Reminder that United have outspent most of our rivals

[André Dominguez]

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.

I share your concerns, because I too miss those exciting times of full intensity Manchester United. This window is vital to make us a top 4 team again. Yes, we would probably need 4/5 players to cover all our needs and we also desperately need to sell the excess players of our squad.

Even if we end up signing no one else, I am very concerned that we are not selling either, because we have a large squad, and there's nothing worse than having a technical staff to deal with 30 players every training (unpractical and will take a toll on our quality of training) or to push international players into reserve squad to have a balanced first team training, but ending up creating feuds with the players.

 

[He'sRaldo]

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.

I don't disagree, but this is all in hindsight. Except maybe Mourinho. At the time, most were delighted with the new acquisitions and us flexing our financial muscle. It's very easy to criticize anything in hindsight.

 

[Siorac]

I know its a east European thing but do try learn some manners and try refrain from swearing at people

what? Swearing at people is an Eastern European thing?

 

[Eric's Seagull]

I share your concerns, because I too miss those exciting times of full intensity Manchester United. This window is vital to make us a top 4 team again. Yes, we would probably need 4/5 players to cover all our needs and we also desperately need to sell the excess players of our squad.

Even if we end up signing no one else, I am very concerned that we are not selling either, because we have a large squad, and there's nothing worse than having a technical staff to deal with 30 players every training (unpractical and will take a toll on our quality of training) or to push international players into reserve squad to have a balanced first team training, but ending up creating feuds with the players.

I agree with the point in bold but it doesn't look like we are going to be getting many players. Woody has to do something as I would dread on us missing out on top 4.

I agree a lot of players should be moved on but I think we are finding it hard to move on players as we pay them mega money, which not many teams will pay and I doubt if a player will accept a wage cut upon moving to a new team unless they are desperately seeking first team football and the last we need is a feud going on between players.

 

[Lebowski]

I don't disagree, but this is all in hindsight. Except maybe Mourinho. At the time, most were delighted with the new acquisitions and us flexing our financial muscle. It's very easy to criticize anything in hindsight.

What does it matter that it's hindsight?

You can only analyse whether a decision has been positive or negative with hindsight.

Hell, I was delighted when we signed Sanchez as I thought we were getting a hungry warrior who would revitalise our attack and rediscover the form on the right wing he had for Barca and Arsenal. It was only in hindsight now that we know how awful he has been, what obscene wages he is on and how many issues that caused in the dressing room that we can say the decision has been an unmitigated disaster.

The fact that all of your positives examples of their ownership turn out to be massive negatives in hindsight shows how bad they have been.

It's a results game at the end of the day. The Glazers and Woodward earn ludicrous amounts of money to produce results. Good intentions and decisions that could be argued made sense at the time are scant consolation if the end result is negative.

 

[Gehrman]

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.

Truth is that by 2013 our midfield had ben crying out for refreshment for years. We relied on players like O'shea, 100 year old giggs, 100 year old Scholes coming out of retirement, Park etc. We could easily have bought 2 quality CM's in SAF's last few years. Rooney was on his last legs, RVP was always injury prone and going into his twillight years, we lost out on Hazard due to refusing to pay his agent fees, Nani had lost it, Young was never really good enough. Ferdinand and Vidic were also on their last legs. Basicly the entire spine of our team needed massive refreshment by the time SAF retired which Moyes couldn't cope with and he was probably never good enough. Which led to big spending by LVG and unfortunately nearly all our transfers were flops. If fergie hadn't been so frugal we would have had much more stability.

 

[romufc]

What does it matter that it's hindsight?

You can only analyse whether a decision has been positive or negative with hindsight.

Hell, I was delighted when we signed Sanchez as I thought we were getting a hungry warrior who would revitalise our attack and rediscover the form on the right wing he had for Barca and Arsenal. It was only in hindsight now that we know how awful he has been, what obscene wages he is on and how many issues that caused in the dressing room that we can say the decision has been an unmitigated disaster.

The fact that all of your positives examples of their ownership turn out to be massive negatives in hindsight shows how bad they have been.

It's a results game at the end of the day. The Glazers and Woodward earn ludicrous amounts of money to produce results. Good intentions and decisions that could be argued made sense at the time are scant consolation if the end result is negative.

I agree with you on Sanchez, even when Ole came in I thought okay here we go maybe he might turn up, but I think he is lacking confidence and keeps getting injured. If he can have a run of 10 games I hope he can rediscover a bit of form.

 

[jadajos]

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.

