The Manchester United transfer problem that could turn ‘Mission 21’ into mission impossible | OneFootball

Within a few minutes, Ruben Amorim had addressed each of the seemingly incompatible, irreconcilable realities of life at Manchester United in 2025. He cited ‘Mission 21’, the aim of winning the club’s 21st league title. “We talk about that, I sense from day one the focus is to win the Premier League,” said a manager who took a club which had waited a long time for a similar success in his homeland and twice made them champions of Portugal but who, come Sunday evening, could be in charge of the side 16th in England.

Time will tell if there is any substance behind the latest of United’s ambitious slogans. Amorim’s task in securing the league title that none of David Moyes, Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourinho, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Ralf Rangnick or Erik ten Hag came close to capturing is rendered tougher by the financial position. It is one Amorim inherited, even if he has compounded it with wretched results that mean there is a risk United will have no income from European football next season. But, with co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe cutting costs, considering a fresh round of redundancies and with PSR regulations extended for another year – scarcely favouring United, who are weighed down by past spending – Amorim is dealing with the era of austerity at Old Trafford.

Ten Hag spent, and largely wasted, £600m. As Amorim contemplated the summer transfer window, he said: “Here it is simple: to do something we need to sell players.” If one challenge is to offload players who have largely underachieved at United, another is to turn a team who have lost five of their last six home league games into potential champions. “We can change everything in a few years,” said Amorim, trying to sound optimistic. “I don't know how long that is going to take.”

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Ruben Amorim admits that Manchester United cannot spend without first selling (PA Wire)

Because if United are proof that money is not the answer to everything, they still need to generate plenty: not least if they are to persist with a manager whose system, whatever he says, suits very few of the current squad.

At the moment, their guaranteed revenue in the summer amounts to the £25m Chelsea will pay for Jadon Sancho when his loan is converted into a permanent deal; it nevertheless amounts to a massive loss on a £73m signing. Aston Villa have an option to buy the loanee Marcus Rashford for £40m but there are multiple reasons why United should not bank on the money arriving. If the Mancunian does not impress in the Midlands, it is hard to imagine Villa triggering the clause. Even if he does, unless anyone else is willing to pay a similar amount for a forward whose wages United are currently subsidising, they could instead make a lower offer or try to borrow him again.

Antony has made a promising start to life at Real Betis, but that does not equate to anyone buying an £85m signing. The danger for United is that their misfits instead become serial loanees until their contracts expire.

There are reasons not to pay big fees for most United players. There are those who are out of contract either this summer – Christian Eriksen, Victor Lindelof, Jonny Evans and Tom Heaton – or next, in Harry Maguire and Casemiro. There are those who are either injured or injury prone, in Luke Shaw, Lisandro Martinez, Tyrell Malacia or Mason Mount.

There are those whose value is reduced by being in their thirties – Heaton, Evans, Eriksen, Casemiro, Lindelof, Maguire and Bruno Fernandes – or because of the size of their salaries, in Casemiro, Rashford and Mount. There are those having difficult or dreadful seasons, such as Rasmus Hojlund, Joshua Zirkzee, Casemiro and Kobbie Mainoo. Then there are recent recruits, bought with the future in mind, like Patrick Dorgu and Leny Yoro, who are presumably off limits.

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Casemiro is out of favour, but it may be impossible to recoup value on the midfielder (PA Wire)

It doesn’t leave many. It also means that younger players who have come through the academy, whose sales would count as pure profit in the books, can look the likeliest way of raising funds for Amorim. Alejandro Garnacho and Mainoo may assume a new importance, especially as Amorim is reluctant to pick the midfielder as a midfielder.

United being United, there will invariably be suggestions that they will buy anyone and everyone; Amorim’s former charge Viktor Gyokeres would be an obvious, if expensive, name to top a summer shopping list. It may come as a disappointment to many a selling club, plus plenty of agents, if United are instead scrimping and saving.

And yet, somehow, also targeting the title. The evidence of this season is that they have not been further away for half a century. Come 14th or below and it will be their lowest league finish since the 1970s. They are not alone in plummeting further than seemed possible this season but the context is different. Amorim suggested that his job is harder than Ange Postecoglou’s: no one charges the Australian with winning the league for Tottenham.

“With all due respect I am in a bigger club with bigger pressure,” he said. It is the pressure of doing more with less, of raising money and then spending it more wisely than United have in the last dozen years, of emulating Sir Alex Ferguson by taking a team from the bottom half of the table to the title. And the last few months have suggested it isn’t Mission 21, but Mission Impossible.