‘No value in the market’ - 2026

I don’t think anyone has argued that the wage bill itself is the reason we have financial difficulties, but the wage bill is certainly linked to the original reason and it’s still having a detrimental effect on how we can operate. annual amortisation from previous transfers is also causing problems. Why couldn’t we get rid of Sancho, because of the transfer fee or because of his wages? Why have we been unable to get rid of Rashford, despite working on it for the better part of 1,5 year. Why can we only secure loan deals for Onana rather than a permanent move. We’ve spent the third most of all football clubs on transfer fees in the past 10 years, some of the highest wages in the world, pretty much nothing to show for it. Net transfer balance puts us at number 1, indicating how badly we struggle to get rid of players compared to other big clubs.

It’s obvious we have to spend money in order to be successfull, but it’s also fairly obvious that our ability to spend money is badly effected by previous incompetence in terms of transfer fees and wages, how little value we’ve been able to get from the money we’ve spent, and that there was a dire need to change. It’s not like we aren’t investing heavily to improve the squad, last summer we invested close to €250mill in bringing players in, so far this summer we’ve spent almost €100mill. We’re hardly talking low quality players. They’re trying to avoid repeating the mistakes that left the club with one of the world’s highest wage bills, enormous amortisation costs and very little flexibility in the transfer market. We can’t operate the club in a manner where we financially depend on qualifying for the CL.
Why are you using Euros to make it look like we’ve spent more?

I just think we fundamentally disagree here.
 
There is a pattern where we spend big when we are chasing CL qualification but the Glazers pull in the financial reigns when we’ve qualified.

There isn’t, really.

First window under Moyes was a disaster, but for other reasons than not wanting to spend money. We spent a lot in Van Gaals two seasons, despite us finishing 4th in his first season. We spent a lot in Mourinhos second season, despite qualifying for the CL via EL, we didn’t spend big in his third summer but there are other plausible reasons for that, like his insistence on bringing in Maguire, who was valued at over £100mill, despite Maguire being available for feck all while we spent big on Lindeløf and Bailly (both requested by Mourinho, and both being mediocre for us). We held talks with Leicester about Maguire, but no go. We had also spent heavily on Lukaku, Pogba, Mkhi, Sanchez, players who Mourinho turned on, so perhaps not the biggest surprise that the club wasn’t overly keen on making big money signings at the time.

Wasn’t really a pattern under Ole either, when we finished 3rd our lack of spending big wasn’t down to not trying, if Dortmund had been willing to sell Sancho it would’ve been much higher
 
I'm fairly relaxed about not getting big signings this year. We need numbers. Probably 6 senior players. So far we've spent 50, 35 and 0 on our first 3. Each seem like logical improvements. 3 more at similar values and I think we're well setup to achieve our goals of top 4/5 and a better showing in the cups.

We could probably spend more but not on a sustainable basis over the next couple of years. So if we can stay near the top on a couple of relatively cheaper seasons then our financial situation will have a chance to recover a little. It's a bit of a risk, but sensible imo.
 
I'm fairly relaxed about not getting big signings this year. We need numbers. Probably 6 senior players. So far we've spent 50, 35 and 0 on our first 3. Each seem like logical improvements. 3 more at similar values and I think we're well setup to achieve our goals of top 4/5 and a better showing in the cups.

We could probably spend more but not on a sustainable basis over the next couple of years. So if we can stay near the top on a couple of relatively cheaper seasons then our financial situation will have a chance to recover a little. It's a bit of a risk, but sensible imo.

I doubt we’ll bring in 3 more. Ideally we bring in a forward that we can rotate a bit and we need one more central midfielder, but with Rashford not going anywhere, Zirkzee not having many options and.Ugartes injury, i think it’ll be a struggle.
 
I doubt we’ll bring in 3 more. Ideally we bring in a forward that we can rotate a bit and we need one more central midfielder, but with Rashford not going anywhere, Zirkzee not having many options and.Ugartes injury, i think it’ll be a struggle.
I'm unfortunately tending to agree with you. I hope we're going to sign a third midfielder but there's a part of me that feels Rashford's return is going to scupper our plans to sign both a left back and a back up striker as him returning almost certainly means Dorgu will then have to get most of his minutes at LB and Rashford then becomes the back up option at both LW and striker. I don't like it, and I don't think it's what the club wants, but I can see it happening and if it does some people are going to lose their minds.
 
