Manchester United bigwig Ed Woodward may be able to fund a move for Jadon Sancho with a huge clear out and a mega sale in January.
The Red Devils are still thought to have Sancho at the top of their shopping list for the January transfer window, having been rebuffed multiple times in the summer.
The main issue was Borussia Dortmund’s £110m asking price for the England winger, with Woodward not budging on his offers which were not deemed tempting enough.
However, with a clear out of the deadwood at Old Trafford, maybe United can raise enough money to go back into the boardroom and thrash out a deal.
So here’s how the club can raise £110m, according to valuations from transfermarkt, by selling a few members of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s squad.
First of all, two unused centre-backs in Marcos Rojo and Phil Jones will collect £5m each.
Sergio Romero, who is thought to be keen to leave Old Trafford having been demoted to third choice keeper, would only fetch £1.8m.
But Jesse Lingard, who has also struggled heavily to break into the first team when fit this season, should be able to garner a fee of around £12m.
That’s not much for a player who Dortmund said would cost more than £100m in the summer.
But the sales of Nemanja Matic for £14m and Paul Pogba, who is still valued at a whopping £72m, would take them up to that magic £100m.
Of course, Pogba could well go for even more than that if United decided to cash in on him, while United would probably struggle to sell Matic for that much.
United have also continued to be linked with Dortmund striker Erling Haaland, having lost out on his signature to the Bundesliga side last winter.
Norwegian pundit Jan Aage Fjortoft insists that there is a possibility they could still snap him up though, along with Sancho, as the bright lights of the Premier League are always likely to tempt top stars to make the move.
“Viv Anderson said to me, ‘but Jan, it’s quite easy, young kids want to win trophies – that’s why they’re in the game,’” Fjortoft told ESPN.
“One day they will go away, meet each other now at international break and they will say ‘you’re a good team, you have good talent, how many trophies have you got?’
“I think that is the danger with Dortmund. They have the best Norwegian, the best American, the two best English, although Sancho is not at the moment unfortunately.
“That is the main challenge for Dortmund. How long can they keep these young kids without winning trophies? The culture needs to be built up.
“It’s also typical that Bayern [have] got that culture at the moment because they have that winning mentality in there.”