It seems Manchester United fans are, in the main, in agreement over David de Gea’s exit - it’s the right time but the club have gone about it the wrong way.
He is yet another player in the last few years who has left for nothing. Paul Pogba, Juan Mata and Nemanja Matic all left last summer for a combined total of £0 after initially costing £168m together.
United are already playing with a tight budget this summer amid Financial Fair Play concerns and will need to fund arrivals from sales. An ideal scenario would be selling a player in the same position as who they are trying to bring in, but with De Gea leaving for nought it makes finding his replacement harder.
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United have an active interest in Andre Onana and one may surmise that United wouldn’t have allowed De Gea to leave if they were not confident in bringing in a new No.1. Onana would take a significant chunk out of the approximate £120m budget Erik ten Hag has, of which an initial £55m has already been splashed on Mason Mount.
Inter goalkeeper Onana only arrived in Italy last summer and still has four years left on his contract. However much he potentially arrives for, it would leave United scraping together what is left for a much-needed striker which will be inevitably partially funded by sales.
As seen with Christian Eriksen, United may have to lean into the free market if they want to bolster other positions. Areas of required reinforcement include at centre-half and right-back.
United held early talks with Bayer Leverkusen full-back Jeremie Frimpong in April. He would not come free of charge. The 22-year-old, who tallied nine goals and 11 assists as a wing-back last season, has another two years left on his contract and his employers will want a tasty fee with a number of European big-hitters sniffing around.
This is not the same scenario as with Tyrell Malacia last summer, who arrived for £13m as Ten Hag’s first United signing. Frimpong is said to be valued at almost three times as much and likely too costly for the Reds, given the trajectory of their summer.
Diogo Dalot and Aaron Wan-Bissaka did enough last season to show that they are ample options at right-back and have probably deserved another crack, Dalot signing a fresh deal earlier this year.
The risk is that the exciting Frimpong will likely end up elsewhere and the chance will have gone as Ten Hag looks to the future. But the mere fact is, there will be little spare change this summer.
United are already having to work to get their primary targets through the door, and the exit of De Gea for no return only exacerbates the issue.
Furthermore, if Harry Maguire and Eric Bailly exit then the more prominent issue will be to bring in a good back-up centre-half. Going into a season with just Lisandro Martinez, the injury-prone Raphael Varane and Victor Lindelof will be risky to say the least.
Frimpong is a nice idea, but one that may be chucked on the ‘never mind’ pile, as another symptom of United’s poor dealing of transfer exits.