Is it really that much of a stretch of your powers of empathy that you cannot appreciate an alternate point of view, one that appreciates the sense in a more considered, careful and principled approach to transfers (after years of recklessness), without resorting to conspiratorial thinking? I mean really - Glazer apologists - what are you, 12?

Just from a theoretical point of view, can you not see the sense in forming a valuation of a player, and staying within a sensible range of that valuation, and thus being prepared to walk away if the asking price exceeds it? Isn’t that sensible? Or do you just thinking we should just always pay the price, regardless of how high it goes?
The comical bit is that some seem to thing it’s a new approach. All teams do the work to analyse and value players and to be fair have done it better than us for sometime. We’re just the only one that seems to be miles out on valuations. We’ve literally got an unsuccessful management team (look at the other two teams they run) thinking they’ve reinvented the wheel and everyone else is getting it wrong.
Added to that the data identified a completely different set of players to the ones we’ve bought but massively underestimated cost. Sure you can turn not spending into fiscal responsibility in a business environment but big Jim says there is a direct correlation between spending and success in football. Full on Jedi mind trick
 
Is it really that much of a stretch of your powers of empathy that you cannot appreciate an alternate point of view, one that appreciates the sense in a more considered, careful and principled approach to transfers (after years of recklessness), without resorting to conspiratorial thinking? I mean really - Glazer apologists - what are you, 12?

Just from a theoretical point of view, can you not see the sense in forming a valuation of a player, and staying within a sensible range of that valuation, and thus being prepared to walk away if the asking price exceeds it? Isn’t that sensible? Or do you just thinking we should just always pay the price, regardless of how high it goes?
You should always have a valuation of a player and stay within a range of that. The issue becomes when your valuations start being consistently short of what the players you want to sign go for. At that point you either reliase you're values are too cheap in the current market for players and you increase them or you start shopping at a tier below that where you can sign players within that range, which is what we will do
 
I find it funny that people think we will make 3 more signings, and it will be the likes of Tchouameni and Hall.

Kone/Berg + backup striker, and I think that's that for this window.

There's some that think we will either get a marquee midfield signing or Hall, but not both. I'm almost 90% sure that we will get neither. But there's no reason why we cant afford a top class midfielder AND Hall.

Its just that they are just not looking to spend money because we already qualified for CL. Its a pattern, and I think its a shame we gave Amorim a much higher budget than Carrick.
 
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The comical bit is that some seem to thing it’s a new approach. All teams do the work to analyse and value players and to be fair have done it better than us for sometime. We’re just the only one that seems to be miles out on valuations. We’ve literally got an unsuccessful management team (look at the other two teams they run) thinking they’ve reinvented the wheel and everyone else is getting it wrong.
Added to that the data identified a completely different set of players to the ones we’ve bought but massively underestimated cost. Sure you can turn not spending into fiscal responsibility in a business environment but big Jim says there is a direct correlation between spending and success in football. Full on Jedi mind trick
We've spent half a billion under INEOS.....
 
I find it funny that people think we will make 3 more signings, and it will be the likes of Tchouameni and Hall.

There's some that think we will either get a marquee midfield signing or Hall, but not both. I'm almost 90% sure that we will get neither.

Kone/Berg + backup striker, and I think that's that for this window.
As stated above I think Rashford's return has scuppered both our back up striker and left back signings.
 
Why are you using Euros to make it look like we’ve spent more?

I just think we fundamentally disagree here.
In GBP we've spent over half a billion on transfers in the 25 months or so since INEOS took over the running of footballing operations. Disagree with facts all you like.
 
In GBP we've spent over half a billion on transfers in the 25 months or so since INEOS took over the running of footballing operations. Disagree with facts all you like.
Cool story. Here we are closer to the start of the season and the ‘calm down the season doesn’t start for five weeks’ shouts are looking more and more stupid. To date we’ve signed a 35 year old back up keeper and two midfielders to replace the two we’ve lost on free transfers and injury. Facts.
 
I'm pretty convinced Santos is going to remain most expensive signing of the season. I would really want Hall (can't see him leaving though, Newcastle will hold on to him desperately) as this solves biggest issue I see in the squad, but also we NEED another midfielder. Definitely see getting one on the budget side of things.

Surely a striker is off the cards now.
 
I find it funny that people think we will make 3 more signings, and it will be the likes of Tchouameni and Hall.

Kone/Berg + backup striker, and I think that's that for this window.

