I think the entire blame resides with those who got big fat salaries to spend wisely. That's not the fans' responsibility.
Man United is the highest net spending club in the world over the last 10 years.
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I agree. But we haven’t been that club for ages and haven’t had any possibility of being such a club given we’ve been owned by the Glazers and managed by their executives. So when they keep making a mess of the team, it’s natural for fans to want changed via new managers and signings, both of which involve spending.
Not really, we're second because we just had a £600m net splurge on putting together a relatively young squad. It's kind of been well documented.
Of course makes sense, dogshit at both buying and selling players, largely the selling part when it comes to this flawed stat to be fair.
Yup. This is the same fanbase that threw a fit when we didn't buy Maguire the first time around.
There was a shit show when we wouldn't spend 100m+ on Sancho, only to then get him for us to get him much cheaper the year after.
Even Antony, the whole narrative was that we were letting the manager down by not getting him signings.
The question is why Glazers allowed Ed to waste so much money when everyone know that he is an incompetent clown in football.
Barcelona is not top is quite surprising because they have been spending worse than us for such a long time already. It almost bankrupt the club with so many levers pulled already.
Barcelona is not top is quite surprising because they have been spending worse than us for such a long time already. It almost bankrupt the club with so many levers pulled already.
“Net spend” can suck it. We rarely sell players for good value because we aren’t a feeder club. It means next to nothing.
Finally #1 at something
It doesnt surprise me as we've been awful in the transfer market and have persisted with managers who had shown they werent good enough. Some even had the nerve to say they werent backed in the transfer market
It doesnt surprise me as we've been awful in the transfer market and have persisted with managers who had shown they werent good enough. Some even had the nerve to say they werent backed in the transfer market
At least its net spending which means its clean which means not oily.
How are we expected to compete if we don't spend more? Tough times for the little club in Manchester.
It's definitely shocking to see in a table but Real and Bayern are also so low because when you pick a period like 2014-2024 it ignores the value of players already at the club which then get sold as assets. The season before this took effect RM purchased Bale for 100m+. So it doesn't totally take into account the wealth of these clubs going in.
They have been great the last 10 years or so from selling their players at the right time and still getting a lot of money back though - United alone purchased Di Maria, Varane and Casemiro from RM during this time if my years are right.
Easy to say that when they have the monopoly on Spanish and South American talent. Same as the ‘well run’ Bayern in Germany. If the Premier League didn’t become so competitive United would be deemed a well run club as well.
This does surprise anyone, at all?
We have been tripe, thankfully it looks like it will change over with our new direction. I personally don't get focusing on how shite the Glazers have been at this point. We all know it. The media loves to rehash it's all too.
We have been tripe, thankfully it looks like it will change over with our new direction. I personally don't get focusing on how shite the Glazers have been at this point. We all know it. The media loves to rehash it's all too.
100%. People like to big up Madrid, Bayern etc. but in reality they have it so much easier than us.
Of course we were horribly run for almost 20 years, but those two aren't the examples we can follow, to be honest.
Chelsea spends more based on gross spendings in the last 10 years.
From ESPN:
Chelsea are in a league of their own
Given that they have completed two €100m-plus transfers since January 2023, it's unsurprising to find Chelsea's transfer spending way out in front ... having paid out €846m more than the second club in the list.
The Blues have shuffled €2.57bn in that time frame with marquee deals for players such as Enzo Fernández, Moisés Caicedo, Romelu Lukaku, Wesley Fofana, Mykhailo Mudryk and Kai Havertz (all of whom are among the club's top 10 record signings) while also securing relatively big-money departures for the likes of Mason Mount and Havertz.
Chelsea's closest competition in terms of transfer volume since the start of the 2019-20 campaign are Manchester City (€1.72bn) and Paris Saint-Germain (€1.40bn.) And remember when Barcelona used to be able to spend big on transfers before their financial troubles? They are fourth in the list at €1.33bn.
From ESPN:
Chelsea are in a league of their own
Given that they have completed two €100m-plus transfers since January 2023, it's unsurprising to find Chelsea's transfer spending way out in front ... having paid out €846m more than the second club in the list.
