Manchester United manager José Mourinho has insisted that any players wanting to leave Old Trafford in the January transfer window must depart on permanent deals.
However, he will allow third-choice keeper Sam Johnstone to head out on loan next month, with Sunderland and Aston Villa both linked with the 23-year-old, who has still yet to make a first appearance for the Reds.
The likes of Morgan Schneiderlin and Memphis Depay have been heavily linked with moves to West Brom and Everton in January, but the United manager has confirmed that the club has not received satisfactory offers for the players, which is believed to include West Brom’s £13 million bid for Schneiderlin.
Speaking at the pre-match press conference ahead of United’s New Year’s Eve clash against Middlesbrough, Mourinho said:
Sam Johnstone is the only player that I allow to go on loan because he doesn’t play one single minute. He needs to play.
I don’t want to sell players. But as I told before, if a player is not having lots of minutes and if a player really wants to leave, we have no right to stop the player to leave – if the conditions are our conditions.
And until this moment we have not received one single offer that we are going to accept.
We have a young goalkeeper in Joel [Pereira], a goalkeeper who played many minutes in the last six months.
For the development of both, Joel played six months in the Portuguese Premier League and now it’s time for Sam to play six months – and that’s the only loan move that we’re going to do.
