"Why Manchester United Faces Challenges in Selling Players: A Legend Left for 'Peanuts' and Serial Winners Departed for Bargain Prices"

THIRTY-ONE years ago, Manchester United sold three first-teamers and did not make a single signing.

If social media existed in the summer of 1995, the internet might have crashed. Paul Ince, Andrei Kanchelskis and Mark Hughes, integral to Alex Ferguson’s first great side, each had a unique bond with the fanbase.

United banked £14million for the trio, an enormous sum three years after the Premier League’s inception. They have not had many summers like it since.

Ideally, United would have jettisoned a midfielder, a winger and a forward this summer, too. Manuel Ugarte, Marcus Rashford and Joshua Zirkzee were unshiftable.

For a club that received a world record fee for Cristiano Ronaldo in 2009, United are historically bad sellers.

They gave David Beckham away for “peanuts” to Real Madrid at the height of the Galactico era. Anthony Martial, Paul Pogba and Jadon Sancho signed for deals worth a combined £219.9m within a six-year period and were released.

There is no short answer to why United are bad at selling. You could write a hefty tome or record a podcast series on their poor record and why they struggle to fetch fees for senior players.

It was not even 18 months ago that United suffered their worst season in 51 years. So their current squad is not teeming with sellable assets and hardly anyone is capable of raking in a profit.

Altay Bayindir, loaned to Celta Vigo, is renowned for letting in goals. on Tuesday evening, is renowned for not scoring goals.

Of all Everton’s window missteps, selling Beto and moving for Zirkzee should spark sackings. Beto scored five times as many goals as Zirkzee last season.

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Friday 4 September

Ipswich

20:00

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Liverpool

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Newcastle

12:30

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Bournemouth

Brentford

15:00

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Sunderland

Brighton

15:00

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Leeds

Fulham

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Palace

Man City

15:00

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Monday 31 August

Sunday 30 August

The extravagant salaries United have put players on made them no-goes. Marcus Rashford is only still at the club as no elite European side was prepared to foot his wage bill of £325,000-a-week.

Casemiro saw out his contract as he was immovable. United are bound to encounter the same issue with Mason Mount, into the final two years of his deal and on £250,000 a week.

Jaap Stam, Cristiano Ronaldo, Daley Blind, Chris Smalling and Daniel James would be an obscure five-a-side team. They are also the only players United bought and sold at an eight-figure profit.

Ronaldo, James, Beckham, Angel di Maria, Romelu Lukaku, Scott McTominay, Mason Greenwood, Alejandro Garnacho and Rasmus Hojlund are the only United players to leave for £25m or more.

Of those nine players, four came through the club’s academy. That was the only source of United’s transfer income negotiated this summer, via Toby Collyer and Radek Vitek.

Garnacho, valued north of £85m in 2024, left for £40m in 2025. The most senior sale in the window that just closed was Collyer, starter of three games against Barnsley, Rangers and Steaua Bucharest. The last of those was in January 2025.

United trumpeted the overall £7.6m fee West Brom agreed to pay, with £3m up front. A source said it is “unlikely” the add-ons will be triggered.

The academy sells as United have produced talented professionals for the best part of a century. Andreas Pereira (£10m), James Garner (£15m), Dean Henderson (£20m), Anthony Elanga (£15m) and Garnacho all moved to Premier League clubs before Collyer and Vitek dropped down to the Championship.

In the summer of 2022, United’s only sales were Pereira and Garner. They had been out on loan, so were not damaged by the cataclysmic season with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and then Ralf Rangnick in the dugout.

Although Ferguson rarely drove a hard bargain, he did not struggle for willing takers. In 2007, Ferguson’s friend Sam Allardyce, had just been installed at Newcastle, who signed Alan Smith for £6m

Roy Keane could barely stomach sharing the same oxygen as Ferguson after United sacked him but still signed five players from his former club during his two-and-a-half years as Sunderland manager.

Steve Bruce, also at Sunderland, gave Wes Brown and John O’Shea a new home in 2011. David Moyes was a sucker for a United reject at Everton.

There were no domestic or Uefa financial rules to comply with back then, either. That was largely the case when Ed Woodward regularly misread a player’s market value.

The die was cast in the summer of 2014. New manager Louis van Gaal was decisive in identifying which players’ faces did not fit, so Woodward sanctioned several sales with little or no negotiating.

Shinji Kagawa left for roughly half the price United paid for him in 2012. Michael Keane and Wilfried Zaha were both flogged for £3m with no sell-on clauses inserted. £16m for Danny Welbeck was, in hindsight, low.

The squad purge continued in Van Gaal’s second summer: £4.25m for Nani, £6m for Jonny Evans and £7.3m for Javier Hernandez. Serial winners sold at a cut price amid mismanagement.

So a precedent was set: United sold on the cheap. Keane moved from Burnley to Everton for £30m in 2017. West Ham bought Hernandez in the same summer for more than double the £7.3m Bayer Leverkusen paid United. Evans was wanted by Manchester City at one stage.

Morgan Schneiderlin (£24m) and Memphis Depay (£21m) left for impressive fees in January 2017. The difference then was United were a resurgent force under Jose Mourinho and the players were cut loose after 18 months, so had suffered little reputational damage.

United banked good fees for Blind (£18.5m) and Sam Johnstone (£10m) in July 2018. Their reputations were enhanced by association with Mourinho and, in Johnstone’s case, emerging from the United academy.

But United regressed in the seller’s market after finishing sixth in 2018-19. Ander Herrera ran down his contract and Lukaku was sold at a minor loss to Inter Milan.

United had a decent 2024 as the majority of their outgoings were academy talents as part of Ineos’s attempts to use it as a cash cow.

There was an obvious market for Aaron Wan-Bissaka, a right back with six-and-a-half years of Premier League experience.

Coming 15th and trophyless in 2025 demanded outgoings. Ruben Amorim’s ‘bomb squad’ made certain players’ positions untenable, though United sold Antony at a considerable loss and failed to obtain a higher fee for Garnacho.

There was never going to be a fire sale this summer and Michael Carrick’s nature meant anyone ‘for sale’ had a squad role if they stayed.

Ugarte is no Ince and Zirkzee is no Hughes. Rashford has trumped Kanchelskis, though.