Whisper it quietly, but Manchester United are close to being a proper team once again. They have a competent goalkeeper at last in Senne Lammens, as well as top-level forwards who cannot only create quality chances but also finish them off in Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha. They have also developed some resilience, as evidenced by their crucial late goals at Nottingham Forest, Tottenham and Liverpool of late.
But they are still missing a crucial element of any team with aspirations to return to the Champions League and compete for the Premier League title: a consistent and top-class midfield. Ruben Amorim's side have been getting by with Bruno Fernandes sitting deeper alongside Casemiro, who is enjoying an Indian summer. Both players have been performing admirably in their respective circumstances, but they both have asterixis by their names.
Fernandes is 31 and the spectre of him winding down his career in Saudi Arabia has not fully gone away despite him resisting the advances of Al-Hilal last summer. Casemiro, meanwhile, might be rolling back the years right now, but he turns 34 in February and his contract is up in June, albeit with the option to trigger a one-year extension.
Neither player screams long-term planning, and it is no secret that United need and want to sign a top-class midfielder who can lead the team for many years. It is becoming increasingly clear, too, that the man they should be looking at to return them to the highest level is Elliot Anderson, who just happens to also be the future of the England team.
AFPTop of the class
Anderson was one of the main driving forces behind Nottingham Forest’s brilliant 2024-25 campaign as they finished seventh in the Premier League in their third season back in the top-flight, narrowly missing out on the Champions League while reaching the FA Cup semi-finals. But while the Tricky Trees’ results have nosedived amid the upheaval of having three separate coaches already this term, Anderson has continued to stand tall. Taller than every other midfielder in the Premier League, in fact.
Name every attribute you want a midfielder to have, and there is a good chance Anderson will lead the way in it. According to , he sits No.1 among Premier League midfielders in passes attempted, passes completed, progressive passes, passes into the final third, short passes attempted and completed.
He also has the highest passing distance among midfielders (and the fourth-highest in the league) and highest progressive passing distance of any midfielder. In that last category, he is ranked 20th in the league in a field dominated by goalkeepers. The closest midfielder to him is Fernandes in 30th, then Granit Xhaka at 45th while his England team-mate Declan Rice is 50th. Anderson has an accumulated progressive passing distance of 3844 metres, 447 more than Fernandes, 986 more than Xhaka and 1049 more than Rice.
In addition, he has more touches on the ball than any other midfielder, and the most ball recoveries.
AdvertisementGetty Images SportDoing it all
"Elliot Anderson can do it all," said former United and England winger Ashley Young. "He can defend, he can get on the front foot, he can play line-breaking passes. He can create, he can do the other side of it as well and win the tackles and release the players further forward."
Anderson displayed that passing vision with an assist for Chris Wood on the opening day of this season, threading the ball into the forward's path from behind the halfway line. In England’s 5-0 win away to Serbia in September, meanwhile, he provided a pre-assist with his forward pass to Morgan Rogers, whose flashy flick of the boot released goal-scorer Noni Madueke. No Serbia player managed to dribble past him that night, while in the 5-0 drubbing of Latvia last month which sealed England’s spot at the World Cup, Anderson completed 121 passes, the most by any player in an England away game since 2008.
What has really stood out for England has been Anderson's ability to take the ball from defence and glide past opponents to distribute it further downfield. "His physicality for a player of his size, the way he can keep people away from the ball and get about the pitch is a big strength," said his England team-mate Dan Burn, who also played alongside him at Newcastle. "He's always wanting the ball wherever he is. He's so calm when he gets it, he's got that eye for the passes that we probably need."
Getty Images SportOn autopilot
Speaking after his excellent debut for England against Andorra amid an otherwise dreary team performance in June, Thomas Tuchel said of Anderson. "He has the physicality, he's a very mobile No.6. He has the body, he loves to defend, he loves to put his body inside to win duels. He loves passing, he loves to break the lines. And he's just very mobile in his game."
Rice, who has lacked a consistent partner for England since Kalvin Phillips' peak at Euro 2020, is really enjoying playing alongside Anderson: "He has taken it all in his stride and is playing like he plays for his club. When you have a lad who is that confident and comes in and feels he does not have to do anything different, it's like autopilot the way he plays. We are building up a nice little partnership."
Anderson’s versatility explains why he has managed to perform well for each of his three Forest coaches, going from the counter-attacking football of Nuno Espirito Santo to the positional play of Ange Postecoglou and then back to the more reactive play of Sean Dyche. Nuno deployed him all over the midfield, from an anchoring No.6 to a driving No.8 to a creative No.10 when Morgan Gibbs-White was unavailable.
Eddie Howe also played Anderson in more attacking roles when in charge of him at Newcastle before he was sold to Forest for £35 million ($46m) in a move that was widely considered to have been to ease the Magpies' PSR concerns.
Getty Images SportWorth the money
Forest might be about to make a massive return on that investment as the latest reports claim they will demand between £100m and £120m ($131.5m-$158m) for Anderson. It is a similar price tag that United were quoted by Brighton for Carlos Baleba over the summer, which ultimately led to them turning away from the Cameroon international.
Anderson’s stock has risen way above Baleba’s in the last three months, and a £100m-plus fee is not actually that outlandish when compared to the two leading midfielders in the league over the last couple of years, Rice and Moises Caicedo. Arsenal paid a club-record £105m to sign Rice from West Ham in 2023. He was 24 at the time and was also an England regular at that stage, albeit with considerably more experience than Anderson given he had both a European Championship and a World Cup under his belt. Caicedo, meanwhile, moved from Brighton to Chelsea at the age of 21 that same summer for £115m.
Rice has been the main driving force behind Arsenal’s consistent results over the last three seasons while Caicedo was instrumental to Chelsea finishing fourth in the league last season and to them winning the Club World Cup. And if Anderson, who only turned 23 at the start of November, continues on the same path he is at the moment, there is no reason why he could not do the same for United.
His ability to play in different midfield roles will also be useful for the club’s succession planning. He could fill in for Casemiro next season as Amorim’s primary holding midfielder if the Brazilian leaves this summer before taking the baton from Fernandes in 2027, when the captain’s current contract will be up.