Some stats about our transfer activity (Since 1933, SAF Era, Post SAF) | 231p Bought/156p Promoted

[Member 90887]

Hello people,

So, it's been some time since i wanted to do some stats on our transfer activity compared to those of the other teams of the top 6. TransferMarkt has the necessary data going to the 1933/1334 season o_O. since i had some free time today, i made a script to get the data from the website for the Top 6 team.

In this thread, it's just going to be some numbers, charts and observation regarding our transfer activity in the SAF era and after it. i'll make another thread in the coming days comparing our spending with the other top teams in the PL (don't have the time to finish the work today).

So here it is:

First, our transfer spending since 1933:

Our spending in the Sir Alex Era:

The net spend in the SAF era tells another story:

So, until SAF retired, Our spending was quite reasonable ... here's how our spending looked afterwards:

The orange bars are net spend.

Regarding the academy players promoted in relation to the players bought, here's how it looks, the orange part of each bar is the academy player, the blue part is the player bought. we can see here that it's quite balanced.

• in Total (since 1933/ there may be some data missing from before The 70'), we bought 231 player and promoted 156 from the academy, so for three player bought, we promoted two from the academy, which isn't too bad.
• Even after sir Alex left, the trend of promoting players continued. this shows that it is ingrained in the club.

Some other fun facts regarding our transfer dealings:

• The team we bought the most from: Leeds United 7 (FC Arsenal 6, Nottm Forest 6)
• The team we sold the most to (excluding Antwerp and PE) : AFC Sunderland 16 (FC Everton 14 ,Hull City 13)
  
• There has been 0 transfer between us and liverpool in the last 50 years.

 

[yumtum]

Well feck.

 

[UnrelatedPsuedo]

Would love to know how many players we have sold to managers that were ex players of ours. It feels like hundreds.

 

[Member 90887]

Would love to know how many players we have sold to managers that were ex players of ours. It feels like hundreds.

I'll look at that

 

[Adisa]

Would be nice if figures were adjusted for inflation.

 

[rampo]

The numbers will not make sense unless inflation is taken into consideration

 

[Member 90887]

Would be nice if figures were adjusted for inflation.

The numbers will not make sense unless inflation is taken into consideration

Yeah, I'll try to do something about that.

The idea was to compare with the other teams, so the data was enough, but since I didn't have the time to do that yet I thought I would put the raw data first.

I'm open to more suggestion.

 

[Robertd0803]

Selling the most players to Sunderland/Everton doesnt surprise me in the slightest. Seems every window both clubs end with a player from us.

Can get about 7 Everton players off the top of my head and not even going to try with the Sunderland players.

 

[Akshay]

Very nice charts. That period from 2009-2012 where we really didn't spend much has cost us.

 

[robinzx]

Very interesting, good work. Fascinating that we've bought so much from Arsenal of all clubs.

A suggestion: rather than adjust for UK inflation which is 2% given give or take, it's be interesting to see if you could compare our spending versus the revenue of the league which has grown much faster in recent years.

 

[Massive Spanner]

Cool charts man, well done.

Pretty crazy how much SAF still won in his latter years despite shocking under investment by the club, but it did cost us once he left, big time.

 

[12OunceEpilogue]

It's interesting how insignificant the boom in the early 90s with the introduction of the PL looks compared to what's happened in the past few years. Even our gamechanging splurge around 2000/1 looks like small beer.

 

[JASR]

As echoed by others, the numbers need to be adjusted by inflation, not just RPI/CPI type inflation, but the overall English top division revenue inflation (or deflation) per year - else it's like comparing Apples and Pears.

The Tomkins times has some sort of algorithm methodology to level the values, but I think they only go back to 2000 ish.

 

[ravelston]

Very nice charts. That period from 2009-2012 where we really didn't spend much has cost us.

In the 4 year period FY2009-12 we spent £185m on players. Doesn't seem like much by today's stratospheric levels, but it was £50m more than we'd spent in any prior 4 year period.

