A decade since Ronaldo left

Bastian

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Definitely the start of the downfall. Sold on the cheap giving way to the era of no value in the market.
 

charlenefan

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That 15 goals can't be true, I mean I know it's low but I can't believe it's that low
 

JJ12

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Valencia easily the best and had the bollocks to change his number because he knew he wasn't worthy.
 

Savantona

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I think the stat is actually even worse then what the tweet says, I think these players have only scored 14 goals in the league wearing the nr 7 shirt. So the joke's on you ESPN!

Owen 5 goals
Valencia 1
Sanchez 3
Di María 3
Depay 2
 

Pexbo

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Definitely the start of the downfall. Sold on the cheap giving way to the era of no value in the market.
This “sold on the cheap” business needs to stop.

He went for 42% over the previous world record which itself had just broken a world record which had stood for 8 years.

Pogba broke the world record 7 years later and that was only £9m more.


We didn’t sell him for cheap, he just proved to be incredible value.
 

Bastian

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This “sold on the cheap” business needs to stop.

He went for 42% over the previous world record which itself had just broken a world record which had stood for 8 years.

Pogba broke the world record 7 years later and that was only £9m more.


We didn’t sell him for cheap, he just proved to be incredible value.
It does not need to stop. He was the most talented player in the world alongside Messi at that time and was scoring for fun in the league. He was easily our best player and he was only going to get better. Any way you look at it, IMV, it was a shit deal and I thought so at the time. Either we should have gotten a nice lump sum and players in exchange or tied in loads of bonus payments knowing full well they would be activated.
 

charlenefan

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I think the stat is actually even worse then what the tweet says, I think these players have only scored 14 goals in the league wearing the nr 7 shirt. So the joke's on you ESPN!

Owen 5 goals
Valencia 1
Sanchez 3
Di María 3
Depay 2
Ah I see they're only counting Valencia's goal when he was number 7
 

AshRK

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This “sold on the cheap” business needs to stop.

He went for 42% over the previous world record which itself had just broken a world record which had stood for 8 years.

Pogba broke the world record 7 years later and that was only £9m more.


We didn’t sell him for cheap, he just proved to be incredible value.
It was a poor business by us. We could have easily asked 80m + Robben or SNeijder and Madrid won't have had any issue. We just succumbed to their demand. Definitely start of our downfall.
 

RyRoc

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Even back then felt he was sold for at least 20 million short of what he's worth and feel I've been proven correct. Very hard player to replace and feel that United have actually gone for the right kind of player in recent years to replace him I.E Alexis/Di Maria/ Depay - obviously those signings have not worked out though
 

RyRoc

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This “sold on the cheap” business needs to stop.

He went for 42% over the previous world record which itself had just broken a world record which had stood for 8 years.

Pogba broke the world record 7 years later and that was only £9m more.

We didn’t sell him for cheap, he just proved to be incredible value.
A club the size of United should have forcasted better the way transfers were going. A few years ago Mourinho said Pogba at 100 million would end up being cheap and he was correct and it was a pretty fair prediction. United messed up on this transfer
 

Eckers99

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That stat sums up the last few years pretty succinctly.
 

Tom Cato

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It does not need to stop. He was the most talented player in the world alongside Messi at that time and was scoring for fun in the league. He was easily our best player and he was only going to get better. Any way you look at it, IMV, it was a shit deal and I thought so at the time. Either we should have gotten a nice lump sum and players in exchange or tied in loads of bonus payments knowing full well they would be activated.
The sum Ronaldo was sold for was absolutely insane at the time. An almost unthinkable amount of money for a single player. Its only the past 2-3 years that squad players are sold for £50mill or more, money in football has grown to unfathomable levels since the oil sheiks entered the arena, and TV deals became ultra lucrative for the clubs.

You forget that Ronaldo wanted to leave, badly. - He stayed longer because SAF convinced him to take another year in 2008. Quite frankly we owed it to the player to take a reasonable sum for him, which happened to be a new world record transfer fee.

10 years ago, a prime Eden Hazard gets sold to Real Marid for £30m, not the inflated balloon of a price he was sold for now. The sheer difference between the two players are that high in their primes.

The £80m sale price for Ronaldo at the time was fair. It broke all previous transfer records.

Its important to remember that this saga went on for 2 full years. between 2007 and 2009 there were rumours daily, and in 2008 Ronaldo himself went public and requested to leave the club. Its worth nothing that SAF himself went to Portgual to talk to Ronaldo and convince him to remain at Old Trafford despite the temptation of Real Madrid.