There's some that think we will either get a marquee midfield signing or Hall, but not both. I'm almost 90% sure that we will get neither. But there's no reason why we cant afford a top class midfielder AND Hall.

Its just that they are just not looking to spend money because we already qualified for CL. Its a pattern, and I think its a shame we gave Amorim a much higher budget than Carrick.

I would actually be pretty pleasantly surprised if we even got Kone and a backup.

I'm starting to suspect that the money people will want to avoid buying a third midfielder because they can say we have Mount now. I think we might get a budget LB or striker and that's all.
 
I'm pretty convinced Santos is going to remain most expensive signing of the season. I would really want Hall (can't see him leaving though, Newcastle will hold on to him desperately) as this solves biggest issue I see in the squad, but also we NEED another midfielder. Definitely see getting one on the budget side of things.

Surely a striker is off the cards now.
I would've loved Hall but as I said in his thread, if we wanted him the time to get him was the start of summer, before Newcastle sold anyone. Now they have 250m and have sold 3 of their best players, they will price Hall out of any move
 
As stated above I think Rashford's return has scuppered both our back up striker and left back signings.
The most Rashford was ever going to go for was £40m due to his clause. If Barcelona took up their option it would've only been around £26m. If that scuppers our whole transfer window, I'd suggest the general plan wasn't a very good one in the first place. Them not taking up that option was always a possibility and should have been accounted for.

We've spent somewhere between £30-45m net this summer. It's a joke if it remains like that. I hope it won't and we'll get at least two more quality players in at left-back and in midfield, but so far, even considering Santos and Tielemans are good signings, underwhelming is too nice of a word to use for the club's business this summer. It reeks of Glazernomics and shouldn't be excused, if nothing significant happens over the next few weeks.
 
I would've loved Hall but as I said in his thread, if we wanted him the time to get him was the start of summer, before Newcastle sold anyone. Now they have 250m and have sold 3 of their best players, they will price Hall out of any move
Definitely.

It's funny how you plan to do things and then reality (Ugarte, Tottenham flashing the wallet, Rashford, Newcastle collapse etc) happen and the whole plan gets scrapped. All things considered we had too much to do this window, it's unlikely to be a good one but not sure if the club is to be blamed for that.
 
Definitely.

It's funny how you plan to do things and then reality (Ugarte, Tottenham flashing the wallet, Rashford, Newcastle collapse etc) happen and the whole plan gets scrapped. All things considered we had too much to do this window, it's unlikely to be a good one but not sure if the club is to be blamed for that.
Yeah, you need to try and be fast and decisive in the market but there's always things that won't go to plan.
 
Definitely.

It's funny how you plan to do things and then reality (Ugarte, Tottenham flashing the wallet, Rashford, Newcastle collapse etc) happen and the whole plan gets scrapped. All things considered we had too much to do this window, it's unlikely to be a good one but not sure if the club is to be blamed for that.
I thought Berrada was touting his flexibility at the start of the summer? How you had to be quick to react to an ever fluctuating market and so on. Not flexible enough I suppose then, or what? Or was that interview in general just hogwash and PR blabber?
 
I thought Berrada was touting his flexibility at the start of the summer? How you had to be quick to react to an ever fluctuating market and so on. Not flexible enough I suppose then, or what? Or was that interview in general just hogwash and PR blabber?
What we say is just PR spin now, people still lap it up though
 
I thought Berrada was touting his flexibility at the start of the summer? How you had to be quick to react to an ever fluctuating market and so on. Not flexible enough I suppose then, or what? Or was that interview in general just hogwash and PR blabber?
Flexible in what sense? This has been discussed a million times but it was wise to buy 2 midfielders in price of Fernandes, and we did act quickly. Maybe we could've acted quicker on Hall but maybe they wanted 80m and again most fans would've said this is too much.

I still belive we're not done but just pointing out the situation this summer has been brutal for us.
 
Definitely.

It's funny how you plan to do things and then reality (Ugarte, Tottenham flashing the wallet, Rashford, Newcastle collapse etc) happen and the whole plan gets scrapped. All things considered we had too much to do this window, it's unlikely to be a good one but not sure if the club is to be blamed for that.

Someone will be held accountable if the season is a failure. The squad looked thin last year with much fewer games and there's no real improvement.

Not overpaying for targets is fine, but to stay in the top 4 with CL football we need 2 or 3 more players through the door and they need to be good enough. Continued CL qualification is a minimum if the club really wants to be challenging for titles in the next 5 years.

