A ball-winning box-to-box player who can run for days. A defensive irritant who thrives in man-to-man pressing schemes, but can have difficulty when pressured himself. A marauding midfielder who can sow chaos in the opposition, but can look formulaic on the ball.What would you say if The Athletic told you Manchester United were buying a midfielder similar to Fred? Not the underwhelming version of the former United midfielder, but the iteration that had good moments under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Erik ten Hag?Next season, Old Trafford will get a close-up look at Ederson, the Brazilian midfielder who will be the first signing of Michael Carrick’s regime. United reached an agreement with Atalanta for the 26-year-old this week for an initial fee of €40.5million ($47m; £35m).He will be one piece of a much wider midfield rebuild under Carrick and his coaching staff. Here is a cheat sheet explaining what we can expect.What is Ederson good at?Ederson’s three seasons under Gian Piero Gasperini saw him become an integral part of an Atalanta team that steadily rose up the Serie A table.Gasperini would typically pair the Brazilian with a defensive-minded player — Teun Koopmeiners or Marten de Roon — in a 3-4-3, and his all-action play went a long way towards ensuring the midfield two never looked underpowered. Over the years, Atalanta became known for their highly athletic, man-to-man pressing system. The team’s crowning achievement was the 2024 Europa League final, when they dismantled Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen in a 3-0 win.Gasperini’s departure a year later changed Ederson’s role at Atalanta, but he remains a dynamic midfielder who offers more than your traditional hatchet man. He combines strong positional awareness with physicality across all his key duties.He sniffs out danger well, and he’s good at stifling the opposition before they can find rhythm. For the purposes of this piece, we have taken screengrabs from Atalanta’s 2-1 win over Chelsea in early December — an occasion that gave a good sense of how Ederson might compete against Premier League teams next season.The Brazilian stands at 183cm (6ft) and is very intelligent at using his body to maximise any attempt to win the ball. Like Kobbie Mainoo, he is skilled at swatting away players with a stiff arm.Get Ederson side on with an opponent, and he’ll use the sharp corners of his body (hips, shoulders, elbows) to ensure he wins his one-v-one duel, as illustrated below against Joao Pedro.He can look crude at times, but he is effective more often than not, and is good at avoiding trouble with match officials. Ederson picked up only 23 yellows and no red cards across his 153 Serie A games.He chops wood, fetches water and does all of the dirty work you want from a midfielder when working without the ball. He is not an out-and-out defensive midfielder, but someone who can serve as a useful reference point for others when things get frantic — similar to Sandro Tonali at Newcastle United.