This seems such a weird statement to make. I'd say 30% is an excellent annual return for a single, non-diversified investment and a benchmark which actually even a lot of private funds cannot match during economic expansions let alone during bear markets. Investing 1.000.000.000 at 30% CAGR for ten years will transform your initial investment into wealth in excess of 13.000.000.000. And the possible future return will always be lower for low-risk investments and higher for high-risk investments. Even rich people make all sorts of high-Risk investment decisions (that might seem pooor in hindsight) and at times even lose their whole initial investment (i. e. high risk venture capital), something that was never really a danger when buying United, was it?

Investors who realized the world-wide marketability of the Premier League and growth potential of football on a global scale early on have done quite well with their investments I'd assume. You mention the transfer spending, but how much of that has even come directly out of the Glazers pocket (honestly question, I really don't know) - but even the money they did in fact invest was not for free and they receive annual interest payments for it. Meanwhile what I do know for sure is that the Glazers get paid around £22m in annual dividends which is quite safe and when reinvested annually for 10 years - meeting the puny, meagre benchmark of 30% CAGR - would compound to £1.6b. That's not including the aforementioned interest payments and the salary packages paid to directors and senior executives, which includes the six Glazers, and was at £13m in 2017-18.

From the Guardian last year:
"The Glazers’ takeover has in fact drained out of United more than £1bn in interest, costs, fees and dividends since 2005, not too far off the amount Mansour has invested into City. (…) The accounts also showed that United’s borrowings remain at £487m from the Glazer takeover, which Woodward was instrumental in structuring with £525m debts loaded on to the club, including £275m high interest "payment in Kind" loans."
(https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/oct/04/glazers-manchester-united)

 

[Rood]

Truth is that by 2013 our midfield had ben crying out for refreshment for years. We relied on players like O'shea, 100 year old giggs, 100 year old Scholes coming out of retirement, Park etc. We could easily have bought 2 quality CM's in SAF's last few years. Rooney was on his last legs, RVP was always injury prone and going into his twillight years, we lost out on Hazard due to refusing to pay his agent fees, Nani had lost it, Young was never really good enough. Ferdinand and Vidic were also on their last legs. Basicly the entire spine of our team needed massive refreshment by the time SAF retired which Moyes couldn't cope with and he was probably never good enough. Which led to big spending by LVG and unfortunately nearly all our transfers were flops. If fergie hadn't been so frugal we would have had much more stability.

For me these are the vital points. Moyes (and Woodward) made a mess of the first season postFergie and then shitloads of cash was wasted on players who didnt work out for one reason or another. So the blame is on them and not Fergie - yes ok the squad was on the old side and needed refreshing but that just goes back to my point about squad cycles and this was obviously the start of a new one. Still it was a decent squad and easily should have been finishing Top4, that they didnt is totally on Moyes/Woodward and not Fergie IMO.

But regardless of that it is clear that they cash was there to spend and that Fergie just chose not to spend it as he was happy with the squad that he had. And thats the main point of this thread.

 

[AshRK]

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.

Ofcourse its the mismanagement due to which we are in this state. But one cannot forget that we actually did not spend much when we were dominant. We had all the resources to be a real force. The achievements you have highlighted was solely die to sir alex's genius and not because the board backed Sir alex. City were becoming a dominant force right in front of our eyes and we were just laughing at them because we had sir alex, the moment sir alex left we came to reality that we need major reinforcements. It was all poor planning from the outset and now we are not able to get out of the trap.

 

[Rood]

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.

WTF are you on about? have you actually read my posts? I actually totally agree with the OP of this thread - however I saw some absolutely ridiculous statements made by you about the Glazers and investments in general which needed correcting

I dont want to derail the thread asking for more details of these hypothetical magical investments but lets assume the type of returns you are talking about are true (which I highly doubt), anything with that kind of potential return is obviously going to be high risk and probably relatively low value so you cant compare it to investing in a long established £1bn business. Institutional investors are probably happy with 5% and ecstatic with 10% per annum.

And your calculations vs stock market returns are totally wrong anyway because the Glazers werent using £800m of their own funds to buy the club, it was an LBO so their own equity was around £200m IIRC (and I think they pulled a lot of that out pretty quickly via refinance as well) - plus the value of the club is far higher than the current NYSE market cap as that is based on nonvoting shares. Id say £4bn is a conservative estimate.
So yes the Glazers have made huge capital gains on on their initial investment plus they took some profit at the the time of floatation and there are some dividends nowadays as well. Also as I mentioned, it is generally accepted that they have not much interest in football - more them it always was just about investment and business.

