Accusations of lack of investment are rife on this forum. In fact, I would expect that if you ran a poll, more than 50% of United fans would believe the club has under-invested in the transfer market since the arrival of the Glazers.
The problem with this argument is that it simply does not stand up to any kind of scrutiny in 2020.
I myself highlighted the lack of investment as a primary cause for our decline post-SAF, and it’s certainly true that the Glazers initially cut costs prior to refinancing the loans leveraged against the club in 2010. This meant that key players were allowed to leave or retire without being replaced, and this certainly hurt us for a period.
However, over the last decade, Utd sit 3rd in the ‘net spend’ table globally. Only the two oil-clubs (City and PSG) have outspent Utd in the transfer market (net). In the last three windows, Utd top the net spend table, having bought in Fernandes, Wan Bissaka, Maguire and van de Beek for large fees, as well as the significant investments in younger players we have seen recently.
Now, we can get into a whole other argument about HOW that money is spent and how the way the club’s finances are managed hurts us from a footballing perspective, but that’s not the point of this thread.
What I would like to know is why is our net spend so ridiculously high, specifically, why can’t we seem to sell any of our players for decent fees?
This is very important, because I think our fans are sometimes seduced into believing the likes of Real, Barcelona, Juventus, Bayern, Chelsea, Liverpool etc…are making huge investments in their playing staff because clearly the headlines that catch the eye are the one’s which detail huge sums paid for players. However, what they are forgetting to factor in is that these clubs are excellent at moving players on to fund incoming transfers.
Liverpool, for example, have recently sold Ibe, Brewster and Solanke for roughly £70m…that is about the same money they spent in purchasing Salah and Mane combined (or Allison or van Dijk).
Chelsea recently sold Morata and Hazard for around £135m. This has clearly helped fund their mini spending spree this summer. I could go on and highlight other clubs and other transfers but I don’t really need too…I feel the point has been made and the facts/stats are out there for all to see. I don't want this to turn into a he spent/they spent thread...the FACT (sorry to get all 'Rafa') is that we have the 3rd highest over the course of a decade and virtually no success to show for it.
Now clearly our players aren’t ‘rubbish’. They were identified and bought to United for a reason and most are full Internationals. Likewise, the young players were handed professional contracts for a reason and many of our former Academy graduates go on to become Premier League/Championship regulars.
So why can’t we ever move any of them on for decent fees? I read a startling statistic recently, United have only sold three players for more than £20m post-SAF, and all three were players we had recently purchased and were moving on at break-even or even a loss (ADM, Lukaku, Schneiderlin). In fact, we have only sold five players for more than £20m in our entire history, Beckham and Ronaldo being the other two.
Surely with the talent we produce we should be able to make a steady income from selling footballers on? Even just off the top of my head I can name Drinkwater, Keane, Josh King, Cathcart, Bardsley, Danny Welbeck, Tom Cleverley, Danny Simpson, Robbie Brady, Dwight McNeil, Adnan Janujaz, Gerard Pique, Guiseppe Rossi, Tom Heaton, Darron Gibson and Ashley Fletcher who have played top-flight football recently after leaving Utd. That lot in their prime in today’s market is hundreds of millions of pounds of footballers!
So what is going wrong? Why can’t we get reasonable fees for these players? Are we not marketing them correctly? Do we let them go on the cheap out of some misguided sense of loyalty? Have we just not put enough thought into player sales due to the amount of revenue we raise elsewhere? Are our wages prohibitively high? Do we fail to put them in the shop window by freezing them out or sending them on bad loans? Do we allow players to run down their contracts and hold us to ransom for a cheap move?
I’m genuinely interested to know…we do develop plenty of PL-standard talents. We should be using these players who we develop that end up falling just short to fund transfers for the first team but we’ve massively failed to do that. For all the moaning about the Glazers, they have sanctioned investment in the team beyond all but two other clubs in world football. Other clubs are balancing the books by funding transfers by selling players…why are we not able to do the same?
On that note…should now be the time to consider selling the likes of McTominay, Tuanzebe and Williams? Controversial opinion sure, but is this the most valuable they will ever be? If they will never become Utd regulars, would we rather have them pad out the squad or should we be looking to sell to fund the arrival of one or two players who WILL make the 1st team? Understand people will be split on this and I like these players myself…but again is this WHY we have failed to get value for our players? Are we too sentimental and not ruthless enough? Case in point, what could we have got for Lingard after the World Cup? I would have thought £40m likely not out the question…now we would be lucky to get £10m! I’m sure there were Liverpool fans who were against the sales of Ibe and Solanke, but I bet they’re happy now!
