I agree. Everyone seems to forget The big shiny signings haven't done too much for us in the last 5 years. Buying more big name players with two years left in the tank isn' going to change that. Better off biding time and selecting players that we can develop and who will be here for a decade rather than any more sanchez like signings (bale being the biggest example. Real have been openly advertising his availability all season and anyone would be a mug to sign him)
Why has nothing happened yet? | Things are now happening
- Thread starter Dr Fink
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
I think I also told you on another thread that the 'actual' amount we are paying in wages is only relevant insofar as how it relates to the percentage of turnover. United operate between 45/50% historically so we are nowhere near the biggest spenders on wages when you use this metric.
The reason it's relevant is because whilst I'm not advocating for reckless spending, given the position we are in I don't think one or two additional players coming in on big wages would be a huge deal.
You use the Sanchez example....obviously we didn't pay a fee so the total value of the transfer was £25m....I fail to see how that's a good example of us being willing to spend money...it would/should have been a bargain had Sanchez's form not fallen off a cliff. Now there is a whole conversation to be had about whether it's a good idea to give one player £500K a week when the rest of the squad earn half that or less (obviously it's not!) but that is a separate conversation
Very true.Maybe I am misunderstanding you but we did indeed pay 25m for Sanchez to the Arse. As well as a sign--on fee reported to be around 30m. Which is money down the drain because he would never had any future transfer value on those wages.
So those 50m was basically a direct cost for the club. Its very different to spending 50m on a Martial who probably will not lose asset value, it might even increase. Its one of the reasons why "spend" and "net spend" are irrelevant. You are comparing apples with oranges.
And I really dont agree on that transfer being a "bargain" even if Alexis had performed better. The total cost of that transfer, fee and wages plus agent fees included have been reported to be upwards 180m. I dont know how this would ever be considered a bargain. You cant separate transfer fees from wages, you need to look at the total package to determine how "costly"a transfer is for the club. And Sanchez trumps anything we have ever done.
He must be the most stupidest transfer anybody has ever done.
Moaning in may
Why is this thread still active?
We have signed more players than Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Spurs and City combined.
We have signed more players than Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Spurs and City combined.
We have to be more careful in the transfer market, and I think younger players is the way to go.
If he comes on his 600k a week then hopefully we would start him yes.
Exactly....Transfer fee + agent fees + players wages over period of the contract = Cost of the player. I will say since Sanchez was free it enabled United to pay much more in wages, but still a sh+t transfer. However, most thought it was just what we needed at the time. Not sure what happened to that guy.
So I guess you think Sanchez should start every game then?
Is a hypothetical scenario really that hard to grasp for you? Have you literally never heard the phrase ”would X player start for Y team”?
Spending only £60m last Summer is very relevant. We needed a squad refresh back then and we still do now. Sanchez wagess are high but we don't pay Miki's wages any more so it is not a completely unwarranted amount. Your Sanchez argument is a red herring. At worst he is receiving the wage of 2 players rather then 1. Annoying, but it shouldnt cripple our ability to improve.
If we need to get rid of players before signing then why aren't the club doing it?
Don’t forget the knock-on effects on contract negotiations for other players once his contract details were leaked. How much extra will his wages inflate the other players’ wages combined over the next 5 years?
Woody can refuse to give in to such demands, but that just leads to losing good players like Herrera and De Gea. It’s a disaster all around.
Swiss Ramble is your man for all things football finance. Indeed our wage bill is astronomical at £300m approx. Largely thanks to Jose's galactico demands our wage bill soard a WHOPPING 45% over his tenure at the club! Insane! Why it absolutely infuriates me then to red morons say Jose wasn't backed!
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"Only £60m" he says
On top of the rest Jose blew his load over. As per the above, a wage bill that took off like a rocket under his tenure by 45%.
They have already started this by off loading Herrera and freeing up his wages, others will follow. Young only stayed due to taking a pay cut. We've off loaded a bunch of kids and expect De Gea, Lukaku and Sanchez will be gone too. At least the latter 2, we may keep De Gea possibly and bend to his demands?
Only time will tell.
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I would argue that its a myth that one players wage affects the demands of other players. At least in todays market. It was different 10-15 years ago. Players (or at least their agents) are not stupid. Its not like that they dont understand that the major reason that Alexis could get that amount in wages is because he practically came on a free. You cant compare what is basically a free agent signing to other contract renewals or new signings of players under contract. Its apples and oranges. Of course a free agent will be able to negotiate a way higher salary compared to other players.
