Manchester United give Solskjaer loads of money to wang about - report

The definition of insanity is to use the same introduction to an article again and again in the expectation that suddenly a career might magically materialise.

That repetition, though, is also how Ed Woodward approaches his job. It is not that the idea is wrong per se, it is that it has simply not been tried enough times to find the one occasion that it might work.

The executive vice-plum at Old Trafford is, according to a report in the Mirror, giving new manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer a whopping £200 million in the summer in order to procure some new talent in the hope that doing that, instead of taking a few minutes to think sensibly and plan for the long term, will produce the instant results to return United back to the big time.

That cash will be used on four players, none of whom seem that bad too be honest. There is Kalidou Koulibaly of Napoli, a reliable central defender who could play at the back for the next four years alongside Victor Lindelof. The most important quality of a Lindelof-Koulibaly backline is that is gets twin clowns Phil Jones and Chris Smalling out of the starting eleven, because they are truly awful footballers, so bad that they make me wonder if I could get away with dropping both the eff and the cee bombs about them here.

Raphael Varane is another possible central defensive target, but quite why he’d slum it at United when he could move to pretty much any club in the world if he chose, is another matter.

There are younger targets, too. Callum Hudson-Odoi could be available relatively cheaply, and another young winger, Jadon Sancho, might cost two or three times as much. Declan Rice is mentioned, but he will probably end up at Manchester City and have a decent career instead. Saul Niguez, Bruno Fernandes and Aaron Wan-Bissaka are also under consideration.

In order to make room for the these future disappointments, possible exits include Antonio Valencia, David de Gea, Ander Herrera, Juan Mata, Matteo Darmian, Marcos Rojo, Eric Bailly, Alexis Sanchez and Fred.