I am all for signings players like Daniel James but I hope our Board are not gearing up for anything less than a £200m summer...we spent £60m last year plus made money on players out.
I get the feeling that there is no money again. We had no money for transfers between 2005-2010 (Fact - positive net spend whilst PIK loans where restructured) and I have a nasty feeling that we went big(ish) for a couple of years in the hope of a quick fix, with a view to paying for these players over a period of time
I would be interested to know - of the NET money we have spent since SAF left, how much has actually been paid to the clubs/agents receiving and how much do we still owe?
The big problem we have is even if we do spend £200m, every other big club will spend £100m+ also so its going to be very difficult to bridge the gap
This has been discussed in other threads, but I guess I have to reitarate it again: Its really not about money being available for investing in transfer fees. Its about the fecking wage bill. I just dont get why this is not accepted by now.
We would have no problem investing 300-400m in young talented players like De Ligt, Sancho, Felix etc. We need to make room for their wages though. You cant buy 300-400m worth of talent and be under the illusion that it would do nothing to our wage bill.
We need to accept to be able to do some real damage in the transfer market this summer, we will need to first get rid of Sanchez, Lukaku and even De Gea. I dont know if he is worth 350k a week as things stand now. I am not mentioning Pogba because I want him to stay, but technically he is in the same bracket. Matic also. Those are our major earners. Herrera would have been too, if we would have given him what he wanted, which is why I cant blame the club for that even if I love Herrera. That money is needed elsewhere.
Keeping Jones or Rojo around or not does not matter very much, even if its a popular opinion that we can get rid of them and then suddenly have a lot of money for wages for world class players. Which is just stupid. Like a Jones and a De Ligt would command the same wages.
The fifteen players let go yesterday was a start, but thats not a lot of wages being freed up tbh.
I dont get why people get so wired up when the transfer window is not even open yet, but if we do go longer into the summer without any more major signings, it will be because we have not been able to free up wage space. It will not be because of money not being available for transfer fees.
And of course: the other reason; that the players wanted by the Caf is simply unavailable or - dear god - might not want to join United right now.
EDIT
I should just add what riled me up about this post. The claim that we "just" "spent" 60 m last summer.
I am sorry, but net spend is irrelevant. We probably had the most expensive transfer window of every PL-club last summer. Mainly because of Alexis Sanchez (who I am counting since he was an early summer transfer). He might have just "cost" 25m, but thats the most expensive transfer the club has ever made. Its an excellent example of why transfer fees does not mean very much. Its all about the wages and the total cost of the contract, including asset depreciation for older players. Our wage bill exploded last summer, with contract renewals and especially the Sanchez deal.
That our "spend" was 60m is irrelevant.