Man Utd confident De Gea and Rashford will sign new contracts in coming weeks
MANCHESTER UNITED are increasingly confident Marcus Rashford and David De Gea will sign new contracts to stay at Old Trafford.
United executive vice chairman Ed Woodward told a conference call with the club’s institutional investors that he hoped to be able to announce positive news about the club’s "key players" by the summer.
England ace Rashford and Spain No 1 De Gea are the stand-out issues facing United after new deals were agreed with Anthony Martial, Ashley Young, Chris Smalling, Phil Jones and Scott McTominay.
Rashford has less than 18 months left on his current deal with United ready to double his money with a new contract worth £150,000 per week to keep him out of the clutches of continental giants.
De Gea agreed a one year extension in November, also keeping him at Old Trafford until 2020 but is thought to want up to £350,000 per week to sign a new deal.
Pushed to give more details on potential new agreements Woodward said: "We don’t provide that kind of information.
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"The end dates of players’ contracts is pretty well known.
"We are a long way through the ones we had planned to do in this season but obviously we want to finish off the final few as rapidly as we can.
"Possibly by the time we get to the summer we will be in a much stronger position with regard to the average tenure of each contract of our key players."
Woodward also suggested that plans to appoint a director of football remained open.
He said: "With regard to a director of football, a lot has been written about this.
"I would say that this, looking at our structures and how we should strengthen all areas of the club, is something we are doing on a continual basis.
"We’ve done a lot of changes on the football side in the last four or five years, around the academy, on the recruitment and player care side, facilities and medical and sports science.
"The evolution of the football side is continuing. It might not be visible and you tend to get a return later on, rather than an immediate impact.
"But in terms of the overall structure we are looking at that and ways we can make it stronger."
United have posted strong financial results, with turnover projected to be between £615million and £640m for the season.
Meanwhile they also revealed Jose Mourinho and his backroom staff were paid £19.6m after their contracts were terminated and the Portuguese sacked.