No one knows what actually happened, but after we lost the CL final to Barcelona, Ronaldo criticized SAF's tactics. 1 month later he was sold to Real Madrid. Its possible that SAF gave him the Beckham treatment and simply got rid of him. Another possibility is that the move had been agreed on months in advance through a handsake deal that the club will accept a reasonable bid at the end of the season, in exchange for Ronaldo focusing on football instead of transfer drama.

It's tempting to sit today and say that we should have asked for more money, but fact is that the money at the time was absolutely insane, the player had reqested to leave, and was entering his final 2 years of his contract after the 2009 campaign. Essentially it was sell high now, or sell low next year instead of letting him go for free in 2012.

Lastly its worth nothing that if we adjust for inflation. £80m in 2009 is worth £105m (117m euro) in 2019. That makes Ronaldo in 2009 still the 4th most expensive transfer in history even in todays bloated market 10 years later. Just to give a sense of scale.
 
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Celoti23-81

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It does not need to stop. He was the most talented player in the world alongside Messi at that time and was scoring for fun in the league. He was easily our best player and he was only going to get better. Any way you look at it, IMV, it was a shit deal and I thought so at the time. Either we should have gotten a nice lump sum and players in exchange or tied in loads of bonus payments knowing full well they would be activated.
Yeah defo! If I'm not mistaken, Sneijder and Robben left the same summer we sold Ronaldo to Real! Depressing to think we got Valencia and Owen as replacements instead! We just got hammered by Barca the same year in the Champions League final too!
Transfer season was in full Muppet mode that summer too. I remember clearly watching videos of Obertan thinking he could have been the next Ronaldo! That worked out a treat didn't it!
 

Sky1981

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It was a poor business by us. We could have easily asked 80m + Robben or SNeijder and Madrid won't have had any issue. We just succumbed to their demand. Definitely start of our downfall.
Ronaldo agreed with saf for one more season, he honored that deal. Saf honored his.

It could get ugly if we kept him beyond that one year. So nope, we get the best out of the situation
 

Acheron

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It seems like a cheap price nowadays but if you adjust to inflation it should still be one of the most expensive transfers in history. On the other hand if you go out and sell Messi or Ronaldo no matter how much you get paid as you're not going to be able to replace that player.
 

AshRK

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Ronaldo agreed with saf for one more season, he honored that deal. Saf honored his.

It could get ugly if we kept him beyond that one year. So nope, we get the best out of the situation
Not saying we should have kept Ronaldo but we should have asked for Robben or Sneijder from Madrid or signed some better player. We didn't get the best out of anything in 2009. We just bowed down to Ronaldo and Madrid. The only reason we somewhat dominated from 09-13 is because of sir alex but even then our value was going down.
 

Nou_Camp99

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Makes it even worse when you think City's number 7, Sterling, has scored more in this season alone.
 

Sandikan

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This “sold on the cheap” business needs to stop.

He went for 42% over the previous world record which itself had just broken a world record which had stood for 8 years.

Pogba broke the world record 7 years later and that was only £9m more.


We didn’t sell him for cheap, he just proved to be incredible value.

Agreed.
It has to be one of the most infuriating falsehoods on here.
 

Eddy_JukeZ

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I'll never get over how poorly we botched that entire summer.

Could have potentially won an extra league title and a CL if we didn't act like a small time club that summer.
 

204Red

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Here's the one factor that you never hear that much about ... when Real signed Ronaldo, they effectively tripled his wages. I have never heard of United attempting to match Real's contract offer... do you really think Ronaldo would really been so quick to leave if he was earning over 300K at United?

I have a dream too, its that my employer triples my wages. Instead of smashing the clubs wage scale to keep a player who was obviously a once in a generation talent, Ronaldo went to Real following his dream... and United were roundly congratulated for "not capitulating to player power"... only to overpay Rooney just a couple of years later.

I recall reading somewhere that Ronaldo's sale balanced the books for the 2008-09 season or perhaps it was the 2009 fiscal year (whatever the case)... that despite winning the league and reaching a second successive CL final the club would have lost money largely due to the supposedly crippling interest rates on the PIK bonds or something to do with this being the most financially exposed the Glazers were at that point.

As alluded to I don't think the Glazers have always been afraid to spend money at the club, but the timing and decision making in this case sure points to finance over football in the worst way