So Im afriad you are way off with your 'fahcts'

 

[JakeTheRed]

We haven't 'outspent' all of our rivals. We have 'spent' less than Chelsea, City & Liverpool. They've just managed to recuperate some cash from players they've sold. It's a good thing we've kept some of our biggest players. If we'd sold De Gea & Pogba, then we'd be nowhere near the top of this list, but would that be a good thing? Absolutely not, because we would have lost 2 world class players.

 

[Rood]

Ofcourse its the mismanagement due to which we are in this state. But one cannot forget that we actually did not spend much when we were dominant. We had all the resources to be a real force. The achievements you have highlighted was solely die to sir alex's genius and not because the board backed Sir alex. City were becoming a dominant force right in front of our eyes and we were just laughing at them because we had sir alex, the moment sir alex left we came to reality that we need major reinforcements. It was all poor planning from the outset and now we are not able to get out of the trap.

As I said before, 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. So the idea that Fergie won everything on a shoestring budget are simply not true - I also do not believe that Fergie would have stayed in the job if the board was not backing him.

 

[AshRK]

As I said before, 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. So the idea that Fergie won everything on a shoestring budget are simply not true - I also do not believe that Fergie would have stayed in the job if the board was not backing him.

From 2009-13 he did. Let us look back at the addition that were made from 2009-13.

Summer of 2009: We lost Ronaldo, Tevez and Hargreaves became crock. We added a winger from Wigan in Valencia, Michael Owen who was planning to retire before sir alex convinced him and gave him the number 7 shirt, we added two unkown quantity in Oberton for 3 million and Mame Diouf,

Summer of 2010: Again instead of strengthening the squad, we added Hernandez who to be fair was succesful but only cost 6 million, a rookie defender in smalling when we should have gone for more quality and experience, Bebe (should I even bother explaining this) and a danish gk in Lindegaard.

Summer of 2011: We signed a rookie defender in Phil Jones, a rookie GK in de gea, an average winger in Ashley Young and we recalled Paul Scholes. Think about it rather than spending we brought back Scholesy.

Summer of 2012: We signed RVP , our first and only major signing since Ronaldo left, Kagawa instead of Hazard, an unkown rookie in Nick Powell and and Butner, a lb to replace Evra.

If that is not working on shoestring budget and massive under spending I do not know what is. You are just avoiding this period as if it had no bearing when in reality we should have replaced ronaldo with more quality aka robben or sneijder, we should have gone for the likes of SIlva and AGuero and stopped City from becoming the dominant force, we should have signed Mata and Hazard rather than haggling for fees. Imagine had we signed some of these players we would have been in a much better position when sir alex retired. Again just to clarify I am not in any shape or form saying it is because of this we are in current situation, NO, what I am saying is one cannot forget about this period.

 

[Wumminator]

We haven't 'outspent' all of our rivals. We have 'spent' less than Chelsea, City & Liverpool. They've just managed to recuperate some cash from players they've sold. It's a good thing we've kept some of our biggest players. If we'd sold De Gea & Pogba, then we'd be nowhere near the top of this list, but would that be a good thing? Absolutely not, because we would have lost 2 world class players.

I mean... we have also outspent most of them as well over a longer period of time.

 

[SteveTheRed]

We haven't 'outspent' all of our rivals. We have 'spent' less than Chelsea, City & Liverpool. They've just managed to recuperate some cash from players they've sold. It's a good thing we've kept some of our biggest players. If we'd sold De Gea & Pogba, then we'd be nowhere near the top of this list, but would that be a good thing? Absolutely not, because we would have lost 2 world class players.

I think this is the way to look at it.

As long as we stay in the top 3 richest clubs in the world...we will pay over the odds for players. I agree that we have not got the most $ when selling our players but that again is a victim of our success. It's a media circus when our players are performing poorly, their value plummets and then suddenly they actually aren't the worst player in the world when they leave.

 

[Gehrman]

From 2009-13 he did. Let us look back at the addition that were made from 2009-13.

Summer of 2009: We lost Ronaldo, Tevez and Hargreaves became crock. We added a winger from Wigan in Valencia, Michael Owen who was planning to retire before sir alex convinced him and gave him the number 7 shirt, we added two unkown quantity in Oberton for 3 million and Mame Diouf,

Summer of 2010: Again instead of strengthening the squad, we added Hernandez who to be fair was succesful but only cost 6 million, a rookie defender in smalling when we should have gone for more quality and experience, Bebe (should I even bother explaining this) and a danish gk in Lindegaard.

Summer of 2011: We signed a rookie defender in Phil Jones, a rookie GK in de gea, an average winger in Ashley Young and we recalled Paul Scholes. Think about it rather than spending we brought back Scholesy.

