Reminder that United have outspent most of our rivals

[Rood]

I have seen multiple posters defending Glazer by saying they have spent money recently, yes they have and I do not think anyone should deny that but similarly people should also not deny there was massive lack of spending from 2009-2013 which cannot be completely forgotten. And the way the thread has been made it surely looks like the OP is defending the glazers.

Its a bit silly to complain about lack of spending in Fergie's last 5 years seeing as it was arguably the most successful period in the clubs whole history, depending on if you put more value in domestic or European success - 3 CL finals inc 1 win from '08 to his retirement, we never got even close to that on another 5 years period.

Plus there was still plenty being spent on the squad even in that period - transfer fees are only a part of the picture, our wage bill even back then was in the top 5 in the whole of Europe.

 

[marktan]

Its a bit silly to complain about lack of spending in Fergie's last 5 years seeing as it was arguably the most successful period in the clubs whole history, depending on if you put more value in domestic or European success - 3 CL finals inc 1 win from '08 to his retirement, we never got even close to that on another 5 years period.

Plus there was still plenty being spent on the squad even in that period - transfer fees are only a part of the picture, our wage bill even back then was in the top 5 in the whole of Europe.

Yes but that's the point - during our successful period we weren't adding to the team, so after it we'd need to spend more to rebuild Vs our rivals.

Take when Mourinho and Pep took over for example. We had to spend £90m on Pogba and Lukaku, before whom we had no world class striker or midfielder. City on the other hand spent a lot post 2010 and had Silva/KDB and Aguero in those positions, hence not needing to spend large sums on top players like we did.

We've needed to spend more precisely because we didn't spend much at all between 2009-2013, and 2010 onwards City have still managed to seriously outspend us. They've continued to build their team - and that's why their ahead of us.

You can try doing it the Liverpool way - spend efficiently on top players - but that only works if you have a top class manager like Klopp in place. We don't, nor do we want to spend as much as City, so here we are, languishing around 6th with a mix of bad management, bad planning by the higher ups, and underinvestment historically.

I find this thread a bit funny to be honest, it should look at post 2010 to get a fairer reflection on the state of things, not some arbitrary point which makes our spending look bad whilst being just recent enough to ignore Van Djiks £75m or the £250m odd Pep spent in the summer after his first season (where we spent £150m in comparison).

 

[DSG]

Did you just play the anti-semitism card to try and defend the Glazers from the criticism of United fans?! You have missed your true calling... you should be writing takedown pieces aimed at Jeremy Corbyn for the English media.

You also conclude that since United hasn't made the Glazers as much money as investing in Microsoft shares in the early 90s would have, they must have bought the club because they love football(!!).

Then you say that since they aren't as rich as some of the PL's other owners, they must therefore be far more benevolent?!

Lord give me strength.

Let me clarify the anti-semitism comment. I said there was a narrative out there that could be considered anti-Semitic. In no way was I saying that if you criticize the Glazers you were anti-Semitic. If anyone read it that way, I’m sorry, not my intention.

There are a lot of investment opportunities that offer well over 30% return annually. If the Glazers bought Man United just to make money, it would be a poor investment in comparison. My point is that their motivations are not as simplistic as most in the Caf make them out to be. I doubt they bought United to just make money, and oh yeah, they hate football, just doing this so they can make a mediocre return.

I’m saying they aren’t as rich as many of the owners. When you spend £417m on transfers and your net worth is £5b, that’s almost 9% of your net worth. By comparison, the owners of City spent less than 2% of their net worth in transfer funds.

It has nothing to do with being “benevolent”. It’s a business. Football is a business. For the players, for the agents, the clubs. I mean, I thought everyone understood that, but I guess there are still some people who are just too naive.

 

[Rood]

Yes but that's the point - during our successful period we weren't adding to the team, so after it we'd need to spend more to rebuild Vs our rivals.

Take when Mourinho and Pep took over for example. We had to spend £90m on Pogba and Lukaku, before whom we had no world class striker or midfielder. City on the other hand spent a lot post 2010 and had Silva/KDB and Aguero in those positions, hence not needing to spend large sums on top players like we did.

We've needed to spend more precisely because we didn't spend much at all between 2009-2013, and 2010 onwards City have still managed to seriously outspend us. They've continued to build their team - and that's why their ahead of us.

You can try doing it the Liverpool way - spend efficiently on top players - but that only works if you have a top class manager like Klopp in place. We don't, nor do we want to spend as much as City, so here we are, languishing around 6th with a mix of bad management, bad planning by the higher ups, and underinvestment historically.

I find this thread a bit funny to be honest, it should look at post 2010 to get a fairer reflection on the state of things, not some arbitrary point which makes our spending look bad whilst being just recent enough to ignore Van Djiks £750m or the £250m odd Pep spent in the summer after his first season (where we spent £150m in comparison).

But that is just the normal cycles of squad building - Fergie talked about his planning for the next era, always going to spend more at the start of a cycle.
I dont agree with the narrative that suggests that our recent issues are related to lack of spending 10 years ago - its the recent windows and general mismanagememt that have been the problem.

