• Forward lost to United in Europa League while at Lyon

• Frenchman inspired by Rodri to win Ballon d’Or

Rayan Cherki has said he is waiting for Manchester City to play Manchester United next season so he can “kill” his new team’s fierce rivals.

Cherki was part of the Lyon team that endured a 7-6 aggregate defeat by United in the Europa League quarter-finals this past season, the 21-year-old making a rude gesture towards the home fans after scoring at Old Trafford to give Lyon a 5-4 lead.

• Sporting striker wants to play in Champions League

• Mikel Arteta thought to prefer Benjamin Sesko

Manchester United’s pursuit of Viktor Gyökeres appears doomed after the Sporting striker said signing for Arsenal would be a “dream”. United held exploratory discussions about buying the 27-year-old, with Ruben Amorim intent on strengthening the position. But it is understood the player’s representatives have told United he does not wish to join the club.

Instead Gyökeres is understood to view Arsenal as his preferred option since they will play in the Champions League next season.

• Brazil forward, a childhood United fan, joins from Wolves

• Jason Wilcox hails ‘exciting and productive’ signing

Manchester United have completed the £62.5m signing of Matheus Cunha from Wolves, with the forward intent on helping the club “back to the top”. The 26-year-old has a five-year contract with the option of a further year and will be paid about £150,000 a week.

Cunha said: “It is hard to put into words my feelings about becoming a Manchester United player. Ever since I was a child in Brazil watching Premier League games on TV at my grandmother’s house, United was my favourite English team and I dreamed of wearing the red shirt.

Signing Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo are leaps of faith, as is hoping Ruben Amorim can solve all the problems

In publicly rejecting the overtures of the Saudi Pro League, Bruno Fernandes has made it clear he wants to continue playing football at the highest level. That he wants to challenge for trophies. That he has no interest in wasting what remains of his peak years jogging around aimlessly in the service of a vast public relations project, providing lucrative content for a cruel and heartless regime. Despite all this, he’s more than happy to remain at Manchester United for now.

There were other angles to this decision. In a sense, Al-Hilal’s courtship of Fernandes represented a kind of catch-22 for United, desperate to reinforce their underperforming squad while remaining compliant with profitability and sustainability rules. Only a player who truly loved United could contemplate leaving in order to help balance the books. But in signalling his willingness to leave, Fernandes merely demonstrated why United could not possibly let him go.

• Midfielder still basking in glow of Napoli title

• Scotland captain says teammate on ‘a whole new level’

Andy Robertson believes his Scotland teammate Scott McTominay has revelled in demonstrating the error of Manchester United’s ways by flourishing at Napoli.

McTominay’s dream debut season in Naples included a Serie A title and being named the league’s most valuable player. United have been widely castigated for letting the 28-year-old leave his boyhood club for £25m last summer.

• Jim Ratcliffe planning further shake-up at Old Trafford

• Brailsford will take up old role as Ineos sporting director

Sir Dave Brailsford is to reduce his role at Manchester United under a reshuffle being planned by minority owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe.

Brailsford has played a major part since Ratcliffe secured his stake in United in February 2024, stepping down as team principal of the Ineos Grenadiers cycling team to take charge of footballing operations at Old Trafford and investing considerable time and energy in driving change at the club.

Winger flickered during his time at Stamford Bridge but failed to provide consistency and Maresca is thinking bigger

The best way to respond to Chelsea having to pay a £5m penalty fee because of their failure to meet a £25m obligation to buy Jadon Sancho from Manchester United is with a shrug.

There is no tale of excess, no evidence of scattergun thinking from the recruitment team at Stamford Bridge, no stick with which to beat Todd Boehly. In fact it is not even much of a punishment. A penalty clause is one way of framing it; another is that it is the equivalent of a standard loan fee and that all Chelsea are doing is making a delayed payment after not being asked for one when the deal to borrow Sancho went through on the final day of last summer’s transfer window.

• Manchester United captain spoke with Al-Hilal president

• ‘Ruben Amorim really tried to talk me out of it’

Manchester United’s captain, Bruno Fernandes, has confirmed he has turned down a money-spinning move to Saudi Arabia because he wants to “stay at the highest level”. The 30-year-old midfielder has been the subject of speculation linking him with a £100m switch to Al-Hilal, with the Saudi Pro League side reportedly prepared to pay him £700,000 per week.

However, Fernandes confirmed he had rejected the chance to move after speaking to Ruben Amorim and his own family. “The president of Al-Hilal called me a month ago to ask about the possibility of me moving there,” Fernandes said, according to the Portuguese news outlet O Jogo. “I had to wait a while to think about the future. As I’ve always said, I would be willing to do it if United thought it was best to move on.

Despite all BBC TV’s at one time extensive coverage of sport, I doubt whether many people thought of Alan Yentob as a sports fan.

However, when both of us were in the weekly BBC programme review meeting I praised a film marking the 40th anniversary of the Munich air disaster of 1958. In it, 23 people died, including eight Manchester United players. Alan had also liked the film, saying it was good to see the BBC treating the subject with due respect.

• Club keen on Brentford forward after Liam Delap blow

• Fernandes rejects move to Al-Hilal of Saudi Pro League

Manchester United will explore a deal for Brentford’s Bryan Mbeumo after missing out on Liam Delap and have been boosted by Bruno Fernandes rejecting a move to the Saudi Pro League.

Ruben Amorim had said he thought Fernandes would stay despite interest from Al-Hilal. Provided the playmaker does not receive an offer from a leading European club that he wants to pursue, that settles the captain’s future.