Summer of 2012: We signed RVP , our first and only major signing since Ronaldo left, Kagawa instead of Hazard, an unkown rookie in Nick Powell and and Butner, a lb to replace Evra.

If that is not working on shoestring budget and massive under spending I do not know what is. You are just avoiding this period as if it had no bearing when in reality we should have replaced ronaldo with more quality aka robben or sneijder, we should have gone for the likes of SIlva and AGuero and stopped City from becoming the dominant force, we should have signed Mata and Hazard rather than haggling for fees. Imagine had we signed some of these players we would have been in a much better position when sir alex retired. Again just to clarify I am not in any shape or form saying it is because of this we are in current situation, NO, what I am saying is one cannot forget about this period.

We also lost Fletcher to illness and still didn't buy a CM. And it was quite apparent by then that Anderson was shit.

 

[Lebowski]

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

As spot on as my impression of the Glazers may have been, I don't want to be accused by the Glazer supporter zombies of misleading anybody - it was in fact my own interpretation of what they were probably thinking at the time they decided to buy us, not a direct quote from them.

Rest assured that if I was close enough to the Glazer inner circle around that time to record or transcribe their personal musings, I would have been quickly thrown out by politely but persistently urging them to stay the hell away from 'our' club.

 

[padr81]

You guys are Manchester United, you need to stop worrying about Net spend comparisons. To get back to the top, it's gonna cost a lot and your club are putting the money in. It's about the manager and recruitment team making the right purchases. Ole's look promising so far, Joses didn't work out all that well. The margins on success and failure are small and can be defined in 2 or 3 games at any point in the season.

I'd also wait till the start of the season before judging too harshly as you have no idea what will happen between now and then.

 

[He'sRaldo]

What does it matter that it's hindsight?

You can only analyse whether a decision has been positive or negative with hindsight.

Hell, I was delighted when we signed Sanchez as I thought we were getting a hungry warrior who would revitalise our attack and rediscover the form on the right wing he had for Barca and Arsenal. It was only in hindsight now that we know how awful he has been, what obscene wages he is on and how many issues that caused in the dressing room that we can say the decision has been an unmitigated disaster.

The fact that all of your positives examples of their ownership turn out to be massive negatives in hindsight shows how bad they have been.

It's a results game at the end of the day. The Glazers and Woodward earn ludicrous amounts of money to produce results. Good intentions and decisions that could be argued made sense at the time are scant consolation if the end result is negative.

Oh yeah, that's definitely true about how poor the decisions were. The reason why I mention hindsight is that I do think it's important to remember that the decision-makers made their choices with United's best in mind.

I read posts every day about how Woodward et al don't care about the club, penny-pinching, only out for the money, don't care about football, etc. I would just like us to remember that a lot of the decisions seemed very good at the time, seemed like things which would propel the club forward. Unfortunately for us, they didn't work out but I think it's important to remember the intent is indeed there.

Also, one little caveat I would like to add is I think besides wages and sales, the major thing the management got wrong was managerial appointments. A lot of the mistakes we attribute to them was them simply backing their manager to the hilt, which obviously they have to do in order to be successful. If they had only made the right appointment, they would have probably been seen as ambitious owners trying everything to get back to the top, and the level of animosity we see now would be greatly reduced. You can understand why I find it slightly harsh blaming them for trying to back who they thought would bring us back on top.

 

[Patrick08]

And still we finish below them with an unbalanced squad lacking in quality in many areas.

 

[Eric's Seagull]

As spot on as my impression of the Glazers may have been, I don't want to be accused by the Glazer supporter zombies of misleading anybody - it was in fact my own interpretation of what they were probably thinking at the time they decided to buy us, not a direct quote from them.

Rest assured that if I was close enough to the Glazer inner circle around that time to record or transcribe their personal musings, I would have been quickly thrown out by politely but persistently urging them to stay the hell away from 'our' club.

Amazing impression and to me it sounded exactly like something that the Glazer's would say. Spot on

 

[Sylar]

It says over the last two years but doesn't include the Jan 2018 window in that period which includes big money signing players for Spurs, arsenal and Liverpool - being bought for big money (and a swap between us and arsenal but was just that, a swap)

Why is it a random two year window? We all didn't get a manager at the same time, so pretty bizarre

Why is net spend brought into it? We weren't all given a 500m budget to work on...

Since when has the biggest club worried about relativity on spending compared to others especially given the club's income?

Why are we including this window when it hasnt shut yet and we haven't seen the outcome and success of the signings of this window?

