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Manchester United intend to spend heavily to back their new manager. The plan is to strengthen the defence, improve the midfield, and add a right winger. Surplus-to-requirements senior players will be sold (yes, than includes you, Matteo Darmian and Marcos Rojo). And they are hiring a director of football to help with all this too.

You’d be excused for thinking you’ve heard all this before. With a (minor) variation on the identities of the players for sale, and alternating stances on the need for a technical director this sounds awfully like the strategy for the majority of the club’s summer transfer windows since Sir Alex Ferguson retired.

Since the Scot’s exit and simultaneous elevation of Ed Woodward to the role of executive vice-chairman, the Glazer family has been relatively competitive when it comes to signing cheques. United will end this, the sixth season without Ferguson, with one of the two highest wage bills in England and the second highest gross spend on transfer fees – behind only Manchester City’s.

Their club’s performances in the Premier League, however, have been less so. Seventh, fourth, fifth, sixth, second, and – depending on the final six games of this campaign – somewhere between third and sixth. On current League position, United will fail to qualify for the Champions League for the third time in six years.

(Image: AFP/Getty Images)

When a football club working with an annual operating profit far ahead of any of its domestic rivals delivers more than half a decade of such returns on its principal playing field something has clearly gone seriously wrong with the implementation of its sporting strategy. Some details of Manchester United's summer’s plan do little to inspire confidence in change.

Strengthening the defence? That must mean finally signing an elite, experienced centre back, yes? Well, the word is that United’s priority for the back four is a right-back. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is said to have faith in Victor Lindelof, Chris Smalling and Phil Jones – thus the new long-term contracts doled out to the two Englishmen. United do not intend to spend heavily on the position.

Instead the idea is to essentially repeat one of last summer’s moves, by bringing in a talented young full back capable of succeeding Antonio Valencia as the regular starter. At 21 and an England youth international, Aaron Wan-Bissaka ticks a lot of boxes; with Ashley Young retained for another season as the experienced hand. Where exactly that leaves Diogo Dalot – a superior attacking full back to Wan-Bissaka – ahead of his second season at Old Trafford is unclear.

(Image: Getty Images)

To fill a long-empty hole on the right wing, United also like the idea of recruiting a young Englishman. One target is Jadon Sancho, who may be available from Borussia Dortmund yet will require a transfer fee of at least €100million to secure. Another is Callum Hudson-Odoi, who has been flirting with everyone, but whom Chelsea have so far refused to sell.

In midfield United are slowly coming to terms with the idea that their failure to agree an improved contract with Ander Herrera is going to see the Spain international join Paris Saint-Germain on a free transfer; and that Juan Mata could leave for nothing too. As a result the club is looking for both a box-to-box midfielder and a playmaking holder.

In all positions, Woodward would prefer to focus transfer spend on younger footballers in the belief that signing a cohort of top talents in, or before, their early twenties will secure the long-term future of the team. That United’s current squad is painfully short on both experienced leaders and players with a track-record of winning silverware seems to have been deemed irrelevant. The club briefing is that Solskjaer is on-board with the idea of signing such home-grown youths.

(Image: PA)

You might think that a club that has stated its intention to hire a first director of football would have put their new man in place to advise upon and implement such a risk-laden transfer strategy. United, however, are entering a pivotal window with the same recruitment and negotiating team that oversaw last summer’s debacle. Multiple accomplished and experienced candidates for the role have yet to be even invited for an interview.

On top of all this, United have antagonised their best footballer – David De Gea – by telling him they will not meet his terms to extend a contract that expires next summer, and have to deal with Mino Raiola’s attempts to secure a major pay rise or a transfer for their marquee signing – Paul Pogba.

“Football has changed, and the structure at football clubs has changed,” said Solskjaer when asked about the importance of a technical director this week. “Of course, me and Ed, and Joel [Glazer] for that matter, are looking to how can this club be ran as smoothly and as well as possible. So we’ll see what the club will end up with and I’m happy talking, discussing football with knowledgeable people in the right positions anyway.”

Solskjaer’s conversations, you fear, may turn unpleasant in the not too distant future.