A £35m fee had already been agreed with Atalanta for midfielder Ederson, with Manchester United poised to unveil him as their first arrival of the window. Instead, his move to Old Trafford is now caught up in medical uncertainty rather than heading toward confirmation.
The transfer was already running behind schedule after Ederson received a late call-up to Brazil's World Cup squad, replacing the injured Wesley, though United remained confident of getting it announced in July regardless.
That confidence took a hit last weekend, just before Brazil's round-of-16 exit to Norway, when reports out of Brazil suggested the whole deal was collapsing. United weren't having it — a swift denial went out — though the noise around the move has hardly gone away since.
Fabrizio Romano has offered the fullest picture yet, tracing the trouble back to a UK medical that turned up an underlying knee concern significant enough to put the whole move in doubt, and other outlets have gone further still, describing the transfer as dead in the water.
The concern is understood to stem from an initial medical carried out during the World Cup, which raised questions about a knee that troubled Ederson for parts of last season — he missed a number of games with a meniscus problem, and Atalanta maintain he is now fully fit.
United have not disclosed the specific nature of the issue publicly, and the player is now undergoing more detailed assessments in Manchester as the club tries to establish exactly where things stand, reports the Manchester Evening News.
United's official position remains that nothing has been cancelled. The club insists the deal can still be completed if further medical tests come back clean, though there is no firm indication of when that clarity will arrive.
Ederson himself played down the uncertainty while still on World Cup duty, saying simply: "I have to wait. Now I have to enjoy this moment, then we will see."
In the meantime, United are pressing ahead with other transfer business rather than pausing their wider recruitment while pre-season preparations continue.