How Man Utd could make a fortune by selling surplus trio to Newcastle
Manchester United could be the first benefactors of Newcastle’s new-found wealth, with the St James’ Park side linked with three of their squad players.
The size of United’s playing pool has left several star names disgruntled by their lack of playing time and Newcastle believe that they will be able to pounce in January.
REVEALED: The world's most valuable footballers
Eddie Howe’s side need an injection of talent as they seek to move away from the bottom three in the Premier League to secure survival as the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF) seeks to grow them into one of the biggest clubs in the world.
Man Utd could profit from this to the tune of nearly £70 million.
Newcastle’s Man Utd targets
The Daily Mail reports that Newcastle are eyeing Man Utd trio Dean Henderson, Donny van de Beek and Jessy Lingard.
All three have good reason to want to depart the Old Trafford club – not least because they are rarely seeing any pitch time ahead of the World Cup in Qatar in 2022. Van de Beek, for instance, has already been frozen out of the Netherlands squad due to his lack of involvement.
Indeed, all three are likely to feel let down by the lack of minutes that they have played.
According to FootballTransfers’ algorithm, which uses hundreds of on-field data points to calculate the value of players, Man Utd could make a fortune by selling the trio if they elect to cash in.
Lingard is the least valuable of the group, with the midfielder, who enjoyed profound success on loan at West Ham in the second half of last season, rated at £10.3m.
The sales of Henderson and Van de Beek could be far more lucrative, however.
Henderson, who won the No.1 spot from David de Gea for a period towards the end of last season, is given a value of £27.4m while Van de Beek, who was signed from Ajax for an initial £35m in the summer of 2020, is still worth £31.2m, despite being a peripheral figure throughout his time with the club.
Manchester United could raise a good deal of money by selling the trio to Newcastle, which could then be re-invested back into the squad in the summer – or even more immediately to sign a central midfielder.