3
Heading into the summer transfer window, Manchester United’s top target was thought to be Tottenham Hotspur striker Harry Kane.
Erik ten Hag had identified him as an ideal candidate to solve the team’s issues up front, where Wout Weghorst and Anthony Martial had failed due to quality and fitness.
As discussed by The Peoples Person elsewhere, The Red Devils would have faced enormous difficulties in getting a deal over the line for Kane, despite his recently confirmed transfer to Bayern Munich.
And now The Athletic have brought some of those issues into sharper focus, with the club seemingly vindicated in their hasty departure from the race to sign the England captain.
According to the report, Kane was always likely to prefer a move to Bayern, seeing them as an obvious guarantee of silverware as he approaches his thirties.
The former Spurs man remained unconvinced that Man United were yet ready to challenge for the biggest honours in football, and seemingly did not back himself to help move the needle.
Instead, he will be almost guaranteed at least a couple of Bundesliga titles, along with a big chance at Champions League glory, given that the Bavarian giants are regularly among the favourites.
Furthermore, United were left under the impression that Harry Kane’s demands would prove to be prohibitive in the extreme.
While he has agreed a mammoth £480,000-a-week deal to sign for Bayern, those around Old Trafford were led to believe that Kane would demand even more to sign for United.
The Athletic relay that it might have taken as much as £576,000-a-week to lure the striker to the Northwest, utterly destroying any semblance of control the club have managed to exert over their wage structure since the departure of Cristiano Ronaldo nine months ago.
The Peoples Person recently speculated that, between the inflated fee Daniel Levy would have demanded from United and the wages Kane will pick up at a new club, the centre forward would have run up a bill totalling around a quarter of a billion pounds.
Now, it seems, that was a gross underestimate. In the long run, Manchester United may well have dodged a bullet by instead going for a young, up-and-coming player who desperately wants to play at Old Trafford.
