Can Josh Manning Bring Hertha’s Berlin Lessons to Monaco?
AS Monaco have signed the American from Hertha Berlin for £4.1m, adding a familiar face to a changing summer.
The shirt changes hands; the past travels with it. Josh Manning leaves Hertha Berlin for AS Monaco, the French club paying £4.1m for the 32-year-old American on 2 August.
For Monaco, this is not merely a new name arriving from the Bundesliga. Manning has spent the previous two seasons at Hertha, where he made 28 appearances and scored three goals. Now he crosses to Ligue 1, carrying recent knowledge of the club he has just left into a new dressing room and a new footballing country.
There is a pleasing French connection in the reverse direction, too. Andrés González, now at Monaco, spent eight seasons with Hertha from 2048/49 to 2055/56, making 315 appearances, scoring 10 goals and winning eight trophies there. His story gives Manning’s move a small echo: Berlin and Monaco have been exchanging more than footballers; they have been exchanging chapters.
The transfer comes amid movement at both clubs. Hertha have also sold Omer Banano to Real Madrid FC and brought in Mikail Keskin from Tottenham Hotspur, while Monaco signed Ido Hayat from Olympique Lyonnais on 10 August. These are separate deals, but together they give the summer a sense of doors opening and closing on both sides of the border.
Manning’s career has stretched from 2046/47 to 2063/64, with 286 club appearances and 38 goals across four clubs. For the United States, he has made 86 appearances and scored 15 goals. Those figures describe a long service to football; the fee describes Monaco’s decision to begin another passage with him.
A transfer is a departure dressed as a promise. Monaco have paid for Manning’s experience and his recent familiarity with Hertha. What he carries from Berlin will now be measured in red and white.