Saw this transfer comparison and now I need therapy (prepare for pain)

[sullydnl]

But it really isn't. Cunha is a top class, experienced player who, without taking a "step up", would comfortably be one our best 2 players. He s also been one of the best players in the league this season, and came in with a massive reputation. He can still turn out to be a horrible buy for one reason or another, much like Mount, but the proven experience is there. We paid a fair price for a league proven top class player.
If anything, we should be glad players of that ilk/level would still come here given other better placed options.

We also bought Mazraoui, Diallo, Bruno and Dalot for the small price of 1 Jack Grealish. Selective stats mean little in this context. Especially with a new recruitment team and far less manager input in transfers, past recruitment errors should mean little.

It depends on what you mean by "top class".

Cunha isn't a Salah, he's a Luis Diaz. And while that's very good, and definitely improves us, he's costing us €20m more than Luis Diaz cost Liverpool.

And that's because where someone like Cunha is a player you'd ideally pick up when Wolves did (for €50m from Europe as a 23 year old), we're picking him after he's already performed in the PL as a 26 year old. Which means paying more, in this case by approx. €24m.

Which, fine. It might be we're in such a bad position that this summer it's worth paying more money for high floor players like Cunha/Mbeumo to get the team back to being good again. It might expedite us getting back to being a 4th-6th place team, with the European football income that entails.

But if we continue buying Cunha-level players for Cunha-level money long term, we still have massive problems. You have to be able to identify that level of talent before PL performances hike their price, and you have to be able to identify players who will succeed in the PL without first seeing them play in the PL.

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

Plus as usual we played him in the wrong position for the majority of his time here. Imagine him in one of the 10 spots, he’d be great I think.

We have had a bad habit of shoe horning players into positions that they don’t really fit.

The only time he ever played with a true DM here was Matic, who was bought when he was already past his best and didn't have much legs left. We actively neglected reinforcing and building a midfield around our most expensive investment instead. It would be like signing a striker who was the best in the world at heading the ball and beating his man in the air, and then refusing to bring in a single player who could deliver crosses well from wide positions.

 

[Bertie Wooster]

It depends on what you mean by "top class".

Cunha isn't a Salah, he's a Luis Diaz. And while that's very good, and definitely improves us, he's costing us €20m more than Luis Diaz cost Liverpool.

And that's because where someone like Cunha is a player you'd ideally pick up when Wolves did (for €50m from Europe as a 23 year old), we're picking him up after he's already performed in the PL as a 26 year old. Which means paying more.

Which, fine. It might be we're in such a bad position that this summer it's worth paying more money for high floor players like Cunha/Mbeumo to get the team back to being good again. It might expedite us getting back to being a 4th-6th place team, with the European football income that entails.

But if we continue buying Cunha-level players for Cunha-level money long term, we have problems. You have to be able to identify that level of talent before PL performances hikes their price.

Yep, well said.

I posted very similar, but you've put it better.

 

[RedDevil@84]

De Gea aside, ( and maybe Bruno last season when he was injured) Pogba was so much better than everyone else on the team it was tragic. I remember that one season where he was top goalscorer, top assists, top chances created, top shots....
There was a time on here where a 150 million valuation of Pogba was seen as insulting.
Post world cup Pogba was in the discussion for best midfielder on the planet. Injuries eventually cut short his stint with us, but let's not move the goalposts. Our team was soo bad. Antonio Valencia (on his last legs) and Young/ brainless Shaw, Smalling ×Jones×Rojo×Lindelof at center back, past it Matic, past it Carrick, Schneiderlin?, Fellaini, young Mctominay and in attack a past it Sanchez, kid Rashford, sulking kid Martial, Mkhtaryan?, struggling Lukaku and that was pretty much it. ( half past it Ibra for 6 months too)
It took peak Mourinho, peak Dave Saves, peak Solskjaer power of friendship, and a genuinely world class couple of seasons from Pogba to take this team from the bottom half to 2nd

The thing with us fans is we really lack common sense. We d look at Pogbas running stats and compare them to Herrera, criticising Pogba's "commitment and professionalism". Pogba had 20 kgs and about 28 cms on Herrera and was a lot less mobile.

He s also a bit of bellend and kept locking horns with Mourinho and I think we should have sold to Real like originally planned/ like Mourinho wanted but he was still an absolute baller and saying otherwise is just plain wrong.

Funny how you are the only one with common sense. We had a world class Pogba and everyone else was useless.

 

[Ish]

The Woodward effect. Complete and utter clown.

 

[Ollie Derbyshire]

The only time he ever played with a true DM here was Matic, who was bought when he was already past his best and didn't have much legs left. We actively neglected reinforcing and building a midfield around our most expensive investment instead. It would be like signing a striker who was the best in the world at heading the ball and beating his man in the air, and then refusing to bring in a single player who could deliver crosses well from wide positions.