I do agree that there is some picking and choosing of numbers going on, still see some people moaning about summer '08 when Ronaldo left - but thats just one year, not taking into account the big transfer windows we had in the 2 summers before that (Berbatov was a UK record and year before that was a huge window with Nani, Anderson, Hargreaves and Tevez).

Worth remembering that City also got away with a crazy level of spending just before FFP came in- they would not have been allowed to spend that much under current regulations and there are still question marks over whether they have been 'financial doping'. Also circa 2010, Chelsea were actually still the biggest spenders

Our biggest issue recently has been managerial instability and not investment into the squad, as you note that is the difference to Liverpool (or Spurs) who spend less than us - the current squad is expensively assembled but clearly not offering good value, hardly a surprise when its the result of 5 different managers.

 

[Rood]

Let me clarify the anti-semitism comment. I said there was a narrative out there that could be considered anti-Semitic. In no way was I saying that if you criticize the Glazers you were anti-Semitic. If anyone read it that way, I’m sorry, not my intention.

There are a lot of investment opportunities that offer well over 30% return annually. If the Glazers bought Man United just to make money, it would be a poor investment in comparison. My point is that their motivations are not as simplistic as most in the Caf make them out to be. I doubt they bought United to just make money, and oh yeah, they hate football, just doing this so they can make a mediocre return.

I’m saying they aren’t as rich as many of the owners. When you spend £417m on transfers and your net worth is £5b, that’s almost 9% of your net worth. By comparison, the owners of City spent less than 2% of their net worth in transfer funds.

It has nothing to do with being “benevolent”. It’s a business. Football is a business. For the players, for the agents, the clubs. I mean, I thought everyone understood that, but I guess there are still some people who are just too naive.

Are there?! like what ?

And the Glazers have made shitload of money from football - bought the club for £800m, worth at least £3bn and probably £4bn today.
Its absolutely certain they bought the club just for investment, its well documented that Malcolm Glazer had virtually no interest in football - he barely ever attended a match.

 

[manutddjw]

Seeing as this always turns into Glazers spend money - no they don’t argument I’d like to add a few points.

After they’ve spent a huge amount on us the argument has become, well they should’ve spent more 2009 to 2013. They did. We broke the transfer record for Berbatov and would’ve broken our own record by a lot had Lucas Moura not chosen PSG. I also suggest people look at our squad at the time. Sir Alex had literally built us to the point where we had 2-3 options for EVERY position. When he saw a chance to upgrade a position, we did like Van Persie. When he thought we needed to get younger players in for the future, we did like with Smalling and Jones.

The other big argument is the Glazers take money out of the club to pay themselves. They absolutely do. I wish they didn’t but what owner doesn’t? Do you think Levy doesn’t pay himself? There’s not one legitimate owner that doesn’t pay themselves from money earned by the club.

Then it degenerates into an argument about our structure as a club. We have scouts who identify players and then suggest those players to the manager and the manager gives his verdict. If he wants them we try to get them and if he says no we stop there or keep an eye on them. I fail to see how this is such a flawed system. We did this for Sir Alex’s tenure. Now because we’ve had managers who aren’t good enough, it is suddenly such a flawed way of doing things? I’d rather this way than a situation like at Chelsea where Pulisic is bought and Sarri hasn’t a clue about it.

The director of football seems to be the answer to all our dreams, yet I don’t think people understand the disaster it would’ve been under LvG and Mourinho. LvG insisted he wanted to play 352 so we sold wingers added strikers and within 3 months he decided he wanted 433 which needed wingers and only 1 striker. He was also notorious for explaining in detail what he wanted and then changing his mind and claiming they can’t give him what he wants. With Mourinho he’s always been a women who’ll start pouting the second he doesn’t get the 1 thing out of the 10 things he asked for and got. Go listen to Pochettino this week and ask him how thrilled he is with him not being able to have a say with how to build his team “I’m a coach not a manager”

 

[DSG]

Are there?! like what ?

And the Glazers have made shitload of money from football - bought the club for £800m, worth at least £3bn and probably £4bn today.
Its absolutely certain they bought the club just for investment, its well documented that Malcolm Glazer had virtually no interest in football - he barely ever attended a match.

I just made a solar farm investment that returned 80% in 18 months. I have a real estate deal I am looking at that will deliver 300% over 5 years. These types of deals are for accredited investors only and don’t get circulated to the general public. The Glazers are approached every day with deals like this. My point is that if you want to maximize investment return, a football club is not your best choice. Plenty of other deals that will deliver far superior returns.

In fact, if the Glazers had taken the £800m they used to buy United in 2005, stuck it in an S&P index fund instead, they would have beat the return of the club which grew 7% in value yearly vs. 8.7% of the S&P index fund.

An asset’s worth is only realized at the sale of the asset. Manchester United’s market cap is USD 2.95b. They bought the club in a highly leveraged deal and floated Class A shares on NYSE and retained Class B (voting) shares. They didn’t profit £1.6b because the of the interest on loans and bonds the Glazers had pay. Also, they haven’t sold all of their shares yet, so it’s a paper asset, not a liquid asset.

