If a theme of Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s reign as Manchester United’s co-owner has been reducing the head count at Old Trafford and Carrington, Ruben Amorim may have shown signs he is buying into it. As United began pre-season training, five players were told not to report for work. Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho, Alejandro Garnacho, Antony and Tyrell Malacia are the absent five. United said they had asked to leave the club. The alternative perspective is that the club was more proactive in telling them they had no future.
Either way, when they could have been in Carrington, they are instead in limbo. And if United’s show of strength amounted to backing for Amorim, there were signs an attempt to usher in a new era had already begun. United have started to sign the replacements before selling the incumbents. Matheus Cunha has arrived for £62.5m. Bryan Mbeumo could soon follow for a similar fee. Cunha has been granted the No 10 shirt that was once the property of Denis Law, Mark Hughes, Teddy Sheringham, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Wayne Rooney.
The more observant may have spotted that United already had a No 10; Rashford lost his shirt just as, to rather less fanfare, Sancho’s No 25 was given to Manuel Ugarte last year. If Mbeumo or any other arrivals have particular designs on the 12, 17 or 21, they may find United are willing to give it to them.
If the route to the exit is clearly signposted for the unwanted five, the bigger problem could lie with United than the players. They include two of the club’s four most expensive ever signings, in Antony and Sancho, who came for a combined £158m. They include two of the top earners at the club, in Rashford and Sancho; if the quintet could account for something in excess of £700,000 a week on the wage bill, the two England internationals get the majority of that.
If the players have a footballing imperative to find new employers, United have a financial imperative to get them off the books; it is rendered harder by their cost, in terms of either transfer fee or wages. Rashford and Sancho’s salaries could deter many of a suitor.
If there is a limited market, United suffered setbacks in their attempts to offload them. Chelsea opted to pay a £5m penalty rather than making Sancho’s loan at Stamford Bridge a permanent deal. Aston Villa had a £40m option to buy Rashford but defeat at Old Trafford in their final game of the season meant they did not qualify for the Champions League.
Barcelona are interested in Rashford, just as Real Betis, following a successful loan, are in Antony and Sancho seems on Juventus’ radar. Yet getting Barcelona to pay sizeable transfer fees has been a problem many another has experienced in recent years; a cash-strapped club tend to see if they can use their allure to get players on the cheap and Rashford has talked of his wish to play alongside Lamine Yamal. As Manchester City can testify, from Barcelona’s regular pursuits of Bernardo Silva, they are keen on elite footballers, less keen to pay for them.
And when United were drawing up plans for a summer recruitment drive in which they also wanted Liam Delap, they may have imagined the attacking overhaul could be funded by the sales of the unwanted. On paper, they might have imagined getting around £160m for the four forward-thinking players (and perhaps another £10m for the left-back Malacia): the agreed £40m price for Rashford, the £25m fee Chelsea were due to pay for Sancho, perhaps £30m for Antony and something in the region of £60m or £70m for Garnacho, who was on Chelsea and Napoli’s radar in January.
Much of that looks optimistic now, even if that still involved losing about two-thirds of the purchase prices of Sancho and Antony. Any player with particularly large wages risks commanding a lower transfer fee as a result. Meanwhile, valuing Garnacho at the sort of sum Napoli received for Khvicha Kvaratskhelia seems far-fetched.
Plus a couple of dynamics in the summer winger market feel relevant. One is that clubs appear to be looking for younger arrivals with resale value in four years; Chelsea have just bought Jamie Gittens, who will only be 24 in 2029, whereas Rashford will be 31 then.
Another is there seems to be a £50m feel to many of the deals: Gittens went for £48.5m, Noni Madueke could cost a similar amount, Anthony Elanga a bit more. Plus, of course, if Chelsea, Arsenal and Newcastle all buy wingers, they are all less likely to go shopping at Old Trafford.
And it reflects a recurring theme: United do not sell players when they could bring in the most, in part because then they seem indispensable at Old Trafford. Garnacho’s value would have been far higher a year ago, Rashford’s in 2023, when each had come off an excellent season. Now the Argentinian has had an underwhelming year, Rashford a poor last 18 months at Old Trafford, even if his stint at Villa was better.
There is another issue. Desperation is not a particularly good negotiating ploy. Exiling players, as Erik ten Hag did with Sancho and Amorim with Rashford, makes it harder to ask for premium prices. While United thought they had sold Sancho last summer, the reality is three windows have passed without his exit being sealed.
This is the fourth and United have made a fast start to incomings and a slow one to outcomings, despite knowing for quite some time who they wanted to sell. For a club who have struggled to sell well in recent years, it is a test of the new regime’s competence: how much of that notional £160m will they ever see?
The longer the current impasse continues, the more damaging and embarrassing it risks becoming for United. There could be a knock-on effect for Amorim’s business: don’t bring any money in and, for a club deprived of European revenue and who Ratcliffe claimed could have gone bankrupt by Christmas, it should be harder to fund more buys.
Meanwhile, they will face the question if they have to reintegrate at least some of the stay-at-home five. And, their admirers may feel, unless there is an auction, they can afford to wait. United’s bargaining position weakens with every week they still have Rashford and co on their books. Last season, they paid 25 per cent of the Mancunian’s wages to play for Villa.
This year, the danger is that, rather than bringing in the money to reshape their attack, they end up subsidising other clubs’ seasons to take their players. So while Amorim starts work on the training pitches with the players he wants, much rests on the off-field work to offload the non-playing players.
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