He’d have been better as a marauding box to box or pure AM. If i remember correctly half the time he was a deep lying playmaker.

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

He’d have been better as a marauding box to box or pure AM. If i remember correctly half the time he was a deep lying playmaker.

Yeah just let him float as an attacking CM/playmaker type. Give the guy runners and he'll win you games because his passing is as good as anyone I've watched in the past decade bar Kroos, and that's not even taking into account the ball striking and dribbling he brought.

Really weird looking back on his career, because his NT record is as good as it gets really but overall you can't help but think if you play out his career 10 times than this outcome was in the bottom third for how much quality he had. Like if you put Pogba on one of those Barca/Bayern/PSG teams over the years he's thought of far differently.

 

[Roboc7]

When you look at the 10 most expensive transfers of all time, most of them turned out to be flops or poor value for the teams that signed them even if they were good players. A lot of the time the most expensive signings don’t justify their fees.

Our problem has been bad and over priced signings whatever we’ve spent, combined with huge wages and also failing to hedge our bets by investing in younger players.

 

[OverratedOpinion]

I don't have a problem with as many of these as most may do.

Antony - Decent player but was so obviously not worth the absurd fee. It just feels like we became obsessed with not failing to sign him.
Hojlund - I can understand that there wasn't many established strikers so they looked for one they thought had the tools but he never looked good enough to me at that price.
Casemiro - Just too old for that amount of money.
Mount - I rate him but on reflection it just didn't make sense positionally when central midfield needed upgrading.

They are the only ones that feel totally illogical to me. Maguire was obviously overpriced but clearly felt incredibly necessary to the club and he is a good player.

 

[Ollie Derbyshire]

Yeah just let him float as an attacking CM/playmaker type. Give the guy runners and he'll win you games because his passing is as good as anyone I've watched in the past decade bar Kroos, and that's not even taking into account the ball striking and dribbling he brought.

Really weird looking back on his career, because his NT record is as good as it gets really but overall you can't help but think if you play out his career 10 times than this outcome was in the bottom third for how much quality he had. Like if you put Pogba on one of those Barca/Bayern/PSG teams over the years he's thought of far differently.

Absolutely, yes players have let us down over the years, Pogba being one, but we’ve also not got the best out of them due to mindless decisions and poor squad building.

 

[Eyepopper]

 

[Galactic]

It’s United. We pay at least double compared to others. That’s always the way it is.

 

[Bastian]

Will forever be strange to me how hated he is considering he was... you know, actually a good player. No he wasn't Roy Keane + Zidane for us, but he was objectively good with moments of brilliance for the majority of his time here.

I'll remind you. He was the most talented player at the club by a mile. But he undermined managers and he didn't work for the team. He could have been a generational player, but his idea of himself was what held him back. Terrible piece of business considering we recouped zero.

 

[TheLord]

Now let's do Chelsea

#	Player	Age	Nat.	Season	Left	Fee
1​	Enzo Fernández	22​	Argentina	22/23	SL Benfica	€121.00m
2​	Moisés Caicedo	21​	Ecuador	23/24	Brighton & Hove Albion	€116.00m
3​	Romelu Lukaku	28​	Belgium	21/22	Inter Milan	€113.00m
4​	Wesley Fofana	21​	France	22/23	Leicester City	€80.40m
5​	Kai Havertz	21​	Germany	20/21	Bayer 04 Leverkusen	€80.00m
6​	Kepa Arrizabalaga	23​	Spain	18/19	Athletic Bilbao	€80.00m
7​	Mykhaylo Mudryk	22​	Ukraine	22/23	Shakhtar Donetsk	€70.00m
8​	Álvaro Morata	24​	Spain	17/18	Real Madrid	€66.00m
9​	Marc Cucurella	24​	Spain	22/23	Brighton & Hove Albion	€65.30m
10​	Christian Pulisic	20​	United States	18/19	Borussia Dortmund	€64.00m

Is there a last 10-year net spending table available though?
Spending alone doesn't give any proper info unless you factor in sales as well.

 

[DarkLord1984]

It never ceases to astonish me just how poorly we've been run.

The Glazers couldn't have done a worse job running this club if they tried.

 

[Waynne]

It’s United. We pay at least double compared to others. That’s always the way it is.

The post above you is why.

Had we had a Dan Ashworth or anyone of that calibre run the football side of things back then, we'd be in a much better position today.

 

[Slugger O'Toole]

The fact Cunha has cost that much is crazy as well. City have managed to buy 2 very good players for the price we paid for Cunha. And we wonder why we keep being left behind.

Cherki had an agreement with Lyon to leave for cheap and Ait Nouri had a year left on his contract, I believe. I imagine we and several other clubs enquired about Cherki and he chose City.

 

[bgoodall]

It also misses the one that really destroyed the wage structure as well.