 

[Akshay]

In the 4 year period FY2009-12 we spent £185m on players. Doesn't seem like much by today's stratospheric levels, but it was £50m more than we'd spent in any prior 4 year period.

Between May 2009 and February 2012 we spent about £120m, so about 40m per summer window. That's the period I'm talking about. Considering we also sold Cristiano in that period it was a woeful shortfall in spending. Those were the peak years of that team and I can't help but think had we invested properly we could have won a few more trophies (maybe another CL?) and had a stronger squad for when Fergie retired.

United had the pulling power to attract almost any player back then, we just repeatedly refused to cough up the dough. Sir Alex always said the easiest time to strengthen is when you're at the top, and we didn't do that.

 

[Rusholme Ruffian]

In the 4 year period FY2009-12 we spent £185m on players. Doesn't seem like much by today's stratospheric levels, but it was £50m more than we'd spent in any prior 4 year period.

Phew, I was worried you might have missed that perceived slight upon the Glazers but I should have had more faith in you!

 

[Jed I. Knight]

Great research, and I'll delve more into the details, but your reversal of how time is typically represented on the x-axis does my head in! Really would recommend sticking to the norm on that one, and make it congruent with how you represent the time frame in the title of the chart (1986 - 2013, not 2013 - 1986).

I'm sure you did a lot of work on digging up the data and reworking them, or were you able to find a ready, made data set?

 

[golden_blunder]

Very small,pedantic thing but your charts confuse my brain as I'm used to them going from left to right

 

[Member 90887]

Great research, and I'll delve more into the details, but your reversal of how time is typically represented on the x-axis does my head in! Really would recommend sticking to the norm on that one, and make it congruent with how you represent the time frame in the title of the chart (1986 - 2013, not 2013 - 1986).

I'm sure you did a lot of work on digging up the data and reworking them, or were you able to find a ready, made data set?

Very small,pedantic thing but your charts confuse my brain as I'm used to them going from left to right

Re the data, i couldn't find a ready made data set, i wrote a script to extract it from the transferMarkt website.

I will correct the time axis.

 

[ravelston]

Between May 2009 and February 2012 we spent about £120m, so about 40m per summer window. That's the period I'm talking about. Considering we also sold Cristiano in that period it was a woeful shortfall in spending. Those were the peak years of that team and I can't help but think had we invested properly we could have won a few more trophies (maybe another CL?) and had a stronger squad for when Fergie retired.

United had the pulling power to attract almost any player back then, we just repeatedly refused to cough up the dough. Sir Alex always said the easiest time to strengthen is when you're at the top, and we didn't do that.

I'm pretty sure SAF thought he had strengthened sufficiently. Certainly on the attacking side we went from 148 goals in the Prem in the two Ronaldo/Tevez seasons to 164 goals in the following two seasons and 175 in the two after that. The problem, if there was one, was the defence and that was not so much a player problem as a failure to adequately replace Carlos Queiroz. With marginally better defensive organisation (and Nani keeping his boot down) we would have been very close to two further CL finals and at least one more Prem. I know the Caf desperately wanted us to buy a defensive midfielder in that period but, for whatever reason, SAF didn't see the need. (it wasn't lack of money - we had in excess of 150m in the bank for most of that period just waiting to be spent.)

For what it's worth, I think our problems are primarily the result of SAF's excessive loyalty to the players who had brought us so much success and, secondarily, the purchase of van Persie. The former inhibited the development of many young players both bought and from within the club (Smalling, Jones and Pogba come to mind). The latter destroyed our pattern of play for the sake of one more Prem - and that assumes that the squad we had, plus Kagawa, would not have performed just as well.

 

[Member 90887]

Great research, and I'll delve more into the details, but your reversal of how time is typically represented on the x-axis does my head in! Really would recommend sticking to the norm on that one, and make it congruent with how you represent the time frame in the title of the chart (1986 - 2013, not 2013 - 1986).

I'm sure you did a lot of work on digging up the data and reworking them, or were you able to find a ready, made data set?

