The season is nearing its end. And that means there won’t be time for contracts to expire and significant wages to drain away. These five youngsters will likely never be in a better situation again, but some clubs will suddenly find some welcome room on their payroll…
Raphael Varane (Manchester United)
Fully paid member of the ever-growing group of ‘great soccer players who weren’t great’ Manchester United soccer player’s Varane will leave this summer After three years of setbacks and stop-starts at Old Trafford, a combination of injuries and form and a widespread sense of decline and disarray across the club have prevented any semblance of consistent excellence that had been hoped for. I can no longer provide for him.
His streak of consecutive Premier League starts for United has been just six, a record set in his first season at the club in 2021/22. He has only managed just over 20 league games in each of his three seasons, and while he cannot be considered a failure, he certainly hasn’t proven to be the solution to United’s defensive problems.
Given the struggles he has had on the pitch for United, and the fact that he seems to have been around forever, it’s quite impressive when you remember he’s only 31 years old. Man Utd have made a huge number of mistakes in recent years, but when you think about it, Varane, 28, who was signed as an elite defender to lead the defense at his peak, wasn’t really one of them. .
More about F365’s Raphael Varane:
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Thiago Alcantara (Liverpool)
The wage drain is perhaps a bit harsh for a clearly talented footballer who has made a tangible contribution to Liverpool in recent years, but he last started in the Premier League in February 2023 and has not made it this season. His contribution to winning the title came in the final five minutes of the match. In the 3-1 defeat against Arsenal, he shamefully failed to completely change course and was injured again, ending his season.
The cruel and harsh fact is that Thiago played 150 Premier League games for Liverpool and missed more than half of them, 78, due to various injuries, illnesses and minor injuries.
given that Only Mo Salah and Virgil van Dijk earn more than his £200,000-a-week wage. It’s not hard to see that that money could be put to a little better use at Anfield from next season onwards.
Andre Gomez (Everton)
He looked certain to leave Everton last summer after spending the 2022/23 season at Lille, but a permanent move there or elsewhere never materialized and he left for Goodison Park to complete his contract. Came back.
This season hasn’t been a complete waste of space, but three starts and a few substitute appearances in the Premier League is probably not the best use Sean Dyche can muster for his £120,000-a-week wages. And if there’s one club in the Premier League that isn’t in a position to spend that kind of money every week on a bit-part midfielder…
Anthony Martial (Manchester United)
The biggest evidence of United’s stagnant carelessness is the fact that Martial has been hanging around until the end of his contract with no concrete purpose for so long.
His five-and-a-half-year contract extension seemed quite generous even in January 2019, but he was still scoring at least occasionally, scoring a Premier League-best 17 goals in 2019/20. It’s completely unreasonable.
But it’s a real shame that we’ve never been able to get him out the door in the last four years, scoring 12 goals in 64 games in the Premier League. Of course he pays his players, but he doesn’t want them to sign him to such a huge £240,000-a-week contract that he is completely unable to shift. It’s just ridiculous that over the past few years they’ve been able to bring in players with such high prices and low contributions on just six-month loans.
Cedric Soares (Arsenal)
Yes, this is very harsh indeed, but we need five, right? No one reads the “4 Pay Leak” feature, but now literally 12 people will. Because 5 is a better number.
It was always a move that seemed a bit strange, but the truth is that Arsenal have come a long way in recent years to the point that the very idea of ​​Cedric Soares becoming an Arsenal player now seems completely ridiculous. It just shows you how far and how fast you’ve come.
And the truth is, if Cedric hadn’t come off the bench and used all of his knowledge and experience to nervously help Arsenal secure the crucial points with a 6-0 thrashing, this Premier League season You’ll never know how different things could have been. , 5-0 and 6-0 wins over West Ham, Burnley and Sheffield United in March and April.
Read more: Highest earners at each Premier League club
