So, the Glazers. Are they parasites? Blame game topic.

[Kevin]

Yeh let's not overplay the spending....

Most top clubs spend £60mil a season, what makes uniteds spending so special??

130 million pounds and more to come (seeing as van Gaal seems unhappier by the minute)... and it's all Glazer's fault we are still shit.

We simply bought like stupid Ihni binni dimi diniwiny anitaime.

 

[Garethw]

IMO it would cost around £150..... That's Vidal, Di Maria and benatia and we can challenge for anything.

Factor in the replacement of RVP, Carrick,Fletcher in the next year or so and you can add another £100 million plus to that figure mate.

 

[Skills]

Investing 100 million in our squad every summer would make us Madrid/City like spenders. Do we really need to spend so much for success?

Why not? What else are we going to do with that money? You can only invest so much on infrastructure/youth so the only other thing is investing in the squad? (Apart from obviously reducing ticket prices for fans - even that would still leave us with a lot of money because matchday revenue is becoming less significant).

The choice then remains to be either spend it on the squad or let the owners keep it and lose a shit load to tax.

 

[Jagga7]

Bingo.
United won when it truly mattered, and are in an unbelievable place as a brand. By far the biggest club in by far the biggest league. Extremely fashionable brand. People underestimate how big the club is.

Why does this matter to you so much if they don't invest in players on the pitch? Are you just walking around being a Man Utd fan because its fashionable? We're going to end up like the Dallas Cowboys at this rate. They're the biggest NFL team but are a massive joke who never even make to the play offs anymore. feck that, it should all be about winning and competing and not just being a big club.

 

[PlayerOne]

Not to turn this into a finance thread, but I was wondering what our net spend under the Glazers is.

 

[Garethw]

How many here feel the Glazers are going to invest more in the next 2 weeks? I don't think we will.

Certainly not the amount we need to. Rojo for £16 million and that is (depressingly) it IMO.

 

[Speak]

Factor in the replacement of RVP, Carrick,Fletcher in the next year or so and you can add another £100 million plus to that figure mate.

Wouldn't be anything near that amount if we spent like an ambitious top level club, for example after selling the best player in the world for £80 million.

 

[Jagga7]

Why not? What else are we going to do with that money? You can only invest so much on infrastructure/youth so the only other thing is investing in the squad? (Apart from obviously reducing ticket prices for fans - even that would still leave us with a lot of money because matchday revenue is becoming less significant).

The choice then remains to be either spend it on the squad or let the owners keep it and lose a shit load to tax.

Exactly. Our revenue is so big we could probably spend 200 mill a season if we really wanted to. Yet people seem to be happy that we don't spend and let the Glazers take massive amounts every year.

 

[Drummer]

130 million pounds and more to come (seeing as van Gaal seems unhappier by the minute)... and it's all Glazer's fault we are still shit.

We simply bought like stupid Ihni binni dimi diniwiny anitaime.

Fellani aside most people feel we bought good quality.

Herrera and shaw were bought in line with the youth policy by the scouting system as they weren't LVG signings.

There was always a huge chance there would be a vacuum after SAF left and it's clearly a happening. United has been underspending for years with SAF holding things together..

The way I see it, there is a correction happening where the club finally has to start stumbling up funds for years of under investment....

We finished 7th and lost 4 senior players. I would say that requires a transfer spending way above that of our rivals just to even get back in the hunt for top 4....

People are still stuck in SAF land where he could make average players play to their absolute peak... SAF didn't join the club and get immediate success, it was stupid for anybody to think LVG would when competition for players and top spots is so great....

 

[Speak]

Why does this matter to you so much if they don't invest in players on the pitch? Are you just walking around being a Man Utd fan because its fashionable? We're going to end up like the Dallas Cowboys at this rate. They're the biggest NFL team but are a massive joke who never even make to the play offs anymore. feck that, it should all be about winning and competing and not just being a big club.

I don't care how fashionable we are, but clearly the owners are taking advantage of it. They're milking the clubs brand name for all it's worth.
They simply need to go.

 

[Big Papi]

I blame McManus and Magnier for selling out when they could have prevented all of this.

 

[Invictus]

Not to turn this into a finance thread, but I was wondering what our net spend under the Glazers is.

£216 million in 10 years.

By comparison :

Chelsea has spent £424 million in the same time period.
Liverpool £205 million. Incredible how far Fergie took us on an almost identical budget to them.

 

[goin4glory]

They've invested £120m in a year and probably will spend more this window, how much more do you want them to spend?

The mess we are in is not the Glazer's fault.

