Man Utd chief Omar Berrada gets transfer reality check after agreeing latest deal

Daily Mirror

8 hours ago

Omar Berra left Manchester City to lead the rebuild of Manchester United but he and his colleagues are not having things all their own way in the transfer market
Manchester United chief executive Omar Berrada was hailed as the man who would bring back the glory years to Old Trafford when Sir Jim Ratcliffe lured him away from Manchester City last year.
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But the 47-year-old has discovered that if you don't enter the transfer market in a position of strength then football becomes a cruel business.
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Berrada has been working closely with director of football Jason Wilcox to recruit the kind of talent that manager Ruben Amorim is demanding after a nightmare first six months at the club ended with United finishing in their lowest league position for 50 years.
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Amorim will be delighted that by the time he touches down in Chicago at the start of United's pre-season tour of the United States, he will have Bryan Mbeumo to strengthen an attack that will also include the hugely talented Matheus Cunha.
But Berrada has had to sanction a £70million outlay to secure Mbeumo - the price he was quoted two months ago when United had a £55million opening bid rejected immediately by Brentford for the Cameroon star.
Cunha was secured for the £62.5million buy-out clause stipulated in his contract at Wolves. And United must pay the fee in three instalments over the next two years after the Molineux club dismissed a notion that the deal could be settled over an extended five-year period.
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This isn't the way that Berrada did business at the Etihad.
When he worked alongside City sporting director Txiki Begiristain, the pair would often walk away from deals if the figures didn't add up. City refused to break their budget when Southampton were asking for a world-record £75million for Virgil van Dijk.
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While their stance backfired on that occasion, they did the same when it came to negotiations over players like Paul Pogba, Harry Maguire, Fred and Jorginho. The first three of those names ended up at Old Trafford.
United's lack of joined-up thinking continued when Berrada arrived last summer. More than £200million was lavished on Levy Yoro, Manuel Ugarte, Matthijs De Ligt, Joshua Zirkzee and Noussair Mazraoui - and in November the decision was taken to sack manager Erik ten Hag.
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Amorim was recruited from Sporting Lisbon on Berrada's insistence - despite the Portuguese's three-at-the-back philosophy being an awkward fit for the squad he inherited.
With United more than £1billion in debt and facing issues complying with Profit and Sustainability Regulations, the club are unable to spend their way out of the mess that has been created by more than a decade of gross mismanagement.
When Amorim's team lost to Spurs in the Europa League Final in May and missed out on Champions League qualification, the need to sell unwanted players to raise money became even more acute.
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Cashing in on Marcus Rashford, Alejandro Garnacho, Jadon Sancho, Antony and Tyrell Malacia would have potentially raised hundreds of millions of pounds in normal circumstances.
But Amorim's decision to group them in a so called bomb-squad, refusing to allow them to train with the players he wants to take into the new season and instructing them to report for fitness sessions late in the afternoon when the chosen ones have left the building at Carrington means interested clubs are playing a waiting game in the knowledge that United are being held to ransom by the policy.
Berrada must find a way of breaking the deadlock - and quickly.
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