WHY SAY ANYTHING?

(Guess which four of this lot should be sold by United)

Whilst the rest of the footballing world watches with almost child-like, wide-eyed wonder at the movement of players through a metaphorical window, we here at WSA have reached the stage where we trust José Mourinho and are, therefore, happy with whoever he chooses to bring to the club.

That is not to say we won’t be watching, reading and listening for every player linked with United as well as the few who will actually arrive, it’s just that we have decided to look at who should be going in the opposite direction. In other words, who needs to leave Old Trafford? Who has overstayed his welcome, who isn’t good enough, who should never have been bought in the first place? That kind of thing.

In no particular order of preference, because all of the following need to leave, here is the list:-

Wayne Rooney – now falls into the category “overstayed his welcome“. As regular readers of these chronicles will know, we are not his biggest fan and never have been. We have, for the last few years, begrudgingly put up with him for no real reason other than the fact that he was there. Now he shouldn’t be! Now he can’t get into the team and, unlike other United stars past and present, this hasn’t led to being called up by England. In fact, it has led to the exact opposite and he has been dropped from the national team as well.

He appears to have options including China, the USA and Everton amongst others, so our advice is simple, take one of the options, we don’t care which one, just stop going on about possibly staying for another year. We all know that would only be for the money because, the very fact that you mention it, exposes you for the greedy mercenary that you are.

Chris Smalling – in our humble opinion falls into the “should never have been bought” category. Looking back over the years at the likes of Pallister and Bruce, Ronny Johnsen, Jaap Stam, Ferdinand and Vidic, it would be an insult to them to include his name in the same sentence. It seems as though, after years of campaigning for his sale, we might finally get our wish as, in José Mourinho, we have now found a manager who appears to agree with us. Goodbye Chris, thanks for popping in, don’t ring us and we won’t ring you.

Jesse Lingard – only scores at Wembley and, therefore, should be top of Tottenham Hotspur’s shopping list as that will be their home next season. Again we don’t really care which club have him on their list, we would just be very grateful if one has and could put in an offer which United would be unable to refuse. Even though Lingard falls into the category “not good enough” we don’t actually see him leaving during this window.

This is a pity as he also falls into the category “can’t keep his mouth shut“. Proof of this is online every day, you only need to look on Facebook or other social media and there he is, tongue out and far too much to say for himself.

Marouane Fellaini – managed to put in some half decent performances last season when called upon but is not a reliable team player. He gives away free kicks for fun and collects yellow cards as though they are going out of fashion. With the anticipated arrival of Alvaro Morata, should United need to resort to lumping the ball forward, hopefully he will get on the end of those lumps which will totally negate any need whatsoever for Fellaini to remain at United.

The days of United needing players who are ‘big and daft‘ are long gone and Fellaini, along with Smalling, needs to join them.

So that’s our shortlist of players who would make Manchester United a better team by not being there when the new season kicks off in August. We don’t expect to get our way entirely but 50% could be considered a decent result.

We’ll just have to wait and see.