​At least Manchester United should have a specialist in the subject overseeing matters. Their summer midfield overhaul is being conducted with a midfielder at the helm. He has started with his old role. Michael Carrick’s first buy has been Andrey Santos, for an initial £48m. His second is set to be Youri Tielemans, for £35m. It appeared it would be Ederson, for a similar fee, but United have put a move on hold after the Brazilian failed a medical.So the midfield merry-go-round at Old Trafford appears to have accelerated. Or, some would say, veered off course, given the change in names. There will be no Elliot Anderson or Mateus Fernandes; nor, seemingly, Aurelien Tchouameni, who has signed a new contract at Real Madrid. It is hard to escape the sense that United are down to the second tier of targets or that a club who have long been big spenders are being outbid, forced to operate on the cheap. If so, they have further reasons to regret overspending in the past. Last year was the summer of the £70m forward for United; this, so far, is the window of the £30m-£50m midfielder.Youri Tielemans appears set to join Manchester United (PA)The numbers feel instructive. For once, United have been blown out of the water by rivals. Tielemans and Santos have a combined cost of around the £85m Tottenham paid for Mateus Fernandes. Even had they added Ederson, it would be little more than the £116m Manchester City will fork out for Elliot Anderson.Andrey Santos, left, has joined Manchester United and Youri Tielemans, right, could soon follow (PA)Even as United have moved a little closer to building their £2bn stadium, there is a sense of an enforced austerity to the rebuild on the pitch. Some of their plans have not come off. They can’t sell Manuel Ugarte yet, because he was injured at the World Cup, while Barcelona did not take up their option to buy the big earner Marcus Rashford. Andre Onana has been loaned to Trabzonspor again, but not sold. United may be running out of ways to bolster the budget.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAnd meanwhile, the midfield market was inflated: in part by Tottenham, committing £100m to Tonali and then a further £85m to Fernandes. United have boxed clever in some respects: Ederson has a year left on his Atalanta contract and he looked a value-for-money option. Tielemans has a release clause in his Aston Villa contract and, in the age of the £100m midfielder, passers of his calibre are rarely sold for a third of that. But he is 29; it is not a repeat of paying £63m for Casemiro when he was in his thirties, but United may end up again with a player with no resale value.But there is a logic to signing him. It weakens a rival; United and Villa could end up contesting a Champions League place and, with Amadou Onana sidelined by a cruciate ligament injury, Villa’s midfield looks weakened. Tielemans could prove a difference-maker. His three years under Unai Emery were a success. United would probably settle for