Some Manchester United careers might come to a shock end after learning of their new reality

Before Wednesday's Europa League final, Manchester United would have had a Plan A and a Plan B for this summer. The binmen in Bilbao might find the more expressive shopping list discarded somewhere in the days to come.

United have sought to downplay the impact the loss of that cash will have on their summer transfer plans, and they continue to press ahead with attempts to sign Matheus Cunha and Liam Delap. But for a club that has sacked 400 members of its workforce and made a series of penny-pinching measures, it's pretty obvious the financial effect of defeat to Tottenham will be seismic.

But those two plans should cover departures as well as arrivals, and with no European football next season, Ineos can now take a bludgeon to this squad. United could have 31 first-team squad members when players return for pre-season and in a campaign that could be as short as 40 games, that is wildly excessive.

United will play 38 Premier League fixtures, almost all of them on weekends. They will enter the Carabao Cup in the second round in August and the FA Cup in the third round in January. A cup run could push them towards 45 or 50 games, but they played 60 games this season and 62 in 2022/23, so the workload will decrease considerably.

A 25-man squad for next season would be fine, but only if that included some of the club's promising youngsters who are on the fringes of the first team. Any bigger, and there will be senior players barely getting a kick, and the dynamic at training will be difficult to manage for Ruben Amorim, who is desperate to make the most of those free weeks at Carrington.

Some of the departures are straightforward. Jonny Evans, Victor Lindelof and Christian Eriksen are out of contract and will leave next