Man Utd find ‘selling defender harder’ for one reason as £165m transfer budget claim is made
Man Utd are finding it harder than expected to sell defender Harry Maguire because of a recent pay rise, according to reports.
The Red Devils are looking to raise funds for their summer recruitment drive after revealing Mason Mount as their first new signing on Wednesday.
A deal is understood to be worth an initial £55m for Mount with the transfer for the Chelsea midfielder, taking almost half of Erik ten Hag’s reported £120m budget.
And now the Dutchman is looking to offload a number of squad and fringe players in an effort to increase his overall budget.
Maguire is one of the players who could leave this summer with the Man Utd captain dropping down the pecking order at Old Trafford last season.
It has become clear that Ten Hag’s preferred centre-back partnership is Lisandro Martinez and Raphael Varane with left-back Luke Shaw even filling in ahead of Maguire last term.
READ MORE: Man Utd are putting all their eggs in Ten Hag’s Dutch picnic basket with Mount and Onana
The Guardian insist that Maguire’s ‘salary increase as a result of Manchester United qualifying for the Champions League is making it more challenging to sell the defender’.
A top-four finish meant the Man Utd squad were rewarded with wage rises in line with terms of their contract and that has made selling Maguire more complicated.
The Guardian adds:
‘The 30-year-old has lost his first-choice status under Ten Hag and player and manager are open to parting ways. Yet Maguire’s increased pay means he will measure any prospective move against the potential loss of earnings as well as weighing up whether it would be the correct football decision for a centre-back who wishes to remain an automatic choice for England.’
It is estimated that Maguire ‘could bring in £30m-£40m given his age, decline in form and the two years left on his contract’ with Man Utd ‘also prepared to sell Fred, who at 30 and with a year on his deal may draw about £30m’.
And with Anthony Elanga also apparently having the potential to pull in £30m, the Red Devils could be set for a windfall that ‘would raise a maximum £100m’.
We aren’t sure they will get anything like £30m for Fred, maybe halve it, but they argue that potential money ‘would give him [Ten Hag] £165m for a goalkeeper, striker and a centre-back to replace Maguire’.
That figure includes the £65m left over from his initial £120m budget before the purchase of Mount.
