Probably Di Maria. Berbatov is harsh since he had a brilliant 2011 season for us
Most disappointing record transfer….
- Thread starter Jeppers7
- Start date
OK the other names was not appropriate.
But Sanchez has to be a record. Whether the payment is spread over several years, for a free transfer, or genuine wage. The Club will be paying X million over 3-4 years, regardless of paying to counterpart or players or agents.
That's all fair. Apologies for seeming like the forum police, looking at my posts they come across far less light hearted than intended.
I'm just not used to anyone other than Chelsea making really bad signings!
While it's not for a transfer fee, Sanchez holds the record for the largest contract ever given to a premier league player. And considering how bad he was and the damage that contract did in terms of player demands, add into the fact we paid 60% of his wages for him to play for another club for a year and then around 10 million to get him to leave, nothing rivals that in terms of a disastrous record transfer.
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Lukaku was a massive disappointment, I thought he was ideal for us and would go on to be our no 9 for years but quickly gained weight and struggled for form, albeit in a disjointed team.
Could say the same for Pogba, if he is sold. That would also be a big mistake.
I agree, the mistake perhaps not offering a contract much earlier.
You’d never heard of Veron in 2001? He was seen as one of the best midfielders in the world. It was a very exciting signing at the time.
Regarding bad signing, and without looking into details and cross checking, my gut feeling said MU is the worst in past 20 years, may be slightly above Spurs. Arsenal, Liverpool, City and Chelsea are better than us. Spurs has been poor all alone, expensive as well as bargain signing. Liverpool squandered their fortune from Torres and Suresh but still got a few right. City was hardly wrong, and Chelsea got more right than wrong. We can count our right with 2 hands and end up as traders.
I remember being gutted when we opted for Lukaku over Morata. The latter wasn’t exactly a revelation at Chelsea but at the time I genuinely thought us and Chelsea got paired with the wrong strikers, and part of me would have always been curious to see how Morata would have done with us.
Mata was also a little disappointing but his overhead kick at Anfield and the fact he’s the most likeable footballer ever makes me feel bad to categorise him as such.
Di Maria for obvious reasons.
Mata was also a little disappointing but his overhead kick at Anfield and the fact he’s the most likeable footballer ever makes me feel bad to categorise him as such.
Di Maria for obvious reasons.
At least we offloaded veron for only a small loss and he was pretty crap for Chelsea too. Ruthless Fergie strikes again. That’s how you keep players on their toes!
Worst in the past 20 years? This makes me think about Football Weeklys new obsession about recency bias. Adjust it to past 10 years, and you'll have a case with Man Utd being among the worst of the bunch, together with Tottenham and Arsenal. I'm not even sure if Arsenal count at this point. But both City and Liverpool had some weird ones 2001-2011. That Roy Hodgson and Daglish era was the best. Hughes also made some questionable signings, a classic case of throwing enough mud at a wall and hoping for something to stick. However, City needed to break trough to the top, so it was somewhat justified. In the same period, Man Utd were excellent.
Small loss! 50% less than we paid for him. We were very lucky Roman was throwing money around, otherwise we wouldn’t even have got £15m for him.
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If you bought a house and then sold it a year later for 50% of what you paid for it, would you consider that "a small loss"?
Not really the best analogy. A car would be better. It wasn’t a year either.
Some great calls in this thread, Veron, Berba and Pogba for me though, all three had me mega excited as a fan but in truth they all didn't or haven't delivered to the level we expected.
As for Di Maria, he didn't want to be at United from day one in my opinion so I don't even consider him part of our club, that's how much I disliked the guy in the end I've mentally erased his part at the club. Watching him avoid tackles in his last few appearances was shameful and Van Gaal was right to eventually phase him out of the team.
On a personal note I was a huge fan of Falcao before United and even though we knew he had a major injury before coming to the club we all still got the buzz of excitement we may have got a player we wouldn't have likely got without the injury. Remember the excitement around Old Trafford before his debut against QPR, then week on week making excuses for him before eventually holding my hands up and saying he shouldn't be anywhere near the pitch in his condition.
