Manchester United and Ruben Amorim are preparing to sell this summer after missing out on the Champions League
It never rains but it pours at Old Trafford, as Manchester United could be set to lose their only world-class player at the end of their worst season in more than 50 years - and it’s all the fault of Liverpool and Mohamed Salah. Also, because Old Trafford’s 115-year-old roof apparently can’t handle one of the wettest cities in Europe.
Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah has been a long-term target of the Saudi Pro League but has twice snubbed the oil state, most recently in April when he signed a new contract extension at Liverpool in order to continue at football’s highest level.
That means the Public Investment Fund has been forced to change targets, and their next target is Bruno Fernandes - Manchester United’s only unarguably successful marquee signing of the last decade and potentially the only player preventing the Red Devils’ relegation this season.
Neymar’s return to Santos at the end of the Al-Hilal has left a superstar-sized hole at Al-Hilal and they’re looking to fill it with Fernandes while Manchester United need to raise as much cash as possible to aid Ruben Amorim’s rebuild at Old Trafford after missing out on Champions League qualification.
Bruno Fernandes £200m target of Saudi club
Al Hilal are confirmed to finish second in the Saudi Pro League this season behind runaway leaders Al-Ittihad and four points ahead of minnows Al-Qadsiah who they’ve outspent by €420m (£353m) in the last five years.
So they know how to get return on investment, and are now attempting to prise Fernandes away from Manchester in a £200 million deal split evenly between club and player. In other words, that would be enough for the Red Devils to almost buy another Rasmus Hojlund and Joshua Zirkzee pairing, who’ve netted seven Premier League goals between them this season.
Amorim’s refusal to deviate from his coaching philosophy was a major reason Manchester United fell short in the Europa League final, only finishing the game with six shots on target despite spending virtually the entire second half camped in Tottenham territory.
So he’s clearly determined to live or die by that system, which needs specialised players to work, but missing out on European football for the second time in 35 years and specifically the revenue of the Champions League means it will be a tricky rebuild for Amorim to juggle.
Could Mohamed Salah make Man United relegation candidates?
If such a thing were possible for Liverpool’s third-highest goalscorer of all time, Salah will have endeared himself even more to Reds fans with his tweet congratulating Tottenham after their victory in Bilbao.
He’s also Liverpool’s highest scorer against Manchester United with 15 strikes against the Red Devils - no other Red has hit double figures. And his double-rejection of the Saudi Pro League - who yearn to bring the most famous Muslim footballer in history to the Middle East - could force the 13-time Premier League champions into a relegation scrap next season.
However, football was the winner as Salah snubbed the oil state along with Vinicius Junior who was reportedly offered a ludicrous billion euros (£859m) to leave Real Madrid. Fernandes is probably Manchester United’s most important player of the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era and in April, The Athletic’s JJ Bull calculated that 63% of Fernandes’ 93 goals in red have directly changed the live result of a game.
At that stage, Fernandes had scored or assisted 45% of the Red Devils’ goals in the 2024/25 Premier League, 12 of them game-state changing such as the free-kick against Everton. Bull calculated Fernandes had been worth 25 points to his side in the league, without which United wouldn’t just be condemned to the drop, they’d be one of the worst Premier League sides of all time.
Fernandes has been the sole success in years of appalling marquee signings at Old Trafford (Hojlund, Zirkzee, Antony, Jadon Sancho, Casemiro and Mason Mount to name just a few just this decade) and it’s hard to have any faith that Amorim or technical director Jason Wilcox will succeed where so many others have failed even if they’re not responsible for those gaffes.
So if Manchester United do elect to sell Fernandes and spend that windfall in the same way, they could genuinely be in a relegation scrap next season. Meanwhile Salah and Liverpool will be laughing all the way to the bank.
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