• Sancho returning to Manchester United after loan

• Delap coming in from Ipswich after terms settled

Chelsea have decided against signing Jadon Sancho on a permanent basis and will pay a £5m penalty to send the winger back to Manchester United when his loan ends on 30 June.

Chelsea, who are set to announce the £30m signing of Liam Delap from Ipswich after finalising personal terms with the striker, loaned Sancho last summer with an obligation to buy for £25m.

Clubs want to make money and engage fans, but what of the physical toll on tired players and environmental costs?

As the dust settles on Manchester United’s post-season tour of Malaysia and Hong Kong, the question must be asked: was it worth it? United may have pocketed around £10m from their six-day, two-match visit to Asia but what they lost was arguably worse. And no, we’re not just talking about their 1-0 defeat against the “Asean All Stars” in Kuala Lumpur, a scratch, invitational side that had never previously played together.

Omar Berrada, United’s chief executive, had excitedly hailed the tour as an “opportunity for us to collaborate with our valued commercial partners, and to deepen relationships with our fans”. That vision probably didn’t include Amad Diallo sticking his middle finger up at supporters, a gesture for which he refused to apologise, the winger insisting he did it in response to insults about his mother. Nor did it allow for Alejandro Garnacho sulking and yawning through his various off-pitch duties. It remains to be seen how many key performance indicators were met by the Argentinian, who finished the tour by posting a one-word caption on the runway as United departed home to Europe: “finally”.

• No solution to football’s bloated schedule in sight

• ‘Quite a few players have expressed concern’

Maheta Molango, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association, has voiced concern over post-season tours given the added workload they put on players immediately after a packed campaign. Manchester United’s controversy-ridden trip to Malaysia and Hong Kong is the latest example in a trend some fear is damaging athletes’ health.

“We’re all mindful and understand some of the financial dynamics the club goes through, but the reality is that quite a few players have expressed concern,” Molango said. “We have expressed concern about these post-season tours.”

• Cunha agrees five-year deal with optional extra year

• United pay £62.5m release clause to sign forward

Manchester United have reached an agreement with Wolves to sign Matheus Cunha after agreeing to pay the Brazil forward’s £62.5m release clause.

Cunha has been in Manchester over the weekend to put the finishing touches to his move to Old Trafford, which is subject to visa and registration being completed. He has agreed a five-year contract with an option for an additional year.

With the first summer window fast approaching, we look at 10 of the top talents who could be on the move

It’s good news for anyone who enjoys the chaos of transfer deadline day: this summer there’s not one but two to look forward to in the Premier League. Due to an unique registration period for the expanded Club World Cup, the window will open on Sunday 1 June until Tuesday 10 June before closing for a few days. It will then reopen on Monday 16 June until Monday 1 September. Here are a selection of players who could be on the move.

• Captain has been linked with move to Al-Hilal

• Amorim: ‘We can find another way to earn money’

Ruben Amorim believes Bruno Fernandes will stay at Manchester United this summer amid suggestions the player could be set for a lucrative switch to the Saudi Pro League.

Al-Hilal are said to have made an approach for the United captain, bidding in the region of £100m and offering to make Fernandes one of the world’s highest-paid players in the process. United’s stance remains that Fernandes is not for sale and Amorim doubled down on that position after watching his team beat Hong Kong 3-1 in a post-season friendly on Friday. He views his countryman as vital to the club’s future. The 30-year-old was named United’s player of the season for a record-equalling fourth time. He is contracted to the club until June 2027.

• Winger claims fans outside hotel insulted his mother

• Manchester United back Amad over ‘personal abuse’

The Manchester United winger Amad Diallo has said he “does not regret” making an obscene gesture to fans in Kuala Lumpur, claiming they had insulted his mother.

After United’s 1-0 friendly defeat to Asean All-Stars in May, footage emerged on social media of Amad putting his middle finger up to fans outside the team hotel.

While Manchester United ended the season trophyless and 15th in the Premier League, they did at least get to join their comparatively triumphant Liverpool, Crystal Palace, Tottenham Hotspur and Newcastle counterparts in having an open-top bus parade. Currently serving club-enforced penance for their shambles of a season on a money-spinning post-season tour of Asia, the players – well, four of them at least – were forced to endure the indignity of being paraded through the streets of Kuala Lumpur on a heavily branded giant red doubledecker with ‘Glory, Glory, Man United’ blaring through its speakers, presumably to try to drum up interest in upwards of 12,000 unsold tickets for their Maybank Challenge Cup match against a scratch Asean All Stars side, scheduled to take place the following day.

• Asean All-Stars 1-0 Manchester United

• Amorim: ‘We should win these kind of games’

Manchester United’s post-season tour followed their late-season form as Ruben Amorim’s team lost 1-0 to a scratch team of Asean All-Stars in Kuala Lumpur.

United’s latest defeat, part of a lucrative end-of-season tour in the wake of their 15th-placed finish in the Premier League, came after the players had been paraded through the streets of the Malaysian capital.

• Manchester United open to selling Alejandro Garnacho

• Ruben Amorim also keen on Ipswich’s Liam Delap

Manchester United are poised to sign Matheus Cunha after triggering the £62.5m release clause in the Wolves’ forward’s contract. United have agreed to split the fee in three payments across the next two years.

Wolves rejected United’s attempt to stagger the payment across five years but now the Brazilian is set to become Ruben Amorim’s first summer signing after a hugely disappointing season.