No matter what happens between now and May 19, when the Premier League season ends, Manchester United is in the middle of a lot of mystery.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe hasn’t spent any time making forward-thinking changes since he bought a small stake in the company in February. This week, John Murtough quit as football director, which brings Ineos one step closer to finishing its football restructure in M16.
For Murtough’s job, Ineos wants to hire Dan Ashworth, who is currently on gardening leave from Newcastle United, and make him the club’s first sports director. Ashworth will work closely with Omar Berrada and Jason Wilcox, who the Reds want to sign from Southampton, and will have a lot of influence over how the club hires players.
Manchester United will likely make a lot of changes to their first-team group this summer, whether they play in Europe next season or not. United knows they need to do more to stay in the game since it’s a seller’s market and as many as ten players could leave.
The Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR) of the Premier League are very strict, so United knows they need to improve their hit rate in a market where everyone wants to sell. It’s been years since they didn’t get big enough fees for a lot of players, especially those who left the youth team or the fringes of the first team.
In Manchester, Berrada made sure that City got huge prices for some of their less well-known players. James Trafford was sold to Burnley last summer in a deal worth up to £19 million. He had just come back from a loan stay at League One team Bolton Wanderers. He had never played in a Premier League game before.
Everyone who works for United will have an idea of which players the team needs to try to get rid of this summer. But it might be harder to move some players than others. Donny van de Beek is a great example of this.
He has gone backwards at a scary rate since he joined United almost four years ago, and his deal still has a year to go. He was sent on loan to Eintracht Frankfurt by United in January, which gave him the chance to get some much-needed playing time.
However, he has only played six times for the German team so far, which means they probably won’t use the option-to-buy clause United added to the deal. This summer, they can sign the Dutch player for €11 million (£9.55 million), plus €3 million (£2.6 million) in add-ons.
United could have the same problem with Hannibal Mejbri, another playmaker. Like Van de Beek, he was sent abroad in January. He joined Sevilla in Spain for the rest of the season, with the chance for the La Liga club to sign him permanently this summer.
He has, however, had a hard time getting chances and has only started one league game. That being said, the Europa League experts probably won’t use the £17 million choice they have to sign him.
United put in a “buy-back” option in the deal in case it is taken advantage of. This means that they sent him out on loan with the plan of selling him forever at the end of the loan. He will be going back to Old Trafford at the end of this season, unless something very important happens in Spain.
Luke Shaw is important.
However, he will only have to meet that duty if he starts half of their games from the time he gets there. So far, he has only played 10 times and started twice, so it doesn’t look like that clause will be used.
It’s possible that United will miss out on deals worth up to £36.8 million this summer if nothing changes with the three players listed above. Any of them probably won’t have a future at Old Trafford, so United will have to find other ways to get rid of them.
In the case of Van de Beek, that will be easier said than done.
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