David de Gea will leave Manchester United at the end of this season and will receive a big payout to help him on his way, according to The Mirror.
The outlet claims that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has seen enough to make Dean Henderson his number one and so the Spaniard will be surplus to requirements.
However, with two years remaining on his contract, De Gea’s hefty and ludicrous £350,000 salary will not be matched by any club so United will have to negotiate a pay-off which The Mirror has calculated to be £36.4million.
The Mirror also believes that three other keepers will follow De Gea out of the door.
‘United are currently spending a staggering £570,000 a week on five senior goalkeepers – and the club’s American owners want that slashed.
‘Sergio Romero, 34, is on £70,000 a week – yet has been allowed to run the last few months of his contract down in Argentina after the inexplicable decision was taken to block a proposed move to Everton last year.
‘Third-choice Lee Grant, 38, and Joel Pereira, 24, are on £30,000 a week and £20,000 a week respectively and will also become free agents at the end of the season.’
The decision might be welcome for De Gea, who is rumoured to be open to a move back to Spain to spend time with his girlfriend Edurne and their new baby daughter.
However, The Mirror also claims that United ‘value him at £50m – but that is likely to be a prohibitive price in the aftermath of the pandemic.’
In reality, if De Gea were to leave, the Red Devils would struggle to even come close to covering the pay-off with any negotiated transfer fee.
Contract negotiators Ed Woodward and Matt Judge continue to cost the club millions by offering unnecessarily large and lengthy contracts. They reportedly had to fork out around £10 million to get Alexis Sanchez off the books, £30 million to pay up Wayne Rooney’s five-year contract and £20 million to pay off Jose Mourinho.