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Having missed out on a Premier League top-four finish and having ended the season 32 points off champions and rivals Manchester City, the 2018-19 season is a season to forget for Manchester United.
Manchester United has had their moment of a resurrection at the beginning of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s tenure. The Norwegian delivered 14 wins and two draws from his first 17 games. It led to his appointment on a permanent basis at the end of March. Then it all went wrong.
Since Solskjaer took the permanent role, United won only two out of 10 games. Not to mention in those two wins against Watford and West Ham, they were arguably the weaker side.
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It is too early to claim Solskjaer belongs in the list as David Moyes, Louis van Gaal and Jose Mourinho who failed to meet the expectations since the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson. He has only been at the helm since December.
But now Solksjaer is given the task to oversee a massive overhaul of the squad -- a task he never experienced before. A number of reports suggest United are in for a squad overhaul come summer.
With the sort of budget that Manchester United are capable of spending, you would expect United to move quickly to grab the best talents in world football. In reality, despite being linked to so many names, United seem to struggle to land top targets.
Here are three reasons why Manchester United are likely to have a summer transfer window full of failures.
#1 No pulling power
United have announced the signing of Daniel James from Swansea City. An addition to the squad that would help, but it is hard to argue that the 21-year-old was at the top of the United transfer list.
Not long ago, United were reportedly trying to sign Julian Brandt, before the German signed for Borussia Dortmund. TalkSPORT also revealed that United were ready to spend up to £100m for Dortmund’s Jadon Sancho but a failure to secure Champions League football put him off a move to Old Trafford.
It is clear that missing out on Champions League football would not only harm United financially but also the prospect of attracting top targets.
In the approach to sign Matthijs de Ligt, for example, United are having competitions from Barcelona, Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain. It didn’t come as a surprise that Dutch legend Ruud Gullit felt United's failure to qualify for Champions League could have a detrimental impact on their pursuit of De Ligt.
He said: "I think he [De Ligt] wants to play in the Champions League, so that's unfortunate for Manchester United."
Since the departure of Ferguson, United are losing more and more pulling power towards top players. In the past few years, United have tried to compensate with it by offering more money to the clubs and the players. But this policy has created another problem, which leads to the next point.
#2 Difficult to make room for big signings
Among the Premier League clubs, Manchester United are the clear winner on the list of the highest wage bills. United had a total wage bill of £296m, £33m ahead of Liverpool in second place. Alexis Sanchez and Paul Pogba are the top earners with £350,000-a-week and £290,000-a-week respectively.
But not only those two, Anthony Martial (£250,000), Romelu Lukaku (£200,000), David de Gea (£200,000), Luke Shaw (£160,000), Juan Mata (£140,000), Nemanja Matic (£120,000), Fred (£120,000) and Ashley Young (£110,000), all earn more than £100,000 per week.
This wages structure makes it almost impossible for Man United to offload certain players to make room for new signings. Unless the players want to take a massive pay-cut, most of the other clubs cannot afford to pay United players demanded salaries in transfers.
Even the latest arrival Daniel James has had his wages increased from £4,000-a-week at Swansea to a staggering £67,000-a-week, according to the Daily Mail.
The next point perhaps is the culprit of this mess.
#3 Transfer policy led by non-football men
"At Bayern, the people in charge are football men. I always appreciated that,” said former Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal. “At Manchester United, on the other hand, Ed Woodward was installed as CEO -- somebody with zero understanding of football who was previously an investment banker.”
He added: “It cannot be a good thing when a club is run solely from a commercially-driven perspective.”
Van Gaal has also spoken out about the transfer strategy. He told The Guardian: “The problem begins with, of course, that Manchester United was never refreshed. I think when you are a manager you have to refresh every year to keep the team-building process going.”
“I didn’t always get the players that I want. That’s the problem. There is Woodward and his right hand is [club’s head of corporate development] Matt Judge. And there was the head of scouting. That was the structure but you are always dependent on Woodward and Judge.”
“I always thought Manchester United can buy every player because they have a lot of power. Seemingly a few players were not reachable for Manchester United. I cannot understand but it was like that.”
Judge has taken the role of negotiator for United transfers, in the absence of the technical director. Managers and scouting team may have their say on transfer targets, but it will ultimately be decided by Woodward and Judge to see if the targets fit in with the club’s plans. According to the Daily Mail, Judge has a Master’s degree in economics from Bristol University, where Woodward also studied, and 13 years of experience in investment banking.
With the state of the club now, perhaps it is best to appoint a technical director with a football background, at least to balance between commercial and football side of affairs.
A close ally of Jose Mourinho, Pedrag Mijatovic, also suggested the the Portuguese were missing a technical director or a sports director figure. He said: “In the last clubs where he has been he has found himself very alone. He has missed a sports director.
“People believe the sports director is a figure who only works three months in summer. It is not true. He is a fundamental figure between the training group and the club’s high levels, because there is often a need to bring the points of view of each other closer together. Someone has to mediate.”