IMO this is a vastly overrated narrative.
You’re choosing the wrong target for your ire at the increasing wage bill. Jose Mourinho didn’t negotiate contracts.Swiss Ramble is your man for all things football finance. Indeed our wage bill is astronomical at £300m approx. Largely thanks to Jose's galactico demands our wage bill soard a WHOPPING 45% over his tenure at the club! Insane! Why it absolutely infuriates me then to red morons say Jose wasn't backed!
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"Only £60m" he says
On top of the rest Jose blew his load over. As per the above, a wage bill that took off like a rocket under his tenure by 45%.
They have already started this by off loading Herrera and freeing up his wages, others will follow. Young only stayed due to taking a pay cut. We've off loaded a bunch of kids and expect De Gea, Lukaku and Sanchez will be gone too. At least the latter 2, we may keep De Gea possibly and bend to his demands?
Only time will tell.
No I'm not.
He very much played a very important part in the increasing wage bill. He demanded Pogba, brought in Zlatan on huge wages, got others like Lukaku, Matic and of course the mind boggling numbers around Sanchez deal.
As @Johan07 mentions above, the manager would no doubt be informed of contract numbers before anything is finalized.
This is bordering to ignorant if you really believe it. I refer to my post above. Mourinho would have been made very well aware of the result of any contract negotiation and it would have been up to him to accept it or decline any signing or extension.
Do you really think it works like Mourinho goes to Woodward/Judge and says: I want to keep Fellaini at the club and then Judge goes to sign Fellaini up at any cost without going back to Mourinho and saying: Hey, this is what we could agree upon. Do you want him at this price/wage or spend the wages somehow else/at someone else.
I really should not need to be making this point.
Chuffed with that in fairness!
Yes you are.
You think Woodward didn’t want Pogba and Sanchez? We know for a fact Mourinho wanted Perisic before Sanchez. What has Zlatan got to do with our current wage bill?
It doesn’t matter if he’s informed of wages and why would he be? It’s not part of his job.
And the people responsible for our wage budget signed off on all those deals and failed to get rid of players the manager clearly didn’t want. Was it Mourinho that gave Shaw and Martial pay rises recently. You can find plenty to complain about Jose Mourinho elsewhere. The wage bill is on the people who negotiate the contracts.
We all know the money involved in football is ridiculously high. This is the same for every top football club in Europe. The revenues are equally high. We can afford players.Swiss Ramble is your man for all things football finance. Indeed our wage bill is astronomical at £300m approx. Largely thanks to Jose's galactico demands our wage bill soard a WHOPPING 45% over his tenure at the club! Insane! Why it absolutely infuriates me then to red morons say Jose wasn't backed!
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"Only £60m" he says
On top of the rest Jose blew his load over. As per the above, a wage bill that took off like a rocket under his tenure by 45%.
They have already started this by off loading Herrera and freeing up his wages, others will follow. Young only stayed due to taking a pay cut. We've off loaded a bunch of kids and expect De Gea, Lukaku and Sanchez will be gone too. At least the latter 2, we may keep De Gea possibly and bend to his demands?
Only time will tell.
If you're trying to imply that a £60m spend over 2 transfer windows is enough for a top club who have finished outside of the top 4, 4 times in 6 years then you must be joking.
Your own source says our wage bill is at a very respectable 50%. We generate enough money to be successful. The decision making has been terrible by Woodward. He's wasted 100's of millions through not having a strategy.
The lack of investment until 2013 by the Glazers has also come back to bite us. But that's a slightly different topic.
Why are they only off loading players now? Some of these players needed off loading years ago. It also seems we are losing players like Herrera who we should keep but holding onto dead wood. This is a by product of 6 years of dead Woodward (if you'll excuse the pun).
It really is not. The wage bill is decided by the board/Woodward. They are responsible for the size of it, nothing else.
And yeah, it was Mourinho that signed off on the Shaw deal. But it was OGS that signed off the Martial deal. Get your facts straight.
You think its a coincidence the Martial deal this happened just after Mourinho left?
It’s hard to argue with this level of stupid.
What is stupid? To point out that your claim that the Martial renewal was not under Mourinho as you seemed to claim. Its clear evidence of the footballing decisions at the club is being taken by the manager, no one else.