I don’t believe a multi billionaire will invest the time and money and lawyer’s fees, due diligence costs, plus the headache of managing a huge club, to basically underperform the market. They did it because they wanted to have the biggest dick in the room, the glamour of owning one of the world’s biggest football clubs. Most people with that kind of wealth just hire a couple of ex Goldman Sachs VPs to run their entire family fund and typically make 20-30% returns...

They spent loads of cash on transfers, there is a 10 year historical record of this, 2nd most in the PL. I just don’t see how people like you just decide to ignore the facts. It’s like you can’t read or do simple math.

I’m not even trying to defend the Glazers. They’ve not done well managing the club since SAF left, in my opinion. I’m just stating simple facts.

 

[DSG]

Seeing as this always turns into Glazers spend money - no they don’t argument I’d like to add a few points.

After they’ve spent a huge amount on us the argument has become, well they should’ve spent more 2009 to 2013. They did. We broke the transfer record for Berbatov and would’ve broken our own record by a lot had Lucas Moura not chosen PSG. I also suggest people look at our squad at the time. Sir Alex had literally built us to the point where we had 2-3 options for EVERY position. When he saw a chance to upgrade a position, we did like Van Persie. When he thought we needed to get younger players in for the future, we did like with Smalling and Jones.

The other big argument is the Glazers take money out of the club to pay themselves. They absolutely do. I wish they didn’t but what owner doesn’t? Do you think Levy doesn’t pay himself? There’s not one legitimate owner that doesn’t pay themselves from money earned by the club.

Pretty much spot on. I especially like the part about the owner of a business paying himself a salary. How is this surprising? Who hires the groundskeepers? Manages concessions? Ticket sales? Kit sponsorships? All of that flows up to the CEO and, eventually, the chairman of the board. It’s like people think the club is a charity. Bizarre and naive point of view.

 

[Suedesi]

I think this has to be said.

Over the last two years Manchester United have signed:

Daniel James - 15 million
AWB - 50 million
Fred - 53 millio
Dalot - 19 million
140 million (27 million raised in player sales)
Net - 115 million
​

In the same time period:

Tottenham
Ndombele - 63 million
Jack Clarke - 10 million
73 million (30 million raised in player sales)
Net - 45 million

Arsenal:
Saliba - 27 million
Martinelli - 6 million
Torreira- 25 million
Leno - 22 million
Sokratis - 14 million
Guendozi - 7 million
107 million (10 million raised in player sales)
Net - 95 million

Liverpool:
Van der Berg - 1 million
Allison - 56 million
Keita - 54 milion
Fabinho - 40 million
Shaqiri- 14million
165 million (55 million raised in player sales)
Net - 110 million

Chelsea -
Kovacic - 40 million
Kepa - 72 million
Pulisic - 57 million
Jorgino - 50 milion
229 million (170 million raised in player sales)
Net - 60 million

Man City -
Rodri - 63 million
Angelino - 10 million
Steffan - 7 million
Mahrez - 61 million
Palaversa - 6 million
150 million (70 million raised in player sales)
Net - 80 million

Over the last two years, we have spent more (net sales wise) than any other of the top six teams. We have spent gross more than Tottenham/Arsenal and equivalent to Liverpool.

I categorically do not like the Glazer family. I think the nature of the buy out and the increase in ticket prices have been catastrophic to the matchday experience. However, by any metric (2 year/5 year/10 year) our net spend and gross spend is consistently in the top 2/3 in the league. If we sign Harry Maguire (currently looking relatively likely) then we have spent the most gross/net out of all the top six clubs.

We would all like more signings. We would all like us to compete with the very best and win leagues. However, spending money above and beyond every other team isn't always the best way to do it.

Where is Van Dijk in the Liverpool numbers?
How about Pepe at Arsenal?

 

[devilish]

What a joke of a thread. So now we have to give a pat to the back at Woodward and co for letting good players leave on a free and for being unable to get rid of the deadwood? Cause its pretty evident that our net spend would go down if we actually sold Herrera rather then lose him on a free + we sold the likes of Jones, Bailly, Rojo, Darmian etc.

 

[Suedesi]

Let me clarify the anti-semitism comment. I said there was a narrative out there that could be considered anti-Semitic. In no way was I saying that if you criticize the Glazers you were anti-Semitic. If anyone read it that way, I’m sorry, not my intention.

There are a lot of investment opportunities that offer well over 30% return annually. If the Glazers bought Man United just to make money, it would be a poor investment in comparison. My point is that their motivations are not as simplistic as most in the Caf make them out to be. I doubt they bought United to just make money, and oh yeah, they hate football, just doing this so they can make a mediocre return.

I’m saying they aren’t as rich as many of the owners. When you spend £417m on transfers and your net worth is £5b, that’s almost 9% of your net worth. By comparison, the owners of City spent less than 2% of their net worth in transfer funds.