This was a chance for a big summer of recruitment to try and cement the top 4 spot. So far, that looks unlikely.
 
Less than a month now and a pathetic window so far. Worrisome.
 
Flexible in what sense? This has been discussed a million times but it was wise to buy 2 midfielders in price of Fernandes, and we did act quickly. Maybe we could've acted quicker on Hall but maybe they wanted 80m and again most fans would've said this is too much.

I still belive we're not done but just pointing out the situation this summer has been brutal for us.
Ask the CEO. He gave the interview, not me.

And who cares about M.Fernandes at this point? Pulling out of that deal was never the issue. The people in charge not doing enough and blaming it on unfortunate external circumstances will though. If that's what we resort to at the end of this window.

So yes, let's hope they're not done yet.
 
As stated above I think Rashford's return has scuppered both our back up striker and left back signings.
Definitely the striker and talk of a LW but I think that was never on the agenda anyway.
I think we get Baleba late in the window and possibly a LB but not for big money as we already have options in that position.
 
I'm pretty convinced Santos is going to remain most expensive signing of the season. I would really want Hall (can't see him leaving though, Newcastle will hold on to him desperately) as this solves biggest issue I see in the squad, but also we NEED another midfielder. Definitely see getting one on the budget side of things.

Surely a striker is off the cards now.

I think we might sign one player over that amount but not by much, maybe our biggest fee will be 60m give or take.

Still expect a CM and LB to be signed but who knows, I’d say we are working out which one of we commit the majority of funds to, depending on who is available.

The prospect of not being able to sell any of Onana, Rashford, Ugarte and Zirkzee now seems almost inevitable and has obviously the restricted the budget even more.
 
I still think there is more to come. I think Santos and teliemmans are good signings but our first 11 won't actually be much better than last year. Only difference in starting line up is cas replaced by Santos, tielemans to rotate with Mainoo, slight improvement but not massive. We also now have cl so a lot more games and our squad has no more depth, we have just repcaed cas and ugarte with Santos and tielemans and bayinder with Darlow. There's not a chance we go into the season without properly improving the first 11 or increasing squad depth for the extra games
 
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Well two weeks until the season starts and worse off in terms of squad depth going into the new season not looking great for the minute.
 
Saw somewhere that our avg netspend in seasons where we qualified in CL was 100M. And it was 170M in the seasons we didnt qualify.

And to think that people thought we would have a net spend over 150M+ :lol:

We still havent replaced Casemiro btw. And to think that there are reports that club is deciding between buying either a CM or a LB but not both...you just have to pray that isnt true.
 
Well two weeks until the season starts and worse off in terms of squad depth going into the new season not looking great for the minute.
How are we off when we signed Tielemans and Santos to replace Casemiro and Ugarte, while Lacey has been added more to the senior squad and Rashford has returned? Not that it's great mind you, but obviously we aren't worse off. Apparently there's hope that De Ligt will feature again too so that's a big add.
 
Saw somewhere that our avg netspend in seasons where we qualified in CL was 100M. And it was 170M in the seasons we didnt qualify.

And to think that people thought we would have a net spend over 150M+ :lol:

We still havent replaced Casemiro btw. And to think that there are reports that club is deciding between buying either a CM or a LB but not both...you just have to pray that isnt true.
I do think there's sense in not going crazy this season with spending, we have to catch up to the constant transfer debt we've had and while we have areas to address for sure, it probably makes sense to not have another debt inducing summer. Solidify CL football this season should be the goal.
 
As stated above I think Rashford's return has scuppered both our back up striker and left back signings.
I'm glad Rashy has come back home. I've always rated him, I believe he went through a difficult time and needed to be away from OT. Also appreciated his recent comments about not wanting to play in the EPL against Utd. He is a confidence player who has grown a lot in the last few years. His time in Barcelona and Carrick will bring him back to good performances for us again.
He is so dangerous, with plenty of talented, when he is on his game, there a very few in world football better than him.

