{"id":693503,"date":"2026-01-13T16:37:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T16:37:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/693503\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T16:37:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T16:37:20","slug":"manchester-united-agree-striker-departure-after-surprise-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/693503\/","title":{"rendered":"Manchester United agree striker departure after surprise decision"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Man Utd youngster Ethan Wheatley is set to sign for Bradford City on loan for the remainder of the season.<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0_GettyImages-2240441047.jpg\" loading=\"eager\"  \/><\/p>\n<p aria-label=\"Ethan Wheatley is joining Bradford on loan.\" class=\"ImageCaption_caption-title__ccyQU\" data-testid=\"caption-title\">Ethan Wheatley is joining Bradford on loan.(Image: 2025 Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">Manchester United youngster Ethan Wheatley will spend the second half of the season on loan at Bradford City. Wheatley was recently recalled from his loan at Northampton Town from the same division.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">Wheatley made 20 starts for Northampton in the third division. United considered his loan a success, but he will now get the chance to be part of a promotion-chasing Bradford City side. Northampton are trying to avoid relegation from League One.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">United insert break clauses in the contracts of each academy loanee to provide an opportunity to make a recall in January if required, and have taken the opportunity to send Wheatley higher in the third tier.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">Stephen Torpey, head of the academy, is currently in charge of arranging loans at United, following Jonny Evans&#8217; decision to step down from his position as head of loans and pathways.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">Bradford are third in League One, six points adrift of the top of the table with a game in hand to play. The Bantams are among the bookmakers&#8217; favourites to gain promotion to the Championship this term.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">Wheatley will continue his development at Valley Parade in the second half of the campaign. Speaking to PA last year, he said: &#8220;I want to be a Man United player in the future. If that doesn\u2019t happen, then it obviously wasn\u2019t meant to be. We\u2019ll just see what happens in the future.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">The youngster is contracted at <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk\/all-about\/old-trafford\" target=\"\" aria-label=\"\" rel=\"follow noopener\" tabindex=\"0\">Old Trafford<\/a> until the summer of 2028, with the option of another year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Man Utd youngster Ethan Wheatley is set to sign for Bradford City on loan for the remainder of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8813],"tags":[748,393,4884,2465,423,9060,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-693503","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manchester","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-manchester","12":"tag-manchester-united-fc","13":"tag-manchester-united-transfer-news","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115888773238867826","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}