📅 September 3, 2026

Eight United Contracts Expire Next Summer. Bruno’s Is the One That Has to Be Done First.

By Mav Jones · Manchester United fan writer

The window shut on Tuesday night and the next one opened on Wednesday morning. Eight Manchester United players are out of contract in June 2027, four of them are starters, and the club is planning talks with all of them. Bruno Fernandes is the one that matters, and the timing around him is stranger than it looks: Galatasaray’s transfer window doesn’t close until Thursday, United’s already has, and the captain they’ve said is not for sale at any price is the one player they now couldn’t replace even if they took the money.

The eight

The list, as reported on Wednesday and matched by Sports Mole’s contract tracker, updated the same day:

• Bruno Fernandes, 31. Deal to June 2027 with a club option for a further year.
• Harry Maguire, 33. Signed a one-year extension in April to the end of this season, with a further 12-month option.
• Luke Shaw, 31. June 2027. The only senior left-back at the club after a window that signed no defenders.
• Lisandro Martínez, 28. June 2027, and the club is expected to trigger its one-year option.
• Harry Amass, 19. Burnley and Wolves both asked about a loan before the deadline.
• Jack Fletcher and Tyler Fletcher, both academy midfielders.
• Tom Heaton, 40, on the one-year deal he signed in June.

Kobbie Mainoo isn’t on it. His deal was due to run out in 2027 too, and United extended it to 2031 in the spring, which is the template for how the club would like the next nine months to go.

Strip out the academy names and the third-choice keeper and the list is the spine of the team: the captain, both first-choice centre-backs, and the left-back. Options exist on three of the four, so nobody walks on 1 July unless United choose to let them. But an option year is a one-year deal, and a one-year deal for a 31-year-old is the beginning of the end of a negotiation, not the end of one.

Bruno, and the deadline that isn’t United’s

The reporting on the captain has been consistent since mid-August and it’s worth setting out in order, because the figures get mangled.

Galatasaray want him. The package, first reported by the Telegraph and carried by TeamTalk on 17 August, was a €50m fee and a four-year contract at €21m a year net, with a €4m signing bonus on top. Because Turkey taxes it differently, that roughly doubles his take-home pay. Sky Sports reported United’s answer the next morning: not for sale at any price, and no offer will be entertained. The €65m release clause that applied to foreign clubs expired earlier in the summer, so there’s no number that forces their hand.

The contract side moved too. Romano’s account is that United offered a new deal at the end of May and that talks covering salary, length and a release clause were advancing by 18 August. On Monday this week the framing was preliminary talks over a longer agreement, which reads like the same negotiation described by someone further from it.

One thing the sources don’t agree on is what he earns now. Wednesday’s reports put him on £300,000 a week and moving to £350,000, which would make him the club’s top earner. Monday’s had him on £220,000. Nobody outside the building knows, and the gap is worth flagging because the £350,000 figure is doing a lot of work in a lot of headlines.

The part that changes this week is the calendar. The Turkish Football Federation’s published schedule has the Süper Lig window closing on Thursday 4 September, three days after England’s. That is the reason Turkish clubs sit on their hands until 1 September: the players who didn’t get their move in the big five leagues become available, and the clubs that lost them can’t react. In Bruno’s case it means Galatasaray can still bid on Thursday, and United, whose window is shut, could not sign anyone with the money until January. “Not for sale at any price” was a position two weeks ago. Until Thursday night it’s arithmetic.

It also means the story ends this week one way or the other. After Thursday the next window anyone can buy him in is January, by which point United expect to have a signature.

What a sale would actually be worth, and why it doesn’t add up

Since the spending rules changed, the argument for cashing in on a 31-year-old has been that his wages count against the squad-cost ratio, and United sit above UEFA’s 70% line. Selling him would take a large salary off the books and book most of a €50m fee as profit, because his amortisation is nearly done.

Run it forward and it collapses. The fee can’t be spent until January. The squad that finished third and got into the Champions League did it on his 21 assists and his goals, and he was Player of the Matchweek with 69% of the vote a week ago. And the club just spent about £158m on a midfield built to play around him, not instead of him. You don’t sell the reason the signings make sense in the week you finished making them.

The other four

Martínez is the straightforward one. He’s 28, the club holds an option, and the expectation is that it gets triggered or replaced by a longer deal. The only question is whether United wait for the option or move first.

Maguire was handled in April: a year at a time, which suits a 33-year-old who has started both league games and suits a club that doesn’t want to commit past next summer. Expect the same conversation next spring.

Shaw is the awkward one. He’s 31, he’s on a reported £200,000 a week, and one report on Wednesday suggested a new deal would mean a cut. Both of those figures come from a single source. What isn’t in doubt is that United spent the summer failing to sign a left-back and ended it with Shaw as the only senior option, which makes his contract a negotiation United can’t afford to lose and can’t afford to win at any price.

Amass is the one the loan enquiries were about. If he goes out in January the second left-back at the club is nobody, which is the situation that produced the Lewis Hall enquiry on deadline day.

The window’s afterlife

Three things happened after the English deadline that tell you where the summer ended.

Chido Obi, 18, went to Willem II on loan on Wednesday, because the Dutch window was still open. Season-long, no option to buy, per the club’s own announcement. United did the sensible thing with a teenager who wasn’t going to play, and the reason it happened a day late is that other countries’ windows are a resource, not just a hazard.

The Hall enquiry got its post-mortem. United asked Newcastle again in the final hours, Newcastle said no again, and Roy Keane called the whole thing desperate on the Stick to Football podcast: “For a club like United, you shouldn’t be getting too desperate with two hours to go.” He’s right about the two hours. He’s also, according to Wednesday’s reporting, going to be proven wrong about the target, because United intend to go back for Hall in 2027.

And a fourth midfield signing was blocked. Carrick wanted Leicester’s Louis Page, a deal reported at around £15m, and Leicester’s owner refused to do it. That one is a footnote, except that it’s the third time this summer a deal died because the selling club said no rather than because United wouldn’t pay.

The honest read

Eight expiring contracts sounds like a crisis and mostly isn’t. Two of them are teenagers, one is a 40-year-old third keeper, and three of the four that matter carry options. The club can hold every one of those players next season without signing a thing.

What it can’t do is hold them cheaply, and it can’t do it in the order it would like. Bruno’s deal has to be done first, because until it is, every other negotiation happens against the backdrop of a captain who could leave for nothing in ten months. The club has known that since May. Thursday’s Turkish deadline is the last external pressure on it. After that, the pressure is all internal, and it should be.

Everton on Sunday is the next game, and here is the XI we’d pick for it. Kick-off 9 AM Eastern.

Sources: Sports Mole — Man United contracts: who is free to leave in the summer of 2027 (updated 3 Sep 2026); Brit Brief / Mirror — Man Utd face losing eight players for free (3 Sep 2026); Sky Sports — Bruno Fernandes not for sale at any price (18 Aug 2026); TeamTalk / The Telegraph — INEOS reach decision on Galatasaray offer (17 Aug 2026); Football365 — Romano: Fernandes new deal advancing (18 Aug 2026); IBTimes UK — Man Utd open contract talks (1 Sep 2026); Sky Sports — Mainoo signs to 2031; ESPN and manutd.com — Chido Obi joins Willem II on loan (2-3 Sep 2026); Football365 / Stick to Football — Keane on the Lewis Hall pursuit (3 Sep 2026); Turkish Football Federation schedule via Turkish Football (X) and AgentFlow — Süper Lig window closes 4 Sep 2026.