£240,000 per week star could kickstart Manchester United’s summer clear-out

£240,000 per week star could kickstart Manchester United’s summer clear-out

Sir Jim Ratcliffe is looking to transform the footballing operations at Old Trafford which will include a number of players leaving the club in the summer transfer window

Manchester United face a potential summer clear-out as Sir Jim Ratcliffe looks to right the wrongs at Old Trafford over the past decade.

United have often struggled to offload some of their expensive signings who have been handed lengthy contracts with big pay packets.

One of those is Anthony Martial who has been at the club since 2015 and is thought be earning £240,000-a-week but has struggled with form and injuries over the past few seasons.

Anthony Martial(Getty images)

Martial is one of several players who are set to leave at the end of their contract in the summer. Centre-back Raphael Varane is another, with the club choosing not to trigger the extension in his deal as they no longer believe his squad status reflects his salary.

Elsewhere in defence, full-back Aaron Wan-Bissaka has missed 17 games this season through injury and will see his contract run out next year.

The right-back has been solid at times for United but has not developed into the world-class defender United will need in his position to challenge for major honours. A summer sale may be best for both parties.

Victor Lindelof is in a similar position to Wan-Bissaka, with the centre-back having just a year left on his current deal The Sweden international is not of the quality to start regularly for a team who will compete for the biggest prizes and selling him may give the club an FFP boost.

Harry Maguire is another centre-back who will see his contract expire in 2025. The England defender was wanted by West Ham last summer and United may hope his regular game time this season will put him in the shop window again.

Tom Heaton has missed the last few games with a niggle but has now resumed training. The goalkeeper turns 38 in April and is out of contract in June so may be another potential summer departure.

Ratcliffe said last month: “FFP (financial fair play) has become a new aspect of running the football club and it’s clearly a really critical part of running a football club. And you have to think about how you can manage FFP to the benefit of the club.

“There are different ways in which you can do that. But ultimately, FFP says you have to operate the club within its own means. And, effectively, it takes into account your prior expenditure, and the club’s spent quite heavily in the last couple of seasons. So that does impact FFP going forward because they’ve used quite a large part of their allowance if you like.

“So we need to be quite clear in the summer as to what the extent of [it]. I don’t know the full answer to that question at the moment. It’s obviously related to sales as well as purchases, and so we need to get our heads around that well before the summer window, so we understand the number