Man Utd target £140m British pair five years after this same policy backfired | OneFootball

Marc Guehi and Ivan Toney during a match.

Manchester United decided to buy British in 2019 and that worked out well, didn’t it? Plus, Romelu Lukaku to Newcastle…

MAN UTD GO BACK TO 2019 Football moves in cycles, and five years after Manchester United last targeted British homegrown players, they will return to that policy again. In 2019 they bought Harry Maguire, Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Daniel James, so obviously the roaring success of those three transfers means the policy will be revived once more.

According to the Daily Mail, ‘Sir Jim Ratcliffe is set to instruct a new-look Manchester United recruitment team to prioritise homegrown talent as he aims to fire the club back to English football’s summit.’

Somebody might want to point out just how expensive ‘homegrown talent’ tends to be. But he will find out when he asks Brentford for the price on Ivan Toney, which could be driven up above £80m by interest from Chelsea and Arsenal. And Crystal Palace are likely to want more than £60m for Marc Guehi and will not sell until the summer.

GUIRASSY IS GREENER THOUGH If the options are £80m for Ivan Toney or £15m for Serhou Guirassy, then Manchester United should probably forget that homegrown notion and try and buy the Guinean striker who has scored 15 Bundesliga goals for Stuttgart already this season. He has a release clause that makes him a very favourable January transfer target.

And FootMercato claim that four clubs have already made enquiries: AS Roma, AC Milan, Newcastle and Manchester United.

LUK WHO IS BEING LINKED WITH NEWCASTLE Newcastle United will definitely need more striker options next season as Callum Wilson and Alexander Isak have both struggled with injuries, and Belgian outlet Voetbalkrant claims that they are exploring the idea of bringing Romelu Lukaku back to the Premier League. He has scored 10 in 16 games so far this season for Roma on loan from Chelsea.

There are various flies in the ointment here. First, Lukaku is said to be hesitant to return to the Premier League as it went pretty terribly when he re-joined Chelsea in 2021. He would ideally like to stay with Roma but although his reported £35m price tag would be no problem, they would not be able to match his Chelsea wages, which are close to the £400,000-a-week mark.

So Roma would likely prefer another loan, though Chelsea would quite like some return on their near-£100m investment, thanks.