Manchester United doing ‘everything in its power’ to sign new striker, says manager Erik ten Hag

Erik ten Hag stresses that Manchester United are doing “everything in its power” to sign a striker.

United have strengthened their squad with the additions of midfielder Mason Mount from Chelsea and goalkeeper Andre Onana from Inter.

But a replacement for Cristiano Ronaldo – who left in January – remains elusive despite the club’s best efforts.

Anthony Martial has been struggling with injury and has missed the club’s pre-season programme so far with a hamstring injury, while Wout Weghorst was not made a permanent acquisition after managing just two goals in 31 appearances during his loan spell from Burnley.

“We do a lot across Man Utd, with a lot of people we do everything in our power to get the right man in,” Ten Hag told reporters.

“I am aware about finance and about FFP, but across United we do everything to get our targets in.

“Transfer market, you never know, but we know our targets and we do everything we can.

“We put every effort in to get this done because it’s an area where we need improvement.”

There has, inevitably, been plenty of transfer speculation and one such name that continues to pop up is Tottenham’s Harry Kane, who is a target for Bayern Munich.

“I don’t go into talk about specific players who are under contract at another club,” Ten Hag said of Kane.

“We proved also last season we can be very successful even though we didn’t have too many strikers and we still proved we were successful.

“So I expect more from the front players, to play at a higher level, they have to raise the bar. We expect more from the front players. Across the whole team we expect more goals.”

Meanwhile, Ten Hag insists that Harry Maguire remains an important player at Old Trafford despite removing the defender as club captain.

“Everyone can understand it’s disappointing for a player,” he said.

“But it can also work out both good for the team and for Harry.

“He’s an important player, and he remains that. We have four centre-backs and we need that minimum – maybe even one extra. We saw [that] last season when you play so many games. We’re really pleased to have Harry in our squad.”

Manchester United begin their new Premier League campaign at home to Wolves on August 14.