Ole Gunnar Solskjaer wants Manchester United to ideally conclude their transfer business before their first pre-season game on July 13.
Solskjaer was installed as the permanent United manager on Thursday morning on a three-year contract and the club is understood to have escalated their transfer plans now Solskjaer is the full-time manager.
United have changed their transfer strategy from the short-termism of Jose Mourinho to an emphasis on youth, amid interest in Internazionale defender Milan Skriniar and Borussia Dortmund forward Jadon Sancho.
At his press conference unveiling in the Number 7 suite at Old Trafford, Solskjaer promised supporters United will ‘do some business’ in the summer window and hopes to have his targets available for the pre-season opener in Australia against Perth Glory.
“Of course, when I got the job we were 11 points behind fourth,” Solskjaer said of his caretaker appointment on December 19. “Now we’ve given ourselves a great chance to be in the top four, and even three, so that’s got to be the short-term target in the league, the Premier League is vital for us and of course we’ve been discussing how to move the club forward, that doesn’t mean we’ve been saying X amount of money or X amount of players, we have sat down and discussed but now it’s easier to be clear about what we need to do, because we will do some business this summer.
“There’s been so many players written about that we’ve been interested in and so many players and agents have been in touch with our admin who want to come here and I’m sure when we decide what we have to do hopefully we’ll get them by pre-season, yeah.”
He added: “The lure of Champions League is important for us, for some players it might be but to play for Man United you know if you sign a contract for four years or five years you know you’re gonna be playing Champions League, we are now in a great position to get in the Champions League but that’s not decided until 12 May, probably.
“We need to get going before then with talks about players, with players, who’s gonna stay here.”
In his opening statement, Solskjaer stated: “When people get a new job and say ‘it’s a dream job’ they’ve had and have always dreamt about, playing for this club or managing this club, that’s more true to me than anyone.
This has been my ultimate dream all the time, maybe a naive dream but I’ve always had that dream in my mind to have this responsibility for this this huge, fantastic, family of a football club, and I’m so honoured and privileged to be given this fantastic responsibility to lead us forward,
“I don’t think proud is right word, I’m happy, honoured, because it’s a fresh start, the start of something new again and now the hard work starts, the enjoyable work, so it isn’t a moment to be proud in that respect.”
