You could say Erik ten Hag is arriving at Manchester United at an opportune moment, given that the departure of at least six senior players this summer is offering him something of a clean slate.
The 52-year-old will seek to put his own stamp on this squad and that task is made easier by the wave of departures at Old Trafford, with Lee Grant, Nemanja Matic, Paul Pogba, Juan Mata, Jesse Lingard and Edinson Cavani all leaving on free transfers. They could be followed by the likes of Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Axel Tuanzebe, Phil Jones, Eric Bailly and Anthony Martial, offering Ten Hag plenty of room to manoeuvre when it comes to summer signings.
But United have no plans to make like-for-like signings when it comes to replacing those players, especially the sextet that are out of contract and will officially leave the club at the end of this month.
READ MORE: Six academy youngsters can change Ten Hag's plans this summer
Those departures will free up some room in the squad and — perhaps more crucially — more than £1million a week in wages. But the opportunity that presents United is to slim down a bloated squad rather than making a raft of new signings.
There is an acceptance within Old Trafford that they've been carrying too big a squad in recent seasons, which is why those departures aren't causing much concern when it comes to replacements. The loss of Matic and Pogba will require a replacement (or two) in midfield and United have a forward on their radar as well, with Cavani leaving and Cristiano Ronaldo turning 38 this season. It is signings in those two areas that are being prioritised at the start of the transfer window.
Mata and Lingard played just 602 minutes of Premier League football between them and the fact they were both overlooked so regularly by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Ralf Rangnick is evidence that both should probably have left last summer.
United wanted to keep Mata around but his playing role was peripheral at best and the one-year contract he signed to cover 2021/22 was unnecessary. The reluctance to sell Lingard a year ago when West Ham would have paid £25million was bizarre.
Solskjaer was a reluctant seller as United manager and, coupled with Ed Woodward's strategy of handing out new contracts to protect player values, it has left the squad bloated and unwieldy. Keeping everyone happy is an impossible task, as Rangnick has discovered.
Most elite managers now prefer to work with smaller squads, where sustaining motivation levels is less of an issue and training ground work can be more focused, with numbers made up by promising youngsters.
Since Ten Hag's appointment, United have made a point of talking about the potential within the existing squad and the talent coming through the academy. The Dutchman will be expected to unlock both and having a smaller squad will make that easier.
Between them, Solskjaer and Rangnick used 29 players in the Premier League last season, with 28 of them outfielders. That number is clearly too big and the fact players of the experience of Bailly, Lingard, Mata, Martial, Jones and Donny van de Beek all played less than 400 minutes makes it clear this is an unnecessarily large squad.
The departures this month will allow United to finally begin changing that and Ten Hag and football director John Murtough can make more of an impact by selling some of those unhappy players, particularly Bailly and Martial.
While it is incoming that will dominate the discussion around United this summer, it's also a chance for the club to begin righting some wrongs when it comes to building a squad for their new manager.
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