Using money as an excuse

[quiet_united]

A lot of people are using money as the reason why City are flying high and we are not. It’s true City’s squad cost £775M combined which is the most expensive. But ours cost £712M which is only behind City and PSG. We have a more expensive squad than Real Madrid for god sake.

To top it off, our wage bill is 3rd in the world, only behind PSG and Barca.

We must have the lowest quality and return on investment out of all top clubs. I don’t think we can use money is an excuse at all for our shortcomings. If anything I feel we lack direction as a football club. It is being run like a business more than a football club. After SAF, we have no real football identity, no long term plan as a club. The people at the top of the club are more focus on financial success than anything, for them football is just a mean for them to grow the business not the other way around.

 

[Damien]

A lot of people are using money as the reason why City are flying high and we are not. It’s true City’s squad cost £775M combined which is the most expensive. But ours cost £712M which is only behind City and PSG. We have a more expensive squad than Real Madrid for god sake.

To top it off, our wage bill is 3rd in the world, only behind PSG and Barca.

We must have the lowest quality and return on investment out of all top clubs. I don’t think we can use money is an excuse at all for our shortcomings. If anything I feel we lack direction as a football club. It is being run like a business more than a football club. After SAF, we have no real football identity, no long term plan as a club. The people at the top of the club are more focus on financial success than anything, for them football is just a mean for them to grow the business not the other way around.

Was a thread on this yesterday and the club have made recruitments behind the scenes this summer just gone showing that there is some sort of plan going forward. We were linked to a director of football a year ago too but we're unlikely to have one with Mourinho at the helm.

The last paragraph also contradicts the first two a bit by the way. If the people at the top were solely concerned with financial success (not disagreeing with this completely by the way... the only two clubs who aren't at least concerned a bit with financial success are PSG and City), we wouldn't have spent the amount we have done over the last few years on player recruitment and on wages too. Our spending would have been more like Arsenal/Spurs, wages and all.

 

[Cassidy]

if you spend cash for several seasons like United did, it sure as hell is not an excuse. But I don't think anybody really believes anything different, right?

Some people do

 

[MikeUpNorth]

We have spent too much money on players who sit on the bench. We need to get more money on the pitch.

 

[el3mel]

Our spending numbers are deceiving imo as :

1) We have spent a lot during LVG 2 years on average/terrible players that got this number high.

2) Under Mourinho we put more than half of our money in 2 signings only. ( Lukaku and Pogba costed 164m alone ).

I agree that our overall policy in the market needs some reviewing starting from next summer, as we need to do an overhaul and we don't have an unlimited budget, so we need to spread money to cover the positions with weaknesses with a very good player but not all +100m, just like what City somehow did last summer.

 

[RexHamilton]

We have spent too much money on players who sit on the bench. We need to get more money on the pitch.

A big bag of cash would have been more effective than Lukaku last Sunday!

Am i doing this right?

 

[BigTimeCharlie]

Has anyone got physical figures of the (25 man squad)cost man for man v City?

I expect a lot of that £712m to be players that are no longer with us (di Maria etc.)

I expect Chelsea to be up there with Liverpool not far behind.

 

[Massive Spanner]

Our spending numbers are deceiving imo as :

1) We have spent a lot during LVG 2 years on average/terrible players that got this number high.

2) Under Mourinho we put more than half of our money in 2 signings only. ( Lukaku and Pogba costed 164m alone ).

I agree that our overall policy in the market needs some reviewing starting from next summer, as we need to do an overhaul and we don't have an unlimited budget, so we need to spread money to cover the positions with weaknesses with a very good player but not all +100m, just like what City somehow did last summer.

that's not deceiving, that's just terrible policy by the club, really. It's poor spending from the ground up, and it's not like it hasn't continued under Mourinho. Mkhi turned out to be a waste of space and the jury's still very much out on Lindelof and Lukaku, too.

We've bought really, really badly since SAF left and it's killing us. Something needs to change, whether it's the scouting, a director of football, or what.

 

[Siorac]

Yeah, the whole 'poor little United' thing is getting out of hand on the Caf recently. There are people who say, with complete seriousness, that Mourinho hasn't been backed by the board.

