Manchester United need all the money they can get ahead of the summer window, and one of their most expensive sales will help.
Having qualified for the Champions League next season, Michael Carrick is already set to be armed with a transfer war chest due to the financial boost that comes with it.
Add to that the pending exits of Jadon Sancho, Casemiro, and (potentially) Marcus Rashford, which amounts to nearly a million/week saved in wages.
That was already enough to set Man Utd up to attack the summer window with gusto, but they’ve now also completed one of their most expensive sales of all time.
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Man Utd to receive £43m in total for Rasmus Hojlund
With the 3-0 win against Pisa in their latest Serie A game, Napoli have confirmed Champions League qualification for next season.
That development means their option to buy Rasmus Hojlund for £38m has now been triggered, and the Dane has already confirmed his departure.
He went on loan to Napoli for this season in a deal worth £5m, so the total cost of the deal for Napoli adds up to £43m.
That’s still a £29m loss United have made on his transfer fee, but it ends up being fourth on the list of Man Utd’s most expensive sales of all time.
He surpasses Alejandro Garnacho, who was sold for around £40m to Chelsea last summer, a sign that Ineos are slowly starting to get the selling part right.
Only Cristiano Ronaldo, Romelu Lukaku, and Angel di Maria are ahead of him in the list now, which is a damning indictment of how bad United were in selling.
Man Utd set up strongly for the transfer window
The upcoming summer is a make-or-break one for United, because they have been in this position before, but squandered it.
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The major difference is that those windows were presided over by the Glazers, who saw UCL qualification as the end instead of a means to the end.
Ineos, in contrast, will want to use this strong position to attack the transfer market and the league with even more gusto next season.
Having UCL qualification in the bag and multiple bad contracts coming off the books gives them the platform needed to add some truly marquee quality to the team.
Get the signings right this summer, and UCL qualification will become a foregone conclusion instead of a cautious expectation next summer.
It has been far too long since that has been said about United.
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