Louis van Gaal will make a quick assessment on whether Chris Smalling, Tom Cleverley, Javier Hernández, Shinji Kagawa, Darren Fletcher, and Ashley Young should be offered contract extensions, with all waiting anxiously to discover their fate as the new manager arrives at Manchester United on Wednesday.
All have two years left on their current contracts apart from Cleverley and Fletcher, whose terms expire next summer. While others in the United squad also have deals that end over the next 24 months, it is these six players whose respective futures are in the balance, with Bebé and Anderson two others who are free to leave.
With Van Gaal joining the club only four weeks before the start of the season, he needs to move fast to decide if Smalling, Cleverley, Hernández, Kagawa, Fletcher and Young are part of his long-term plans.
On Wednesday Van Gaal meets his squad for the first time, before Thursday’s planned official unveiling and Friday’s early afternoon flight to the United States for the start of the summer tour, so the Dutchman will use the six-day training camp in Los Angeles ahead of the opening game to assess the six.
Antonio Valencia is the only player to have signed fresh terms since Van Gaal took charge. The Ecuadorian had only 12 months left before receiving a new three-year deal during the World Cup in what was a telling sign of his value to Van Gaal.
While the 62-year-old may decide to use the wideman as a wing-back or right-back next season, Gary Neville has hailed Luke Shaw’s arrival, with the left-back having signed for £27m from Southampton.
“I am trying to keep guarded here about the size of talent that exists in this footballer,” Neville told the MEN. “You are talking about brilliant potential. The reason United spent £27m on a left-back at his age is because they see the huge talent and I can only endorse that talent. You have to watch him at close hand to realise that this is an incredible and hugely talented football player. Luke Shaw is fantastic.
“United fans have got to understand – and this is not the boy’s fault – that when you sign someone at that age for £27m, you don’t get perfection straight away but you have to give him time and space to develop. Luke will need time to settle in, as any 19-year-old boy would coming to Manchester.
“I am expecting he will do well this season but you will see a really quite fantastic full-back in 18 months to two years. When he matures and gets used to the club and settles into the environment and understands the expectation he will blossom.
“I came through at 16-17 [with United] with the rest of my mates and we virtually lived in the football club. We knew the expectations. It was drilled into us. He is coming from a very good football club and a very good youth system but he is now at a giant of a club. The expectations are massive. But he will get used to that.”
