Manchester United have agreed a deal with Brighton for Carlos Baleba. The fee is £70m — £65m guaranteed plus £5m in add-ons, with Brighton also securing a sell-on clause. The Cameroon midfielder is set to sign a five-year contract and undergoes his medical on Saturday.
The agreement is verbal for now, ahead of the medical and signatures, so a formal announcement should follow over the weekend.
United’s third midfielder of the summer
This completes a midfield rebuild we have followed since the window opened. Baleba joins Andrey Santos, signed from Chelsea for £50m, and Youri Tielemans, whom United landed by triggering the release clause in his Aston Villa contract.
Three midfielders in a single window, at a combined cost well beyond £150m. At 22, Baleba is both the youngest and the most expensive of them.
What it means in FPL — and why not much
Worth being precise here, because a £70m transfer sounds bigger than it looks from the game’s perspective.
Baleba is injured. He appears in the database as a £5.0m Brighton player with an ankle injury note and a zero percent chance of playing in the coming round. Expected return: 23 August. He is owned by 0.2% of managers, so this affects very few squads.
Our model rates him 10 — among the lowest marks in the entire game. It is worth explaining where that comes from, because we worked through exactly this problem earlier tonight with Christos Tzolis’s assist: a rating of 10 does not mean “poor player”, it means “no minutes and an injury”. Baleba played plenty for Brighton last season, but the model is currently penalising his fitness status and his imminent change of club.
In practice: one for the September watchlist, not for this weekend. He will enter the game as a United player only once the transfer completes, at a price the game sets.
Where this leaves Brighton
Brighton lose their best defensive midfielder mid-way through the opening weekend — the side plays Aston Villa on Sunday. They did secure a sell-on clause, which at 22 years old may yet prove valuable.
In our squad strength table Brighton already looked thin: no players rated 85 or above. This sale does not improve that picture.
And United?
For FPL purposes United’s key man is unchanged: Bruno Fernandes, rated 90 and holding one of only two “strong buy” verdicts in the game alongside Semenyo. Next in line is Bryan Mbeumo (88), whose ownership climbed to 39% today.
United play Saturday at 12:30 away at Hull — a promoted side without a single player rated above 75 in our table.
Full ratings for the position are in our midfielders rundown, and live ratings for every player sit in the FPL AI Player Rankings.
Deal agreed verbally between the clubs, ahead of a medical and official confirmation — sources: Sky Sports, ESPN and Fabrizio Romano, 21 August 2026. We will update once confirmed. Ownership, price and status data come from the official Fantasy Premier League API. Fantasy PL Edge is an independent site, not affiliated with the Premier League or the official Fantasy Premier League game.