On the face of it, deals for former Atletico Madrid player Cunha and potentially Mbeumo would total over £100m and eat into a significant chunk of United’s summer budget before sales.
However, accounting practices mean that is not actually the case.
“When you bring in a new player you would normally put them on a four or five-year contract. The way the accounting works – you take the cost of the player and divide it by the length of the contract,” added Maguire.
“If you sign someone for £150m it would cost them £30m next year plus the wages.
“But you only have to go and sell a couple of players of the calibre of [Alejandro] Garnacho, [Marcus] Rashford and co to get more than £60m of profit coming in, so it effectively pays for itself.
“So you can pay out a far bigger multiple than the sales proceeds of those that might be departing.”
The likes of Tyrell Malacia, Jadon Sancho, Rashford, Garnacho and Antony have all been tipped to depart permanently this summer.
In addition there has also been speculation over the future of goalkeepers Andre Onana and Altay Bayindir, and 20-year-old midfielder Kobbie Mainoo, who almost 12 months ago was in the England starting XI for the final of the European Championship.
“If a football club sells a player, normally the profit which goes into your PSR calculations is the difference between the sales price and the book value. Without getting too technical the book value is how much you originally pay for the player less how much you have written off to date.
“With an academy player you have not paid anything for the player’s registration so if we look at other clubs and Chelsea in particular, the sales of Conor Gallagher, Fikayo Tomori, Tammy Abraham, Billy Gilmour and Mason Mount – they all came through the academy and when you sell them it is 100% profit.
“In the case of Manchester United they have three players [Rashford, Garnacho and Mainoo] who have been mentioned in media outlets as being possibly for sale and they are going to generate pure profit.
“It is far better [PSR-wise] than selling a player who has only been at the club a couple of years and who has underperformed.”
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