Manchester United report millions in revenue

Ryan Giggs has done something unusual, and said something sensible. He was talking about Marcus Rashford, who has sat out most of the recent games on the bench. Rashford hasn’t been poor, but he has looked woolly-headed and slow to take the sensible decision. He has always been decisive, but it seems that this has lately verged into unreasonable selfishness. It’s no disaster, and for such a young player he still shows remarkable promise, but Giggs has correctly identified that Rashford needs to step up his game. This has only been made more important since Jesse Lingard’s improvement, Alexis Sanchez’s arrival, and the return to fitness of Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

New tax laws in America have resulted in a near-£50m paper loss for Manchester United, as they report their financial performance. United turned a profit, and are again very profitable considering the losses most clubs make in the league. There’s still plenty more to be bled from the company, though.

Ander Herrera has been caught up in a match fixing scandal from his time at Real Zaragoza in 2011. There is an investigation into the club’s 2-1 win over Levante during a relegation battle. Herrera denies any wrongdoing, but if he were found guilty it would presumably diddle his career for a year or two.

Alexis Sanchez was sentenced to 16 months in jail for a tax evasion case, but his agent assures us that this was merely Sanchez taking the charge as a way to avoid any hassle. He is of course completely innocent, and there is definitely not an endemic problem of tax avoidance in the higher levels of football, just as there is no problem with doping.

And lastly, there is praise for Jose Mourinho’s use of young players when compared to Pep Guardiola’s struggle to do the same.