Leny Yoro's Opportunity at Manchester United: A Season of Change
Leny Yoro has been at Manchester United for two seasons now, long enough for the anticipation to turn into impatience. The talent is obvious. The impact, so far, is not.
That could change very quickly.
Out of position, but in the shop window
United’s pre-season opened with a jolt in Helsinki, a defeat to Wrexham that said more about rust than crisis. For Yoro, it offered something else: a starting berth, but not where he wants it.
The Frenchman lined up at right-back, a role that does little for his long-term ambitions but plenty for his short-term visibility. With senior stars still away and Carrington quiet, Michael Carrick has leaned on those who reported back early. Yoro was there on day one. That matters.
Carrick is expected to take a similar group to Trondheim to face Rosenborg, which likely means another stint for Yoro on the flank. These are conditioning games, not auditions on paper. In reality, every touch counts. Every sprint, every duel, every moment of concentration is logged when the manager is short on options and long on decisions to make.
Yoro may be out of position, but he is very much in view.
A vacancy at the heart of the defence
The centre of United’s defence is crowded in theory, thinner in practice.
Harry Maguire and Ayden Heaven started together at centre-back against Wrexham and could continue there in Norway. Matthijs de Ligt remains at Carrington, working back from back surgery and already ruled out of the start of the new campaign. Lisandro Martinez completes what, on paper, looks like a formidable unit, yet his summer has been anything but straightforward.
Martinez left the World Cup with his shirt over his face, forced off through injury after being named in the team of the tournament. He is now on holiday, a sign the problem is not thought to be serious, but as of Wednesday he still did not know the full extent of the issue. Even if he returns to training in early August, sharpness is another matter entirely.
United open their Premier League season away to Hull City on August 22. A newly promoted side, a tight ground, an occasion that demands authority from the back line. If Martinez is not ready to start, a gap appears alongside Maguire at the MKM Stadium.
That is the space Yoro can see. Clear as day.
The price tag, the promise, and the pause
When United paid £52 million to prise an 18-year-old Yoro from Lille in the summer of 2024, they did not do it to stash him on the bench. They beat Real Madrid to his signature. They backed potential at a premium price.
“Leny is one of the most exciting young defenders in world football; he possesses every attribute needed to develop into a top-class centre-back,” said sporting director Dan Ashworth when the deal was announced.
Those attributes have not vanished. The anticipation around him has not either. But the numbers tell a different story.
Across two Premier League seasons, Yoro has started only 30 games. He has been named among the substitutes 28 times. There have been glimpses of the player scouts raved about: the timing in the tackle, the calm on the ball, the sense that the game slows down for him. Yet they remain glimpses, not a body of work.
At 20, turning 21 in November, he is no longer the kid who just arrived. He is entering the phase where potential must turn into presence.
A changing landscape, a narrowing window
This season does not just carry weight at club level. The international picture is shifting as well.
With Zinedine Zidane set to replace Didier Deschamps, the French national team is heading for a new era. Yoro knows what that means. New manager, new ideas, new pecking order. Regular minutes at United could push him from “one for the future” to a genuine contender for the senior France squad.
The stakes are clear. He could end this campaign as a fixture in Carrick’s XI and on Zidane’s radar. Or he could find himself in the same holding pattern, watching others seize the opportunities that his talent suggests should be his.
Carrick’s approach last season did not help players on the fringes. United’s success was built on a consistent core. Maguire and Martinez formed the bedrock at centre-back. When everyone was fit, they were the default pairing. De Ligt’s arrival only added another obstacle once he returns.
For Yoro, that reality cuts both ways. The path is blocked when the squad is fully loaded. Right now, it is not.
The future pair, waiting for their moment
Inside the club, there is a growing sense of what the next version of United’s defence could look like. Maguire has spoken of Yoro and Heaven as a potential answer to the Premier League’s dominant duos, likening their potential to the Gabriel–William Saliba partnership that has driven Arsenal’s rise.
Heaven, 19, offers a left-footed balance similar to Martinez. Yoro, more advanced in his development, brings the profile United thought they were buying: tall, composed, aggressive when required, comfortable defending space. On paper, the two could anchor United for a decade.
On grass, they are still waiting for that run together at centre-back.
For now, pre-season offers scraps of opportunity. A start at right-back here, a cameo in the middle there. It is not the role Yoro imagined when he chose Old Trafford over Madrid, but it may be the route he has to take.
If Carrick turns to him at Hull, the stakes will be obvious. One game will not define his United career, yet it can set a tone. Lay down a marker there, and every subsequent selection meeting looks different.
This feels like the hinge point in his United story. Two seasons of waiting, of learning, of being the expensive understudy. Now, with Martinez short of fitness and De Ligt sidelined, the door is at least ajar.
Whether Yoro walks through it or watches someone else do so may shape not just his season, but the next era of United’s defence.
