It is no secret that, in order to step up their rebuild of the Manchester United squad, Ineos must first raise funds via player sales.
Fortunately, unlike during 2023/24 when Mason Greeenwood, Jadon Sancho, Donny van de Beek and co all left on loan due to the lack of clubs willing to stump up permanent fees, sales are looking a lot more achievable this time around.
Manchester United’s hopes of bringing in abig fee for Greenwood have been boosted considerably by an impressive loan spell in La Liga, the one-time England international taking home Getafe’s Player of the Year award. Talks with Lazio are underway now.
Sancho, linked with Juventus, should be easier to shift too after he helped Borussia Dortmund reach the Champions League final. Victor Lindelof, meanwhile, has only one year left on his United contract, reducing his price-tag enough to attract interest from clubs such as Fenerbahce.
Manchester United open to Victor Lindelof sale
The Super Lig runners-up signed Fred from Man United last summer before Altay Bayindir moved in the other direction. In a further boost to The Red Devils’ chances of getting Lindelof off the wage bill, Fenerbahce now have a certain Portuguese tactician in the dugout.
Jose Mourinho was the man who brought Lindelof to Old Trafford in a £30 million deal from Benfica back in 2017. And it is Mourinho who is now driving Fener’s pursuit of a defender who, at the age of 29, may be entering ‘last big contract’ territory.
The Telegraph reported on Thursday, while claiming that Man United are preparing to trigger the £34 million release clause in Josua Zirkzee’s Bologna deal, that the interest from Fenerbahce is very real.
Later in that very same afternoon, one of the most respected reporters in Turkish football claimed on his official X account that discussions to reunite the Swede with Mourinho and Fred in Istanbul had got underway.
“Fenerbahce have started official contacts to add Victor Lindelof to their squad!” Yagiz Sabuncuoglu writes.
Fenerbahce open talks ahead of Jose Mourinho reunion
It remains to be seen how much Manchester United will demand for the long-serving defender. Fenerbahce landed Fred for £13 million, while Fotomac say that they hope to get a deal done for around £7 million for Lindelof. United may be holding out for more.
But even if Lindelof was to leave for a cut-price fee, his departure would still remove £120,000-a-week from an eye-watering wage bill, following on from the exits of the similarly high-earning Raphael Varane and Anthony Martial.
Lindelof has proven to be a valuable squad member in the Erik ten Hag era. The so-called ‘Iceman’ cooly slotted home that winning penalty in the 2023 FA Cup semi-final and stepped in at left-back at times last season with Luke Shaw and Tyrell Malacia injured.
But Lindelof will know that, if Man United succeed in bringing in Jarrad Branthwaite alongside another centre-half – albeit unlikely now to be Nice’s Jean-Clair Todibo – he is likely to start 2024/25 pretty far down the pecking order.
Man United remain hopeful of agreeing a deal with Everton for Branthwaite. A change in UEFA rules, however, has denied United the chance to bring in the £40 million-rated Todibo from the Ineos’ France-based club OGC Nice, much to Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s displeasure.
“They’ve said we can sell (Todibo) to another Premiership club, but we can’t sell to Manchester United,” Ratcliffe tells Bloomberg. “But that’s not fair on the player and I don’t see what that achieves.”