first four months of his United career without playing a single minute, and when he finally broke through under Ruben Amorim in early 2025, the signs were genuinely good. 

He scored in the Europa League quarter-final against Lyon and set up Mason Mount's equaliser in the semi-final against Athletic Club, before going down against West Ham just ten days before the final, covering his face as he limped off the pitch.

That pattern has essentially repeated itself every few months since. A minor knock kept him out of a win over Chelsea in April 2026, which Carrick described as nothing serious, and another niggle has turned up almost every time Yoro looks like he's building consistent form. 

None of these injuries individually sound catastrophic. But stacked over two seasons, they've made it almost impossible for any manager to trust him with an extended run in the side.

Three Managers, Three Systems, Zero Stability…

Yoro arrived under Erik ten Hag, who was gone within months. He then made his actual debut under Ruben Amorim, a manager obsessed with a back three that never settled defensively, and was sacked in January 2026 after a complete breakdown with the club's hierarchy. 

Michael Carrick took over as interim, tore up Amorim's system entirely, reverted to a flat back four, and earned a run to the Champions League places that made him permanent by May.

Three managers in two years is bad enough for any young defender trying to establish himself. Three managers, each wanting a fundamentally different defensive shape, is close to impossible to develop inside. 

Yoro has had to learn a back three built around inverted full backs, then relearn a traditional back four, all while fighting his body for consistent minutes in either system, and it's no surprise he looks like a player still searching for a settled role rather than one who's spent two years at the same club.

Right Now, He is a B Squad Player

Yoro’s numbers this season are brutal. Sixteen minutes against Ipswich, six minutes against Everton, then left out entirely for games against Manchester City and Fulham. 

His only two starts have come in the Champions League opener and a Carabao Cup defeat to Brighton, a performance where he and Ayden Heaven were both torn apart for a shaky display that did nothing to help his case.

TeamTalk's report that Yoro is "playing for his United future" this season is no exaggeration. Matthijs de Ligt's return from injury pushes him even further down a pecking order that already includes Lisandro Martínez and Harry Maguire, and there's a real chance Heaven, a teenager who wasn't even at the club when Yoro signed, ends up ranked above him too. 

United are reportedly already compiling a shortlist of alternatives, which is an extraordinary sentence to write about a £60m centre back who isn't yet 21.

Compare That to What Jérémy Jacquet Walked Into

Jérémy Jacquet is the same age, the same profile, a centre back signed for a similar fee this past summer, and he's walked straight into Liverpool's starting eleven alongside Virgil van Dijk with barely a hesitation. 

Nine of ten duels won against Nottingham Forest, a goal-line clearance against the same opponent, first-choice status within weeks of arriving.

The difference isn't talent but proper opportunity. Yoro was rated at least as highly as Jacquet when he signed, with three of Europe's biggest clubs fighting over him. 

The difference is that Jacquet joined a club with one manager, one system, and one clear plan for how he fits in, while Yoro joined a club that has changed its head coach three times and its defensive shape just as often since he arrived. 

A player can adapt to new football. It's much harder to adapt to an entire club rebuilding itself around him every six months.

What’s the Final Word Here?

For Yoro, well, three separate problems collided at exactly the wrong moment. 

His body hasn't cooperated nearly as well as the £60m fee assumed it would, the managerial carousel around him never gave one tactical idea enough time to settle, and United's current pecking order has a 20-year-old fighting three senior centre-backs for minutes. 

You can’t say his move to United seems doomed this early because, for a defender this young, he still has time on his side if United ever stop rebuilding every six months long enough to give him a chance. 

But look at what's actually in front of United right now: they are reportedly drawing up a shortlist to replace a player they paid elite money for two years ago, while thirty miles down the East Lancs Road, a centre back of the exact same age and profile has walked straight into Liverpool's first team and never looked back. 

Manchester United have failed to protect an investment. They built the one environment almost perfectly designed to break a young defender: three managers, three systems, and when he is fit, he is put on the bench, and then they acted surprised when the player at the centre of it came out the other side unfinished. 

Yoro is special. Whether Manchester United still deserves to find out is an entirely different question, and right now, the club doesn't look like it's earned the answer.

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