What Man United must do to sign £100m-plus superstar next summer after £250m Ineos cash injection

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Manchester United are still looking to strengthen their squad in the final week of the transfer window, despite already spending over £200m on attacking arrivals.

Ruben Amorim’s midfield area desperately needs strengthening and Brighton’s Carlos Baleba has been strongly linked with United. However, Brighton have made it clear that they have no intention of selling the combative midfielder in the final week of the transfer window.

So United may not get the chance to land a big-money signing in the closing days of the window, as co-owners Ineos look to improve Amorim’s options.

United’s summer recruitment may have been hampered by a lack of European football, limiting the players they can attract despite the obvious lure of playing at Old Trafford.

Manchester United face slump in revenues after missing out on Champions League football

United finished 15th in the Premier League last season after a woeful campaign, but were still just 90 minutes from Champions League qualification having reached the Europa League final.

GRV Media’s Head of Football Finance and Governance Content, Adam Williams, tells TBR Football that United appear to have decided against an expensive move for Carlos Baleba, in part due to the uncertain financial situation at Old Trafford.

He says: “United’s revenues are going to crash this season without any European football. It’s not just prize money that they miss out on, it’s matchday income too. I think they’ll probably generate about £600m, which is going to be comfortably the lowest in the ‘Big Six’.

Manchester United signings this summer:

• Matheus Cunha – £62.5m
• Bryan Mbeumo – £71m
• Diego Leon – £3.3m
• Benjamin Sesko – £74m

“Several of those clubs are going to be pushing towards £700m. Depending on what they do on the pitch, Liverpool and Man City could potentially be close to £800m.

“The thing with United is there are so many moving parts. We don’t know what the wage bill is going to look like at the end of this transfer window or what fees they’re going to recoup. We also don’t know what the full impact of the redundancies they have made is going to look like when the initial costs of that programme have smoothed out.

“It was probably around £315m in 2024-25. You would expect that to fall without European football and its associated bonuses, but not if they don’t offset the signings they have made with sales.

“All that said, United could have afforded Baleba this summer if they really wanted to, but it would have been a huge gamble and left themselves so much work to do financially in terms of re-basing the squad and getting the assets they don’t want – Sancho, Hojland, Antony etc – off the books.”

Manchester United must return to European football to afford future £100m signings

Continuing, Williams says United are set to be compliant with the Premier League’s PSR rules, but desperately need to return to European football next season.

“On PSR, they are probably going to be fine even without European income, but it’s cash that is the greater concern,” Williams said. “Again, there are levers they can pull here. They have a credit facility – which is basically like an overdraft – that they can use, but that is going to increase the debt even further.

“The alternative is more investment from Ratcliffe, but it’s not long since he put nearly £250m into the club via equity, and he is said to not be at peak liquidity at the moment anyway, so I doubt that is going to be the solution.

“If United have two or three seasons outside Europe, that’s when these massive £100m-plus deals start to become unattainable, both from a financial perspective and in terms of their status as a destination club. There’s only so long you can kick the can down the road and spend more than you are earning, both in terms of wages and transfers.

“Their brand has inoculated them from the problems that other teams would have encountered if they had failed for this long, but that won’t last forever. To be able to sustainably afford players like Baleba, you need to start winning again. That’s the only way. Everything else is a sticking plaster.”

United will hope their ability to focus purely on the Premier League can see them return to a top six or seven place that will secure European football – although the aim at Old Trafford will certainly be to use that opportunity to finish in the Champions League places.