Harry Kane is the striker at the top of Manchester United’s list of transfer targets this summer.
Louis van Gaal has identified a number of players in preparation for United’s return to the Champions League, with a forward, a right back, a centre half and a central midfielder on his radar.
He already has a winger in Memphis Depay but Kane, who became the first Spurs player since Gary Lineker to score 30 goals in a season, is the striker United’s manager wants despite the 21-year-old signing a five-and-a-half-year contract in February.
United would expect to pay upwards of £45million for Kane, who scored on his England debut in March. But if Van Gaal can also beat Liverpool to Burnley’s Danny Ings, whose contract expires next month, he is certainly prepared to spend lavishly on Kane, particularly with Robin van Persie entering his twilight years.
United have a history of signing Tottenham’s best players, with Teddy Sheringham, Michael Carrick and Dimitar Berbatov all having moved from White Hart Lane to Old Trafford.
Van Gaal spent £150m last summer and will have at least as much again this time. Having banked the first £100m from a new £750m world-record kit deal, executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward confirmed there would be further arrivals following Depay’s £25m switch from PSV Eindhoven.
After releasing the club’s latest quarterly figures, Woodward said United are delighted with Van Gaal and have already started to implement plans to bring in new faces. ‘We expect to be active again during the window,’ he said. ‘The squad will be absolutely deep enough and ready to challenge on all fronts next year and that involves ins and outs in the summer.’
Woodward said that ‘eight or nine’ of 30 first-team players will be out of contract at the end of next season. ‘That’s a fairly normal ratio,’ he explained, before adding that talks are ongoing with those players out of contract this summer whom the club want to keep.
Accounts for the three months to the end of March showed United’s revenues took a £20m hit compared to the same period last year thanks mainly to a lack of Champions League football and a period in which five fewer Premier League matches were televised.
They made an £11.4m pre-tax loss compared to a £20.4m profit for the corresponding period last year. – Daily Mail