Atalanta director "stunned" by Manchester United's Ederson transfer decision | OneFootball

Atalanta director Cristiano Giuntoli has admitted to being left “stunned” by Manchester United’s decision to pull the plug on the Ederson transfer.

The Red Devils had everything more or less done to sign Ederson from the Serie A club, before pulling out of the deal late on.

BBC Sport were among the outlets to report that this was due to an injury concern that came up during Ederson’s medical, though Atalanta have denied that there’s any problem with the player’s fitness.

The Brazilian midfielder has been a star player for Atalanta, so they’ll surely be glad to keep him, with Giuntoli adding that they’re now working on tying him down to a new contract.

See below for Giuntoli’s response to Man Utd deciding against signing Ederson, as quoted by Fabrizio Romano on his X page…

Romano posted: “Atalanta director Cristiano Giuntoli: “We were stunned [by Man United calling Ederson deall off]”. “Now we are working on a new contract for him”.”

Will Manchester United live to regret Ederson transfer decision?

United clearly decided that signing Ederson wasn’t quite worth the gamble for one reason or another, and of course it would have been a big waste of money if they’d brought him in only to find that he wasn’t up to scratch fitness-wise, or ended up missing a lot of games through injury.

Still, Ederson looks like a top player and this surely won’t be the end of this summer’s saga, with other top clubs surely likely to also take a look at the 27-year-old.

MUFC, meanwhile, have turned to other options, so they’ll hope that new signing Andrey Santos can prove a success, while Youri Tielemans looks like being next, according to the Athletic and others.

Santos and Tielemans are both Premier League-proven, which is a nice bonus to have when signing a player, but Ederson would have arrived more at ‘peak age’ than either of those two, and might arguably have acted as more of a level-raiser for this team.