Erik ten Hag’s transfer budget comments highlight importance of swift Manchester United takeover solution

With less than six weeks until the transfer window opens, Premier League clubs will be putting plans in place for what is almost certain to be a summer of major spending.

The English top-flight forked out nearly £2billion on players last summer - almost as much as the Bundesliga, Ligue 1, Serie A and La Liga combined - and its clubs show no sign of slowing down. Manchester City and Arsenal will need to invest to maintain momentum, while the likes of Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Newcastle will all be playing catch up.

Competition for players and compliance with Financial Fair Play regulations makes planning in advance essential. Those in charge of transfers will have been doing so since the January window ended, with the more pragmatic laying foundations for even longer.

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The build up to a summer window - particularly one like United's, where the outlay will be heavy and sales aplenty to balance the books - calls for stability., although at Old Trafford it is anything but. The club has had a 'for sale' sign outside for so long that it has started to decay and no one is really sure whether the Glazers are coming or going.

A third round of bidding was finalised last Friday, more than a month after what was meant to be the decisive second round in which Sheikh Jassim, Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Thomas Zilliacus came to the fore. The latter has since labelled the process a 'farce' and refused to table a third offer, but both Ratcliffe and Sheikh Jassim have continued their push.

But with a preferred bidder yet to be agreed upon, the timeline for a successful takeover from either party seems some distance away. Erik ten Hag was quizzed on