Very small,pedantic thing but your charts confuse my brain as I'm used to them going from left to right

Time axis corrected . thanks for the observation.

 

[Akshay]

I'm pretty sure SAF thought he had strengthened sufficiently. Certainly on the attacking side we went from 148 goals in the Prem in the two Ronaldo/Tevez seasons to 164 goals in the following two seasons and 175 in the two after that. The problem, if there was one, was the defence and that was not so much a player problem as a failure to adequately replace Carlos Queiroz. With marginally better defensive organisation (and Nani keeping his boot down) we would have been very close to two further CL finals and at least one more Prem. I know the Caf desperately wanted us to buy a defensive midfielder in that period but, for whatever reason, SAF didn't see the need. (it wasn't lack of money - we had in excess of 150m in the bank for most of that period just waiting to be spent.)

SAF definitely wanted to strengthen more. Remember us going in for Sneijder and failing to make the deal, so we ended up starting Cleverley instead? Or how we missed out on Hazard due to agent fees? Our attack was overly dependent on Rooney which cost us dearly in 2010.

Anyway, the point is we didn't spend when we needed to. I'm not claiming to know who was really responsible for it.

 

[Ecstatic]

@Mr H

Great post

 

[golden_blunder]

Time axis corrected . thanks for the observation.

Thanks for updating! Now I can read it

 

[roonster09]

Very nice post @Mr H

Surprised to see we signed most players from Leeds.

 

[ti vu]

SAF definitely wanted to strengthen more. Remember us going in for Sneijder and failing to make the deal, so we ended up starting Cleverley instead? Or how we missed out on Hazard due to agent fees? Our attack was overly dependent on Rooney which cost us dearly in 2010.

Anyway, the point is we didn't spend when we needed to. I'm not claiming to know who was really responsible for it.

Also, SAF got Matic and Herrera on the list before he retired.

I think SAF's way of valuating player and working with agents is outdated, and proved to be his Achilles in us losing more targets in later years. More money is being pumped into the game quicker than in the past and SAF didn't loose his purse enough.

Look at it this way. Nowadays you can't deny agents' influence. There are more clubs who can spend similar fee and wage, agents understandably more often than not, want to earn more and court their clients to the best paid clubs. So You need to change the approach to play this updated game. You may end up initially overpay for a player or two, but in long run the agents would help you with other transfer and start giving discount as any shrewd businessman know that it's better to build a long term stable income. And selling is also important, especially for us to annually offload past it or lesser quality players, which is more difficult to earn decent fee. Agent can help getting better value for these players. SAF tried his best to get the best value in, but the outlet side, we more often than not getting peanuts for our outcast. These outcast guys may not always pay for the new signings, but they offset the overpaid fee!!! So why don't we pay the agent and get the first choice and use these agents to balance the book, than getting alternative who couldn't fill the need and in the end losing most or all value when they being pushed out the door?

Edit: I am not questioning SAF ability to spot talent or adapt & getting more of out his players, mind.

 

[Akshay]

Also, SAF got Matic and Herrera on the list before he retired.

I think SAF's way of valuating player and working with agents is outdated, and proved to be his Achilles in us losing more targets in later years. More money is being pumped into the game quicker than in the past and SAF didn't loose his purse enough.

Look at it this way. Nowadays you can't deny agents' influence. There are more clubs who can spend similar fee and wage, agents understandably more often than not, want to earn more and court their clients to the best paid clubs. So You need to change the approach to play this updated game. You may end up initially overpay for a player or two, but in long run the agents would help you with other transfer and start giving discount as any shrewd businessman know that it's better to build a long term stable income. And selling is also important, especially for us to annually offload past it or lesser quality players, which is more difficult to earn decent fee. Agent can help getting better value for these players. SAF tried his best to get the best value in, but the outlet side, we more often than not getting peanuts for our outcast. These outcast guys may not always pay for the new signings, but they offset the overpaid fee!!! So why don't we pay the agent and get the first choice and use these agents to balance the book, than getting alternative who couldn't fill the need and in the end losing most or all value when they being pushed out the door?

