Man Utd: Ratcliffe’s ‘main goal’ to ‘pack his bags’ and replace Ten Hag ‘mistake’ with ‘firm offer’
Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has reportedly decided his ‘main’ transfer ‘goal’ for next year as they are ‘very attentive’ to a Spain star.
Ratcliffe completed his takeover of the Red Devils at the start of this year and has already made significant changes at the Premier League giants.
Man Utd had a positive summer transfer window as they spent around £185m on new signings. Joshua Zirkzee, Leny Yoro, Matthijs de Ligt, Noussair Mazraoui and Manuel Ugarte were their recruits.
Despite this, Man Utd have endured a miserable start to the 2024/25 campaign as they have lost three of their first six Premier League matches.
Erik ten Hag is the current favourite to be the first Premier League manager sacked this season and their start to the campaign indicates a couple more positive transfer transfer windows are required for Man Utd to return to being a consistent challenger for elite club competitions.
A report in Spain claims Ratcliffe and his recruitment team have already decided their ‘main goal for 2025’, which is to ‘bring in another goalkeeper’.
READ: Ten Premier League summer departees thriving in Europe this season
The report claims Man Utd are ‘very attentive’ to Athletic Bilbao goalkeeper Unai Simon, who shone in the summer as Spain won Euro 2024.
It is suggested that Athletic Bilbao ‘run the risk’ of seeing Simon ‘pack his bags’ next summer and Man Utd’s reported interest comes as they feel they ‘made a mistake’ in replacing David De Gea with Andre Onana.
Onana actually grew into last season and has been one of United’s better performers this season, but Simon is said to have ‘convinced them the most’ as he is favoured over three possible alternatives.
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The report says.
‘Simon is the option that most convinces the English institution, ahead of other alternatives such as Gianluigi Donnarumma, Mike Maignan or Nick Pope.
‘Athletic cannot compete with United to keep Simon. It will be very difficult for Athletic to retain him in the event that the Red Devils make him a firm offer, as United’s economic potential is infinitely greater.’
Ten Hag has received backlash for claiming Man Utd are in transition, but he doubled down on this sentiment during his pre-Porto press conference on Wednesday.
“Because of course, first season when I came in we had to replace six or seven older players, like (Juan) Mata, (Nemanja) Matic, (Paul) Pogba, (Jesse) Lingard,” Ten Hag said.
“So, we started a process but also this summer we still had to replace some other players.
“We replaced them with many young players, like (Joshua) Zirkzee and Leny Yoro.
“They need time to get used to the standards of the Premier League, the standards of a club as United, especially, we have to fit them in our game model and in the standards of the league they are playing in.”