 

[Charles Miller]

Need to sign top full backs.

 

[Jig1234]

A lot of people are using money as the reason why City are flying high and we are not. It’s true City’s squad cost £775M combined which is the most expensive. But ours cost £712M which is only behind City and PSG. We have a more expensive squad than Real Madrid for god sake.

To top it off, our wage bill is 3rd in the world, only behind PSG and Barca.

We must have the lowest quality and return on investment out of all top clubs. I don’t think we can use money is an excuse at all for our shortcomings. If anything I feel we lack direction as a football club. It is being run like a business more than a football club. After SAF, we have no real football identity, no long term plan as a club. The people at the top of the club are more focus on financial success than anything, for them football is just a mean for them to grow the business not the other way around.

Money is not an excuse. Mourinho has got 7/8 players he wanted. The only player he didn't get was Perisic. Would he alone make a difference to our style of play, I don't think so.

In my honest opinion. Man City recruited better than we did. Mourinho left us short by 3-4 players. However, there is not guaranteed that those players would bridge the gap between both sides, because I think the bigger issue is Mourinho's dire style of play.

His plan is to give the opposition the ball and wait for them to make mistakes with the hope we can punish them on the counter. I for one, think it's an outdated plan that might work now and again away from home, against teams like Arsenal who are susceptible to counters. Man City are blessed with ball players who are comfortable so the idea that they will just give the ball away doesn't really make sense.

Tactically Mourinho is a negative manager who gives too much respect to the opposition. I thought that would be a one season thing. Now, in his so called best season, 2nd. We are still playing with our tails between our legs. His negative approach is rubbing off on all our players. Rojo booting the ball out at every opportunity, players struggling to string 5 passes without shitting themselves. His tactics instill fear into the players, fear to actually play football or to pass with risk.

Unless he adapts his style I don't think just a few more signings can solve all our problems.

I think we need to sign RB, CM a winger. Maybe switch the formation to help Lukaku. Lukaku has been poor but I think Mourinho's system makes him look worse than he is.

 

[Massive Spanner]

Need to sign top full backs.

That's the thing though. We thought we had with Shaw and Darmian. We thought we'd signed the #10's we needed with Mata, and then Mkhi. We thought we'd signed the winger we needed with Di Maria. We thought we'd signed the midfielder's we needed with Herrera, Fellaini, Basti, Scheniderlinn, etc. etc. (at least we finally got Pogba and Matic there in the end).

Do we just continue to keep spending and spending in the hope that eventually we get the players we need in these positions or what?

 

[BarstoolProphet]

It's a valid excuse for lesser clubs finding it impossible to compete with City, but it's not a good excuse for us. We have been making it rain on the transfer market for years now.

 

[el3mel]

that's not deceiving, that's just terrible policy by the club, really. It's poor spending from the ground up, and it's not like it hasn't continued under Mourinho. Mkhi turned out to be a waste of space and the jury's still very much out on Lindelof and Lukaku, too.

We've bought really, really badly since SAF left and it's killing us. Something needs to change, whether it's the scouting, a director of football, or what.

It's deceiving because on paper we spent 250 m during LVG both seasons so we should have had a very good team at least, but we were terrible team whose best players were 2 youngsters.

The problem in our policy in summer since Mourinho was appointed is we put 70% of our budget on one player costing 75-100m while the rest are costing 30-40m and still have the jury on them, just we're putting all our eggs in one basket. This policy will be very good if we have a great team already and adding more super stars it, but for a team that needs a massive overhaul we need to spread our money as much as possible to cover all the spots. No problem in getting World Class players like Pogba or Griezmann if they're available, but we should make sure our budget won't get affected or has an effect on the other transfers.

Our budget next summer should be at least 200m and should be spread wisely on all our key positions that have defects, rather than getting Griezmann -for example- alone and not giving a feck about other positions. That route will take a very very long time till we build a title winning team.

 

[RooneyLegend]

Our spending numbers are deceiving imo as :

1) We have spent a lot during LVG 2 years on average/terrible players that got this number high.

