Take the money and run! Bruno Fernandes has carried Man Utd for too long - £100m Saudi sale would give cash-strapped Red Devils chance to reinvent Ruben Amorim's ill-equipped squad

United knew they were in for a summer of great change, with Amorim already telling Alejandro Garnacho that he has to find a new club. Kobbie Mainoo's future is uncertain and the club will be looking for buyers for Marcus Rashford, Antony and Jadon Sancho. Matheus Cunha is going to join and more signings are needed to make sure United make up for their worst campaign in 51 years and get into a position to qualify for the Champions League.

Fernandes was expected to be the unifying force behind the new-look team, the experienced and reliable leader who would uphold the club's standards for the newcomers. But as the player who had carried the club ever since he joined from Sporting CP in January 2020, you could see how weak his arms got. He had shouldered the weight until his back broke. He had run until his lungs gave up. And after the Europa League final defeat to Tottenham, a game in which for once he was one of the worst performers, he hinted that he didn't want to do it any longer.

"If the club thinks it’s time to part ways because they want to do some cash in or whatever, it’s what it is, and football sometimes is like this," Fernandes said. His words came after reports had already emerged of Al-Hilal's interest in him and while he had also said "I’m eager to do more, to be able to bring the club to great days", it felt like he was laying the ground for his imminent departure.

No United fan will blame Fernandes for having had enough and wanting a new challenge. In five and a half years at Old Trafford he has won just one FA Cup and one Carabao Cup. He has only reached the Champions League knockout stage once, with United meekly going out to Atletico Madrid in the last 16.

Sure, some will question Saudi Arabia as his destination, but they know that he does not owe the club anything. He has won the club's player of the year a record-equalling four times. He has scored 98 goals and set up another 97 in his 270 appearances. In his first campaign he took a dysfunctional team under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and made sure they finished second. From the date of his transfer from Sporting, no team picked up more points than United in the 2019-20 season.

In a diabolical last campaign all round, Fernandes finished with 19 goals and 19 assists. His hat-trick fired United past Real Sociedad in the last 16 of the Europa League, his double at San Mames put them on their way to their emphatic 7-1 aggregate win over Athletic Club in the semi-finals. But it was all for nothing as United could not lift the Europa League and have no European football to look forward to for the first time in 11 years. This is a good time as ever for Fernandes to leave.

But it is also a good time for United to, in Fernandes' words, cash in. And it is a chance that is unlikely to come around again. If United can get the maximum price of £100m out of Al-Hilal then he will become their most expensive sale of all time, easily eclipsing the £80m they received for Cristiano Ronaldo in 2009.

But Ronaldo was 24 when he left for Real Madrid and Romelu Lukaku, their second most expensive outgoing, was 26. Fernandes will be 31 one month into next season. No club outside of the Saudi Pro League is going to consider paying anything like that amount of money for him. The £100m fee would instantly plug the financial hole of losing to Spurs and failing to qualify for the Champions League.

It would also double the club's transfer budget in one fell swoop. And if United can sell the likes of Rashford, Antony and Garnacho wisely, they will have a significant war chest to undertake the squad overhaul that is clearly needed. No wonder then that legendary United midfielder Paul Scholes sees Fernandes' potential sale as a no-brainer. "They are talking about £100m for him. Man United cannot say no to that," he told The Overlap Fan Debate. "I mean he has been brilliant don’t get me wrong. But when you’re getting £100m for him you snap their hand off and take it."

Scholes also mentioned another little mentioned fact: Fernandes does not naturally fit into Amorim's 3-4-2-1 formation. Amorim's Sporting side played with two speedy narrow No. 10s and two athletic central midfielders. The coach has deployed Fernandes in both roles, and he has tended to perform much better when playing in the advanced role.

His propensity to lose the ball when trying to break the opposition's line makes him vulnerable to playing deeper and it should not be forgotten that Tottenham scored the only goal of the final from a move in which he had surrendered the ball in the middle of the pitch. Indeed, when Amorim has praised Fernandes he has tended to highlight his leadership, his appetite for winning, his willingness to play every game and to play through the pain when he is feeling a niggle or not completely fit.

Scholes added: "You know when you talk about this system as well, I know he has been brilliant and carried the team on his back but where does he play? What is his position? Do you see him as a number 10? Do you see him as a holding midfielder? He almost confuses the whole system because he doesn’t have that one position for him."

Amorim insisted on Friday that he did not believe that the 3-1 win over Hong Kong as part of United's post-season tour of Asia would be Fernandes' last game. "I don't think so. I don't know for sure. I think he wants to stay. He is saying no to a lot of things. The feeling I get is that he wants to continue for sure with Man United, you never know."

The coach also seemed to make a plea to co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe when he said: "The club can find other ways to make money." But the fact is Ratcliffe has chipped away at the club's soul in order to make tiny savings in the grand scheme of things. Indeed, the post-season tour, during which many United players have looked totally fed up and as if they did not want to be there, was purely a money-making exercise, a tiresome and tiring trip that will only earn the club around £10m. By selling Fernandes, they could make 10 times that amount and not have to resort to doing the same again next year.

Amorim, however, also admitted that he will not be able to remould the squad as much as he wants to this summer due to the club's PSR limitations. "We are a bit limited and we can’t do it all in one summer. But there is a clear picture for what we want," he said. But selling Fernandes would ease the PSR concerns and give the coach more financial room to reshape his squad.

Amorim and United can also take note of how other clubs made a fortune by selling their best players at the top of the market. Liverpool provide the best recent example after selling Philippe Coutinho to Barcelona for £146m ($196m). The knowledge that they would be receiving such a big transfer fee encouraged them to move ahead with the move for Virgil van Dijk and in the summer they signed Alisson and Fabinho.

The following season they won the Champions League and came to within a point of winning the Premier League title, which they eventually conquered a year later. There are many differences between Liverpool then and United now, and Jurgen Klopp was already well on the way to assembling his brilliant team.

Amorim is at the start of a daunting rebuild job and it is understandable that he wants Fernandes by his side. But if United use the money wisely they can fast-track the rebuild. Fernandes, meanwhile, can head off to the relentless sun of Riyadh and begin setting him and his family up for life, free from the burden of carrying the weight of a declining institution on his shoulders.