Based on this comment only assume you haven't a breeze about finance.We all know the money involved in football is ridiculously high. This is the same for every top football club in Europe. The revenues are equally high. We can afford players.
If you're trying to imply that a £60m spend over 2 transfer windows is enough for a top club who have finished outside of the top 4, 4 times in 6 years then you must be joking.
Your own source says our wage bill is at a very respectable 50%. We generate enough money to be successful. The decision making has been terrible by Woodward. He's wasted 100's of millions through not having a strategy.
Why are they only off loading players now? Some of these players needed off loading years ago. It also seems we are losing players like Herrera who we should keep but holding onto dead wood. This is a by product of 6 years of dead Woodward (if you'll excuse the pun).
It isn't just £60m, its everything else prior to that as well. Jose spent £350m in transfers, then our wage bill increased nearly double under his tenure, up to £300m.
Are you seriously telling me our wage bill should be 80-90% of our spend? We'd be ran into administration within a few years feck me its ridiculous. We do have other outgoings as well as player salaries, there are other staff to consider as well? Maintenance of training facilities, Old Trafford and god knows what else.
We don't have a bottomless pit to delve into for transfers and wages like you suggest, unless you want to end up like Leeds?
Why are they only off loading players now? - Can I give you an example?
- Lets take Fellaini shall we? Jose publicly stated he wanted him. The club were either not in a hurry to retain his services or didn't value him at what he and his agent valued himself at (salary wise).
- Jose goes public stating he must have Fellaini, he is a vital player to him.
- So where is Ed situation? Rock and a hard place.
- He has to be seen to be supporting his manager but is trying to balance the books, whilst he has a manager demanding centre backs and singling out expensive targets.
But we've a crazy fan base that expects both goals to be met in this scenario time and time again.
You want to know why players are kept continually, most likely cause the manager rates the player and admires some quality of theirs. The fact we've retained Smalling, Jones & Young shouldn't come as a surprise at all when Jose routinely favored all 3 over his own investments.
Jose picked Smalling and Jones over Bailly and Lindelof. He favored Young over Shaw (not his signing but you get the gist).
Ole has also spoken out in favor of certain players.
Managers have a massive input to who stays and who goes by an large. So when X player (Fellaini in the example) is demanded £150k for arguments sake...
Who is to blame?
- The manager for demanding the player be Kept?
- The CEO for delivering what his manager requested?
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Keeping Rojo, Jones, Bailly and Smalling is two defenders too many if we're promoting Tuanzebe, and three defenders too many if we're buying a centre back.
Net spend is not irrelevant just as contract negotiations are not irrelevant for players at the club and new players. We have absolute idiots leading this task and it is because of that we signed a 29 year old player on a 350/400K deal for 3 and a half years. It is lunacy. It is also because of the same idiots that we look to tie down players who either can't stay fit or haven't shown they're good enough to make the difference, again and again, despite what you correctly identify as a key factor in rebuilding: clearing wages of the wage bill.
Our window last summer was pathetic for many reasons: we didn't address the imbalance of the side, we overspent on Fred, and we didn't shift players that we needed to get rid of. Now we are trying to tie down Mata, even though we haven't played with an orthodox #10 and he can't really cut it on the right. He is currently earning 140K and very unlikely to be accepting a lower wage. In all likelihood, he is asking for more than a year's deal.
The pattern here is that we don't really want to pursue a proper rebuild. The most important aspect of which is getting players out the door.
I would argue that you are 100% wrong on that one and that the numerous reporting on said matter suggest the polar opposite. It was a new benchmark, just like when we're rumoured to be giving 150K to squad players or 200 or 300K to players who are good and promising, but not the real deal. How is this not obvious? It's one of the reasons City pulled out, which was very sensible.
Just double checked, and the Sanchez deal was actually 4 1/2 years, signed until summer 2022!!
Jose's choice.... but reading the idiotic comments here and basically every forum that involves our fan base these days its all on Ed!
Jose opted to loan out Tuanzebe and TFM and favored keeping senior players.
https://www.manutd.com/en/news/detail/jose-mourinho-admits-axel-tuanzebe-may-go-on-loan-this-season
The second part, is something I've said a lot since joining.
How is it that LVG shifted players out the door without a care in the world..... for it all to come to a crashing halt with Jose.
I agree we badly need a complete rebuild and only LVG has made anything close to an attempt at that.
