Jose Mourinho helps Manchester United fund £200m summer transfer spree

Jose Mourinho has paved the way for a £200m-plus transfer spree this summer by ruthlessly clearing the decks at Manchester United.


Mourinho plans to make four major signings to turn his EFL Cup and Europa League winners into genuine title contenders next season.

Antoine Griezmann, Nemanja Matic and Michael Keane are all on the to executive vice chairman Ed Woodward two months ago.

Strikers Romelu Lukaku and Andrea Belotti are also coveted, with Mourinho accepting his squad needs significant additions to improve on a sixth place finish in the Premier League last season.

Should he secure all of his targets his spend could easily exceed £200m.

But while that represents a staggering outlay, United have already recouped £35m from the sales of Morgan Schneiderlin and Memphis Depay in January.\

Bastian Schweinsteiger’s salary of around £200,000-a-week has been removed from the books, while Wayne Rooney’s £300,000-a-week will also go when the United captain moves on this summer.

The ideal scenario for the club would be for Rooney to take the riches on offer in the Chinese Super League, which would also provide them with a fee in the region of £30m.

But simply relieving the wage bill of his salary would free up further funds for new arrivals.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic - on around £300,000-a-week - is also out of contract.

Qualification for the Champions League, meanwhile, has avoided the £25m deduction United were in line to take from their £250m shirt sponsorship deal with Adidas.

These are not insignificant figures in the age of net spends and balancing the books.

And for a club that has to answer to investors on the New York Stock Exchange, they are important in a summer of such heavy spending.

United will trigger Griezmann’s buyout clause, which at the current exchange rate, stands at £87m.

Matic will cost in excess of £40m, with Michael Keane a relative cut price £25-30m.

A second striker is where another significant outlay will be made, with Belotti’s release clause £85m, while Everton are holding out for £70m-plus for leading scorer Lukaku.

United had shown only tentative interest in the Belgian striker before Ibrahimovic’s knee ligament damage. But that is believed to have grown as Mourinho has had to consider replacements for the Swede.

Lukaku’s preference is understood to be a return to Chelsea - but there is a growing belief at Goodison that they can keep him for another 12 months at least.

Mourinho accepts only enormous investment will bridge the 24-point gap that separated his side from champions Chelsea.

And he began the process of adding to those funds as early as January



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