{"id":578429,"date":"2021-01-13T11:12:07","date_gmt":"2021-01-13T16:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=578429"},"modified":"2026-01-30T16:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T21:30:08","slug":"bayer-leverkusen-sign-timothy-fosu-mensah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/01\/13\/bayer-leverkusen-sign-timothy-fosu-mensah\/","title":{"rendered":"Bayer Leverkusen Sign Timothy Fosu-Mensah"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bayer04_en\/status\/1349378318773198849?s=21\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bayer Leverkusen have completed the signing of Dutch defender<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/a9142dc3\/Timothy-Fosu-Mensah?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Timothy Fosu-Mensah<\/a> from <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/category\/premier-league\/manchester-united\/\" target=\"_self\">Manchester United<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had previously said that the 23-year-old was free to discuss a move away from Old Trafford in the January transfer window.<\/p>\n<h2>Bayer Leverkusen Complete Fosu-Mensah Signing<\/h2>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">\ud83d\udea8 TRANSFER NEWS \ud83d\udea8<\/p>\n<p>Timothy Fosu-Mensah has joined Bayer 04 from Manchester United.<\/p>\n<p>Welcome to the Werkself, Timothy! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/L8amR13jxJ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/L8amR13jxJ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Bayer 04 Leverkusen (@bayer04_en) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bayer04_en\/status\/1349378318773198849?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 13, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Fosu-Mensah Had Been Linked With a Return to Former Club Ajax<\/h3>\n<p>Moving to the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/category\/bundesliga\/\" target=\"_self\">Bundesliga<\/a> was far from a straightforward choice for Fosu-Mensah. The right-back was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skysports.com\/football\/news\/11667\/12185185\/timothy-fosu-mensah-bayer-leverkusen-and-ajax-join-race-to-sign-manchester-united-defender\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reportedly of interest<\/a> to former club Ajax, who remain close to the heart of their youth-team player.<\/p>\n<p>Manchester United had offered Fosu-Mensah a new contract, but he rejected their proposal on the grounds that he had not played enough first-team football for the club since his senior debut against <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/category\/premier-league\/arsenal\/\" target=\"_self\">Arsenal<\/a> in February 2016.<\/p>\n<p>High expectations were placed upon Fosu-Mensah&#8217;s shoulders after that 3-2 victory over the Gunners at Old Trafford, but the defender would only go on to make a further 30 appearances for the Red Devils.<\/p>\n<p>Fosu-Mensah did gain more <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/category\/premier-league\/\" target=\"_self\">Premier League<\/a> experience on loan at London clubs <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/category\/premier-league\/crystal-palace\/\" target=\"_self\">Crystal Palace<\/a> and Fulham in 2017 and 2018 respectively, but these moves did little to enhance his chances of succeeding at Old Trafford.<\/p>\n<h3>Incomings Unlikely For Ole Gunner Solsjkaer<\/h3>\n<p>Prior to Fosu-Mensah&#8217;s departure, Manchester United did finalise the arrival of Ivory Coast winger <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/01\/10\/amad-diallo-and-facundo-pellistri-provide-attack-of-the-future-for-manchester-united\/\" target=\"_self\">Amad Diallo<\/a> from Atalanta this winter. <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/65cb97b8\/Ole-Gunnar-Solskjaer?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ole Gunnar Solskjaer<\/a>, however, is expecting the 18-year-old to be the only addition made to his squad in the January window.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;January is always difficult but if something comes up that you think about in the long-term, it&#8217;s a long-term target anyway, that&#8217;s another scenario,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/55622102\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the Norwegian said<\/a> of the current transfer market.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But not many teams would like to lose their player in January, so [it is] unlikely that something will happen on the &#8216;in&#8217; side,&#8221; Solskjaer added.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There might be two or three going out because they deserve to play more football for their own good and their own career.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<br \/>\n<a id=\"4wD56sXCSFVafhwaSEFAjg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1290162968\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'4wD56sXCSFVafhwaSEFAjg',sig:'uBcnTUbsJztOWZ9hHMUdk4m9e8eSWiWmocvIJmNXdnM=',w:'594px',h:'443px',items:'1290162968',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bayer Leverkusen have completed the signing of Dutch defender Timothy Fosu-Mensah from Manchester United. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had previously said that the 23-year-old was free to discuss a move away from Old Trafford in the January transfer window. Bayer Leverkusen Complete Fosu-Mensah Signing \ud83d\udea8 TRANSFER NEWS \ud83d\udea8 Timothy Fosu-Mensah has joined Bayer 04 from Manchester [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3563,"featured_media":578658,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[28,4,18,3],"tags":[560,7217,32739,32738,1064,361,547,573,3197,894,136],"class_list":["post-578429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transfers","category-bundesliga","category-manchester-united","category-premier-league","tag-ajax","tag-amad-diallo","tag-arsenal","tag-arsenal-fixtures","tag-atalanta","tag-bayer-leverkusen","tag-crystal-palace","tag-fulham","tag-ole-gunnar-solskjaer","tag-timothy-fosu-mensah","tag-world-football"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3563"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=578429"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":664213,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578429\/revisions\/664213"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/578658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}