Five players Manchester United should sell

Manchester United has had a wobbly year and a half or so, since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement. They endured a disastrous season under David Moyes and now are acting like a wounded tiger that will do whatever it takes to get back his fiefdom. And the Reds did show their intent by splashing close to £150 million this summer under Louis van Gaal.The fans have been clamouring for this kind of a summer for almost a decade to Glazers and finally they got what they’ve longed for. But football is a business and just like any business you have to settle your scores in order to survive. After a boisterous summer, United should focus on offloading some deadwood from their squad. Ideally which should have been cleaned up a long time ago.So here are the five players who should be shown the door for the good.

#5 Ashley Young

Ashley Young was a rising star during his Aston Villa days. He was known for his quick feet and accurate crosses from the flanks. He belongs to the rare category of wingers who are comfortable in playing on either flank.

Sir Alex Ferguson stated in his autobiography that he signed the Englishman as a replacement to an ageing Ryan Giggs. Now this is one compliment which will flatter even the best in the business. But this move has been very contradictory to what was expected out of this move. Ashley Young’s unremitting injuries throughout his stay in Manchester have made him more of a benchwarmer than a regular fixture in the Manchester United XI.

Whatever game-time that he has got this season is due to the never-ceasing list of injuries and not due to his merit. Had it not been for the injuries to various players including him, he would have been a fringe player by now.

His love-affair with injuries are doing no favours to his case as he looks one of the players who are dead certain to leave either in January or in the summer. No club, not even a financial titan like Manchester United, can afford to pay around £118k-a-week to an injury-prone fringe player.

#4 Tom Cleverley

There was always a question lingering in every United fan’s mind in the past decade. Who will replace Paul Scholes? Even the club hierarchy was going through the similar phase of doubt.

There were couple of young lads from the academy which were tipped to replace the outgoing maestro. One was the French wonderkid Paul Pogba and the other was little less hyped local lad in Tom Cleverley. Pogba left the club for avenues anew but the local lad hung on to his boyhood club.

The Basingstoke-born midfielder was highly impressive in his academy days. This earned him a call up to the first team in 2011. His debut season was marred by injuries but he flourished in the very next season as he was part of the league winning team of 2012/13 season. The England international was repaying the faith shown by Sir Alex Ferguson and the club.

A string of incessant injuries and a change in management has turned the tables upside down for the Bradford boy. From being tipped as the baby Scholes, he was butt of all the jokes for his sub-standard performances for Manchester United last season. It seems like he was more of a one season wonder than a star in the making for United. With less than a year left on his contract, the time is ripe to offload him.

#3 Antonio Valencia

A relatively unknown winger was signed by Sir Alex to replace his talismanic forward Cristiano Ronaldo. Before he signed for Manchester United, Antonio Valencia was an unheard name in the most of the places in the world.

Valencia adjusted seamlessly at United and looked another masterstroke by the Scotsman. He had a couple of impressive couple of seasons but since then the Ecuadorian has been highly ineffective for remainder of his career. The main reason for his downfall is his one-dimensional style of play.

The lack of variety in his style of play has been brutally exposed by the opposition defences in these past seasons. The former Latics man is known for his pinpoint crosses and bullish pace. These are no doubt that these are the very qualities every winger should posses. But where Valencia suffers is his lack of improvisation when he is under pressure. The winger fails to generate adequate time and space to deliver a telling cross whenever he is doubled up or drawn too close to the touchline.

This is the prime reason why the Ecuador international has had tumultuous time at Old Trafford in the recent past. He maybe an industrious winger but United has always preferred flamboyant wide men over the ones like him. It is the right time to sell him, if the Red Devils wish to recover some amount of the money invested on him as he has almost three years left in his current contract.

#2 Nani

Luis Nani was signed from Sporting as a player who would directly replace compatriot Cristiano Ronaldo. He was way too similar to the former Sporting and Man Utd star. This is the prime reason for his meteoric rise to the top tier of European football and also the reason for his fall from grace.

The boy who never grew up, this phrase sums up his entire footballing career. He has been impressive for the Red Devils but rarely consistent. He was presented with numerous chances but he didn’t grab a single one of them. All his talent and skills came to nothing as he never realized his true potential. Maybe constant comparison to his fellow Sporting graduate Ronaldo burdened his shoulders way too much for his liking.

If not for his abrupt contract extension, he was heading for the exit door this season, but an unforeseen decision by David Moyes saw him pen a lucrative five year deal last summer. Despite this leap of faith shown by both the club and the erstwhile gaffer, he flattered to deceive. He carried on with this trend under the current boss Louis van Gaal and was swiftly farmed out of the club by the Dutchman. The Portuguese international is becoming a white elephant to Manchester United.

It is imperative for the club to offload him for whatever money they can get as he is becoming a liability by each passing day.

#1 Anderson

A classic case of talent sans hard work going down the drain. Anderson was tipped to be one of the best midfielders in the world but we all know what happened to him. He was a gifted individual who just could not realize his true potential.

Anderson was quite a sensation in Brazil and was signed as an upcoming starlet by Porto. He impressed one and all in Portugal and then Manchester United came calling for this unpolished gem. There used to be days when he was compared to the then Arsenal playmaker Cesc Fabregas. And this is not a joke by any means.

He was signed by Sir Alex Ferguson on his brother-cum-chief scout Martin’s insistence, who thought he was an ideal replacement for an ageing Paul Scholes. He made an impressive start to his Old Trafford career and raised the level of expectations of Reds’ faithful all over the world. Injuries and fitness issues damaged his career beyond repair. His fitness issues are more or less attributed to his lax attitude and unhygienic lifestyle.

He has been over-weight for majority of the current decade which is doing no favours to his football career. It is a financial disaster for a club when a fringe player earns £60k-a-week contract. To make the matters worse, there are reports in the media that Anderson is looking to run down his contract which runs till 2015. Manchester United and its fans both are not particularly pleased with this news.