It has nothing to do with being “benevolent”. It’s a business. Football is a business. For the players, for the agents, the clubs. I mean, I thought everyone understood that, but I guess there are still some people who are just too naive.

There are? Such as?

 

[Suedesi]

Let me clarify the anti-semitism comment. I said there was a narrative out there that could be considered anti-Semitic. In no way was I saying that if you criticize the Glazers you were anti-Semitic. If anyone read it that way, I’m sorry, not my intention.

There are a lot of investment opportunities that offer well over 30% return annually. If the Glazers bought Man United just to make money, it would be a poor investment in comparison. My point is that their motivations are not as simplistic as most in the Caf make them out to be. I doubt they bought United to just make money, and oh yeah, they hate football, just doing this so they can make a mediocre return.

I’m saying they aren’t as rich as many of the owners. When you spend £417m on transfers and your net worth is £5b, that’s almost 9% of your net worth. By comparison, the owners of City spent less than 2% of their net worth in transfer funds.

It has nothing to do with being “benevolent”. It’s a business. Football is a business. For the players, for the agents, the clubs. I mean, I thought everyone understood that, but I guess there are still some people who are just too naive.

United self-generate transfer funds, Glazer haven't had to dip into their pockets.
City by all accounts have been propped by the Sheiks in transfers, in subsidized commercial revenue etc, which has come directly from the owners pockets.

You're having a nightmare.

 

[Rish Sawhney]

Seriously though.. how much of an input would Glazers have on transfer budgets? That seems like a purely Woodward thing because he knows all the club's finances he would know exactly how much we can afford any given year. It would be odd from the owners to come in and say to Woodward, "You know we should spend only $100 million this summer cos we wanna buy a new yatch".

EDIT: Aren't they fairly hands off in general?

 

[Wumminator]

Where is Van Dijk in the Liverpool numbers?
How about Pepe at Arsenal?

A) Van Dijk signed for Liverpool in January. Someone added up these numbers if you look through the thread.

B) Pepe hadn’t signed for Arsenal yet when I made it. I’ll update figures at the end of the week.

 

[Wumminator]

What a joke of a thread. So now we have to give a pat to the back at Woodward and co for letting good players leave on a free and for being unable to get rid of the deadwood? Cause its pretty evident that our net spend would go down if we actually sold Herrera rather then lose him on a free + we sold the likes of Jones, Bailly, Rojo, Darmian etc.

Most teams lose players on a free at some point. That’s not a United only problem.

 

[Rory 7]

Investments may fall or rise

 

[devilish]

Most teams lose players on a free at some point. That’s not a United only problem.

Still we seem to be applauding incompetence here. We seem to spend less then others but we still look like that we spent more then them because our incompetent people on top can't sell the massively overpaid deadwood we've got while concurrently being unable to keep top talent at the club who then end up walking for free. Should we give them a prize for not being able to get rid of Rojo, Darmian etc and for losing Pogba to Juve for free and Herrera to PSG? We ended up spending a record fee to get the former back. If we're not careful DDG will walk on free and he'll need replacing. That would really boost our net spend wouldn't it?

 

[Wumminator]

Still we seem to be applauding incompetence here. Well done for spending less then others but we still look like that we spent more then them because our incompetent people on top can't sell the massively overpaid deadwood we've got and seem losing top talent on a free. Should we give them a prize for not being able to get rid of Rojo, Darmian etc and for losing Pogba to Juve for free and Herrera to PSG? We ended up spending a record fee to get the former back

Pogba on a free was what? About seven years ago?

Herrera on a free made sense. We used him and he wouldn’t sign a new contract.

Edit: how easy do you think it is to sell “massively overpaid deadwood”

 

[devilish]

Pogba on a free was what? About seven years ago?

Herrera on a free made sense. We used him and he wouldn’t sign a new contract.

We lost our most talented kid in the academy only to spend ridiculous amounts of money to have him back few years later. Meanwhile Herrera was our 2nd best central midfielder and he still left for free. That is all happening at a club that struggles to get rid of the real deadwood, a big chunk of whom, we had foolishly tied up on long contracts and silly salaries.

Oh look, DDG is risking leaving on a free as well. We'll need to replace the guy so our net spend will go to the roof on that one. That's another reason to celebrate right?

 

[He'sRaldo]

We lost our most talented kid in the academy only to spend ridiculous amounts of money to have him back few years later. Meanwhile Herrera was our 2nd best central midfielder and he still left for free. Meanwhile we can't get rid of the real deadwood, a big chunk of whom, we had foolishly tied up on long contracts and silly salaries.

Oh look, DDG is risking leaving on a free as well. We'll need to replace the guy so our net spend will go to the roof on that one. That's another reason to celebrate right?

That's being pessimistic. You could just as well make a list of all the good dealings we've done and say all is fine. Balance is required.

 

[devilish]

Edit: how easy do you think it is to sell “massively overpaid deadwood”

That's the thing...its not easy at all. That is why clubs usually hire people who know what their doing. That would, for example, avoid giving a 5 year contract to a player whose already been a burden for half a decade.

