Saturday 27 / July / 2024
Berlin: Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer revealed last week that he and his staff were spending their time evaluating potential targets and monitoring the market.
“Who knows how the market is going to react to this?” said the Norwegian. “Who knows which clubs need to sell players? There might just be a situation you can exploit.”
His comments will have registered in Germany, where Borussia Dortmund have long resigned themselves to the reality that Jadon Sancho will leave this summer. Dortmund’s transfer model is based on big-money sales, and Sancho will be following in the footsteps of Ousmane Dembele, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Christian Pulisic and others when he inevitably leaves the Westfalenstadion.
It’s no longer a question of “if” and not even really of “when” – but where?
Manchester United’s interest in the 20-year-old winger is no secret, and no surprise: Sancho has been involved in more goals than any other Bundesliga player this season, scoring 14 and setting up 16 more in 24 games. Crucially, he’s also English, and Solskjaer has been open about his desire to construct a side around a British spine.
The attraction for the English club is obvious – but why would Sancho want to move to Old Trafford? For all but the most ardent United supporters, arguments in that direction have been considerably harder to find.
No Champions League, no Sancho
Sancho already has three goals and three assists to his name in the Champions League – a competition United have only qualified for twice via the league since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement in 2013.
They finished sixth last season and were fifth before the current coronavirus-enforced break. And unlike when Paul Pogba returned from Juventusin 2017, United don’t have a proven, top-level manager to make up for the absence of top-level European football.
Whatever their travails on the pitch though, United have remained an industry-leading commercial juggernaut off it. But even that status has come under threat recently. The club remained third in this year’s Football Money League, but the conclusions of publishers Deloitte were not encouraging.
“With the club [currently] failing to qualify for the Champions League in 2019-20, Manchester United find themselves in a precarious position in Money League terms,” the report stated, adding that revenue was predicted to fall from £608 million ($756.8m) to £560-580m in 2019-20, even putting United at risk of being overtaken by Liverpool and Manchester City.
United’s immense financial power enabled them to attract the likes of Angel di Maria, Radamel Falcao, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Pogba to Old Trafford in recent years, but it was a haphazard transfer policy based more on star names and muscle-flexing than a coherent, sporting plan.
None of it paints a picture of a club a rising star like Sancho would be desperate to join, and those close to the player have advised him against a move to United previously. There’s a reason Erling Haaland recently opted for western Germany rather than the north west of England.
A more attractive prospect
But how things can change. When United were beaten 0-2 at home to Burnley at the end of January, following a 2-0 defeat Anfield and not long after a 1-3 derby humiliation at home to City, no one could have foreseen that Solskjaer’s team would then go 11 games unbeaten in all competitions.
