The greatest United value for money signings ever

Nogbadthebad

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Has to be King Eric.

His influence on and off the pitch transformed the club into what it is today.

All for a million quid from our direct rival for the title.
 

sammsky1

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Rifer said:
:nervous: I'm a bit confuse. Isn't bargain a low price but high value..

If we only consider the highest prices at the time of purchase (since the market prices changes overtime)..

For me, maybe Wayne Rooney. 10+ seasons, key player most of it, break our goalscoring record and actually brought in more titles and trophies. Sure the ending isn't full of fondness, but why only look at the end.
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I personally don’t think any ‘record fee’ signing can be considered as ‘value for money’. IF they succeeded, they simply did what was expected of them given the fee.

So that rules out the likes of Robson, Keane, Pallister, Cole, Ferdinand and Rooney, and even Ronaldo who was a record signing for such an age.

It’s the likes of Bruce, Irwin, Schiemical, Solskjar, Vidic, Park, Evra, VDS that should be marvelled at.

Of course the greatest of them all was King Cantona. Even at the time, £1.2m was less than peanuts!
 
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Sandikan

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These threads will always be massively heavily biased to the days transfer fees were a million times lower.

As even if say Wan Bissaka has 2-3 incredible seasons, it'll still be hard to say 50m was top of the value for money stakes, when Fergie probably had 20 players who were superb in the 2-10m category, even if that was 25 years ago!
 

ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg

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sammsky1 said:
I personally don’t think any ‘record fee’ signing can be considered as ‘value for money’. IF they succeeded, they simply did what was expected of them given the fee.

So that rules out the likes of Robson, Keane, Pallister, Cole, Ferdinand and Rooney, and even Ronaldo who was a record signing for such an age.

It’s the likes of Bruce, Irwin, Schiemical, Solskjar, Stan, vidic, Park, Evra that should be marvelled at.

Of course the greatest of them all was King Cantona. Even at the time, £1.2m was less than peanuts!
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So you are making up random records to support an argument. Don’t dismiss transfers because they were records at the time.

Look at Ronaldo at Real - was he value for money at £80m? Unbelievably so. He was a great player when he left United, but he absolutely exceeded expectations at Real - and at 33, they were able to sell him for a profit - astonishing value.
 

PeteManic

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Cantona is the best value in terms of being the most important signing in the modern history of United.
 

Dread Devil

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ChaddyP said:
Surely Cantona was probably the best business saf has ever done.
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Easily imo....he was such a catalyst for the team. He inspired the younger players, had that nasty streak and absolute genius which roused the crowd and players. Easily my favourite United player I have seen live and all for 1m.

He is the epitome of “we are united we do what we want”
 

sammsky1

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Summit

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Cantona. It isn't even close.
 

NFM

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Moriarty said:
Alex Stepney, £55,000 from Chelsea.
Martin Buchan, a (then) club record for £120,000 from Aberdeen.
Robbo, for a British record of £1.5 million from WBA.

Robbo's fee was considered astronomical at the time but he was worth every penny. His replacement, Roy Keane, only cost £3.5 million 12 years later.
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Denis Law
 

Dread Devil

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ValenciaRocks said:
Sanchez on a free. Shrewd bit of business
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If it didn’t hurt so much, I would laugh......but I have to agree, easily the worst and most disappointing transfer we have made. It was such a huge mistake, not only on the field but in the dressing room. The knock on effects were massive, from wage increases to replacing Martial who was on fire at the time. Maybe we should make a thread...worst value for money transfer ever...thank you Jose
 
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vidic blood & sand

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All these people insisting it's Cantona, what you have to remember is that he was with us for about four seasons and inspired us to two premier league wins. Probably cost us the double in 95 though. He is a legend bought for £1.2M, which was still a fair amount back in 1992. I would say that even Roy Keane was better value for money than Cantona. Bought for £3.75M and was an inspiration for about 11 seasons.
 

