When Manchester United's transfer committee met ahead of the summer transfer window it was made abundantly clear that any new signings would need to be off-set by player departures at senior level.
In an ideal world United would have trimmed the fat on their bloated first-team squad by sanctioning the sales of a number of periphery players, but in the post-pandemic world transfer budgets have still been restricted by huge losses of revenue over the best part of 18 months.
Daniel James was the only senior figure who departed on a permanent transfer, while Sergio Romero was finally set free and first-team fringe options like Andreas Pereira, Axel Tuanzebe and Brandon Williams left on much-needed loan exits.
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