Mino Raiola's Influence Should Steer Man Utd Clear of Erling Haaland

Manchester United need a striker and Erling Haaland ticks all the boxes, but they can’t go there.

The club wanted to sign him last January when he had a £17m release clause with Red Bull Salzburg. But reservations about potential agent commissions, an insistence from his camp on another release clause, and concerns from the player himself over immediate playing time all contributed to the Norwegian prodigy joining Borussia Dortmund instead.

Haaland has proved over the last 12 months that he was no flash in the pan at Salzburg.

He scored 28 goals in the first half of last season alone for the Austrian club, having only just broken through following a 2018 transfer from Molde. Yet it wasn’t just that he was crushing it in a weak domestic league, because he also scored eight times in the Champions League group stage.

Haaland might have been forgiven for a drop-off when he moved to Dortmund as he adapted to a new club at a higher level, but it was more of the same. He finished last season with 44 club goals in total in just 40 appearances, and has another 17 in 14 so far this season.

That’s 61 goals, plus another six for his country, in less than 18 months.

With Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Robert Lewandowski all nearing the end of their respective careers, Haaland could be the best goalscorer in the world sooner rather than later.

Manchester United snapped up Edinson Cavani in the summer transfer window because they still hadn’t been able to secure the new long-term ‘number nine’ that will be vital to mounting any sort of serious Premier League and/or Champions League challenge in the near future.

Cavani is 34 in February, meaning the issue is still very much open. But Haaland has pace, power, strength, intelligence and lethal finishing ability that makes him an even more effective version of the ‘super strikers’ like Fernando Torres and Didier Drogba that emerged in the mid-2000s.

United cannot afford not to have a player like him. The key difference compared to someone like Kylian Mbappe, for example, is that the release clause Dortmund agreed to in order to sign him just under 12 months ago means Haaland will be available for €75m in 2022. Without that clause, a player of his ability, age and long-term potential could easily be worth double or triple.

But United, who badly need him, need to steer well clear and pursue other options.

The sole reason for that is Mino Raiola. Even if they could somehow engineer a deal for one of the best young players in the world, it just isn’t worth it to keep getting back into bed with the outspoken super-agent already causing them problems.

Raiola’s interview to the Italian press a day before United faced RB Leipzig in a crucial Champions League decider, telling the world that Pogba wants to leave, was nothing short of malicious. Any desire Pogba has to leave could and should be handled in a more professional and dignified manner, but laying it bare in public was the way to have maximum destructive impact.

It was hard enough to deal with him to get Pogba back to the club in the first place, with Raiola triple representing all three parties in the transfer negotiations – a practice FIFA is now keen to ban – and walking away with a reported £41m in total commission.

But he has also been no stranger to controversy when it comes to his client’s future at Old Trafford and it is not a healthy situation for United to keep dealing with him. If that means sacrificing the pursuit of other top players, like Haaland, because he is the agent involved, so be it.

“Manchester United have got a big problem while they’ve got a star player in the dressing room, who’s agent is categoric ahead of the biggest game of the season in saying he doesn’t want to be at the football club. The lack of respect,” raged Gary Neville on Sky Sports at the weekend.

“The guy should never be dealt with again by this football club. This football club has got to stand still and look what it happening. They can’t go and sign another player with that agent. They cannot do that, enough is enough.”

United felt they had a chance of landing Haaland this time last year because of his pre-existing relationship with Solskjaer from their time together at Molde. The player has been complimentary about Solskjaer’s influence on his development, but Raiola hasn’t been so kind about the coach or the club and there is increasingly no love lost between either side.

Any influence Solskjaer may have on the player is utterly dwarfed by Raiola’s sway as his confidant and mentor. His stable is incredibly loyal to him and Haaland is no different. In the player’s eyes, Raiola is the ‘best agent in the world’ and isn’t about to turn his back on him.

With everything that has happened and continues to happen with Pogba, United can’t go there again.

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