 

[devilish]

That's being pessimistic. You could just as well make a list of all the good dealings we've done and say all is fine. Balance is required.

How many good dealings have we done in the past 6 years or so? I reckon they would be more bad deals then good deals. However that's not the point. Our high net spend is not down with the club spending money on players but its more about its inability to sell the deadwood for reasonable fees.

 

[AgentP]

Spending has never been a problem. Spending it wisely has been the issue. We bought too many duds and put them on massive wages. Now we struggle to sell the same players because no one would match the wages they are on right now or pay anything close to what we bought them for.

So I'd put more of the blame on the person who decided on these signings and our scouts for the current state we are in. The Glazers have not done anything to address that problem either. We need a DoF but we refuse to see sense.

 

[devilish]

Spending has never been a problem. Spending it wisely has been the issue. We bought too many duds and put them on massive wages. Now we struggle to sell the same players because no one would match the wages they are on right now or pay anything close to what we bought them for.

So I'd put more of the blame on the person who decided on these signings and our scouts for the current state we are in. The Glazers have not done anything to address that problem either. We need a DoF but we refuse to see sense.

Its also down to the same guy being unable to sell the deadwood for reasonable prices while letting decent talent like Herrera walk on free.

 

[He'sRaldo]

How many good dealings have we done in the past 6 years or so? I reckon they would be more bad deals then good deals. However that's not the point. Our high net spend is not down with the club spending money on players but its more about its inability to sell the deadwood for reasonable fees.

I do generally agree with what you're saying, I'm just saying that the point usually gets lost if you take such extremes. The management has done some good stuff and some bad stuff, denying the good stuff will make your argument weaker.

 

[devilish]

I do generally agree with what you're saying, I'm just saying that the point usually gets lost if you take such extremes. The management has done some good stuff and some bad stuff, denying the good stuff will make your argument weaker.

Can you please list the good dealing being made and then compare it to the bad dealings? As Sir Alex used to say, the league table doesn't lie. We deserve to be were we are

 

[Hughes35]

I just made a solar farm investment that returned 80% in 18 months. I have a real estate deal I am looking at that will deliver 300% over 5 years. These types of deals are for accredited investors only and don’t get circulated to the general public. The Glazers are approached every day with deals like this. My point is that if you want to maximize investment return, a football club is not your best choice. Plenty of other deals that will deliver far superior returns.

In fact, if the Glazers had taken the £800m they used to buy United in 2005, stuck it in an S&P index fund instead, they would have beat the return of the club which grew 7% in value yearly vs. 8.7% of the S&P index fund.

An asset’s worth is only realized at the sale of the asset. Manchester United’s market cap is USD 2.95b. They bought the club in a highly leveraged deal and floated Class A shares on NYSE and retained Class B (voting) shares. They didn’t profit £1.6b because the of the interest on loans and bonds the Glazers had pay. Also, they haven’t sold all of their shares yet, so it’s a paper asset, not a liquid asset.

I don’t believe a multi billionaire will invest the time and money and lawyer’s fees, due diligence costs, plus the headache of managing a huge club, to basically underperform the market. They did it because they wanted to have the biggest dick in the room, the glamour of owning one of the world’s biggest football clubs. Most people with that kind of wealth just hire a couple of ex Goldman Sachs VPs to run their entire family fund and typically make 20-30% returns...

They spent loads of cash on transfers, there is a 10 year historical record of this, 2nd most in the PL. I just don’t see how people like you just decide to ignore the facts. It’s like you can’t read or do simple math.

I’m not even trying to defend the Glazers. They’ve not done well managing the club since SAF left, in my opinion. I’m just stating simple facts.

Please, tell me more about these investments that haven't happened.

 

[NoLogo]

We spent more than Liverpool consistently over 2/5/10 years. No matter how you look at it. Our managers just fecked it.

No doubt about it. Liverpools owners and Klopp have done a great job at rebuilding the team at much less than City did. We on the other hand have pissed money away because we are spending it without a plan, re-spending it again with a new manager in place and all because we have completely clueless owner and a CEO without any philosophy or direction in which to take the club.

 

[He'sRaldo]

Can you please list the good dealing being made and then compare it to the bad dealings? As Sir Alex used to say, the league table doesn't lie. We deserve to be were we are

Alright, though this is all off the top of my head.

Pros:

We've attracted quite a few top-level players that our rivals haven't been able to manage. Mata, Sanchez, Pogba, Lukaku, Mkhitaryan, Ibra, Fred etc. were all quite highly regarded when we got them. In addition, we flexed our financial muscle by outbidding other teams to get our assets.

In addition to this, we've gone out to get two of the most highly regarded managers in the world, paying them the most salaries out of any manager, backing them with very large sums of money and allowing them to clear out the squad as they like.

And that's all just on the surface. We have also tried to revamp both the youth and scouting network, the latter of which we're still yet to see substantial results, as Jose by all reports rejected them and used his own scouts.

The theme so far has been spending a lot of money.



