Rasmus Hojlund arrived at Manchester United on Tuesday to complete his £73m transfer from Atalanta and tick off the last of Erik ten Hag‘s transfer non-negotiables.
The raw but highly-rated Hojlund arrives on Ten Hag’s say-so, not at the level of his top target Harry Kane but nevertheless a player who has figured prominently in recruitment conversations for months.
Quick, strong and a good finisher, Hojlund arrives as a rough diamond to complement the polished Mason Mount and Andre Onana. He is, whichever way you spin it, a huge upgrade on the limited Wout Weghorst.
Had you offered that scenario to Ten Hag when Manchester United pulled the curtains on a mostly encouraging 2022-23 season he would surely have taken it.
It is not just that he has been handed three of his top targets this summer, it is that Ten Hag will have had the luxury of having the trio on board in advance of the new season, giving him precious time to integrate them into his exacting system.
Such are the vagaries of the transfer market and vaulting financial fair play regulations, few other managers in the Premier League seem to be afforded that luxury these days. Even Pep Guardiola is waiting for dominoes to fall before Manchester City make moves in the transfer market.
For all this summer’s talk of the numbing uncertainty around the club’s ownership situation a more pressing question has emerged. At what point should the expectation be on Ten Hag to launch a title tilt with this reinforced squad of players?
After all, when the paperwork is completed on the Hojlund deal the United manager will have recorded a net spend of around £340m in a little over a year in charge.
Only Chelsea and Arsenal, by virtue of their record deal for Declan Rice, have laid out more in the same period and while it is anticipated United will sanction outgoings in the final weeks of the transfer window to level that out a bit, they aren’t expected to lose key men.
Instead it is the likes of Fred, Scott McTominay and Harry Maguire who are free to leave, relieving pressure on the wage bill without making Manchester United any worse.
So the pressure should be on Ten Hag to trouble front runners Manchester City and pretenders Arsenal more than they did last season, when the clear improvement under their new manager was undermined by periods when they lacked control and looked far from the pressing machine that the Dutch coach wanted to create.
So far Ten Hag has benefited from what are – by United’s historic standards – fairly deflated expectations. Last season’s Carabao Cup win seemed to be considered enough, especially when it was accompanied by a money-spinning top four place. But the recruitment this summer changes the landscape at Old Trafford and staying under the radar surely isn’t acceptable.
Perhaps the greatest threat to their season is that the Glazer family pull up the drawbridge, refuse to sell and their presence curdles into further toxicity. The longer we go in this convoluted process, the less that can be discounted.
i has been told the takeover process has been effectively “paused” as far as at least one of the two main bidders are concerned.
Both Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos proposal and Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani’s Nine Two Foundation remain in play with both parties keen to close a deal but talk of a decision being imminent does not seem to resonate with either.
“We’ve not been given any guidance at all on what comes next. There haven’t been requests to modify the offers or come up with a new round of bids as there was earlier in the process, there’s just been no communication whatsoever of late,” a source close to one of the bids told i at the start of the week.
It is, they add, “curious”. The suspicion of at least one of the people close to the process is that Avram and Joel Glazer have been disappointed with the size of the offers for the club.
They believe that developments around the corner – new TV deals being negotiated, the growth of the game in the US, the new Champions League format – will add value to the club in the coming years. The record £900m Adidas deal adds credibility to that view and a successful team, either domestically or in Europe, undoubtedly helps.
The uncertainty has taken a back seat while a new, improved team takes shape. But it will continue to cast a shadow over Old Trafford, even as their promising new number nine checks in.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/AQaBPEi
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