Pedro will complete Manchester United - he's the missing part of the jigsaw

The pattern, or rather, as he prefers to call it, the process is becoming ever clearer. Louis van Gaal may have spent an awful lot of money, but it is more apparent by the day what he is hoping to do at Manchester United. He is beginning to assemble a side which perfectly fits his way of doing things: organised, fluid, playing to a pre-arranged pattern.

His signings this summer have been excellent. Morgan Schneiderlin, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Memphis Depay, Matteo Darmian and Sergio Romero have all addressed long-standing issues in the squad. He is beginning to get proper cover in most positions (though centre-back and centre-forward remain extant). He has what looks like a squad capable of challenging for honours.

Still, when you work out his likely starting XI, there is one area where he is short. Say the team lines up thus: De Gea (assuming he stays, if not Romero); Valencia, Jones, Rojo, Shaw; Schneiderlin, Carrick; Mata, Schweinsteiger, Depay; Rooney – the shortcoming is obvious. And it isn’t the lack of a starting position for Marouane Fellaini. Schneiderlin, Carrick, Mata, Schweinsteiger, Rooney: it is a core of intelligence, craft, power and agility. But what it is not is one blessed with pace. Which means Van Gaal needs to add someone of real speed to advance on the breakaway.

Sure, Antonio Valencia and Luke Shaw (assuming he plays ahead of the manager’s favourite, Daley Blind) can apply a bit of velocity from full-back, and Memphis Depay is not without after-burners. But what that team really lacks is someone who can carry the ball at real speed, terrifying opposing defenders, leaving scorch marks on the turf. To do, in short, what no-one has at United since Cristiano Ronaldo left for the sun.

This is the galactico issue Van Gaal was discussing during United’s North American tour, the requirement of all top sides to have someone within their ranks who can change the momentum of a game. Ashley Young, the manager said, was good but not a galactico. And there can be few outside the Young household who would disagree with that notion.

The pity is that it didn’t work out with Angel Di Maria. He was the absolute answer to this predicament. This is the player who most embodies all the requirements needed to give a bit of oomph to the Schneiderlin-Carrick-Mata-Schweinsteiger-Rooney core.

Early last season, before the Argentine drifted into irrelevance, Gary Neville did a piece of analysis which brilliantly identified what he brought to United. Tearing out of defence with the ball on the breakaway, he suddenly made everyone else around him move quicker too. Suddenly the whole team was on its toes. After the stultified, pedestrian, lacklustre approach of the David Moyes era, this was United back to what has long been their approved manner of approach.

Unfortunately it was to last not much longer than the game Neville analysed. That Di Maria became so disenchanted with life in Manchester that he seemed to have lost every vestige of confidence, to the point that, coming on as a cameo substitute against Arsenal at the end of last season, he simply could not find a colleague with a pass and kept running into opposing defenders, is one of the great disappointments of modern football. A £59 million disappointment. Though there is no point crying over spilled milk: he is on his way out, at a radically cut price to PSG.

But in Di Maria’s purchase last summer, you can see what Van Gaal was hoping to do. He had bought the pace before he got the anchor, but the idea was clear, the process was in place. This summer, he has got the engine right, now he needs to find the fuel.

Buying back Ronaldo would be the simplest way of confronting the problem. But Van Gaal, in his rather odd English, suggested that was not going to be happening at any time in the near future. Real Madrid are not about to let their master go. Nor will they allow their other speedster Gareth Bale to leave. Even if he wanted to.

Instead Van Gaal seems to be turning his attention to Pedro, the Barcelona winger, who has drifted from favour at the Camp Nou, unable to find regular selection in the first team with Lionel Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez ahead of him in the pecking order.

Not exactly a galactico, perhaps, but Pedro might be just the piece the manager needs to complete his jigsaw. Sorry, his process. The Spaniard is quick all right. And he can carry the ball with him as he runs. But he is also precisely what Van Gaal demands of his players: selfless and dedicated to the team shape.

He will run back into holes as well as forward into them, something you suspect Di Maria was never liable to do, even if he weren’t in a perpetual sulk. And Pedro is the king of assists, getting himself into positions that enable him best to exploit the finishing prowess of others. That’s what Van Gaal likes in his superstars: someone who plays to team orders.

Mind, if United manage to extract him from Barca it will not be cheap. Another £22m is required to trigger his release clause. Added to the costs for Schneiderlin, Carrick, Mata, Schweinsteiger and Rooney that would make easily the most expensive front six in the history of English football, a sextet totting up to north of £200 million.

And with Herrera, Blind, Young, Depay and Fellaini in reserve, the total cost just of forward players under Van Gaal’s charge is nudging £300m. Which, as has been much shared on social media this summer, is more than Ajax have spent on players in their entire history.

But then again, next month sees the start of the new contract with Adidas, a piece of business worth some £750m to the club. The fact is, after years of failing to confront the deficiencies in the squad, that is the cost of catch-up. If anyone can afford such pain, United can.