Cons:

On the other hand, outbidding our rivals is a double-edged sword, which is evident by our relative inability to move on players who have failed due to the high wages we pay. Backing our managers so blindly has also proven to be very costly as, in addition to contract termination fees, we are left with the old players the manager purchased who may not necessarily be the right fit for the club, as well as losing good players who the manager might not have rated for one reason or the other.

Also, if reports from LVG are to be believed, we don't actually have an ethos we subscribe to when looking for and interviewing managers or players, which obviously has contributed to the seeming lack of long term planning; according to him, the focus on the commercial side of the club hampers the footballing side. Of course, this should be taken with a grain of salt as he definitely would have words to say about us and Woodward in particular, given the nature of his dismissal.

Finally, we seem to go for the wrong profiles of players and managers at times, going for those whose career is on a downward trajectory and with very little to prove. In my opinion, this has been our biggest mistake and has cost us time, money, and trust of the fan base. Hopefully this is changing in recent times, with the appointment of Solksjaer and Carrick, the promotion of Mckenna, and the additions of James and AWB showing the right profiles of people to go for.


And that's all off the top of my head, I'm sure I can think of more on either side but as you can see, they definitely can be measured against each other. For sure not all we've done is good, but not all is bad either. I think with a bit more experience and competence we'll stop making the same mistakes and we'll start seeing more pros than cons.

 

[AgentP]

That's the thing...its not easy at all. That is why clubs usually hire people who know what their doing. That would, for example, avoid giving a 5 year contract to a player whose already been a burden for half a decade.

Giving Rojo a new 4-year contract was one of the worst decisions I've seen this club make. We reward mediocre players with new contracts just to "keep their value". City let go of so many players on a free and rebuilt the whole team in 2 windows while we are rebuilding for 7 years now and still nowhere close to being done.

 

[Striker10]

So Frustrating. That people can't get what people are saying. United are behind because they stopped looking to improve in Sir Alexs time - with talk of value. We're over spending, over paying to compensate when we had stopped because of other clubs. THIS is what people are saying. Get it? We maybe spending more...but it's after years of NOT SPENDING....years of NOT buying in areas we clearly needed and we're still short and THAT is why people are moaning.

We are playing catch up. Understand now? What is so complicated? If you cannot compete in the market? You're in the wrong game. When we sold Ronaldo, and announced it before buying anyone and showing little ambition? That was the start of the rot. Because that spells no ambition and it's all about making money for suits. The club have celebrated rewarding crap and people have said how loyal this player is! Many players over the last 10 or so years, have been VERY fortunate that the club became lazy. We went YEARS without fixing midfield.

We can still have a pretty good window, so let's wait and see. T

 

[Wumminator]

So Frustrating. That people can't get what people are saying. United are behind because they stopped looking to improve in Sir Alexs time - with talk of value. We're over spending, over paying to compensate when we had stopped because of other clubs. THIS is what people are saying. Get it? We maybe spending more...but it's after years of NOT SPENDING....years of NOT buying in areas we clearly needed and we're still short and THAT is why people are moaning.

No I get what you’re saying, but it’s just a load of nonsense.

After Ferguson retired it has been six years. You can completely change a football team in that time.

 

[Lebowski]

Let me clarify the anti-semitism comment. I said there was a narrative out there that could be considered anti-Semitic. In no way was I saying that if you criticize the Glazers you were anti-Semitic. If anyone read it that way, I’m sorry, not my intention.

Fair play for apologising. In a similar sentiment, I apologise if I came across as overly dismissive. There may well be a tiny sub-section of anti-Semitic United fans who's fundamental problem with the Glazers ownership is because they are Jewish, but I've never come across any. I've been a season ticket holder for the best part of 20 years and have been going to FC and United games since my mid-teens and even in the terraces and pubs it's not a sentiment I've ever heard uttered. A lot of United fans have a problem with 'their' club being owned by any individual or group. Some couldn't make their peace with the takeover and formed FC, some made their peace with it and are now largely resigned to the status quo or voicing their dissatisfaction about specific aspects of the current ownership model. Despite an animosity-filled, unwanted and bitterly opposed hostile takeover, I think you would be hard pressed to find any examples of anti-semitism aside from perhaps some online backwaters.

There are a lot of investment opportunities that offer well over 30% return annually. If the Glazers bought Man United just to make money, it would be a poor investment in comparison. My point is that their motivations are not as simplistic as most in the Caf make them out to be. I doubt they bought United to just make money, and oh yeah, they hate football, just doing this so they can make a mediocre return.

Come on. 30% AER is incredibly rare for any investment these days. The sorts of investments you are presumably talking about (real estate, equity partnerships) mostly require specialist knowledge, connections, and crucially, a lot of cash. The Glazers bought Man Utd without spending a penny of their own cash using loans that they then saddled the club with. I agree with you that status / ego may have played a part in their decision, but I would disagree wholeheartedly that it was a sub-par investment for them.

I think their thought process presumably went something like this...