The cliff this guy fell off was higher than Everest.

 

[JBG]

The cliff this guy fell off was higher than Everest.

I was kinda excited when we got him, but also a little disappointed we traded away Mhkitaryan who I actually liked(probably would've thrived in our current system). But the way Sanchez just totally fell off was just tremendously bad.

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

I'll remind you. He was the most talented player at the club by a mile. But he undermined managers and he didn't work for the team. He could have been a generational player, but his idea of himself was what held him back. Terrible piece of business considering we recouped zero.

By all accounts he was incredibly professional with every manager he worked with actually. And "didn't work for the team" is just subjective jargon. He's never been a very defensive minded midfielder, his stature belied that fact as he was always pretty poor in his reading of the game/positioning when out of possession even though he could win duels.

 

[honirelandboy]

Who’s judging the characters of these players? Maybe a 3 round interview and a few personality tests wouldn’t go astray to make sure there not selfish, lazy, narcissistic , spoilt prat’s with the amount of money spent on some of them.

Nah mate I’m bloody Jadon Sancho, how dare you tell me to track back. I’m in the Jlingz club with Rashy and Pogba. We in the elite club bro getting long contracts and 300k bruv, f*** off bruv.

 

[Chipper]

Is there a last 10-year net spending table available though?
Spending alone doesn't give any proper info unless you factor in sales as well.

Depends what's being looked at I'd have thought.

Think the OP was simply trying to assess which players were successful or not, and worth it or not on an indivdual basis for United and then perhaps the poster who put up Chelsea's was doing the same. Don't really need net spend for that.

Net spend more about comparing clubs, where higher net spend should equal more success, although where the club's starting point was and wage bill needs to be factored in too. Wages alone is usually a better marker than transfer spend traditionally if only using one data point for predicting success.

You can find net spend tables here - https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/premier-league/einnahmenausgaben/wettbewerb/GB1

 

[RuudTom83]

The fact Cunha has cost that much is crazy as well. City have managed to buy 2 very good players for the price we paid for Cunha. And we wonder why we keep being left behind.

Yeah but you can't just pick and choose, you could flip it and say City have spent 60M on Doku, 62M on Matheus Nunes, 40M on Khusanov, 60M on Gonzalez that's the best part of 225M and they haven't really given much back.

 

[DRJosh]

I think the most tragic part of this is the fact that we don't seem to learn from past mistakes.

 

[sunama]

Yeah it's grim reading for sure. It's so bad it's difficult to believe it wasn't sabotage by a scouser

Haha. That's exactly how I see it.
The senior management team in place were so bad at their jobs. The mind boggles.
Even now, IMO we are paying silly amounts of money.
I totally understand if we break the bank for someone like Mbappe, but for players like Antony and Hojlund...WTF!!!

I think the most tragic part of this is the fact that we don't seem to learn from past mistakes.

Correct.
I think we'll continue spending huge money on players that aren't good enough.

 

[sunama]

Yeah but you can't just pick and choose, you could flip it and say City have spent 60M on Doku, 62M on Matheus Nunes, 40M on Khusanov, 60M on Gonzalez that's the best part of 225M and they haven't really given much back.

They've won a huge number of trophies.
I'd say that they have got a fantastic return on investment, even if certain players didn't work out.
Our huge spending spree has culminated in 15th place.

It's worse in hindsight. At the time we bought them, everyone was wetting their pants. Its just somehow every player turns to absolute dogshit. If they actually fulfilled their potential then no one would complain so much.

I'm 50yrs old so perhaps more grounded (compared to say an excitable 15 year old fan). I can tell you that I am not excited for any of these players when they first arrive. I ask them to prove themselves over the course of a season.
For me, Bruno and perhaps Maguire are the only 2 players on that list who have absolutely proved their worth across multiple seasons.

 

[Bastian]

By all accounts he was incredibly professional with every manager he worked with actually. And "didn't work for the team" is just subjective jargon. He's never been a very defensive minded midfielder, his stature belied that fact as he was always pretty poor in his reading of the game/positioning when out of possession even though he could win duels.

That's hilarious. Jose couldn't hear a bad word about him without going ballistic and then when Pogba had become too much he gave up defending him, and Pogba undermined him at every opportunity. What you see as poor reading of the game I see as laziness. He came out with some line about Messi not running all the time, which read as though he considered himself to be in the same category.

 

[RuudTom83]

They've won a huge number of trophies.
I'd say that they have got a fantastic return on investment, even if certain players didn't work out.
Our huge spending spree has culminated in 15th place.

That is a wider issues and not really what my post was about...my point was you can't just pick 1 successful transfer and then compare it to transfer you don't like.

Every club spends shit loads in the PL and a lot of those transfers turn out pants.

 

[golden_blunder]

It depends on what you mean by "top class".

