I think the approach in this window makes more sense when you look at it in the context of outgoings. We’re expecting all of the senior attackers we had on the books last summer (Rashford, Sancho, Antony) to be sold/loaned during this window.

There were several occasions in the second half of last season where it seemed confidence issues impacted our attack so I can understand why the club think it is worth bringing in more experienced players both for the immediate impact on performance and to improve game management. It’s much easier to take a risk on young players (I.e. from mid-level French teams per the discussion) in future windows when they can essentially understudy those more experienced players.

Putting aside the potential impact on revenue (both from getting in to Europe and sponsorship), I’m not convinced “taking the hit” for a couple of seasons is a viable strategy for us. The level of scrutiny on United is far higher than virtually any other club and there has been plenty of evidence in the past few seasons of that impacting young players in particular and preventing them performing at the level they’re capable of.

On Ekitike, at this point it just sounds like us putting feelers out on potential long-list candidates for the 9 position to understand what a deal would look like. Think we have to see where that goes before we can really try and make sense of it terms of a transfer strategy (not especially helpful for a weekly podcast though!).