The Blues have shuffled €2.57bn in that time frame with marquee deals for players such as Enzo Fernández, Moisés Caicedo, Romelu Lukaku, Wesley Fofana, Mykhailo Mudryk and Kai Havertz (all of whom are among the club's top 10 record signings) while also securing relatively big-money departures for the likes of Mason Mount and Havertz.
Chelsea's closest competition in terms of transfer volume since the start of the 2019-20 campaign are Manchester City (€1.72bn) and Paris Saint-Germain (€1.40bn.) And remember when Barcelona used to be able to spend big on transfers before their financial troubles? They are fourth in the list at €1.33bn.
No surprises there. People that give Rashford Mo Salah money tend to top such charts.
What about Varane, Casemiro, De Gea, Ronaldo, Sancho, Martial, and others? Rashford is the most deserving of 300k/w from these lot
And Salah would be on 400k+ if he played for a richer club than Liverpool, their wage bill is indicative of how they're not able to compete with us, City, PSG, Chelsea, Madrid and Barcelona
The Sancho one was always fecking weird. We were in for him, we were quoted a mental fee, we didn't sign him. Fair enough. The only issue was the management thinking we'd got a bargain a year later for a complete waster just because it was only 2/3 of a mental fee.
Maguire and Antony the board were letting the managers down though. Moving for them in a timely way would have saved both money and pain from having a shite squad and unhappy manager. Now obviously you could say we shouldn't have signed them at all but that's also on the board - they need to propose an alternative signing that's acceptable to the coach and then go and get them instead.
Dithering and then overpaying on panic buys once the shit is hitting the fan has been a hallmark of the Glazers' time here ever since Fergie retired. Fellaini, Mata, Maguire and Antony being the most obvious ones but you could argue AWB, Casemiro, Amad for example might also fall in that bracket. Contract renewals too might show a somewhat similar pattern as we've overpaid due to not being willing/able to acquire a replacement and move on. Martial, Rojo, Jones, Henderson, and De Gea (I liked him but £350k/week when he'd been playing silly buggers and tried to move to Madrid!) spring to mind.
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Everyone who has contributed to these numbers should be out by the summer, including the manager. Then we cleanse the squad of the mediocrity and start again. If only FM was real!
While being a damning statistic in itself, I think it is arguably worse when you consider the bigger picture. A high net spend is no indication that a club has spent enough improving their team as it ignores multiple variables, not least age of squad, holes in squad at commencement of the selected time period, long term/career ending injuries etc. I still think gross spend is a better indicator of how a club is likely (or should) be improving year on year. We used to laugh at Liverpool for winning the net spend, because in doing so they won bugger all else. We have been badly managed, but we don't need net spend to tell us that.
I suppose I could google it but I'd be more interested in what our gross spend is in that period (probably the majority of the net spend since we don't sell well)?
If it is the £1,1bn (or let's say £1.3bn) then the sad reality is that is nowhere near enough, given how much we have wasted. That is £110-130m give or take a season shows we haven't spent enough to replace even just the best (few world class) players we lost over the 10yrs to retirement, semi-retirement, free transfers and/or injury. I'd imagine most immediate rival clubs have spent more per season improving their teams/squads. We have also spent irresponsibly that is without question.
We don't "need" transfer (or at least didn't) revenue to balance the books due to our commercial strength, we need and needed to spend the money better, and we definitely needed to spend more to replace some glaring holes in the squad. Other than the optics Net spend has always been largely irrelevant to us, now with FFP it is probably a bit more important.
I suppose I could google it but I'd be more interested in what our gross spend is in that period (probably the majority of the net spend since we don't sell well)?
If it is the £1,1bn (or let's say £1.3bn) then the sad reality is that is nowhere near enough, given how much we have wasted. That is £110-130m give or take a season shows we haven't spent enough to replace even just the best (few world class) players we lost over the 10yrs to retirement, semi-retirement, free transfers and/or injury. I'd imagine most immediate rival clubs have spent more per season improving their teams/squads. We have also spent irresponsibly that is without question.
We don't "need" transfer (or at least didn't) revenue to balance the books due to our commercial strength, we need and needed to spend the money better, and we definitely needed to spend more to replace some glaring holes in the squad. Other than the optics Net spend has always been largely irrelevant to us, now with FFP it is probably a bit more important.