Yeah and how about the net spend of about 20m per year we had for every season before that? The current squad is a mess because of years of underinvestment because of them. We're supposed to compete with the likes of Barca/Madrid/Chelsea/City then you need to spend at least 50% of what they do and over the past 7 years we've spent a fraction to pay of debt so we could have the privilege of their ownership.

 

[comlag]

Those saying we have been successful under the Glazers, we have been successful under Ferguson and so by proxy the Glazers. They have had no discernible positive influence on the club whatsoever. Don't be deceived when the club talks about record breaking commercial revenue, how does that revenue benefit anyone but the Glazers who cash in their profits as soon as they are able? I haven't seen that revenue reinvested into the squad. Net spend of 120 mill in a year...great we bought 4 players of varying quality, but not one world class player who come with admittedly outrageous agent fees and high wage demands, but if you want the best you have to pay. We now no longer have the advantage of time. Ronaldo became the best in the world over the course of 3 seasons at United. The talent in our squad allowed him to be groomed and enabled him to flourish over time. The same would have occurred with Januzajz. Sadly now we need to purchase ready made talent and that costs a lot of money and the Glazers will absolutely not sanction those kind of deals, any talk of such things is PR nonsense to make use believe we can compete for the likes of Bale.

 

[Drummer]

I have been saying it all along about these owners and people have been defending them to the hilt....

@comlag

That is the main point. The way I put it was that the successful period under SAF was in spite of the owners not because of them....

 

[Speak]

Maybe in six years when we sell a high flying Januzaj to Madrid or Barcelona for £60 million and replace him with Tom Ince for £18 million and Torres on a free, we'll all wake up.

 

[daniel9988]

Why not? What else are we going to do with that money? You can only invest so much on infrastructure/youth so the only other thing is investing in the squad? (Apart from obviously reducing ticket prices for fans - even that would still leave us with a lot of money because matchday revenue is becoming less significant).

The choice then remains to be either spend it on the squad or let the owners keep it and lose a shit load to tax.

At the moment, I actually think we need to spend at least another 150-200m on top players (5-6 players) to actually challenge for the title. And probably more than that, since we're likely to purchase a few Fellaini along the way.

 

[RetroStu]

Our net spend is embarrassing for a club of our size and revenue since the Glazers have taken over. Our squad has slowly got worse and worse year after year until now we are in the current predicament and its alright talking about Mata and Fellaini over the last year but we are at the point where we simply HAD to spend.
Now i'm no 'Glazer out' guy, they could of been much worse than they have been for us (Hicks and Gillette) but we are supposed to be one of the top 3 biggest clubs in the world with the 2nd biggest revenue, we seem to make new lucrative sponsorship deals every other week yet here we are with the worst squad we have had in years. People need to wake up i'm sorry to say.

You can't keep losing top class players over the years either through selling them or retirement and then keep replacing them with players like Valencia and Young etc and also have first team players like Fletcher and Cleverley and Jones etc.

Most of our first team players wouldn't even make the squads of the Barca's, Madrids and Bayerns of this world nevermind their first teams, clubs that we are supposed to be as big as.

SAF's absolute brilliance has masked a lot of these squad problems from a lot of fans it seems but now we are seeing where we really are and its not a good place unfortunately.

 

[UnofficialDevil]

Yes they are. We never spent the 100m from Ronaldo's sale that summer and that showed what was to follow.

 

[Sarni]

We spent £140m in the last 12 months. It is the lack of strategy and clear plan that is hurting us, not the lack of spending. It should have been enough to significantly improve the team.

 

[Speak]

We spent £140m in the last 12 months. It is the lack of strategy and clear plan that is hurting us, not the lack of spending. It should have been enough to significantly improve the team.

Should've spent that £140 million yonks ago.

 

[Igor Drefljak]

With FFP coming into effect, we can easily be the biggest spenders in England.
Lets see

 

[LonelyFire]

With FFP coming into effect, we can easily be the biggest spenders in England.
Lets see

Not just England - Europe as well. Ffp plays right into our hands

 

[Livewire1974]

Partially plagiarised but;

We replaced Ronaldo with Valencia,
Tevez with Michael Owen on a free
Giggs with Ashley Young
Scholes initially with Cleverley
and haven't bothered replacing Vidic and Ferdinand

Or Evra with a proven top class left back, or Keane.

 

[Invictus]

We spent £140m in the last 12 months. It is the lack of strategy and clear plan that is hurting us, not the lack of spending. It should have been enough to significantly improve the team.

