Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is expecting a quiet January transfer window as football clubs continue to reel from the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
Up to 4,000 Premier League matchgoers will return for the first time since March for United's trip to West Ham United next week, but Greater Manchester was placed in Tier 3 of the regional restrictions and supporters may not return to Old Trafford until the New Year.
United signed five players in the summer and hope to integrate Amad Diallo into their squad in the New Year, provided they can secure a work permit for the 18-year-old Atalanta winger.
Odion Ighalo will return to parent club Shanghai Shenhua at the end of January but the deadline day arrival of Edinson Cavani means United will not be seeking a replacement for Ighalo in January.
"It's hard to predict what the financial situation is, if teams need to sell or if they have got money to buy," Solskjaer said. "I don't predict a lot of ins and outs, to be fair.
"The world, financially, and football world has changed as well, it depends the injury situations are at teams. I feel very happy with my squad, we're getting stronger. I still have issues every week when we only have an 18-man squad: who do I leave out? I feel we're in a good position."
The MEN reported earlier this month United have prioritised outgoings, with Sergio Romero, Phil Jones and Marcos Rojo up for sale. Timothy Fosu-Mensah has been offered a new contract but is considering his future.
United travel to Southampton this weekend seeking their fourth successive win for the first time this term, having failed to string together a four-game winning run in regulation time matches last season.
"Of course we want that run to continue but we know how well Southampton have done lately the last year or so," Solskajer added. "But we have a very good away record and are up there since the turn of January, when we had some ins and outs, transfers, I think that was a big turning point for us because since then we have been pushing up the table and we are getting that consistency.
"We know this is a nice challenge and a good test for the team now to see if we learnt our lessons from the games we played against them last season."
