New owners must keep five promises to get hands on United

IT'S set to be a pivotal seven days in the history of United as takeover talks begin to gather pace. The Glazer family have reportedly set next Friday as the soft-sale deadline for interest to be made concrete, meaning there is now less than a week remaining for any interested parties to lay out their plans for the club.

- By RICHARD FAY

Sir Jim Ratcliffe has made public his desire to bid for his boyhood club, while there is also understood to be interest from Qatar as well as American investors.

All the bids will no doubt have their own pros and cons, but what is crucial is that anyone who aims to take charge of the club can make five core promises that form the backbone of their mission statement.

The first will no doubt be at the top of everyone's agenda: backing Erik ten Hag with a significant transfer budget so that he can build upon the solid foundations he has already laid. The Reds backed the Dutchman with a record level of spending last summer as they looked to help him settle into life at his new club and offset all the key players they had lost, but the consequence is that money is tight at this moment in time.