Man Utd transfer plans and the men ‘upstairs’

Sir Dave Brailsford, Omar Berrada, Dan Ashworth and Jason Wilcox will not kick a ball for Manchester United this season.

But that quartet will be at the centre of how the 2024-25 campaign pans out for the club and Ten Hag.

In a sense, they are dealing with a few fundamental problems and a legacy of bad recruitment.

They did not buy Casemiro, but they have to deal with the financial reality of the Brazilian being on an enormous salary for another two years while delivering the type of flawed performance that allowed Fabio Carvalho to ghost past him inside the penalty area for Liverpool’s opener on Saturday.

A ‘tight’ Profit and Sustainability situation is the result of correct checks and balances not being in place previously to prevent the kind of overspend that saw £81.3m committed to sign Brazilian winger Antony from Ajax two years ago when the reality is he is probably not even worth half that.

It is desperate luck for Leny Yoro to get a serious injury within a fortnight of his £52m arrival from Lille but at 18, the centre-back was never going to be the answer on his own.

United need to bring in another central defender. But to do that, they need to sell Victor Lindelof, and maybe Harry Maguire, and that is not easy.

The same is also true at right-back, where Aaron Wan-Bissaka could make way for Bayern Munich‘s Noussair Mazraoui.

The problem at United is all across the squad there are players on huge contracts they will struggle to get elsewhere, and who have simply not delivered performances that make them value for money.

Ask any manager what the key to success is, at whatever level, and they will say recruitment.

United’s new structure features Ineos-backed board members and a new chief executive, sporting director and technical director.

It is their collective job to ensure the mistakes of the past are not repeated.