Ole Gunnar Solskjaer created £120m problem for Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag

Erik ten Hag will need several note pads to jot down the problems he must solve as Manchester United manager and many of them involve him footing astonishing financial bills. A busy summer awaits for the Dutchman yet - as he continues to put his own plans in place - most of those issues could and should have been avoided.

Hindsight, as they say, is a wonderful thing. Right at the top of his lengthy shopping list is (finally) finding a solution to long-standing and well-documented issues in central midfield - something United would have addressed even if they had not opted for a direction change in the dugout and upstairs.

However, with speculation mounting over a 50-50 decision at centre-back, between Jurrien Timber and Pau Torres from Villarreal, that is not the only area which Ten Hag must patch up when his predecessors made such big-money and high-profile recent investment; old cracks have appeared through the thinly-layered paper.

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United settled on Raphael Varane for £34million last summer as a longer-term partner for £80million captain Harry Maguire. Such is the concern there, though, key figures in the much-changed boardroom are willing to hand over a cheque between those two amounts for Timber or Torres.

Before continuing, it has to be said this is not purely down to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and a fresh start in how United approach their transfer business will be every bit as important as how Ten Hag settles in on the training ground - or as a Premier League manager. Perhaps more so.

In that sense, one positional oversight might be tolerable. However, as every United supporter will understand too well, mistakes were repeated across the