The one-year contract Tom Heaton has agreed takes care of some additional business for Manchester United, who will not require a veteran goalkeeper.
Elite clubs now favour recognisable back-ups ‘keepers and unless Altay Bayindir agitates for a change of scenery, United have an established trio.
Identifying a reserve custodian would hardly have been taxing. Bayindir was something of an afterthought and arrived so late last summer that Dean Henderson was a substitute in United’s first three fixtures.
If United are building their squad from the back, the goalkeepers are boxed off. In defence, there have to be three out (Raphael Varane, Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Victor Lindelof) and three in, if United are a credible club in the market.
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There are sellable assets and must-sells in midfield (Casemiro, Christian Eriksen, Donny van de Beek and Hannibal Mejbri) and attack (Facundo Pellistri, Jadon Sancho and Mason Greenwood). Marcus Rashford has to decide whether he wants to turn the page or close the book on his United career.
Tyrell Malacia and Antony are both practically unsellable. Malacia has not played in over a year and the ludicrous £81.3million up-front fee United paid for Antony prohibits a sale. Going off the accounting practice of amortisation, United would have to sell for £48.78m. Antony scraped three goals last season and is in exile from the Brazil squad.
Malacia and Antony are, crucially, Ten Hag’s signings and played in the Eredivisie. Even with a new technical director, an inaugural sporting director and an incoming chief executive, United continue to target Dutchmen.
After Ajax had conquered Real Madrid and Juventus in the Champions League knockout rounds in 2019, a hilarious meme of Paris Hilton clutching a Powerpuff Girl ice cream went viral. Billed as ‘Barca going back to Ajax during the summer transfer window’, Hilton says: “Actually, can I have five more of these little blonde bitches?”
It could be updated to ‘United going back to Ajax academy graduates’. United bid for Frenkie de Jong, bought two players from Ajax and another who had trained with Ajax at the start of that year. Now they want Matthijs de Ligt and Joshua Zirkzee.
Manchester City have signed one player from the Eredivisie during Pep Guardiola’s tenure and that was when they exercised a buy-back clause in Angelino’s contract at PSV Eindhoven. Angelino was complicit in damaging defeats to Liverpool and United and was jettisoned to RB Leipzig six months later.
Ten Hag’s instincts were sound with Lisandro Martinez but not with Wout Weghorst. Andre Onana and Sofyan Amrabat were starters in the FA Cup final but Antony and Mason Mount weren’t. There have been more misses than hits.
Onana conceded several saveable goals and conceded he struggled mentally in his first seven months at the club. The Cameroonian is a personable figure in the dressing room and popular with staff. Onana ought to be more dependable next season.
Going Dutch is questionable. The Netherlands failed to qualify for Euro 2016 and the 2018 World Cup and were listless at Euro 2020. Louis van Gaal restored confidence with his return in 2021 and Ronald Koeman has emulated his old foe by guiding the Oranje to the quarter-finals of a major tournament.
United encountered a dogmatic Dutchman in Van Gaal though his rebranding of Barcelona in the late Nineties was more Dutchcentric. Barca have signed fewer Dutchmen in the 24 years since Van Gaal departed than they did during his first three-year stint.
Ineos’s authority will erode if they grant the manager the autonomy to continue to recruit players familiar to him. And staff, too. United want to add two Dutch coaches to Ten Hag’s backroom staff in Ruud van Nistelrooy and Rene Hake.
There is a possible element of compromise there. Installing two coaches who were established managers threatens to dilute the influence of the incumbent United manager. Only they are Ten Hag’s compatriots and he worked with Hake at Utrecht.
But the practice of recruiting targets known to Ten Hag has failed in the past two summers and Ineos’s card is already marked after judging a manager on one game in a 52-game season. United need to be more considered how they spend after burning through more than a billion in a decade as they attempt to comply with the profitability and sustainability rules.
Clubs have seen them coming a mile off. Everton’s minimum £70m valuation of Jarrad Branthwaite is unrealistic but United are the prospective buying club and have form for folding when they have the weaker hand.
They won’t have had to play poker with Heaton.