Unlike @Johan07 I don't think Jose said, let's give Sanchez 400K a week for 3 and a half years (or 4 and half @Sandikan !). The managers have many times stated that they say which players they like and nothing more, both Jose and Louis said that. They don't get involved in the contract negotiations, why would they?
That's done by Matt Judge, who can be argued to be equally as inept as Woody.
Why would they? Because it dictates who stays and who doesn't!
What they are offered also factors into how the manager can build their squad. They might not be there throughout the negotiations but I've absolutely no doubt that before anything is signed the manager is consulted with and told X player will now earn X amount and this affects the budget for transfers.
It all ties in together and is a bit of give and take.
Genuinely think this guy might be an astroturfer employed by the Glazers to control the narrative. Seriously, look at this guy’s post history. Pages upon pages of defending Woodward and the Glazers with fairly in-depth knowledge of how United supposedly is run.
Interesting reading, this thread, especially the most recent page.
I personally think that Fergie had a big influence on wages for renewals and new signings. He always talked about value in the market, resale value etc things which you would probably expect to hear from the board, however fergie was ofcourse more than a traditional football manager and also no mug who didn't like the club being fleeced.
All the managers post fergie have imo been coaches, not managers like fergie. I genuinely cannot believe that Mourinho was asked for the approval of such figures for such and such a player. It's surely not in his job description?
All pure conjecture. Feel free to rip me apart.
I personally think that Fergie had a big influence on wages for renewals and new signings. He always talked about value in the market, resale value etc things which you would probably expect to hear from the board, however fergie was ofcourse more than a traditional football manager and also no mug who didn't like the club being fleeced.
All the managers post fergie have imo been coaches, not managers like fergie. I genuinely cannot believe that Mourinho was asked for the approval of such figures for such and such a player. It's surely not in his job description?
All pure conjecture. Feel free to rip me apart.
Where does it say wages increased by 45%? It says wages increased from 45% of turnover to 50% of turnover. It also says wages increased 12% whilst highlighting that was mainly due to EXISTING clauses in players contracts relating to Champions League bonuses.....still, I suppose we have posters on here who would claim it's all Jose's fault we qualified for the CL and therefore had to spend the extra cash....Swiss Ramble is your man for all things football finance. Indeed our wage bill is astronomical at £300m approx. Largely thanks to Jose's galactico demands our wage bill soard a WHOPPING 45% over his tenure at the club! Insane! Why it absolutely infuriates me then to red morons say Jose wasn't backed!
Tweet
— Twitter API (@user) date
"Only £60m" he says
On top of the rest Jose blew his load over. As per the above, a wage bill that took off like a rocket under his tenure by 45%.
They have already started this by off loading Herrera and freeing up his wages, others will follow. Young only stayed due to taking a pay cut. We've off loaded a bunch of kids and expect De Gea, Lukaku and Sanchez will be gone too. At least the latter 2, we may keep De Gea possibly and bend to his demands?
Only time will tell.
As the table shows, United have historically ALWAYS aimed for the 'wage as a percentage of turnover' figure to be around 50%....which is the point I was making in the first place
I have been thinking this myself actually....I could name maybe five posters who pop up on every thread defending the Glazers/Woodward with nonsense and misdirection....I can only think these people are either employed by the club or are opposition fans because the Glazers haven't done one single positive thing for this club and without getting all 'top red' on people, it's my opinion that if you support these people you're no fan of the club
I'll ignore your childish insults. Your argument is flip flopping so much I think you've lost yourself.
You're making up wage percentages now in a desperate attempt to defend Woodward is ludicrous. No one has said 80%-90% should be our target. Just that our current proportion is circa 50%.
The irony is that the takeover engineered by Woodward for the Glazers put us most at risk of ending up like Leeds. Strange that you use that as a defence of not investing in the squad.
The problems started way before Jose. Singling him out is naive.
Its Woodward who authorised the spending of the money under LVG which needed to be undone and re spent under Jose which will now need to be undone and re spent under Ole. It is the lack of planning, strategy and continuity from the board which has led us to wasting £100's of millions on transfers. Please read the last sentence again!
If you can't see that Woodward has contributed the lions share to our recent decline then you are deluded.
Top line: the squad desperately needed investment last Summer. It desperately needs investment even more this Summer. Its got worse due to Woodwards mismanagement.
He is a shareholder, What would you expect.