"Soccerball is a sport that's hugely popular in the rest of the world and our minority shareholding in United has been generating us a nice little return. There's an opportunity to buy the shares of exiting shareholders and own the club outright? Well soccerball is fast becoming the global game and is penetrating worldwide markets. There is clearly the opportunity for a lot of growth. We have a good track record in sports investment as we own the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at a time when NFL franchises are becoming money-printing machines. United are the most profitable club in the world, and they will be at the front of the queue to capitalise. There's already a manager in charge who essentially runs every aspect of the club, so we don't need to impose sweeping management changes. Let's focus on cashing in on the past success of the 'brand', exploit emerging markets, take healthy dividends and ride the wave of the explosion of money in football so that when we decide to sell, we will do so at three of four times the initial value."

Bear in mind that when they bought United, we were an anomaly in world football at that time in that we were a football club that actually earned a lot of money and generated profit.

Similarly, they didn't have to front up hundreds of millions of their own cash as they bought us on debt. Plus, the structure was already in place to enable the club to capitalise on the growth of the sport with minimal effort from them - they have been very hands-off owners.

Imagine a property investment where you buy the property at 100% LTV, the property generates sufficient revenue just by existing to pay your mortgage, your salary and allow you to release equity each year. Then when you get bored/have milked it for all it's worth, you can sell it at several times the initial value. That's essentially what the Glazers viewed United as.

I’m saying they aren’t as rich as many of the owners. When you spend £417m on transfers and your net worth is £5b, that’s almost 9% of your net worth. By comparison, the owners of City spent less than 2% of their net worth in transfer funds.

I still have no idea why you're bringing in their personal net worth into this argument as it defeats your own point. The Glazers haven't spent any of their personal net worth on transfers, they have allowed the club they own to spend money it generates from fans. Even if you want to argue that any money generated by United is de facto theirs because they own the club, that flies in the face of business law and the idea of limited liability. I think a lot of United fans would be far more comfortable with their ownership if they WERE multi-billionaires as they would not have had to buy the club on debt and gross profit made by United could be reinvested instead of being taken out of the company. You won't find many United fans who are calling for a sugar daddy to chuck their own money at transfers, most are calling for United being released from the shackles of debt and allowed to spend on transfers, the stadium and facilities commensurate to their turnover and gross profit.

It has nothing to do with being “benevolent”. It’s a business. Football is a business. For the players, for the agents, the clubs. I mean, I thought everyone understood that, but I guess there are still some people who are just too naive.

I don't think anybody with a passive interest in football is unaware of how corporatised and business-driven it has become. However, there are still far more successful models than ours in football today involving fan ownership. Similarly, there are clubs run for the profit of their owners that are still able to be far more successful at the football side of the equation than we are.

Aside from maximising our commercial revenue by whoring our name around the world (which admittedly is now a model a lot of other clubs like Liverpool are trying to replicate), I don't think the Glazers have demonstrated too much business acumen during their ownership. They have:

- Failed to invest in the squad at a time when the transfer market was relatively tame, causing us to waste millions for equivalent quality players in a hyper-inflated market.
- Been forced to pay way over the odds on transfer, wages and agents fees to persuade players to join because of our position of comparative weakness when they decided to invest in the squad
- Let the contracts of key players run down to their last year according to some sources because of their hard-nosed 'no negotiation until the final year' (presumably to save on short-term wage costs), causing them to either have to break the bank to keep a player (De Gea, Martial), or lose them for nothing (Herrera)
- Extended the contracts of very average players who are clearly not good enough (presumably because of not wanting to invest in replacement squad players) creating a bloated squad and a massive wage bill totally unconnected to the quality of our squad
- Allowed the most crucial operational position in the club to go to a mate who helped them buy the club in the first place despite multiple years of his stewardship resulting in appalling results and several personal embarrassments for the club
- Not invested a penny into Old Trafford (excluding continuing the expansion that was already going on when they bought the club), seeing the once greatest stadium in the country fall woefully behind the stadiums of our rivals, thus losing out on the long-term profit that a heaving maximum capacity stadium would bring
- Have overseen a culture of commercialisation and sponsorships which appears to be affecting the attitudes of the players and managers, who have all talked about how making money is the primary focus above any on field success
- Loaded the club with debt for the first time in almost 100 years. Debt which, at one point, was so expensive that if it wasn't for the explosion of the profitability of the sport, TV deals and a refinance through IPO may have (by some professional's analysis) destroyed the club
- Failed to plan at all for the succession of Ferguson
- Failed to allow / insist that Ferguson replaced ageing stars in his final years, resulting in a virtually impossible job for anybody coming in (especially due to the hyper-inflated transfer market)
- Have presided over a period involving a large loss of club credibility among fans, rival fans, agents, players and rival clubs. The perception of a savvy, well-run club who others aspire to be has been replaced with the image of transfer dithering, paying over the odds, offering mega-wages and being the lifetime home for Phil Jones and Chris Smalling under their watch

You can argue the degree to which each point is directly caused by an action / inaction of the Glazer family, but as the owners and the ones with the power and authority to initiate change, they take the responsibility. Same with any other company.