That's fair enough. But what about the fact that in the preceding 7 seasons we spent a grand net total of £53 million ? Doesn't that factor into the lack of depth and the sort of potentially world class talents that could have progressed into genuine superstars by now.

Like Rooney, Rio and Ronaldo who cost more than £70 million combined even before the Glazers came in. So in theory for the first 7 years of their ownership they spent less than what it would cost to bring in 3 top class young players. No wonder the squad is deficient now.

 

[UnofficialDevil]

Or Evra with a proven top class left back, or Keane.

Or Ronaldo or Giggs or Scholes

 

[Igor Drefljak]

I don't think we will be far off fans losing patience with the Glazers again, and I think the person that will trigger it will be LVG.

He will get frustrated if there is a lack of signings, and he is the type of man to call out the Glazers, and I think fans will listen

 

[Mersault]

I don't think we will be far off fans losing patience with the Glazers again, and I think the person that will trigger it will be LVG.

He will get frustrated if there is a lack of signings, and he is the type of man to call out the Glazers, and I think fans will listen

If all of this happens - i.e. that we won't spend properly like the whole football community knows we have to - and Van Gaal goes on the attack against the leeches he'll be sacked. And Giggs might take the reins. Would people stop going to OT, stop buying the merch?

I think the owners need to be brought into every article and comment in the media when our movements in the market are put under the spotlight. It seems to have been dressed up as Moyes and Woodward, and now Van Gaal and Woodward. Both of whom work under the Glazers.

 

[itso 7]

We spent £140m in the last 12 months. It is the lack of strategy and clear plan that is hurting us, not the lack of spending. It should have been enough to significantly improve the team.

I think it's a bit of both, one could argue that we haven't spent our money wisely in the last 24 months but there was a period from 2009-2011 where we didn't spend near enough money leading us to depend on our strong defence and the class provided by Rooney, Scholes and Giggs. This has resulted in us having players who are journeymen, aging players or young potential . If we had spent in those windows we wouldn't find ourselves needing to solve too many issues at once.

 

[Rory 7]

£216 million in 10 years.

By comparison :

Chelsea has spent £424 million in the same time period.
Liverpool £205 million. Incredible how far Fergie took us on an almost identical budget to them.

SAF made those guys so much money. They are hoping that LVG will do the same with a modest budget and 'the youth'. When you compare what the owners have done at City, and I'm talking about off the field too here, parasites is the only word you can use to describe the Glazers. They are what they are, a bunch of venture capitalists treating the biggest 'brand' in world football as a cash cow for their privileged lives back in Florida. What self respecting United fan could possibly support these owners when you see how much they've taken out of the club. We should be the richest best funded team in the world. Instead we're a bank for our owners to visit whenever they want more cash.

 

[daniel9988]

SAF made those guys so much money. They are hoping that LVG will do the same with a modest budget and 'the youth'. When you compare what the owners have done at City, and I'm talking about off the field too here, parasites is the only word you can use to describe the Glazers. They are what they are, a bunch of venture capitalists treating the biggest 'brand' in world football as a cash cow for their privileged lives back in Florida. What self respecting United fan could possibly support these owners when you see how much they've taken out of the club. We should be the richest best funded team in the world. Instead we're a bank for our owners to visit whenever they want more cash.

City and Chelsea aren't exactly good models to compare with. Their structure essentially bases off having a rich owner who treats the club as an extension of their personal ego.

Our current owners are parasites, but at least they are good with the commercial side of United. And they aren't going to change hands anytime soon, so we just have to acknowledge the fact that, at the very least, we have money-leeching owners who understand that getting top 4 and competing for the title is necessary. For them to earn even more money.

 

[Invictus]

SAF made those guys so much money. They are hoping that LVG will do the same with a modest budget and 'the youth'. When you compare what the owners have done at City, and I'm talking about off the field too here, parasites is the only word you can use to describe the Glazers. They are what they are, a bunch of venture capitalists treating the biggest 'brand' in world football as a cash cow for their privileged lives back in Florida. What self respecting United fan could possibly support these owners when you see how much they've taken out of the club. We should be the richest best funded team in the world. Instead we're a bank for our owners to visit whenever they want more cash.

Exactly.

Also a vote of sympathy for the Arsenal supporters. Wenger has kept them competitive despite spending just £39 million net since 2005 while losing Henry, Pires, Vieira, Ljungberg, Cole, Van Persie, Nasri, Fabregas, Sagna and the likes.

 

[UnofficialDevil]

City and Chelsea aren't exactly good models to compare with. Their structure essentially bases off having a rich owner who treats the club as an extension of their personal ego.

