Man Utd now well placed to make £60m January signing as INEOS make transfer approach
Man Utd are well placed to make a big signing in the January transfer window despite profit and sustainability (PSR) concerns, according to former Man City financial adviser Stefan Borson.
The Red Devils made five signings in the summer transfer market to help Erik ten Hag build a team for this season but many of the new additions have failed to impress.
Joshua Zirkzee, Noussair Mazraoui, Leny Yoro, Manuel Ugarte and Matthijs de Ligt all joined as Man Utd balanced the books with the sales of Scott McTominay, Mason Greenwood, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Willy Kambwala and others.
There were claims the cost of sacking Ten Hag and replacing him with Ruben Amorim – which will impact PSG – will cost around £37.5m – but former Everton CEO Keith Wyness insists the true figure could reach between £50m and £60m.
Wyness told Football Insider: “You’ve got to look at this on a much bigger scale. There will be several backroom staff who will also need paying off as well, apparently Amorim is bringing in five staff members.
“There will be some players Ten Hag bought that Amorim won’t want, there will be a loss to take to get rid of those as well. There’s the backroom staff at Sporting who need to be paid off to come over too.
“I think it could be £50-60million by the time you take in everything that needs to be done to set Amorim up. It all comes back to the decision they made in the summer to keep Ten Hag on.”
MORE ON MAN UTD FROM F365…
👉 F36Skive: Missing Men – when Amorim faced Fergie’s Man Utd in 2012…
👉 Ruben Amorim hints at Man Utd formation change as Ten Hag replacement starts ‘very difficult’ job
👉 Man Utd make shock move for ‘unhappy’ Chelsea star as Amorim’s first signing
Despite fears that Man Utd will now be unable to provide Amorim with any new players in January, football finance expert Borson insists it’s possible they will be able to finance a deal as big as £60m.
Borson told Football Insider: “You don’t need that much space to be able to do a deal in January, almost for any player.
“For the sake of discussion, if you think about signing a £60million player on a five-year contract, that would have a £12million-a-year amortisation impact, plus the wages.
“But if it’s only for six months of a financial year and you buy them on 1 January, you are only going to have six months of his costs in the financial year that runs until 30 June.
“All of a sudden, the £12million of amortisation costs becomes £6million and the wages are only half of his annual wage, so it probably wouldn’t cost much more on the profit and loss for a £60million player than £10million all in during this current financial year.
“It’s just not that significant, especially in the context of being able to potentially sell a young player before 30 June to balance the books.”
One player Man Utd have already made approaches for is Sporting Lisbon youngster Geovany Quenda with Spanish newspaper Mundo Deportivo claiming the Red Devils are the team who have ‘called the Jose Alvalade offices the most times to ask about’ the forward.
Arsenal, Liverpool and Man City are also rumoured to be interested but Man Utd could have an advantage with Amorim now in place as manager.
