Premier League directors will currently be drawing up plans for the summer transfer window, working out how much they can spend without breaking PSR rules, which in most cases won’t be nearly enough for the desired squad revamps.
They will need to buy to sell and these ten players would be doing their clubs a huge favour by handing in a transfer request ahead of the window.
Andre Onana (Manchester United)
He’s been the scapegoat through much of his time at Manchester United, and although we’ve been staunch defenders of him for no reason other than him actually being no worse (and often better) than the rest of the rabble, we will concede that Onana is probably not good enough to be the No.1 goalkeeper of a This Is Manchester United team if not the one we’ve enjoyed for a long while now.
He’s been linked with Saudi Arabia but believes he has more left in the tank before taking a money shower and reportedly has no desire to leave the club. United will be hoping AC Milan do them ‘a favour’ and tempt their former goalkeeper into also doing them a favour by handing in a transfer request.
Jadon Sancho (Chelsea)
After a dazzling display against Tottenham we briefly thought Chelsea may have nabbed the Borussia Dortmund version of Jadon Sancho for a snip, but he’s since reverted to his Premier League type which has led the Blues bosses to check the fine print of their loan agreement with Manchester United.
It’s claimed Chelsea can pay United £5m to avoid paying £25m for his transfer, but they’re also tempted by a cunning plan to buy Sancho and then immediately sell him to Dortmund for a sweet, sweet profit, which could essentially mean that United have paid Chelsea for a year of Sancho.
Harvey Elliott (Liverpool)
One of many things wrong with the profit and sustainability rules and specifically the clear benefit of selling academy products is that players who in fact haven’t come up through the youth ranks at a club can count as pure profit, as is the case with Elliott, who joined Liverpool on a free transfer as a teenager from Fulham.
He’s barely played this season under Arne Slot and will surely (hopefully) look to leave in the summer without assurances from his manager over an increase in game time as a result of the Big Gun exodus. He’s currently valued at around £30m, which will be the purest of pure profits given Liverpool spent precious little to sign him and nothing on developing him into a first-team player.
Richarlison (Tottenham)
David Moyes looks set to be backed by the Friedkins in the summer and it’s thought in a bid to land a big-name player to open up Bramley-Moore Dock they could look to re-sign Richarlison.
Reports suggest Tottenham would be willing to part with the 27-year-old for £40m having signed him from Everton for £60m three years ago, but getting even that much feels hugely optimistic given Richarlison has missed more games through injury (58) than he’s started (44) in his time at Spurs.
Jakub Kiwior (Arsenal)
Amid various bids from Serie A for his services in the summer, Kiwior was told by Mikel Arteta and the club that he was “going to be an important player for them this season”. He’s started nine games across all competitions and just two in the Premier League. He’s been about as “important” as Raheem Sterling.
There was again interest in January but an absurd £45m price tag was slapped on Kiwior to ward off suitors and we get the sense that someone at Arsenal needs to sit Arteta down and explain that it’s OK not to have all the defenders, particularly when selling one or two of the surplus herd may help them to sign, what was it again? A striker?
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Jack Grealish (Manchester City)
We don’t know why Pep Guardiola has got such an aversion to Grealish these days. He claimed earlier in the season that he wanted “the treble Jack back” but quite why he’s so bothered by his supposed dip in level but doesn’t punish Bernardo Silva, Phil Foden or Ilkay Gundogan for what look to be greater drop-offs we don’t know.
Thomas Tuchel “loves” him and believes he can become a “machine” again, and we would like nothing more than to see Grealish take what will have to be quite the pay-cut to force through a move to Newcastle, regain his England place and help the Three Lions to World Cup glory. Football is more fun when he’s playing.
Leon Bailey (Aston Villa)
Two goals and four assists in over 2,000 minutes of football this season just isn’t enough for a forward playing for a Champions League club. Bailey was fine for Villa on the way to Europe’s top table but he’s not good enough now that they’ve made it and are fighting to remain there.
They would likely be able to recoup most of the £28m they spent to sign him from Bayer Leverkusen in 2021 and could do with getting his £120,000 per week off the wage bill given the concerning revenue ratio.
Christopher Nkunku (Chelsea)
He was linked with Bayern and Manchester United in January having grown frustrated with his Premier League watching brief, but he’s done sweet f*** all other than against whipping boys Southampton having been given the opportunity to start games in the absence of Nicolas Jackson.
He quite clearly couldn’t give two sh*ts about playing for Chelsea and isn’t cut out for the Premier League. But he will have admirers if he pushes for the exit, which he surely will, and the club will hope for a bidding war to get his price up to the £50m mark, which is wholly unreasonable on the basis of his displays this season but not if you consider what he did before his move to Stamford Bridge.
Casemiro (Manchester United)
The five-time Champions League winner, who was for a long time – mainly at Real Madrid and for six months at the start of his Manchester United career – heralded as one of the most dynamic and impactful defensive midfielders in world football, made the telling admission when recently asked about his future that “going to Carrington and Old Trafford every day and trying to do my best” is his “best quality”. He’s now no more than a £350,000 per week hype man.
And in what will be a concern for Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his bureau of change, despite Casemiro’s name being included on Ruben Amorim BLACKLISTS and 427-man FIRE-SALES for the last two years, reports of his imminent exit have if anything died down as we approach the end of the season, with his insistence that “I want to play” presumably fighting a losing battle against the knowledge that he could just sit on his arse for a year and earn a further £18m.