What a bizarre flawed thread

 

[Kostur]

It says over the last two years but doesn't include the Jan 2018 window in that period which includes big money signing players for Spurs, arsenal and Liverpool - being bought for big money (and a swap between us and arsenal but was just that, a swap)

Why is it a random two year window? We all didn't get a manager at the same time, so pretty bizarre

Why is net spend brought into it? We weren't all given a 500m budget to work on...

Since when has the biggest club worried about relativity on spending compared to others especially given the club's income?

Why are we including this window when it hasnt shut yet and we haven't seen the outcome and success of the signings of this window?

What a bizarre flawed thread

Because it's a Wumminator thread, I honestly cannot believe that so many people 1) actually respond seriously to it and, worryingly enough, 2) agree with him. It genuinely reads like some clickbait shit from the Guardian or other shit where you know that literally everything is bent to its maximum to create a thread like this. It's like creating 'Rashford is the best striker in the world*' thread where *inside tells you that you mean that he's been the best striker in the world only for 10 minutes in pre-season match against Perth because he scored a hattrick with his ass and nobody has scored a hattrick with their ass yet on their pre-seasons from the top 5 leagues so technically Marcus indeed is the best striker for those 10 minutes so your thread is technically also correct.

 

[Lebowski]

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.

As a dedicated listener of the pod I usually agree with your musings, but I would argue that the under-investment during that time is a key component of our fall from the best team in Europe to a bit of a laughing stock on the pitch.

It's much preferable (and far easier) to strengthen from a position of power than weakness.

I remember the statement from one of city's decision makers (I think it may have been Marwood?) where he said when they were first imbued with unlimited funds, they accepted there would be a period where they were taken for a ride by clubs and agents and forced to pay over the odds in transfers and wages for players who may have not been their initial targets (same with managers). They looked at it as a compulsory 'tax' on buying players from a position of weakness that they had to endure as part of their road to the top. It was only after they established themselves (and eventually found Pep), that they could sell the 'project', cherry pick the players they wanted and refuse to be held to ransom by agents or clubs.

I think that pretty accurately describes United in reverse. We could have shopped at the top table and kept up our stranglehold on the league and Europe if we had invested wisely at that time. But instead, we allowed crucial player after crucial player to leave or retire and not adequately replace them. Fergie's brilliance papered over the cracks, but it made the job of the next manager virtually impossible. Then before we knew it, we were no longer the draw we were and we now are forced to pay silly money and silly wages for most players we are after. Added to that, TV money and state-owned clubs caused an explosion in transfer fees, which means that even if we identified the right targets and persuaded them to join, it would cost several times more to do the sort of critical squad surgery rather than doing it gradually from a position of power over the preceding years.

You're right that enough time has passed since Ferguson to allow a well-run club to have recovered their position, particularly given the money we have recently spent. However, we are clearly not a well run club. I think the Glazer's original business plan involved giving Ferguson total control and letting him run things. Judging by their key appointments (Woodward and managers with vastly disparate styles), I don't think they had a succession plan at all other than 'give the reigns to an inexperienced manager and totally inexperienced CEO and hope they become the next Ferguson and Gill'.

As a final point before I make your eyes bleed with my ramblings, it's worth remembering that despite the time passed, most of city's key players have been the players they signed during the period in question (during United's under-investment). Whilst we were replacing Ronaldo with Obertan, signing Owen on a free and having to persuade Scholes to come out of retirement mid-season to save our season during an injury crisis, city were buying David Silva, Aguero and Kompany. Three players who were absolutely central to more or less every trophy they have won from 2008 through to last season.

Do you remember how many times we were utterly dominated by city but managed to edge out a 3-2 win due to a last minute goal during this time? The signs were there even then - city were matching and surpassing the quality of our squad year on year, and it was only Ferguson's sheer will to win and the mentality he imbued in every red shirt that held back the tide until he retired.

 

[Wumminator]

It says over the last two years but doesn't include the Jan 2018 window in that period which includes big money signing players for Spurs, arsenal and Liverpool - being bought for big money (and a swap between us and arsenal but was just that, a swap)

Why is it a random two year window? We all didn't get a manager at the same time, so pretty bizarre

Why is net spend brought into it? We weren't all given a 500m budget to work on...

Since when has the biggest club worried about relativity on spending compared to others especially given the club's income?

Why are we including this window when it hasnt shut yet and we haven't seen the outcome and success of the signings of this window?

What a bizarre flawed thread

fecking hell. Read through the thread and people have added in the January transfers. Spoilers: we’re still outspending teams.

