Under-fire Woodward eyes summer transfer ‘opportunity’ for United

Ed Woodward admits the summer transfer window will be an “important opportunity” for Manchester United to bolster their squad with significant investment after a troubled season at Old Trafford.

United are languishing in eighth place in the Premier League as they struggle to secure a top four finish.

Both United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and executive vice-chairman Woodward have been under fire from frustrated fans, with some throwing flares and vandalising the outside of the latter’s house recently.

Woodward points to the signing of Portugal playmaker Bruno Fernandes from Sporting Lisbon during the January transfer window as proof United can still attract quality players despite failing to win the Premier League since 2013.

But, while Solskjaer’s team are still in the Europa League and FA Cup, Woodward conceded United’s struggles so far have left them short of the pre-season targets.

“The signing of Bruno Fernandes and return of key players from injury will be a boost to Ole and the squad as we head into the second half of the season,” Woodward said in introductory remarks made at a recent fans’ forum.

“We remain in contention in the Europa League and the FA Cup, as well as for Champions League qualification, so there is still lots to play for.

“However, as a club and a board, we do recognise that we are not yet where we want to be.

“It is the overwhelming priority of everyone at the club to get us back to regularly challenging for Premier League and Champions League titles.

“Although progress may not always be smooth, everyone across the club is focused and committed on playing their part in helping achieve those aims.” The emergence of youngsters Mason Greenwood and Brandon Williams has offered hope for the future and Woodward wants to blend those promising talents with the more established stars.

With that in mind, he hopes the next transfer window will provide an opportunity to significantly improve United’s squad.

“Our focus is on bringing in a combination of experience and the best young players with potential to develop further, fusing graduates from our academy with high-quality acquisitions,” he said at the fans’ forum.

“Our recruitment process focuses on analysis and selection of players over the course of a season, with a view to the following summer transfer window. As part of the rebuild we see this coming summer as an important opportunity. We had consistently taken the view that - because January is not an optimal time in terms of availability of players - we would only buy in January if players we had already targeted for the summer became available and we were pleased that this strategy played out with the signing of Bruno Fernandes.

“There has been no shortage of investment in players over the past few years, with over £200 million spent since Ole became manager.”

Meanwhile, Odion Ighalo will be in the Manchester United squad for the Premier League clash with Chelsea next Monday despite missing a training camp in Spain due to fears he could be denied re-entry into Britain if restrictions against the outbreak of Coronavirus are tightened.

The 30-year-old Nigerian international striker joined United on loan until the end of the season on deadline day last month from Chinese club Shanghai Shenhua.

The British government called the novel coronavirus a “serious and imminent threat”, and said anyone with the disease can now be forcibly quarantined if they are deemed a threat to public health as the number of cases in Britain doubled to eight.

The death toll from the coronavirus outbreak surged past 1,000 on Tuesday.

Most cases overseas have involved people who had been in Wuhan, the quarantined central Chinese city where the virus emerged late last year, or people infected by others who had been at the epicentre.

United said Saturday in a statement that Ighalo had been left out of the Spain squad to avoid any potential problems related to the killer virus on re-entry to Britain.

However, United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer told the club’s website Ighalo will be in the squad for a match that could have a crucial bearing on who finishes in the top four this term and qualifies for the Champions League next season.

“Yeah, he is going to travel with us,” said Solskjaer.

Agencies