Edit: I am not questioning SAF ability to spot talent or adapt & getting more of out his players, mind.

Yeah, I agree with you on all that. The only thing I'm unsure of is whether it was really SAF's choice or more from the ownership or Gill. I really can't see Sir Alex caring that much about how much an agent is paid given the club's coffers, he never complained about record transfer fees earlier in his career. It's impossible to know for sure though because the manager always takes responsibility, defends the board and thus cops the blame in these situations. Klopp and Wenger are similarly held responsible for not spending but how much of it is really their say?

 

[Mr Smith]

The graph that stands out most to me there is the net spend during SAF's time. Its obvious from that graphic how important balancing the books was during his time, and how incredibly good he was at it. Since he left, net spend appears to be much less of a concern to the club overall. Thats probably not surprising of course, as we were seriously in debt during SAF's reign, and then by the time he was gone the debt was pretty much gone.

Still amazing how much that man did for our club.

 

[Treble]

Great thread, thanks.

 

[Lentwood]

I wanted to do something similar but it was very hard to quantify because £200m worth of footballers today is around £40m in 1999

One idea I had was to show the percentage of spending above the league average because I think that will always be a relevant stat. For example, if you spent £200m in 2006 (which I think Chelsea did) that was 200% above the average and therefore that would be like spending £300m(ish) now

It's another reason the stats about spending thrown at LvG and Jose last year annoyed me so much because it's a bit like criticising a millennial for buying a bungalow for £150K when their grandparents paid £5K for a 4-bed

 

[Member 90887]

I wanted to do something similar but it was very hard to quantify because £200m worth of footballers today is around £40m in 1999

One idea I had was to show the percentage of spending above the league average because I think that will always be a relevant stat. For example, if you spent £200m in 2006 (which I think Chelsea did) that was 200% above the average and therefore that would be like spending £300m(ish) now

It's another reason the stats about spending thrown at LvG and Jose last year annoyed me so much because it's a bit like criticising a millennial for buying a bungalow for £150K when their grandparents paid £5K for a 4-bed

Well, at that time, the small teams didn't have as much money as now and they weren't (at least in terms of finances) not in the same league as the big clubs, so maybe the average of the Top 6/Top 4 of that season ?

 

[RooneyLegend]

Between May 2009 and February 2012 we spent about £120m, so about 40m per summer window. That's the period I'm talking about. Considering we also sold Cristiano in that period it was a woeful shortfall in spending. Those were the peak years of that team and I can't help but think had we invested properly we could have won a few more trophies (maybe another CL?) and had a stronger squad for when Fergie retired.

United had the pulling power to attract almost any player back then, we just repeatedly refused to cough up the dough. Sir Alex always said the easiest time to strengthen is when you're at the top, and we didn't do that.

Ah, the so called value years. So many quality players were making the rounds yet it seemed we couldn't even bag one. Modric, Sneijder, Aguero, Hazard, Silva etc Never understood what we were up to during that period.

 

[Lentwood]

Well, at that time, the small teams didn't have as much money as now and they weren't (at least in terms of finances) not in the same league as the big clubs, so maybe the average of the Top 6/Top 4 of that season ?

Yes but they would have had a comparatively similar amount of money available to them as they do now since with the exception of Chelsea and City its TV money everyone is spending for the most part

The point about Chelsea in Jose's first spell is that they were spending huge amounts in advance of the league average. £200m then bought you a world class XI - bear in mind around that time Cech went for £7m, Robben £12m and Drogba £22m

£200m now buys you maybe 2 world class players if you are lucky. So you would probably need to be spending almost £1Bn to get what £200m got you in 2005

This is why it annoys me when last season people said, at the time, 'Jose has spent £146m, therefore United should be challenging' - yes maybe in 2005 but not now! What's Pep spent at City? Is it around £500m(ish)? To take them from 3rd to proper title-challengers? Bear in mind Pep also had a base of Kompany, Toure, De Bruyne, Silva and Ageuro amongst others, to build on

See how tough it is too quantify who **should** achieve what given what they have spent and when. Much as I think Koeman is a prick same thing applies when people talk about his spending. So he spent the Lukaku money plus a bit extra and people predicted top 4? Laughable!!