As for Di Maria, he didn't want to be at United from day one in my opinion so I don't even consider him part of our club, that's how much I disliked the guy in the end I've mentally erased his part at the club. Watching him avoid tackles in his last few appearances was shameful and Van Gaal was right to eventually phase him out of the team.
On a personal note I was a huge fan of Falcao before United and even though we knew he had a major injury before coming to the club we all still got the buzz of excitement we may have got a player we wouldn't have likely got without the injury. Remember the excitement around Old Trafford before his debut against QPR, then week on week making excuses for him before eventually holding my hands up and saying he shouldn't be anywhere near the pitch in his condition.
And the Leicester goal.
Didn't Berba hit 20 goals in a season once?
He wasn't an ultimate failure, imo.
Harsh to choose Berba,
Di Maria is the stand out here, utter mercenary. Didnt even wanna play here.
Di Maria is the stand out here, utter mercenary. Didnt even wanna play here.
For me it must be Pogba.
We paid a record £89m for him hoping he'd be the epicenter of our rebuild, the one who can lead us back to our glorious days.
Now it's 5 years and we're still debating what is his best position. And we may very well lose him on a free, again. We'll be the laughing stock of the football world.
I have nothing against the lad, simply pure disappointment.
We paid a record £89m for him hoping he'd be the epicenter of our rebuild, the one who can lead us back to our glorious days.
Now it's 5 years and we're still debating what is his best position. And we may very well lose him on a free, again. We'll be the laughing stock of the football world.
I have nothing against the lad, simply pure disappointment.
It was not really a record-transfer, but considering the price - Coutinho scoring 2 goals in a 8-2 CL-knockoutstage win against Barca must be near top.
Sanchez. Our worst ever signing. And before you say he wasn't a club record, he was being paid club record wages 
Veron but more because he was probably the best midfielder of his type in the world at the time and he had some fantastic matches… he obviously didn’t hate the U.K. as he moved to Chelsea after United. I think the premier league and SAF was just 3-4 years behind him.. if we had a player like him from 2006 onwards, it might just be us remembered more than Barca. Because by that time SAF had got used to playing with a 3 and carrick , while very good, was like a Mercedes S class compared to Veron who was a Rolls Royce.
Most disgusting record signing is Di Maria. Getting robbed was obviously very sad and traumatic, but it happens to players in France, in Italy at gun point. And none end up hating the club and country.
Pogba been very good when played propetly, Ole needs to put talent above McFred
Most disgusting record signing is Di Maria. Getting robbed was obviously very sad and traumatic, but it happens to players in France, in Italy at gun point. And none end up hating the club and country.
Pogba been very good when played propetly, Ole needs to put talent above McFred
I have to disagree. IMO, by the time Kagawa joined he was the better option for the number 10 spot above Rooney. Rooney in his prime was obviously much better than both. But by 2013, people had started that number 10 malarkey about Rooney (when that failed they then started the next Pirlo be) , he never was that type of player. He’d make the wrong pass, ignore obvious 1-2s and overlaps, and resort to that same, slow, predictable ping ball to the wing that the commentators would marvel at but really it just allowed the opposition to reposition and never opened up anything.
Under Moyes our best football was played when kagawa and mata started, but Moyes was too blindly loyal to Rooney.
You forgot about the money we spent in buying a piano. Maybe it can be an artefact in the museum now.
Had to go back and look this up because it sounded completely wrong.
Kagawa and Mata started 4 league games together. Rooney also started 3 of them (up front, so not even in the number 10 position - he didn't start being completely useless there until 2015/16, which was also when he decided he was now a DM) and he scored 4 goals in those 3. Rooney was also by far our best player that season.
And anyway, the post you quoted was comparing Mata and Kagawa. And there's really no reasonable argument you could make in favor of Kagawa based on anything either of them did at United, before coming to United, or after leaving.