Rashford-Cunha-Sesko-Mbuemo-Bruno-Amad is some serious attacking options. Not forgetting Zirkee too, but I don't think he's a EPL player, even if he is silky. We have an abundance of players, they all need game time.
I would've loved Hall but as I said in his thread, if we wanted him the time to get him was the start of summer, before Newcastle sold anyone. Now they have 250m and have sold 3 of their best players, they will price Hall out of any move
Not seen much of him. But we currently have 3 players at the club who can play LB Shaw, Dorgu and Amass. I would love to see a left side of Dorgu/Rashford or Dorgu/Cunha at OT, that would be a lot for defenders to worry about.
The most Rashford was ever going to go for was £40m due to his clause. If Barcelona took up their option it would've only been around £26m. If that scuppers our whole transfer window, I'd suggest the general plan wasn't a very good one in the first place. Them not taking up that option was always a possibility and should have been accounted for.

We've spent somewhere between £30-45m net this summer. It's a joke if it remains like that. I hope it won't and we'll get at least two more quality players in at left-back and in midfield, but so far, even considering Santos and Tielemans are good signings, underwhelming is too nice of a word to use for the club's business this summer. It reeks of Glazernomics and shouldn't be excused, if nothing significant happens over the next few weeks.
Feel we need an athletic number 6 to sweep up. But if we didn't make another signing we wouldn't be in a terrible shape. The market is awful and our team is in a terrible position financially, plus you can't always fix everything in 1 window. I saw a recent podcast taking about our new loan structure, we are in a bad way and haemorrhaging a lot of funds in interest. It's worse than most fans know. Ineos have done a good job so far.

Also with new stadium which we don't have the funds to really pay for it, another loan is going to really put us in a scary position. It's tough to imagine us making huge signings at the moment.
 
How are we off when we signed Tielemans and Santos to replace Casemiro and Ugarte, while Lacey has been added more to the senior squad and Rashford has returned? Not that it's great mind you, but obviously we aren't worse off. Apparently there's hope that De Ligt will feature again too so that's a big add.
The team are moving in the right direction. It's impossible to fix everything in 1 window, especially with this crazy market. Rogers for £117m is madness, he went for under 1m three years ago.
Our team is good enough to win the EPL at the moment. We have so many talented players right now.
 
Not seen much of him. But we currently have 3 players at the club who can play LB Shaw, Dorgu and Amass.
We have Shaw who is incredibly injury prone coupled with a lot more games this year. Dorgus best posotion is as a wide man not a fb and Amass has done nothing at this level while also being linked with a move away for a nominal fee
 
Solidify CL football this season should be the goal.
We agree on that, but I reach a different conclusion, as I believe that makes it much more important not to cheap out this summer.

A midfielder and left back are non negotiable in my opinion. And I see no footballing reasons as to why we should be compromising on quality either.

If you are not able to spend the big bucks, let the scouts earn their money.
 
We agree on that, but I reach a different conclusion, as I believe that makes it much more important not to cheap out this summer.

A midfielder and left back are non negotiable in my opinion. And I see no footballing reasons as to why we should be compromising on quality either.

If you are not able to spend the big bucks, let the scouts earn their money.
That's the thing. So many people just seem to think qualifying for the cl will be a given, ignoring the competition
 
Also with new stadium which we don't have the funds to really pay for it, another loan is going to really put us in a scary position. It's tough to imagine us making huge signings at the moment.
As said in the other thread; The Glazers just got 1.25b for some of their shares. Put that back into the club for once and it easily pays for the stadium and some.

Or finally f*ck off. That would be even better.
 
As stated above I think Rashford's return has scuppered both our back up striker and left back signings.
Looking very likely as the window drags on...

Rashford sale would fund a new lb/or lw,
Ugarte to fund a 3rd midfielder,
Zirkzee sale/loan - backup striker.

Max to expect from Rashford & Ugarte sales though... £45m?
...If we were so reliant on that, to go with a current net spend of around £40m.

Worrying.
 
Looking very likely as the window drags on...

Rashford sale would fund a new lb/or lw,
Ugarte to fund a 3rd midfielder,
Zirkzee sale/loan - backup striker.

Max to expect from Rashford & Ugarte sales though... £45m?
...If we were so reliant on that, to go with a current net spend of around £40m.

Worrying.

I think the Rasmus fee was maybe in last years books in the end so the net spend is maybe higher. There’s probably the money for one more signing and then that 45m would have allowed 1 or 2 more on top of that.

At some point I suppose they have to address the lack of cash, reliance on the RCF and the huge debt of transfer fees. If we can qualify for the Champions League again this season with a modest net spend then that probably makes a big difference.

I’m not sure once the window shuts we will have a squad that is significantly stronger on paper than last season when you factor in the increased number of games but have to wait and see.