Manchester United is fully aware that they need to save up but remain competitive. Just recently, the Red Devils gave a shocking revelation when they opted not to pursue Odion Ighalo. It turns out that there may have been other developments tied to it with Marcus Rashford and Paul Pogba possibly returning once the season restarts in June.
The possibility of seeing Rashford back in harness was spurred by reports that the 22-year-old was spotted at the team's training facility. It appears he has been religiously going there the past weeks, likely to ramp up his recovery from an injury, the Manchester Evening News reported. For now, there is no official word from United if Rashford will be ready to play by early June.
As for Pogba, it seems he is recovering as well. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer recently said that he expects a healthy squad back by the time the season starts, and most think that this was due to the progress of Pogba and Rashford after sitting out a lot of their games this season.
"For those two, this gives them a chance to start on a par or even ahead of the other players if and when we get going. They have been focused and mentally it’s maybe easier for them to train hard now because they can see light at the end of the tunnel,” Solskjaer said via Futaa.com.It remains to be known if these were factors on the Ighalo plans being shelved. Originally, most were left with the impression that the Red Devils would be absorbing the Nigerian from Chinese team Shanghai Shenhua. The transfer fee was at £20 million. Solskjaer was looking to work around that, hoping to get a loan extension or an entirely new one to keep Ighalo. Unfortunately, he was advised by management to put that on hold. Most feel that this is due to the financial crunch that most teams will have to deal with moving forward.
It was a big blow to Ighalo who also seemed pretty well off with United. He was fulfilling a childhood dream and thought that he had just done enough to make the team. There is no denying that Ighalo has shown his true worth, filling in the slack of injured star players for a time. Now, he may need to return to China unless some other team expresses interest in him. His contract expires on May 31.
