Two months after getting sacked from the manager’s job at Old Trafford, Jose Mourinho has finally received the compensation package due to him and his staff for the termination of their contract before it expired. It has emerged that Manchester United paid Mourinho and his staff £19.6 million in compensation following his sacking in December.

United revealed the figures in their second quarter financial results. Mourinho was sacked after a run of poor results, culminating in a 3-1 league defeat by Liverpool that left them 11 points off fourth place in the Premier League. However, caretaker manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer won 10 of his first 11 games in which he was unbeaten before Tuesday’s 2-0 Champions League round of 16 first leg defeat by French Ligue 1 side Paris Saint-Germain.

Within the financial results, which were released to the New York Stock Exchange, it said: “Exceptional items for the quarter were £19.6m, relating to compensation to the former manager and certain members of the coaching staff for loss of office.” United executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward says Solskjaer’s appointment, along with that of Sir Alex Ferguson’s former coach Mike Phelan as his assistant has “had a positive impact throughout the club”. Woodward says he thinks United, who have reached the fifth round of the FA Cup and are now fourth in the Premier League, above Chelsea and Arsenal, will now have “a strong finish to the season”.

Meanwhile, the Manchester United executive vice-chairman identified four positions that the club need to improve in the summer transfer window, according to reports. The reports added that Woodward recognises that to get the club ‘back to the top’ there is a need for ‘further significant investment’ in playing staff before stating that the club ‘need a top central defender while they also could do with new full-backs on both sides, along with a right-sided midfielder’. The first name on their list remains the same: Napoli centre-half Kalidou Koulibaly, who would cost ‘close to £90 million’.

Other players who United are also considering moves for are French World Cup-winning defender Lucas Hernandez of Atletico Madrid and Fiorentina’s Nikola Milenkovic, with the latter ‘seen as the cheaper option of the two’. Hernandez’s compatriot, Raphael Varane has also been mentioned as has Benfica teenager, Joao Felix, who has been linked with an audacious £100 million move to Old Trafford having been labelled the next Cristiano Ronaldo.

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