Manchester United plan to wind down transfer activity as Jose Mourinho is content with his squad, says Ed Woodward
Manchester United plan to curb their activity in future transfer windows after executive vice chairman Ed Woodward said manager Jose Mourinho was content with his current squad.
The Premier League giants have been linked with a move for Atletico Madrid’s Antoine Griezmann as part of another big spending summer to mirror last year’s capture of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Paul Pogba.
United have spent more money than any of their domestic rivals in the last three seasons after suffering a downturn in results following Sir Alex Ferguson’s departure.
Under Mourinho the club are currently in sixth position and 14 points behind leaders Chelsea, yet in a conference call with investors Woodward said they have no desire to make drastic changes to the squad.
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“I think there’s a happiness from the manager at this point, as you can tell in all his recent interviews, in terms of where we are as a squad,” he said.
“I think there is always going to be continual improvement. Even if you win everything you still want to improve the squad, that’s the nature of the dynamic industry that we’re in.
“But I think we aren’t necessarily in a position where we have to churn a large number of players.
“We want to get to a more steady state and to be buying and potentially selling a lower number of players each year and I think we’re in that kind of environment now compared to where we were two or three years ago when perhaps there was a little bit more churn required from a playing squad perspective.”
Woodward was speaking after United said the slump in the value of the pound triggered by the UK’s Brexit vote caused net debt to rise by £87.2m last year to £409.3m.
United still enjoyed record quarterly revenues of £157.9m in the three months ended 31 December.
The club’s commercial arm represented the biggest contributor to its income with £66.8m raised during the quarter.
Woodward said the club was not chasing high-profile names in the transfer market as part of a bid to boost the figure through increased shirt sales.
“Of course stars help [with shirt sales],” the former J.P. Morgan banker told an investor.
“But the reality is we did a lot of analysis when Cristiano left the club in 2009 and it doesn’t have a material impact when a star leaves.
“People go to buy a Manchester United shirt and make the decision to put a name on the back when they’re in the shop or online.”