New Manchester United deal proves Ed Woodward's point and shows why Glazers are standing firm

It is approaching a year since Manchester United were put up for sale, and yet there remains a huge element of uncertainty regarding any possible takeover.

Since the news broke last November, a number of deadlines have come and gone, and supporters quickly saw through the false hope of a deal being completed quickly. The 'strategic review' has lacked any clear strategy.

United fans will now only believe a takeover is close to completion when they see it for themselves, and of course, as was outlined from the very beginning, there is no guarantee one will happen.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al-Thani both remain in the race to buy the club, with differently constructed offers on the table, but both are roughly valued at the same level, in the region of £5billion. Not a bad profit from a leveraged buyout using borrowed money.

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The Glazer family has already been warned that they would face an entirely new level of backlash if they did indeed decide against selling the club at this moment in time, though that might not be so offputting for such distant owners.

Ultimately, it comes down to money. There is little rush or pressure from their side to sell, so the Glazers can hold out until someone meets their exact demands. Those demands could eventually increase.

Even after a difficult few months, United remain a global behemoth, perhaps only truly rivalled by Real Madrid in terms of global reach for a football club.

Ed Woodward received savage backlash when he infamously stated, 'playing performance doesn’t really have a meaningful impact on what we can do on the commercial size of the business'. It was an ill-advised comment, but it was correct.