Our current owners are parasites, but at least they are good with the commercial side of United. And they aren't going to change hands anytime soon, so we just have to acknowledge the fact that, at the very least, we have money-leeching owners who understand that getting top 4 and competing for the title is necessary. For them to earn even more money.

Well that's not hard is it? Mind you it might be the next few years if they dont feck off.

 

[Rory 7]

City and Chelsea aren't exactly good models to compare with. Their structure essentially bases off having a rich owner who treats the club as an extension of their personal ego.

Our current owners are parasites, but at least they are good with the commercial side of United. And they aren't going to change hands anytime soon, so we just have to acknowledge the fact that, at the very least, we have money-leeching owners who understand that getting top 4 and competing for the title is necessary. For them to earn even more money.

Why do we have to accept that? Football clubs are built on the support of people like us. Not opportunistic venture capitalists.

 

[Rory 7]

Exactly.

Also a vote of sympathy for the Arsenal supporters. Wenger has kept them competitive despite spending just £39 million net since 2005 while losing Henry, Pires, Vieira, Ljungberg, Cole, Van Persie, Nasri, Fabregas, Sagna and the likes.

Quite. And our spend every year since 2005 has been around 28m which shows how great a manager Ferguson was.

And before any of you pipe in with 'we've spent 120m' in the last year, all I'll say is I should think so....we sold Ronaldo for 80m in 2008 and never spent a note of that fee.

When you look at what Spurs did last year you have to say Levy at least understood they couldn't sell Bale and not re-invest the money. Even Pool this year get it with their Suarez windfall. For evidence of the Glazers' parasitical tendencies look no further than what we did with the Ronaldo windfall.

 

[ghagua]

Find it hard to believe that the Glazer's would not have released the funds to buy players like Yaya Toure, Silva and Vidal (before he signed for Juventus), yet gave the funds for Manucho, Diouf, Bebe, Obertan, Tosic and Fellaini. Yaya, Silva and Vidal moved for a fairly decent fee, no record breaking moves. After the Champions league win in 2008, we could have cherry picked 1 top talent a year without paying a crazy fee, yet here we are.

 

[bosnian_red]

As much as everyone likes to hate on the glazers, and of course they are only doing it to get richer themselves, but we have spent a lot of money over the years. Not Chelsea/city/Madrid levels, but a lot. Not sure if there's much different to bayerns spending and ours, we have more if anything. Our problem is we've wasted so much money on just average, mid table players time and time again and overpaid for all of them. It's not glazers' fault that Fergie wasn't willingly o add a couple million to Hazards agent fee, or Lucas, or lost out on other top targets because of stuff like that. We do that but then spend £7m on shit like bebe and give other average players ridiculous wages.

If we were smarter with our spending we wouldn't be in this position. It's time to bring in a director of football I think, somebody who knows what they are doing in the transfer market because Woodward is a joke.

 

[ottosec]

We spent almost 100M in 2014...

 

[Invictus]

As much as everyone likes to hate on the glazers, and of course they are only doing it to get richer themselves, but we have spent a lot of money over the years. Not Chelsea/city/Madrid levels, but a lot. Not sure if there's much different to bayerns spending and ours, we have more if anything. Our problem is we've wasted so much money on just average, mid table players time and time again and overpaid for all of them. It's not glazers' fault that Fergie wasn't willingly o add a couple million to Hazards agent fee, or Lucas, or lost out on other top targets because of stuff like that. We do that but then spend £7m on shit like bebe and give other average players ridiculous wages.

If we were smarter with our spending we wouldn't be in this position. It's time to bring in a director of football I think, somebody who knows what they are doing in the transfer market because Woodward is a joke.

I think it bears repeating that prior to 2012, our net spend for the preceding 7 seasons was :

2005 : £1 million.
2006 : £4.1 million.
2007 : £26.5 million.
2008 : £ 33.75 million.
2009 : -£64.5 million
2010 : £13.5 million.
2011 : £38 million.

Adds upto : £52.4 million.

No-one expects Madrid/ Chelsea/ PSG/ City level but £52.4 million over 7 seasons ? Wanna guess what Sunderland's net spend for that duration was ? £86 million. Aston Villa ? £108 million. That's how far United were from the upper echelons of spending. Forget the European elite we were outspent by mid-table Premier League clubs.

 

[Drainy]

We spent almost 100M in 2014...

Closing the barn door after the horse had bolted.

They spent that and they'll likely have to spend another £100m net to get the squad back to guaranteed top 4 finishes.