Following the showings of several of the youngsters during the USA Tour, several are now being linked with loans away from Manchester United.

The ones who seem likely to fall into this category include Diouf, Welbeck and Cleverley.

As regular readers will know, I have been largely impressed with Diouf since he came to us and started to bang the goals in for the Reserves but he hasn’t quite done enough for me when in first team action. Given our striker situation, it looks likely that he is possibly our sixth or even seventh choice striker and a loan deal would not surprise me. He’s too good for the reserves but not quite good enough for the first team but if there’s anything in the reports of a possible loan move to Blackburn then that would be a good option, in my opinion.

Welbeck has been impressive in the pre-season games. He appears to have grown physically as well as mentally and looks perfectly at home with the first team now. The problem Fergie has is accomodating him in the team at the moment but he is almost certainly one for the future but he needs to continue his development by playing regular football at a high level. For this reason, I can see a loan for Welbeck being agreed with Sunderland recently being linked with such a move.

The last one is Cleverley and this one is the most interesting for me. Whilst most fans are generally happy with the squad as it is, I don’t think there is one who would say no to a quality attacking/creative/goalscoring midfielder. Cleverley has been played in this role during the pre-season tour and has done very well.

He’s another one who needs more than Reserve level football and having been out at Watford last season, now needs to make a step up and a loan to a Premier League club would seem to be a good option if he is not to remain at United for the coming season. The reports linking him with Newcastle won’t go away.

However, I believe that Cleverley is the kind of player we need to stay at United and I do believe that Fergie took him to America in order to have a good look at him and make a decision regarding his future. I am also now of the opinion that it is the outcome of this decision that will determine if we enter the transfer market one more time or not because I simply cannot see the logic of letting Cleverley go without bringing someone who is currently better/more experienced in that position in.

To this end, I will say that if Cleverley goes out on loan, we’ll be bringing someone else in (possibly Ozil) and if he doesn’t then that’s our transfer business finally done for this summer.