Amad Diallo Will Return To Manchester United Next Season, Says Erik Ten Hag

Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag has confirmed that Amad Diallo will be a part of his first team squad next season.

The Ivorian has been on loan at Sunderland in the EFL Championship this season where he has hugely impressed and become a fan favorite.

The 20-year-old attacker has played a major role in Sunderland finishing sixth in the table to secure a place in the play-offs where they will face Luton Town over two legs.

“Yes, of course,” Ten Hag replied when he was asked at a press conference on Friday if Diallo would return to Old Trafford this summer and be given a chance.

“We loan such players to let them develop and make progress, to bring them back. That is the aim of a loan.”

“We are really strong on them in the matter of the way we mentor them. We follow them and we have communication through all the season.”

“Especially Darren Fletcher, he invests a lot in such processes and the aim is to bring them back as a better player and with better experience.”

Over the course of this season Diallo has scored 13 goals in 37 league games, including a spectacular effort in Sunderland’s 3-0 win over Preston North End on the last day of the season this week to lift them in to the play-off places.

Diallo has won the Sunderland supporters’ Young Player of the Year award, and was also shortlisted in the final three for the EFL Championship Young Player of the Season award, which was won by Bristol City’s Alex Scott.

United signed Diallo in October 2020 from the Italian side Atalanta for a fee that could reach as high as £37 million, before he arrived at Old Trafford in January 2021.

“I believe he is one of the most exciting young prospects in the game,” said the United manager at the time, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. “He is a player with the attributes needed to be an important player for Manchester United in the years to come.”

Diallo went on to make nine appearances for United and score once, but the club’s coaches saw that he needed to gain greater experience, and after a five-month spell with Rangers in the Scottish Premier League last season he was sent to Sunderland.

The Sunderland manager Tony Mowbray has described Amad as an “amazing talent” who is a “maestro with the ball.”

“Controlling the ball’s so easy for Amad, he doesn’t have to think because he can just kill it dead and he sees the pass straight away…It’s unbelievable how clever he is.”

“He can play wide, he can play inside, he can play deep. I think he can play centre-midfield for us,” Mowbray has said. “Just give him the ball and he very rarely loses it…He is versatile.”

“I see United games, I watch a lot of football, and Bruno Fernandes plays a bit of everywhere, off the right sometimes, inside as a 10 or as a running 8, he can play deep and link the midfield up. Amad is a similar type of footballer.”