2) Under Mourinho we put more than half of our money in 2 signings only. ( Lukaku and Pogba costed 164m alone ).

I agree that our overall policy in the market needs some reviewing starting from next summer, as we need to do an overhaul and we don't have an unlimited budget, so we need to spread money to cover the positions with weaknesses with a very good player but not all +100m, just like what City somehow did last summer.

Precisely why we're bound to struggle, I have no idea why we think that we should so much money on individual players and not look for any great deals in the market. Kante went for a snip and we weren't even looking in that direction, Mahrez is a former league player of the year and true to form we aren't looking in that direction. Sanchez is being linked with everyone but us atm. I agree with a massive huge money signing when its made to complete a side but not when we're in a rebuilding the side. Then theres the fact that we are the worst sellers on the market. Our wage bill is also a travesty, how can we pay these players this amount of money? The development of our youngsters is also an issue as we'd save money by having them plug holes instead of rolling around with 6 international defenders, Zebe and TFM could easily fill the numbers.

 

[Green_Red]

1. We pay over the odds, so value of squad based on transfer fees is misleading. €250 mil of that is three players, Lakaku, Pogba and Martial. Not even sure your figures are correct.
2. We have recruited poorly under Moyes and LVG.
3. We had to recruit replacements for players shipped out either from retirement / not being good enough. Mainly, as everyone is aware, Fergie left an aging squad behind in 2013, that requires investment to fix.

To say we dont have direction is crazy. We won the EL last season. We're currently 2nd in the league and in the last 16 of CL.

You should have saved this thread for the end of the season.

If you want to compare our squad to citys when Pep and Jose inherited them then Id say Jose had a much harder job and inherited a squad with more deficiencies than Pep. Jose has done amazing work when thats considered.

 

[cyberman]

Of course its an excuse, City spent more on an already better squad and are first, we spend the most after them and are second.
Freaky coincidence isn't it?

 

[Massive Spanner]

It's deceiving because on paper we spent 250 m during LVG both seasons so we should have had a very good team at least, but we were terrible team whose best players were 2 youngsters.

The problem in our policy in summer since Mourinho was appointed is we put 70% of our budget on one player costing 75-100m while the rest are costing 30-40m and still have the jury on them, just we're putting all our eggs in one basket. This policy will be very good if we have a great team already and adding more super stars it, but for a team that needs a massive overhaul we need to spread our money as much as possible to cover all the spots. No problem in getting World Class players like Pogba or Griezmann if they're available, but we should make sure our budget won't get affected or has an effect on the other transfers.

Our budget next summer should be at least 200m and should be spread wisely on all our key positions that have defects, rather than getting Griezmann -for example- alone and not giving a feck about other positions. That route will take a very very long time till we build a title winning team.

Well City spent £136m on full backs, and we need full backs too, and player's will probably be even more expensive to buy next summer. We also still need that right winger, a #10, and probably another midfielder. You're dreaming if you think £200m is fixing all that.

That statement is also exactly what has been wrong these last few years. Every year we say "a budget of x in these positions for players will solve our problems". Well, clearly it hasn't, cause we tend to spend that money pretty diabolically. There needs to be some sort of shakeup in the club. We need to start getting the young talent City get (Jesus, Sane, Ederson, Sterling) as well as the top players they get (KDB, Silva, Aguero). That's far from an easy task but how else are we going to match them in future if we don't do it? It feels like our whole scouting and recruitment system is just totally lagging behind of late and it's hurting us.

 

[notcool]

2) Under Mourinho we put more than half of our money in 2 signings only. ( Lukaku and Pogba costed 164m alone ).

That's not the lack of money but our choice of what to spend it on.

 

[mayurr]

As a view from a rival fan, united using money as an excuse for not being able to compete with city is just so laughable. Its another thing that budget teams like tottenham or Liverpool come up with this excuse ...united as far as money is concerned certainly come in the top tire of spenders. 75mlin+ on lukaku, 90miln+ on pogba, athlatico got banned or else greizmann would have been a utd player again a potential 75miln signing. United certainly have the money to spend .