Thoughts?
The problem with this argument is that it simply does not stand up to any kind of scrutiny in 2020.
I myself highlighted the lack of investment as a primary cause for our decline post-SAF, and it’s certainly true that the Glazers initially cut costs prior to refinancing the loans leveraged against the club in 2010. This meant that key players were allowed to leave or retire without being replaced, and this certainly hurt us for a period.
However, over the last decade, Utd sit 3rd in the ‘net spend’ table globally. Only the two oil-clubs (City and PSG) have outspent Utd in the transfer market (net). In the last three windows, Utd top the net spend table, having bought in Fernandes, Wan Bissaka, Maguire and van de Beek for large fees, as well as the significant investments in younger players we have seen recently.
Now, we can get into a whole other argument about HOW that money is spent and how the way the club’s finances are managed hurts us from a footballing perspective, but that’s not the point of this thread.
What I would like to know is why is our net spend so ridiculously high, specifically, why can’t we seem to sell any of our players for decent fees?
This is very important, because I think our fans are sometimes seduced into believing the likes of Real, Barcelona, Juventus, Bayern, Chelsea, Liverpool etc…are making huge investments in their playing staff because clearly the headlines that catch the eye are the one’s which detail huge sums paid for players. However, what they are forgetting to factor in is that these clubs are excellent at moving players on to fund incoming transfers.
Liverpool, for example, have recently sold Ibe, Brewster and Solanke for roughly £70m…that is about the same money they spent in purchasing Salah and Mane combined (or Allison or van Dijk).
Chelsea recently sold Morata and Hazard for around £135m. This has clearly helped fund their mini spending spree this summer. I could go on and highlight other clubs and other transfers but I don’t really need too…I feel the point has been made and the facts/stats are out there for all to see. I don't want this to turn into a he spent/they spent thread...the FACT (sorry to get all 'Rafa') is that we have the 3rd highest over the course of a decade and virtually no success to show for it.
Now clearly our players aren’t ‘rubbish’. They were identified and bought to United for a reason and most are full Internationals. Likewise, the young players were handed professional contracts for a reason and many of our former Academy graduates go on to become Premier League/Championship regulars.
So why can’t we ever move any of them on for decent fees? I read a startling statistic recently, United have only sold three players for more than £20m post-SAF, and all three were players we had recently purchased and were moving on at break-even or even a loss (ADM, Lukaku, Schneiderlin). In fact, we have only sold five players for more than £20m in our entire history, Beckham and Ronaldo being the other two.
Surely with the talent we produce we should be able to make a steady income from selling footballers on? Even just off the top of my head I can name Drinkwater, Keane, Josh King, Cathcart, Bardsley, Danny Welbeck, Tom Cleverley, Danny Simpson, Robbie Brady, Dwight McNeil, Adnan Janujaz, Gerard Pique, Guiseppe Rossi, Tom Heaton, Darron Gibson and Ashley Fletcher who have played top-flight football recently after leaving Utd. That lot in their prime in today’s market is hundreds of millions of pounds of footballers!
So what is going wrong? Why can’t we get reasonable fees for these players? Are we not marketing them correctly? Do we let them go on the cheap out of some misguided sense of loyalty? Have we just not put enough thought into player sales due to the amount of revenue we raise elsewhere? Are our wages prohibitively high? Do we fail to put them in the shop window by freezing them out or sending them on bad loans? Do we allow players to run down their contracts and hold us to ransom for a cheap move?
I’m genuinely interested to know…we do develop plenty of PL-standard talents. We should be using these players who we develop that end up falling just short to fund transfers for the first team but we’ve massively failed to do that. For all the moaning about the Glazers, they have sanctioned investment in the team beyond all but two other clubs in world football. Other clubs are balancing the books by funding transfers by selling players…why are we not able to do the same?
On that note…should now be the time to consider selling the likes of McTominay, Tuanzebe and Williams? Controversial opinion sure, but is this the most valuable they will ever be? If they will never become Utd regulars, would we rather have them pad out the squad or should we be looking to sell to fund the arrival of one or two players who WILL make the 1st team? Understand people will be split on this and I like these players myself…but again is this WHY we have failed to get value for our players? Are we too sentimental and not ruthless enough? Case in point, what could we have got for Lingard after the World Cup? I would have thought £40m likely not out the question…now we would be lucky to get £10m! I’m sure there were Liverpool fans who were against the sales of Ibe and Solanke, but I bet they’re happy now!
Thoughts?
what a load of absolute sentimental waffle.