This thread was to stop accusations of penny pinching or other such like nonsense.

I am honestly amazed at how many people don’t understand.

 

[Rood]

From 2009-13 he did. Let us look back at the addition that were made from 2009-13.

Summer of 2009: We lost Ronaldo, Tevez and Hargreaves became crock. We added a winger from Wigan in Valencia, Michael Owen who was planning to retire before sir alex convinced him and gave him the number 7 shirt, we added two unkown quantity in Oberton for 3 million and Mame Diouf,

Summer of 2010: Again instead of strengthening the squad, we added Hernandez who to be fair was succesful but only cost 6 million, a rookie defender in smalling when we should have gone for more quality and experience, Bebe (should I even bother explaining this) and a danish gk in Lindegaard.

Summer of 2011: We signed a rookie defender in Phil Jones, a rookie GK in de gea, an average winger in Ashley Young and we recalled Paul Scholes. Think about it rather than spending we brought back Scholesy.

Summer of 2012: We signed RVP , our first and only major signing since Ronaldo left, Kagawa instead of Hazard, an unkown rookie in Nick Powell and and Butner, a lb to replace Evra.

If that is not working on shoestring budget and massive under spending I do not know what is. You are just avoiding this period as if it had no bearing when in reality we should have replaced ronaldo with more quality aka robben or sneijder, we should have gone for the likes of SIlva and AGuero and stopped City from becoming the dominant force, we should have signed Mata and Hazard rather than haggling for fees. Imagine had we signed some of these players we would have been in a much better position when sir alex retired. Again just to clarify I am not in any shape or form saying it is because of this we are in current situation, NO, what I am saying is one cannot forget about this period.

Well if you dont think that then whats the problem? As mentioned this was one of the most successful periods in the clubs history so what is there to complain about?

Again you are missing out the point about our huge wage bill - this is actually a far better indicator of how much a club is investing in its squad rather than looking at transfers. We generally had the 4th or 5th highest wage bill in Europe during this period which some think we spent very little.
Plus there was big investment in players just before 2009 (Anderson, Nani, Hargreaves, Tevez, Berbatov arrived just in the 2 years before) so that why not as much was needed the next few years.

 

[DSG]

WTF are you on about? have you actually read my posts? I actually totally agree with the OP of this thread - however I saw some absolutely ridiculous statements made by you about the Glazers and investments in general which needed correcting

I dont want to derail the thread asking for more details of these hypothetical magical investments but lets assume the type of returns you are talking about are true (which I highly doubt), anything with that kind of potential return is obviously going to be high risk and probably relatively low value so you cant compare it to investing in a long established £1bn business. Institutional investors are probably happy with 5% and ecstatic with 10% per annum.

And your calculations vs stock market returns are totally wrong anyway because the Glazers werent using £800m of their own funds to buy the club, it was an LBO so their own equity was around £200m IIRC (and I think they pulled a lot of that out pretty quickly via refinance as well) - plus the value of the club is far higher than the current NYSE market cap as that is based on nonvoting shares. Id say £4bn is a conservative estimate.
So yes the Glazers have made huge capital gains on on their initial investment plus they took some profit at the the time of floatation and there are some dividends nowadays as well. Also as I mentioned, it is generally accepted that they have not much interest in football - more them it always was just about investment and business.

So Im afriad you are way off with your 'fahcts'

My points were/are
1. The club has outspent every PL club, with the exception of City, over a 10 year period.
2. The Glazers aren’t that rich in comparison to other PL club owners.
3. If the Glazers were in it only to make money, there are far superior investments to just make money. They may hate football, I don’t know, never met them. But there are much lower risk / higher return opportunities with much shorter and less complicated exits available.

If anyone knows exactly how much they paid to get control of the club, plus how much they profited, I’d like to know as it’s buried in interest payments, etc. They made money, sure. And they still control the club. But I still maintain that in the world of finance it wouldn’t be considered a fantastic return given the length of time and final outcome.

Regarding investments and returns of over 30% annually, it’s really not that unusual. Most real estate investors won’t look at a deal unless the return is 100% over a 3 year period (33% annually). I guess when you compare it to S&P or corporate bonds it seems too good to be true. I suppose those who don’t invest for a living would think it’s impossible to hit those kinds of returns.

Im not defending the Glazers. Just saying that the amount that we are spending on transfers is not the problem, it’s who we are spending it on.

 

[AshRK]

Well if you dont think that then whats the problem? As mentioned this was one of the most successful periods in the clubs history so what is there to complain about?