The difference in performance is not because of money but because of the managers in charge. Pep has his good football philosophy and brought in accordingly. Mourinho has his old school pragmatic approach and hence prefers players like matic, lukaku, ibra, fellaini ...tall big physical players. Its obvious city has better attacking options not because they have more money but due to they have a better philosophy and better manager.

 

[RooneyLegend]

1. We pay over the odds, so value of squad based on transfer fees is misleading. €250 mil of that is three players, Lakaku, Pogba and Martial. Not even sure your figures are correct.
2. We have recruited poorly under Moyes and LVG.
3. We had to recruit replacements for players shipped out either from retirement / not being good enough. Mainly, as everyone is aware, Fergie left an aging squad behind in 2013, that requires investment to fix.

To say we dont have direction is crazy. We won the EL last season. We're currently 2nd in the league and in the last 16 of CL.

You should have saved this thread for the end of the season.

If you want to compare our squad to citys when Pep and Jose inherited them then Id say Jose had a much harder job and inherited a squad with more deficiencies than Pep. Jose has done amazing work when thats considered.

1 Some things I just don't understand, why do we always pay over the odds? We bough Martial for a huge price despite there not really being anyone competing with us for him. We bought Di Maria for significantly more than what Arsenal bought Ozil for. These things need to be sorted out in order for us to get back to the top.

2 Sadly enough it seems the same vicious cycle is repeating itself with what we're seeing from Lindelof, Mkh and Lukaku.

 

[careca07]

This is absolutely correct. The only way we are going to achieve parity with City now is to spend an enormous amount of money in recruiting the best young players and some established, experienced talent. We need to start acting like the biggest club in the world - my concern is that the Glazers won't allocate going above and beyond to do so. I know they've backed two managers now with a good deal of money but that was well within our budget in terms of revenue. Would they speculate to accumulate and spend 300 to 400 million? Because that's genuinely what we need to do to compete with City and with Europe's top six clubs in the Champions League, in addition to moving on several players in our squad who aren't up to par.

 

[Ali Dia]

We have scouted and spent poorly. We have also hired and backed the wrong managers. Jose is getting us there but we need to keep building.

 

[Green_Red]

1 Some things I just don't understand, why do we always pay over the odds? We bough Martial for a huge price despite there not really being anyone competing with us for him. We bought Di Maria for significantly more than what Arsenal bought Ozil for. These things need to be sorted out in order for us to get back to the top.

2 Sadly enough it seems the same vicious cycle is repeating itself with what we're seeing from Lindelof, Mkh and Lukaku.

Because we're the richest club in the world and everyone knows it. Martial was worth the money when you look at what PSG paid for Neymar and Mbappe.

Lindleof and Lakaku will produce. Im usuay not one to give up on a player but I dont see a future for Mhikhataryan. Use him as a make weight for another signing, him and Mata.

 

[Sarni]

that's not deceiving, that's just terrible policy by the club, really. It's poor spending from the ground up, and it's not like it hasn't continued under Mourinho. Mkhi turned out to be a waste of space and the jury's still very much out on Lindelof and Lukaku, too.

We've bought really, really badly since SAF left and it's killing us. Something needs to change, whether it's the scouting, a director of football, or what.

We only paid £26m for Mkhitaryan, he was worth the fee, and to question Lukaku and Lindelof this early on is a bit over the top. Lukaku especially has already scored 21 goals for United and has had a very good start to his career here.

 

[Green_Red]

As a view from a rival fan, united using money as an excuse for not being able to compete with city is just so laughable. Its another thing that budget teams like tottenham or Liverpool come up with this excuse ...united as far as money is concerned certainly come in the top tire of spenders. 75mlin+ on lukaku, 90miln+ on pogba, athlatico got banned or else greizmann would have been a utd player again a potential 75miln signing. United certainly have the money to spend .

The difference in performance is not because of money but because of the managers in charge. Pep has his good football philosophy and brought in accordingly. Mourinho has his old school pragmatic approach and hence prefers players like matic, lukaku, ibra, fellaini ...tall big physical players. Its obvious city has better attacking options not because they have more money but due to they have a better philosophy and better manager.

