There’s a lot of quality out there if we’re clever as Guido at Betis is also like Rabiot on a free and would be a like for like Casemiro replacement but with legs and there’s also Varela at Porto who wouldn’t cost a fortune, I agree with Neves as he reminds me a lot of Carrick but better at ball winning.
I’m sure Bastoni has said before he doesn’t ever want to leave Inter and is kind of their poster boy plus with him being left footed it would mean two left footers at centre back with him and Martinez, I’d love either of Silva at Benfica or Diomande at Sporting and think Diomande may have a release clause this summer.
My only concern with Olise is the hamstring injuries as I remember Giggs and Michael Owen having major problems in their 20’s with their hamstrings and with how inept our medical department is that could be a problem and it’s the same with Neto at Wolves, if we manage to move Greenwood and Sancho on and maybe even Antony I’d throw the lot at Chelsea for Palmer who’s a massive United fan as is his whole family.
Looks like Osimhen is off to PSG so he’d be off the table but I think Toney only has a year left on his contract so that could be the move although everything depends on what we can do with outgoings. You’re far better with finances than me but moving Casemiro, Varane and Martial on is £1 million a week in wages then there could be Bayindir, Lindelof, Williams, Malacia, Fernandez, Eriksen, VDB, Hannibal, Pellestri, Sancho and Greenwood which could bring in £150 million and probably another £1 million a week in wages off the books too.
Yep, we have a list of about 15 centre backs with another left footer Max Kilman recently added and Jared Branthwaite another left footed CB, it’s looks to me that we want one Right sided CB and one left sided CB. It looks to all intent and purpose that three Centre Backs will be let go this summer; Varane, Lindelof and Johnny Evans who will take up a coaching role.
I think you have to be pragmatic Lysandro Martinez when fit is our best CB, but he’s been out now for 1 season out of two and he may find the physical PL something where this continues to happen.
I genuinely think we will only qualify for ECL and even that might not happen, as we’ll need at least 7 points and non defeat against Newcastle to qualify for Europa League.
Wilcox, Brailsford, Blanc, Ratcliffe and I dare say Berrada and Ashworth may all have created detailed dossiers on the squad and the coach, some more extensive than others and there I’ll be some sympathy to injuries and the poor mistakes made previously in recruitment.
I’d go further and say collectively they have been planing a huge overhaul since February 24 but not achieving CL has created a huge financial issue where they will now have to be more creative with player sales and player loans, I also think they now have firm concrete ideas on what’s needs to be done over the summer and winter transfer windows, I Say both because I can’t see even stage one changes all being implemented this summer but I’ll try and predict based on some obvious needs.
Defence - Harry Maguire, Luke Shaw, Tyrel Malacia, Diego Dalot, Lysandro Martinez, Willy Kambwala all stay, injury age, reliability. Homegrown status are reasons why. No one is suitable just yet to be promoted that leaves 6 defenders, 2 of which have huge injury concerns.
I genuinely believe without sales our budget is £150m and £50m is to be allocated to
Defence, Midfield and
Attack.
Available Spend -
£50m+ V Lindelof(10m/120k),
R Varanne(340k), J Evans (60k),
A Fernandez (6m/20k), AWB (25m/100k)
This might mean that £85m in funds is generated for transfer but due to A Fernandez being a youth product and 100% profit more likely £100m plus wages of £640k per week or £33m per year now saved on wages. Therefore we could assume that if we continue to buy players on 4/5 year contracts especially if under 25 then the actual budget now allocated to the defence is more likely about £50m per year in both transfer fees and wages, with Agent fees being paid upfront and likely to be 10% of agreed transfer fee. The hard part is facilitating sales for A Fernandez, B Lindelof and AWB, we all saw how Maguire and Mctominay sales went down last year!
Targets;
Let’s say we get our perfect window with the defence and mostly first or second targets.
RCB - J C Todibo (35m/100k on a 5 year contract = Total Cost 7m + 5m =
£12m)
Agent Fee up to £3.5m /Age 24
LCB - J Branthwaite(55m/80k on a 5 year contract = Total Cost of 11m + 4m =
£15m)
Agent Fee up to £5.5m /Age 2
RB/RWB -J Frimpong(35m/120k a 5 year contract =Total cost of 7m + 6m =
£13m )
Agent Fee up to £3.5m /Age 24
LB/LWB - R Ait Nouri(30m/80k on a 5 year
Contract = Total Cost of 6m + 4m =
£10m)
Agent Fee up to £3m/ Age 22
This would be a great upgrade and give the club 2 more homegrown and 10 defenders. The headline would be
UNITED SPEND £155m or £120m Net to upgrade their defence and there’s not much left to upgrade the rest of the team but the reality is the club through wages saved created a budget of £50m yearly to make the upgrades and the cost is £50m yearly
Nowadays nearly all players fees are paid in instalments and this doesn’t really matter from an accounting point of view as all clubs use accrual accounting. The instalments matter only from a Cashflow perspective. From an accounting point of view when a club buys a player it’s a basic entry on the purchase ledger. So for example if we bought
Jeremie Frimpong with his buy out at £35m, tie him to a 5 year contract and the agreed payments are £15m up front and £20m over the next two years.
On the books the player would be registered like this;
£15m (cash upfront payment)
+ £35m Asset (Frimpong’s cost to Man United, accounting principles state should be lower of the cost or net releasable value)
- Liability £20m (The remaining instalments we owe)
In the following years accounts after another £10m instalment has been made then the balance sheet would look like this;
+ £
35m Asset
+ £25m Cash
- Liability of £10m
I’m trying to show fans that the real issue at United with transfers is not what PSR/FSP allow the club to spend because it United has huge revenues.
The real issue is The Glazers and Woodward exhausted the cash reserves of the club, financed it up to its maximum and now there is no actual cash to do these deals.
United would never have tried to do £35m deal with 3 instalments and most clubs wouldn’t have accepted, the deals were done with 1, 2maximum instalments so a huge transfer like Pogba, United paid £50m up front and then two instalments of £20m.
Sir Jim has invested $200m about £160m to allow the club to have a working capital by paying off the overdue credit card facility.
Lets say £100m of working capital is allocated to transfers, even if we could get those 4 deals actually done on 3 year payment plans, the cost in real terms would be £50m plus £15.5m in agent fees which is £65.5m of the cash, now you would only have £35m of cash for potentially 3 or 4 more players to facilitate actual deals this summer.
This is the main reason Saudi is so important to a lot of PL clubs they pay upfront and increase the working Cashflow capital of the club. We sell Casemiro for £30m this summer and now you have £65m left to arrange the additional transfers.