No surprise. We have turned incompetence into an art form in these last XI years. A big shout out to the Glazers, Woodward, Murtogh and Arnold - the main architects of our demise.
We rarely sell players for good value because over the last 10 years we haven’t had any players that other elite clubs are interested in.
Name 1 player in the last 10 years that we’ve signed, has developed, played consistently well and attracted interest and subsequently sold for good money.
That isn't the argument I'm making. In fact, I'm making the opposite argument: we buy players and then they end up going to seed here. We don't have great players that we let leave. Ronaldo V1.0 was the last time we sold a player go who was actually really good and who we actually would have preferred he stayed. Beckham didn't want to go, and we could have used him another 5 years, but he's in a small minority.
The number one reason why we don't and can't sell for good value is nobody is prepared to take on the wage burden of players who are on far, far too much money for both their ability and output.
Time and again clubs baulk after enquiring, with the players also refusing to leave unless their United wage is matched.
The wages we pay are a frontrunner for the prize of most damning aspect of the club and its conduct post-Fergie.
All these numbers say to me is that we're very bad this.
Far more telling is the actual footballers we've signed, and how small that number is relative to other big clubs over this time. Long gone are the days of Fergie taking a punt on a few players each summer to varying success. It's now only marquee signings, that take ages, cost a ton and prevent us rebuilding a squad that has been completely turned over in 3 years.
Far more telling is the actual footballers we've signed, and how small that number is relative to other big clubs over this time. Long gone are the days of Fergie taking a punt on a few players each summer to varying success. It's now only marquee signings, that take ages, cost a ton and prevent us rebuilding a squad that has been completely turned over in 3 years.
Horrific reading but no surprise at all. Its going to take 5 years to reverse the past 10 years of poor practices, there's no quick fix to our issues as there isnt just 1 problem. Big job on for SJR and his team.
They actually don't need to do that at all. This is where people have lost it. Sometimes there just aren't any options on the market - so the manager just needs to you know, manage with the resources he's got. But our fans throw a fecking hissy fit every single fecking time this happens.
Did Madrid let Ancelotti down by selling Benzema and not signing another striker? What about the year Guardiola didn't have a striker and had to play Foden up front? Liverpool only brought Arthur Melo in the year before when they quite obviously needed midfield reinforcements.
This is the managers fecking job. Players are long term investments, and sometimes the market just doesn't have what you need or want for the right price. So it's okay to wait and make do with what you've got.
Whenever I hear Net Spend all I can think about is Liverpool.
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Yikes! Let's see how the new regime handle Garnacho and Mainoo's contracts going forward.
Staggering how poorly the club has been run , to spend all that money and still end up as an item of ridicule in the footballing world.
Reasonable wages, but give them reasonable release clauses if the club fails to make top 4. Hold the club accountable for not throwing seasons away in the bin for ideological reasons.
I genuinely forgot Martial was a United player. His contract is up in the summer, luckily.
De Gea and Ronaldo are gone, I can see all the rest leaving bar Rashford. Major wage clearout at least.
You're comparing Manchester United who have basically no world class players, maybe 4 or 5 in the conversation at best, with Liverpool, City and Real Madrid who have several. If the manager had had to put up and shut up with Antonio Valencia and Ashley Young another season would that have helped? Or would we have been in an even worse position a year later?
For sure a coach needs to make the best of what's available but Fergies don't come around every generation, and even he could only get so far with the likes of Cleverley and Richardson etc. At some point you have to get some players that are good enough and have the required mentality, it's as simple as that. You can't turn a Jadon Sancho into a Kevin DeBruyne even if the talent is there and you can't turn a Dirk Kuyt into a Mo Salah even if the heart is willing.
Absolutely.
At United we need miracle workers as coaches. That's how fecked we are.
This was because we have fans keep on criticising the Glazers for not spending, that they were taking dividend from the Club, that they were too commercially minded and not investing in players. Here come Sanchez....
Yep, totally agree, and by the time their contracts wind down, they aren't worth much.
True but they needed other teams to have a bad season also.