He's playing for a club where a bunch of his colleagues are making £200k+ for being shit and/or injured almost every week. We've got a player out on loan, contributing literally nothing whatsoever to the club, while we pay his £300k/w wages or whatever it is. He's also being asked to tie himself to a club that has been in absolute turmoil for over a decade and is only going downhill, with a crazy ownership situation, a collapsing stadium, and potential financial problems in the future. If he did indeed ask for £200k/w (and we don't know if that's true), I honestly can't say he's out of order.
After just breaking into the senior level and establishing yourself as one of the big names amongst rising talents, would you be thrilled to shackle yourself to this club in its current state? I think it's entirely reasonable to expect some serious incentives. If he stays, the most likely scenario for him is that he spends the most important years of his career at a club in disarray and with very meager prospects of actually winning anything. I would expect to be paid well for that. He isn't some fringe player who's lucky to be here. We're talking about building the club's future around him.
For the sake of argument, let's assume he's asking for 200K. If so, he's a boyhood United fan, was given a chance last season. The overpaid players you speak of are mostly in the process of being offloaded (Casemiro, Rashford, Antony, Eriksen) and we'll see whether Bruno can actually show consistent good form and whether Mount can actually play football for extended periods. Sancho is in the process of being bought by Chelsea, as the clause will kick in as soon as they've mathematically guaranteed a top 12 finish.
Yoro was bought for a huge fee and wanted by Real, he's on 115K. The club is in the process (Bruno's new contract aside) of rectifying years of massively overpaying players. What we of course should be doing is including collective incentivised bonuses as a big chunk of any potential wage, and much lower base salaries.
This club is obviously looking to improve and there are many indicators that we're on the right track despite the recent form and plethora of negative headlines (mostly of INEOS making).
Mainoo has also benefitted from our absolute lack of midfield options. We should have four capable centre midfielders in the squad, when in reality we have Ugarte and Mainoo. Eriksen does not have the legs and neither does Casemiro, though the latter is a bit better if and only if he's paired next to Ugarte.
Now, we must also think about what type of characters do we want at the club and what kind of dressing room do we want to create. We gave Rashford 250K a week when he was 21. That was a huge mistake, among many mistakes at the time, as our wage bill was off the charts and our squad was average.
So if we cannot negotiate a more prudent salary with performance related bonuses, we should move him on in the summer to the highest bidder.
That all being said, I'd be amazed if he's part of the entitlement clique.
