Kobbie Mainoo in line for a 300% wage increase

In a Man Utd season filled with new boardroom developments, inconsistent on-field performances and the odd questions surrounding the fitness and motivation of senior playing staff, a few bright points remain evident at Old Trafford. One of these is the rise to first-team prominence of the young English midfielder Kobbie Mainoo.

Mainoo, along with fellow Red Devils academy graduate Alejandro Garnacho, has propelled himself into the Premier League spotlight and potentially the vision of England manager Gareth Southgate, with a string of consistently impressive performances that belie his club’s 6th position on the EPL table.

As a result, the 18-year-old winner of the 2023 Jimmy Murphy Young Player of the Year award at United has been thrust into the national limelight by the media and is commanding evergrowing support in the individual markets of football betting sites across the United Kingdom and beyond, and he’s currently at 2/1 to make it onto England’s Euro 2024 squad. 

Although his club remains a 16/1 outsider to finish in the Premier League’s top four at the season’s end, Mainoo’s contribution to their performances and results has led many pundits to suggest that he’s likely one of the first names pencilled in on Man Utd manager Erik ten Hag’s starting teamsheet before important matches. 

Bearing this in mind, it comes as no surprise, according to several press reports, that the Old Trafford club is considering tripling Kobbie Mainoo’s wage to better reflect his value to the United first team. 

In January 2023, the young midfielder penned a new deal that will keep him at Man Utd until 2027 but signed before he’d made a single appearance for the senior Red Devils squad.  For this reason, rumours are surfacing that, although there is no rush to do so, a new contract would solidify United’s new star’s happiness and keep other clubs from potentially unsettling the player.

The Mirror reports that a proposed new deal would treble Mainoo’s current wage, which automatically increased to a weekly £20,000 following his 10th first-team appearance earlier in the season. According to the publication, Man Utd hope to tie the teenager into a new £60,000 deal, which will run to the end of the 2030 Premier League season. 

The potential deal would be a coup for Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s INEOS group, which recently took control of Man Utd’s sporting affairs. It would make a statement regarding the group’s vision for the club as one of its first public forays into improving the playing staff by sealing the future of one of Man Utd’s most promising and prominent rising stars.

Despite the rumours of a new deal on the horizon, Mainoo is reportedly already extremely happy at United and looks forward to helping his employers secure as high a league finish as possible in the 2023/24 campaign. Although he is ambitious, a national call-up to Gareth Southgate’s England squad before the UEFA European Championships would likely be unexpected but welcomed by Mainoo.

With only 22 senior club appearances under his belt and two goals scored, Kobbie Mainoo is still a novice in his debut Man Utd season. With his outstanding performances so far and the praise he’s receiving from pundits, bookmakers and the media, one wonders how much further this breakout star can rise with a season or two more of top-level footballing experience. 

At present, the sky appears to be the limit.