Manchester United have been advised to sanction a minimum six transfers during the summer window to give Erik ten Hag any chance to compete. Ten Hag is ready to step into the Old Trafford dugout after steering his now former club Ajax to a third Eredivisie title success in four seasons.
Ten Hag, 52, will not touch down in Manchester this week, but has started to put his plans in place. Included on his to-do list is sparking up another recruitment drive as the Premier League giants prepare to rebuild with high-profile incomings and a released list which could break into double figures.
Writing in his latest Talk of the Devils column, former United player Gordon Hill said: "At the very start of this season and it seems a long time ago, there was a lot of optimism about what might be needed to move from second place. Now it's more clear that it's not about fine-tuning.
READ MORE: Manchester United released list set to break through the double-figure mark
"What might have seemed like good squad options at the start of the season now looks like a lot of driftwood that Ten Hag has inherited. I'll be blunt with it. From the evidence of this season, United need at least six players and this [rebuild] might possibly need more if we want to be competing for cup finals and league titles."
Hill continued: "One thing you can say under Ralf Rangnick is that just about every player at the club has now been tried and tested - anyone who claims they haven't had a chance already had theirs a long time ago. His games have been used to evaluate who can perform and who can't, who will perform and who won't.
"We can safely say that it's not gone very well under Rangnick, but the one thing we can take from it is that it's now much more clear to identify the players who it is time to move on - on top of the ones whose contracts are expiring anyway. And that number is roughly equal to the number of players that we need to bring in this summer."
Sign up to our United newsletter so you never miss an update from Old Trafford this season.
