Manchester United have signed Carlos Baleba from Brighton. The fee is £65 million guaranteed with £5 million in add-ons, and the contract runs five years with the option of a sixth.
He is 21, he made 112 appearances at Brighton, and the numbers that usually sell a midfielder are not his: four goals and two assists across three seasons. What United are buying is the part of the game that does not appear in a summary, a deep midfielder who covers ground and breaks play up, in a squad that has been short of one for years.
Brighton's side of it is the story of their model in one line. They paid Lille about £23.2 million for a teenager in 2023 and have sold him for nearly three times that, having played him 112 times in between.
There is a complication United will have to sit with. Baleba picked up an ankle injury in pre-season and is not expected back until the middle of September, so a £70 million midfielder signed to settle their middle will not play in the first weeks of the season he was bought for.
It also sets a marker for the rest of deadline week. United have spent this window rebuilding a midfield rather than adding to an attack, and Brighton have now sold three of their best young players in eighteen months and remain the club everyone else buys from.