 

[devilish]

Alright, though this is all off the top of my head.

Pros:

We've attracted quite a few top-level players that our rivals haven't been able to manage. Mata, Sanchez, Pogba, Lukaku, Mkhitaryan, Ibra, Fred etc. were all quite highly regarded when we got them. In addition, we flexed our financial muscle by outbidding other teams to get our assets.

In addition to this, we've gone out to get two of the most highly regarded managers in the world, paying them the most salaries out of any manager, backing them with very large sums of money and allowing them to clear out the squad as they like.

And that's all just on the surface. We have also tried to revamp both the youth and scouting network, the latter of which we're still yet to see substantial results, as Jose by all reports rejected them and used his own scouts.

The theme so far has been spending a lot of money.

We attracted most of those players because we naively overspent, forcing more reasonable clubs to back off. It came back biting our arses. We also went for two managers who were on the wane. Combined LVG and Mou got sacked by Bayern (twice), Barcelona (twice), Chelsea and Real. Mou was also able to do the hat-trick ie he lost the dressing room 3 times at a row and his reputation is so crap that the club who regarded him as a legend preferred moving for their arch enemy then opting for him. It would be similar to United going for Rafa Benitez despite Sir Alex being available. Highly regarding managers indeed


The only pros about all this is that little by little the fans are coming to their senses. The Glazers are lousy sports owners which is clearly evident the way they manage both Manchester United and Tampa Bay. That's good as a fan backlash may lead to the Glazers selling the club up.

 

[André Dominguez]

Why make a reliable plan when you can just splash the cash on the market and solve it immediately? What could go wrong, right?

 

[Eric's Seagull]

"Soccerball is a sport that's hugely popular in the rest of the world and our minority shareholding in United has been generating us a nice little return. There's an opportunity to buy the shares of exiting shareholders and own the club outright? Well soccerball is fast becoming the global game and is penetrating worldwide markets. There is clearly the opportunity for a lot of growth. We have a good track record in sports investment as we own the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at a time when NFL franchises are becoming money-printing machines. United are the most profitable club in the world, and they will be at the front of the queue to capitalise. There's already a manager in charge who essentially runs every aspect of the club, so we don't need to impose sweeping management changes. Let's focus on cashing in on the past success of the 'brand', exploit emerging markets, take healthy dividends and ride the wave of the explosion of money in football so that when we decide to sell, we will do so at three of four times the initial value."

Never heard this before, thanks for sharing. Showed their intention from the start. This makes me dislike the Glazer's even more

 

[Eric's Seagull]

Why make a reliable plan when you can just splash the cash on the market and solve it immediately? What could go wrong, right?

Why not make a reliable plan of how to splash the cash wisely?

 

[André Dominguez]

Why not make a reliable plan of how to splash the cash wisely?

That's the main problem of trying to solve the problems in a single transfer window: you'll end up splashing cash in "the best of the rest" choices. We should had made a gradual investment during the years, but our lack of DoF allowed this to happen.

 

[Eric's Seagull]

That's the main problem of trying to solve the problems in a single transfer window: you'll end up splashing cash in "the best of the rest" choices. We should had made a gradual investment during the years, but our lack of DoF allowed this to happen.

I agree with all your post. I know this a rebuild and going to take more than than one summer and I would hate for your point in bold to come true through us being panicky due to us not doing well this window so far.

I agree on the DoF situation and think this should have been sorted a long time ago. But I don't want us falling further behind the other top clubs, due to Woody not investing wisely.

I've said a few times that I think this transfer widow is going to be one of the most important for a long time and thought at the beginning of it we were going to spend quite a bit of money wisely to start the rebuild properly. Clearly this hasn't happened yet but we have a few more days and I hope Woody does something special.

 

[Lentwood]

I'm so tired of having to explain the concept of transfer inflation over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again on this forum.....

Let me simplify it for the many who still don't understand -

John goes into property investment in 2005. He buys one property a year at a cost of £150,000. For an outlay of £1.5m, John buys 10 houses.

In 2015, the price of a house trebles. The same £150,000 house now costs £450,000. This means for an outlay of £1.5m, John now has a portfolio worth £4.5m

Steve sees John's success and decides he too will go into property investment. However, Steve begins investing in 2015, just after the market booms. Steve buys one house a year for the next five years at a cost of £2,250,000. Steve's five properties, all other things being equal, cost £2,250,000 and are worth £2,250,000

See how timing is everything? On paper, Steve has spent more money. Has he been ripped off? No. He has paid the current market value.

John has spent £750,000 less than Steve but has five more houses and they are worth twice as much collectively. John invested at the right time and in a steadily consistent, strategic manner

Steve is a bit of a 'jonny come lately', he saw John's success and thought it would be easy to make a quick buck....who knows....property values may double again in five years and Steve MAY make some money.....but John still got more bang for his buck by investing BEFORE the boom

And for what it's worth....the year I picked isn't random....2015 is the year the new TV deal trebled in size and made every English PL team filthy rich, causing.............TRANSFER INFLATION

Simple concept....most still don't understand it....