Man Utd major signing only for players under 27 years old

Manchester United chief David Gill stands by their policy of only signing players under-27 for major money.

Already, this season, the club have committed around 20m to signing the 21-year-old Mexican Javier Hernandez, Fulham's England under-21 international Chris Smalling and the Senegal international Mame Biram Diouf. That is the way they intend to go from now on: a policy of more players like Ronaldo (12.24m at the age of 18) and fewer like Dimitar Berbatov (30.75m at the age of 27).

Gill told the press: "The only player in his late 20s whom we signed for a lot of money was Berbatov and people forget we spent a lot of money on Ronaldo who was 18 at the time. Players like Smalling and Hernandez we try to identify all those with great, great potential. They become fantastic players but they are not the finished article.

"The other issue we have to face going forward is financial fair play with Uefa. That will have ramifications for squad sizes, we are bringing that into the Premier League next year [25 players, eight of which must be "homegrown"] and we are comfortable with that.

"It is wrong to say we are not in the market [at the high end] but Hernandez is coming in and we believe we can make him a fantastic player and his wage will go up. It is not like getting him when he is already a top, top star in that market. That's our philosophy."