I think Matic and Ibra were the right signings given the state of the squad. Matic isnt long term and neither is Ibra. Stop gap signings, thats all. Fellaini was a Moyes signing wasnt he? Plus, he is only utilised to cover deficincies. A couple more tramsfer windows are required to get this squad completed and balanced. Its much better now than it has been for about 5 years though, so Im personally happy enough and can see the progression and future.

 

[PlayerOne]

Jose has been backed well by the board, I don't buy the spending argument as being the biggest reason for City being so much better than us. Our squad still needs some work and Jose will be able to spend a lot of money again in the summer. Biggest difference for me is how much Pep has improved his players, their playing some of the best stuff in their lives.

 

[SteveJ]

This line of argument is the natural conclusion of social and business history in Britain: we're so accustomed to being ripped off that we say "It's our fault that we haven't succeeded" rather than "the game is rigged".

 

[Massive Spanner]

We only paid £26m for Mkhitaryan, he was worth the fee, and to question Lukaku and Lindelof this early on is a bit over the top. Lukaku especially has already scored 21 goals for United and has had a very good start to his career here.

not to be pedantic but saying the jury's still out isn't questioning them at all, it's saying we can't really judge them for another while yet. I have high hopes for Lindelof and Lukaku.

Mkhi was most definitely not worth the fee.

 

[SirAF]

Our spending numbers are deceiving imo as :

1) We have spent a lot during LVG 2 years on average/terrible players that got this number high.

2) Under Mourinho we put more than half of our money in 2 signings only. ( Lukaku and Pogba costed 164m alone ).

I agree that our overall policy in the market needs some reviewing starting from next summer, as we need to do an overhaul and we don't have an unlimited budget, so we need to spread money to cover the positions with weaknesses with a very good player but not all +100m, just like what City somehow did last summer.

This.

People have to remember that Moyes and LvG "wasted" a lot of money before we got a third manager who wants a different direction. The squad would obviously look quite different if it was Mourinho who had spent all that money alone over the course of those seasons.

 

[red4ever 79]

Difference is City targeted the areas they were weak. FB and wide positions. We kind of half did that with Lukaku and Matic. Lindelof was an unnecessary purchase and we failed to sign a fb and a winger

 

[DannyCAFC]

A lot of people are using money as the reason why City are flying high and we are not. It’s true City’s squad cost £775M combined which is the most expensive. But ours cost £712M which is only behind City and PSG. We have a more expensive squad than Real Madrid for god sake.

To top it off, our wage bill is 3rd in the world, only behind PSG and Barca.

We must have the lowest quality and return on investment out of all top clubs. I don’t think we can use money is an excuse at all for our shortcomings. If anything I feel we lack direction as a football club. It is being run like a business more than a football club. After SAF, we have no real football identity, no long term plan as a club. The people at the top of the club are more focus on financial success than anything, for them football is just a mean for them to grow the business not the other way around.

Have they? Or are you just making this up for the point of your thread?

 

[Sarni]

not to be pedantic but saying the jury's still out isn't questioning them at all, it's saying we can't really judge them for another while yet. I have high hopes for Lindelof and Lukaku.

Mkhi was most definitely not worth the fee.

I think he was worth £26m. Scored some important goals for us last season and had some good games. If we put him on the market now we will recoup most of the fee.

 

[el3mel]

Well City spent £136m on full backs, and we need full backs too, and player's will probably be even more expensive to buy next summer. We also still need that right winger, a #10, and probably another midfielder. You're dreaming if you think £200m is fixing all that.

That statement is also exactly what has been wrong these last few years. Every year we say "a budget of x in these positions for players will solve our problems". Well, clearly it hasn't, cause we tend to spend that money pretty diabolically. There needs to be some sort of shakeup in the club. We need to start getting the young talent City get (Jesus, Sane, Ederson, Sterling) as well as the top players they get (KDB, Silva, Aguero). That's far from an easy task but how else are we going to match them in future if we don't do it? It feels like our whole scouting and recruitment system is just totally lagging behind of late and it's hurting us.