Crashoutcassius

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baines and coleman were like lesss than 500k combined from my memory and were the best wing back duo in the league for a few seasons, and this was in the modern day although pre inflation
 

George The Best

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Some of the best were obviously those we developed for free. Class of 92, George Best etc. In terms of transfers didn’t we pick-up Denis Law on a free.
 

Eckers99

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Cantona, Irwin, Schmeichel, Kanchelskis, Ole, Sheringham, Johnsen, Evra, Vidic, Van der Sar, Park, Zlatan... we've had a few.
 

Al-T

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Eric Cantona. Like winning the lottery in a rollover fortnight. The man SAF needed to lead us from the long, weary shadows of Dipper dominance to a glorious future.

The King.
 

matt10000

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vidic blood & sand said:
All these people insisting it's Cantona, what you have to remember is that he was with us for about four seasons and inspired us to two premier league wins. Probably cost us the double in 95 though. He is a legend bought for £1.2M, which was still a fair amount back in 1992. I would say that even Roy Keane was better value for money than Cantona. Bought for £3.75M and was an inspiration for about 11 seasons.
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Cantona came and we won first league title under SAF and first for over two decades. Stayed for five seasons and we won four titles, the only season we didnt win was when Cantona was banned which proves what an influence he was. Scored inly goal in 1996 FA Cup Final against lpool to win double with a fantastic volley.

Football is a team game and Eric didnt do all of this on his own but his signing made the difference at this crucial period in our history. The only season we didn’t win title when he was with us was when he was banned. If he had not been signed we could have fallen short in the league during the other seasons and SAF could have been another utd nearly manager, confined to the history books, while we could have been chasing first title for over 40 years and Liverpool supreme undisputed most successful English team.

It was the timing and the impact as well as the super coolness, unpredictability, and individuality! You couldnt wait for the next game just to see what he would do!

simplement le meilleur
 

westmeath

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vidic blood & sand said:
All these people insisting it's Cantona, what you have to remember is that he was with us for about four seasons and inspired us to two premier league wins. Probably cost us the double in 95 though. He is a legend bought for £1.2M, which was still a fair amount back in 1992. I would say that even Roy Keane was better value for money than Cantona. Bought for £3.75M and was an inspiration for about 11 seasons.
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The first title for 26 years in 1993 was worth so much and without that breakthrough, who knows what would have happened.
 

Lam

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I think Cantona has to be above all. Ronaldo also close.

To rephrase the question - which player would still be worth had we paid 10x of the actual transfer price?

For me Cantona, Schmeichel and ronaldo.
 

GoldanoGraham

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When you talk about impact signing at the club I’d say that Dwight Yorke was a brilliant signing - think it was something like £12m but he ended up being a real catalyst - he formed our greatest strike partnership with Cole (who cost £6m + Gillespie)

When you add in Teddy Sherringham (£3.5m) and Ole (£1.5m) we had the greatest front 4 we’ve ever had - all for £23m!

I still like to watch the CL SF 2nd leg away at Juve in ‘99 - Yorke & Cole were immense that night!

What a squad we had back then.....
 

GoldanoGraham

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GoldanoGraham said:
When you talk about impact signing at the club I’d say that Dwight Yorke was a brilliant signing - think it was something like £12m but he ended up being a real catalyst - he formed our greatest strike partnership with Cole (who cost £6m + Gillespie)

When you add in Teddy Sherringham (£3.5m) and Ole (£1.5m) we had the greatest front 4 we’ve ever had - all for £23m!

I still like to watch the CL SF 2nd leg away at Juve in ‘99 - Yorke & Cole were immense that night!

What a squad we had back then.....
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I’d also like to shout out Ronny Johnson - think he was only something like £1.5m - he was very underrated - he was so calm and assured at the back with Stam - another great bit of scouting from back in the day when we purchased the right type and fit and NOT the name
 

Castia

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Ronaldo

A player who became world class and helped us win titles and a CL then went for an obscene amount of money (for the time).

Cantona is also a great shout but Ronaldo reached best on the planet status whilst winning trophies for us, the 08 season was just incredible.
 
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