John Murtough has to improve one aspect of Manchester United's transfer strategy

A report into the spending of clubs in Europe's top five leagues over the last decade, released last September, made for predictably grisly reading for Manchester United.

The CIES Football Observatory report revealed no club had a more considerable net spend than United between the summer windows of 2012 and 2021, clocking in at an eye-watering €1billion.

No club has had less bang for their buck than United in that period, given nine of the 10 years, it covers are in the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era, where silverware has become increasingly hard to come by.

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The report didn't reflect well on United's spending in that period and you only had to spend five minutes in the company of Ralf Rangnick this season to understand the failings in that regard.

But it also shone a light into United's failure to extract maximum value for players they have been selling. In that 10 year period they had collected €474million in transfer fees, almost €200million less than Manchester City and roughly the same as Everton.

United's struggles when it comes to selling players hasn't just been about the fees they've been able to bring in, but the timing of the sales.

This summer Paul Pogba and Jesse Lingard will walk away on free transfers when both could have been sold for sizeable fees without disrupting the squad.

Pogba made his intention to leave Old Trafford clear in the summer of 2019 and if United had their time again they would surely sanction a deal then. Instead, they held on to Pogba and in the three years since he has shown only flashes of his brilliance, while the pandemic made a sale almost impossible.

There can be no such mitigation in