That was because of the quality of players we got. Imagine of the same money that was spent on Darmian for example, imagine it being spent on a better RB, and we would have had one problem solved. Imagine all the money spent on Depay being spent on a far better and more competent RW and we would have had a major problem solved.. etc.

 

[Mr.Plow]

We've spent a lot but we haven't spent wisely, especially under LVG. We've also had to re-build our squad since SAF retired whereas City still rely on a large number of players who were there before 2013. They've added to an already excellent squad and that certainly isn't the case with us.

 

[Massive Spanner]

I think he was worth £26m. Scored some important goals for us last season and had some good games. If we put him on the market now we will recoup most of the fee.

You could look at it that way, but you could also say he was brought in to solve our #10/RW dilemma and just didn't do it in any way at all. I see him as a failed purchase regardless of whether we get the money back for him or not. He was mostly an example of poor scouting anyway, I mean let's be serious, he really doesn't look cut out for the PL at all.

 

[Zlatattack]

A lot of people are using money as the reason why City are flying high and we are not. It’s true City’s squad cost £775M combined which is the most expensive. But ours cost £712M which is only behind City and PSG. We have a more expensive squad than Real Madrid for god sake.

To top it off, our wage bill is 3rd in the world, only behind PSG and Barca.

We must have the lowest quality and return on investment out of all top clubs. I don’t think we can use money is an excuse at all for our shortcomings. If anything I feel we lack direction as a football club. It is being run like a business more than a football club. After SAF, we have no real football identity, no long term plan as a club. The people at the top of the club are more focus on financial success than anything, for them football is just a mean for them to grow the business not the other way around.

if you spend cash for several seasons like United did, it sure as hell is not an excuse. But I don't think anybody really believes anything different, right?

We've spent unwisely. in the post Fergie era of all our signings, who's been a stand out consistent success? Pogba, Bailly.

You could argue Martial but circumstances have not been kind. Shaw is unlucky. Rojo, Blind, were always only squad players. It's too early to judge the three guys signed this summer.

Mata, Miki, Herrera, Fellaini have all had decent patches but failed to live up to expectations.

Di Maria, Falcao, Depay, Schneiderlin, Schweinstiiger - all massive failures. Fellaini isn't in this list because he's shown form in patches which made him a useful squad player.

Like someone said on another topic - there has been no consistency in our approach, different ideas of how to play. it's been a shambles. On Sunday i was pissed off any really didn't want to see more Mourinho after his current contract, but i think that was over emotional. We need consistency. Last year was better than the 3 before it. This year is much better than last year. We need to let someone build something.

 

[Damien]

Has anyone got physical figures of the (25 man squad)cost man for man v City?

I expect a lot of that £712m to be players that are no longer with us (di Maria etc.)

I expect Chelsea to be up there with Liverpool not far behind.

Will be out by a few million. Player names taken from transfermarkt so won't include the players loaned out or those who hardly play for first team like Tuanzebe, Diaz and Foden.

Spoiler

 

[Massive Spanner]

That was because of the quality of players we got. Imagine of the same money that was spent on Darmian for example, imagine it being spent on a better RB, and we would have had one problem solved. Imagine all the money spent on Depay being spent on a far better and more competent RW and we would have had a major problem solved.. etc.

haven't you just contradicted yourself there though? You say that we shouldn't be spending big money on the likes of Griezmann yet that the quality of players we're getting aren't good enough. What exactly do you think we're going to buy with £200m then that will fix all our problem areas?

 

[cyberman]

@User 72192
But City had a better squad though, we've seem to have overtaken every other side bar a City squad who had a head start plus spent more money than us.
If 2 clubs spend well then what can you do?
Look at Citys attack, all there pre Pep and even Jesus joined 5 months in, and nobody can argue about the talent they had since this forum did nothing but swoon over them for a few seasons now.
Look at what Jose had to deal with, he joins when we had a Morgan / Bastian midfield with Rooney up top. Not only that but a right wing and fullback position that had to wait until more pressing areas were covered.
Jose said himself he would need 3 summer windows for this to be his team. Its his own words yet fans continually judge his transfers as if it were our final form.