Again you are missing out the point about our huge wage bill - this is actually a far better indicator of how much a club is investing in its squad rather than looking at transfers. We generally had the 4th or 5th highest wage bill in Europe during this period which some think we spent very little.
Plus there was big investment in players just before 2009 (Anderson, Nani, Hargreaves, Tevez, Berbatov arrived just in the 2 years before) so that why not as much was needed the next few years.

Big clubs keep on investing and not sit on their laurels. Moreover, the players you mentioned either left (tevez) or became crocked( Hargreaves or never reached the potential we expected them to reach. And add to that we lost the best player in the world in Cristiano Ronaldo. If you think we did not need further investment after that then I don't know when do we ever need. We might have dominated from 2009-13 but we were hit and miss in europe, 2010-qf, 2011-finals, 2012-grooup stage, 2013- RO16. Only reason we were still consistent enough was because of one man and that man was Sir Alex and not because Glazers invested, because if they had we would not be recalling Scholes from retirement or replacing Ronaldo and Tevez with Owen and Oberton. Denying that is a great insult to the achievements of Sir alex. Maybe ask Pep to win the league with Cleverly, Ando in midfield, he will be lucky to finish 4th with that squad.

 

[Hamadovich86]

The bigger issue is that we've spent on actual garbage. The club's spending has failed to put United at a competitive level, it doesnt matter if you have the biggest financial muscle in the market or not, none of it matters if it doesnt translate into results. There is a big fecking problem in the way the club is run and if this were run like an actual company heads would've rolled at the very top.

 

[DSG]

This seems such a weird statement to make. I'd say 30% is an excellent annual return for a single, non-diversified investment and a benchmark which actually even a lot of private funds cannot match during economic expansions let alone during bear markets. Investing 1.000.000.000 at 30% CAGR for ten years will transform your initial investment into wealth in excess of 13.000.000.000. And the possible future return will always be lower for low-risk investments and higher for high-risk investments. Even rich people make all sorts of high-Risk investment decisions (that might seem pooor in hindsight) and at times even lose their whole initial investment (i. e. high risk venture capital), something that was never really a danger when buying United, was it?

Investors who realized the world-wide marketability of the Premier League and growth potential of football on a global scale early on have done quite well with their investments I'd assume. You mention the transfer spending, but how much of that has even come directly out of the Glazers pocket (honestly question, I really don't know) - but even the money they did in fact invest was not for free and they receive annual interest payments for it. Meanwhile what I do know for sure is that the Glazers get paid around £22m in annual dividends which is quite safe and when reinvested annually for 10 years - meeting the puny, meagre benchmark of 30% CAGR - would compound to £1.6b. That's not including the aforementioned interest payments and the salary packages paid to directors and senior executives, which includes the six Glazers, and was at £13m in 2017-18.

From the Guardian last year:
"The Glazers’ takeover has in fact drained out of United more than £1bn in interest, costs, fees and dividends since 2005, not too far off the amount Mansour has invested into City. (…) The accounts also showed that United’s borrowings remain at £487m from the Glazer takeover, which Woodward was instrumental in structuring with £525m debts loaded on to the club, including £275m high interest "payment in Kind" loans."
(https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/oct/04/glazers-manchester-united)

30% is an excellent return. Hedge funds targets are typically 25-30% for an LP (remember, whoever is managing the hedge fund is skimming obscene amounts off the top). Venture capital LPs look for 20%ish, that's after the VC takes a 2% management fee and 20% of profits.

Single deals can be much more than 30%. There are a lot of deals like that out there.

The Glazers’ takeover has in fact drained out of United more than £1bn in interest, costs, fees and dividends since 2005.

Dividends are returns to investors, this is not unusual. Pretty much all well managed PL clubs are going to offer this, otherwise, why invest? I haven't investigated the numbers in how much money is in each bucket. I mean, what are "costs"? Transfer costs? Legal fees? Toilet paper?

Again, I don't deny that the Glazers used some financial kung fu to buy the club. But, it's naive to think that other PL clubs are not purchased in the same way. The difference is that Man Utd is a publicly listed company, so there is a responsibility to the shareholders to report earnings results.

I suppose when you view this from the perspective of a fan:
* Directors should not take a salary
* Investors should not be paid a dividend
* The club should be run like a non-profit

The reality is that very few clubs and managed this way. It's funny how John Fan who is flipping burgers at McDonald's is convinced that they would know how to run this club better than our current management. Again, not saying that the Glazers are not above criticism, they aren't. There is shit they've done that I don't agree with and continue to feck up. But let's pump the brakes on the narrative that they haven't spent enough on transfers. It's simply not true.