 

[ti vu]

Yeah, I agree with you on all that. The only thing I'm unsure of is whether it was really SAF's choice or more from the ownership or Gill. I really can't see Sir Alex caring that much about how much an agent is paid given the club's coffers, he never complained about record transfer fees earlier in his career. It's impossible to know for sure though because the manager always takes responsibility, defends the board and thus cops the blame in these situations. Klopp and Wenger are similarly held responsible for not spending but how much of it is really their say?

Yeah. Can't be sure, but the signs seem pointing toward that direction. Upon SAF retirement, we went blow for blow with Madrid bidding for Bale. Paying for Hazard agent can't be more expensive surely?

I don't think SAF had any problem with paying big buck. The only issue is he saw agents lowly and didn't adapt to the change of football which gave more power to agents. He was quite bold complaining about how bad influence has on players... I don't think SAF faced any restriction as Glazer wouldn't be that stupid as businessmen themselves to see that the more you invest, the bigger the profit you can get when you have someone like SAF running thing. Restricting SAF only to predictably spending much more in the future for lesser proven managers is just plain incompetent, which for Glazers to get as rich as they are, it's unrealistic.

 

[Mr. MUJAC]

Considering most teams didn't have a youth system in 1932 it wouldn't be surprising that most players were bought.

However, if you take 1938 as a starting point (when our first comprehensive youth system started) then the figures are 50/50 between bought players and players developed through system.

Also I think your stats are wrong in terms of the actual numbers...Angel Gomes was the 228th youth player to reach our first team since 1931. So your figure of 156 is incorrect.

For example, just taking a look at your 'Ferguson Years' stats...in 1986/87 you have one youth player coming through but Gary Walsh and Tony Gill both made their debuts that season. In addition, we didn't buy anyone in 1986/87?

In 1987/88 you also have one youth player yet Deiniol Graham and Lee Martin both played.

In 1988/89 you have two players noted yet Beardsmore, Robins, Wilson and Brazil all came through.

Finally, last season...no youth players promoted? What about Tuanzebe, Mitchell, McTominay, Harrop, Gomes?

So I'm not sure where your data came from but unfortunately it is incorrect.

 

[Raoul]

Would be better if the currency was in pounds not euros.

 

[sunama]

Cool charts man, well done.

Pretty crazy how much SAF still won in his latter years despite shocking under investment by the club, but it did cost us once he left, big time.

I wouldn't say that SAF not spending, cost us.
SAF choosing Moyes as the next manager is what really cost us. By this time Jose had already been signed by Chelsea, so we had to wait another 2 seasons, before we could get a top class manager.
Had Jose (or any other top class manager) come in immediately after SAF, he'd have spent a lot of money in the first transfer window and had us winning very quickly.
SAF did very well, by spending little, while giving a high return, in terms of trophies.

 

[whatwha]

Nice work @Mr H
Are we getting an update?

 

[Member 90887]

Nice work @Mr H
Are we getting an update?

Well, this data is up to date (2017). But i'll be doing another thread to compare the spending of the top 6 during the premier league era. i was supposed to work on it last week but didn't have the time. innflation shouldn't be a problem in the comparison thread.

I'll take care of it this evening.

Thanks @Massive Spanner @Treble @roonster09 !

 

[Mr. MUJAC]

Well, this data is up to date (2017). But i'll be doing another thread to compare the spending of the top 6 during the premier league era. i was supposed to work on it last week but didn't have the time. innflation shouldn't be a problem in the comparison thread.

I'll take care of it this evening.

Thanks @Massive Spanner @Treble @roonster09 !

Hope you are able to correct the innacuracies with players too. Great piece of work.