Cunha isn't a Salah, he's a Luis Diaz. And while that's very good, and definitely improves us, he's costing us €20m more than Luis Diaz cost Liverpool.

And that's because where someone like Cunha is a player you'd ideally pick up when Wolves did (for €50m from Europe as a 23 year old), we're picking him after he's already performed in the PL as a 26 year old. Which means paying more, in this case by approx. €24m.

Which, fine. It might be we're in such a bad position that this summer it's worth paying more money for high floor players like Cunha/Mbeumo to get the team back to being good again. It might expedite us getting back to being a 4th-6th place team, with the European football income that entails.

But if we continue buying Cunha-level players for Cunha-level money long term, we still have massive problems. You have to be able to identify that level of talent before PL performances hike their price, and you have to be able to identify players who will succeed in the PL without first seeing them play in the PL.

Cunha played a few years PL experience with wolves whilst Diaz was bought from abroad. That accounts for some of the difference. If we had bought cunha straight from Germany then he’d have cost less but probably taken a bit longer to get up to speed of the league

Plus United tax on top

 

[ron86]

I honestly think my gf who doesn't watch football could've picked better signings. Th

The fact Cunha has cost that much is crazy as well. City have managed to buy 2 very good players for the price we paid for Cunha. And we wonder why we keep being left behind.

Yep, we spend large fees then if they don't work out we're screwed, need to split the money between more signings and pit some thought in to it

 

[red.knight]

That Man Utd list was compiled over a long period. I still have my doubts about INEOS ownership but I argue we are making progress in the transfer market. Lets take a look at Utd transfers under INEOS. The biggest issue remains moving on Rashford and Sancho. Its gonna take years to undo the damage Woodward and co. caused and restore Utd to glory.

Signed:
Yoro £52m
Ugarte £50.5m
De Ligt £42.7m
Zirkzee £36.5m
Mazraoui £17.2m
Heaven £1m
Diego Leon £4.5m
Dorgu £30m
Cunha £62.5m

Total: £296.9m

Sold/Loan:
McTominay £25.4m
Greenwood £26.7m
Wan-Bissaka £15m
Kambwala £10m
Hannibal £9.4m
Pellistri £6.8m
Carreras £5m
DVB £0.5m
Sancho loan + £5m
Rashford loan
Antony loan
Malacia loan
Martial released
Varane released
Lindelof released
Evans released
Eriksen released

Total: £103.8m

Net spend: £193.1m

 

[Josep Dowling]

Yeah but you can't just pick and choose, you could flip it and say City have spent 60M on Doku, 62M on Matheus Nunes, 40M on Khusanov, 60M on Gonzalez that's the best part of 225M and they haven't really given much back.

First point is all your prices quoted are in Euros. Cunha would be 74m euros compared to those prices. We also can’t talk about wasting money on bad players.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

First point is all your prices quoted are in Euros. Cunha would be 74m euros compared to those prices. We also can’t talk about wasting money on bad players.

Of course we can. Just like we can criticise teams that are ahead of us in the league. Since when does supporting a crap team mean you’re not allowed to talk smack about any football club that is any less shit?

 

[Pogue Mahone]

It depends on what you mean by "top class".

Cunha isn't a Salah, he's a Luis Diaz. And while that's very good, and definitely improves us, he's costing us €20m more than Luis Diaz cost Liverpool.

And that's because where someone like Cunha is a player you'd ideally pick up when Wolves did (for €50m from Europe as a 23 year old), we're picking him after he's already performed in the PL as a 26 year old. Which means paying more, in this case by approx. €24m.

Which, fine. It might be we're in such a bad position that this summer it's worth paying more money for high floor players like Cunha/Mbeumo to get the team back to being good again. It might expedite us getting back to being a 4th-6th place team, with the European football income that entails.

But if we continue buying Cunha-level players for Cunha-level money long term, we still have massive problems. You have to be able to identify that level of talent before PL performances hike their price, and you have to be able to identify players who will succeed in the PL without first seeing them play in the PL.

To be fair, we’ve definitely been having a crack at signing 23 year old “Cunha before Wolves signed him” type players. Hojlund, Ugarte and Zirkzee the most obvious examples. But you need to mix that up with “Cunha right now” players or we’ll just keep seeing the same problems we saw last season. Too much responsibility for players who aren’t (yet?) good enough.

 

[Champ]

Maguire, Pogba, Lukaku cannot be seen as failures, Pogba and Lukaku weren't bad signings, in fact I'd say they were decent signings.
Maguire definitely has been a good signing, definitely got money's worth from him.
Mount has been injured, he still has ability and has yet to be really classed as a poor signing due to still being able to offer something to the team moving forward.
Cunha hasn't kicked a ball for us, so realistically by my calculations that's a 50% 'failure' rate, I'd say that's about right for transfers, especially big money ones.