 

[DSG]

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

Or ones that have and deliver well over your ability to mentally comprehend?

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.

City is a private company. They have no responsibility to report financial results. You have no idea where the money came from transfers, and neither do I. In any asset purchase, you have to put up your own cash, so I have no doubt they did. I have no idea how they financed their transfer fees and neither do you.

The self generated transfer funds from United were still the 2nd most in the PL. Complain that they aren't spending on the right players, the right managers, fine. The problem is not the spend, it's who we are buying, how we are scouting, our identity as a squad (as evidenced by Spurs, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal finishing ahead of us in the league, yet spending much less).

If you disagree with the statement above, by all means, keep replying. Otherwise, I think we can move on.

 

[Suedesi]

30% is an excellent return. Hedge funds targets are typically 25-30% for an LP (remember, whoever is managing the hedge fund is skimming obscene amounts off the top). Venture capital LPs look for 20%ish, that's after the VC takes a 2% management fee and 20% of profits.

Single deals can be much more than 30%. There are a lot of deals like that out there.



Dividends are returns to investors, this is not unusual. Pretty much all well managed PL clubs are going to offer this, otherwise, why invest? I haven't investigated the numbers in how much money is in each bucket. I mean, what are "costs"? Transfer costs? Legal fees? Toilet paper?

Again, I don't deny that the Glazers used some financial kung fu to buy the club. But, it's naive to think that other PL clubs are not purchased in the same way. The difference is that Man Utd is a publicly listed company, so there is a responsibility to the shareholders to report earnings results.

I suppose when you view this from the perspective of a fan:
* Directors should not take a salary
* Investors should not be paid a dividend
* The club should be run like a non-profit

The reality is that very few clubs and managed this way. It's funny how John Fan who is flipping burgers at McDonald's is convinced that they would know how to run this club better than our current management. Again, not saying that the Glazers are not above criticism, they aren't. There is shit they've done that I don't agree with and continue to feck up. But let's pump the brakes on the narrative that they haven't spent enough on transfers. It's simply not true.

Hey numbskull, take a look at hedge fund weighted index as an asset class. The HFRI Fund Weighted Composite Index, a proxy for the average hedge fund portfolio, ranks somewhere below the performance of equity or corporate bond indices. Oh and by the way most indices have a survivorship bias in that they don't include hundreds of funds that blew up along the way.

If and when hedge funds target 30% returns, you've got to ask yourself two questions 1) at what volatility 2) what's the actual realized performance.

I can target 100% returns employing levered derivatives up the wazoo - it doesn't mean I will deliver, and it doesn't mean you can stomach the volatility and the MTM along the way.

 

[Wumminator]

How do I delete my own thread for becoming immensely annoying.

 

[Fluctuation0161]

How do I delete my own thread for becoming immensely annoying.

At the very least you need to add in Arsenals latest £72m transfer to your original post.

 

[Fluctuation0161]

How do I delete my own thread for becoming immensely annoying.

Also, stop making silly threads only looking at 2 years of history when the problems began at least a decade ago. Short term thinking at its worst.

Thanks.

 

[Wumminator]

At the very least you need to add in Arsenals latest £72m transfer to your original post.

I’ll update on Thursday when it’s done.

 

[Wumminator]

Also, stop making silly threads only looking at 2 years of history when the problems began at least a decade ago. Short term thinking at its worst.

Thanks.

A decade would have illustrated my point more. I just CBA.

 

[R'hllor]

fecking hell. Read through the thread and people have added in the January transfers. Spoilers: we’re still outspending teams.

This thread was to stop accusations of penny pinching or other such like nonsense.

I am honestly amazed at how many people don’t understand.

Oh they understand alright

 

[Ødegaard]

fecking hell. Read through the thread and people have added in the January transfers. Spoilers: we’re still outspending teams.

This thread was to stop accusations of penny pinching or other such like nonsense.

I am honestly amazed at how many people don’t understand.

The lack of understanding or misunderstanding of your point and intent I think comes down to how most people fall on a side of the fence on if our owners are god awful evil creatures from hell or not at all at fault for anything wrong with the club and are a positive for us if anything.

I certainly saw your post and misunderstood it to mean "the glazers/board/woody are the good guys", until after I made my snide comment where I said my peace and you agreed, only then did I wrap my head around the fact that your comment was more aimed towards the loud "we don't spend" minority and wasn't about taking a stance on the owners & Woodward as faultless.

I think the divide in social media is affecting how people always seem to go into a setting of agreeing or disagreeing fast instead of properly trying to understand the point being portrayed by others. Gray areas or middle grounds seem to disappear.