yes well hindsight tells us that it was a disaster - we sold/released Van Persie, Nani, Rafael, Evans, Fletcher, Hernandez, Kagawa, Zaha, Keane for about 40 million combined
RVP - Injury prone, ageing.
Nani - Board gifted him a huge deal, we were stuck taking what we could for him.
Rafael - Injury prone, had hardly kicked a ball in years
Fletcher - He had Chrons disease ffs. Again had hardly kicked a ball in years
Hernandez - Had one spurt of form in Germany and faded damn quickly, went 6 months the following season without a goal. His form under Moyes and LVG was poor and he was picking up injuries as well.
Keane - Average player
Kagawa - Wanted his release and again never set the PL alight sadly. Was a big fan of his.
Zaha was the main loss, he's doing well now at Palace, but it took a few years, arguably the only one there with an upside.
we replaced them with players totalling about 320 million and we saw some of the worst football Old Trafford has witnessed
Most were worth the risk at reasonable fees, some are still at the club like Shaw and Herrera (just about).
Romero, Martial, Blind and debuting Rashford.
if players were sold because they weren't performing how much responsibility does Van Gaal and his awful system take?
Personally, I don't think we ever really saw a LVG team. If he had that final year we would of seen more youth players introduced and focus on the long term, instead the board panicked with the Pep signing and went from a long term focus to short term in signing Jose. All the work was undone. Jose wanted ready made players, didn't give a monkeys about youth and carried out his usual plan.
we had a fantastic player like Di Maria and Van Gaal played him as a striker in the end - he hadn't a clue how to use him and it was no surprise to see him do so well for PSG - we took a 15 million hit on him I think.
He misused him sure, but there are 2 sides to every story. Remember ADM's letter of apology to Real? Stating he never wanted to leave, Perez forced him to and his wife didn't want to live in Manchester? He was stuck between a rock and hard place. PSG didn't have the money that summer and we were his only option. Mistake by the board more than anything in buying a player who didn't want to be at the club.
with the kind of outlay he made (320 million according to transfermarket) it was nothing short of a disaster and of all his signings only Martial, Romero and Luke Shaw are part of our future. The jury is still out on Shaw and Martial as they have struggled at times with consistency. Romero on a free was actually his best signing and the only one you would say was a great signing. Meanwhile we can't get shot of Rojo/Darmian
Well he achieved top 4 in season one and tied with it in the second season. The returns on that covered both transfer windows I'm sure.
Our transfer strategy has been dog shit for years and I include Fergie & Gill in on that too. Fergie let that squad rot away, refusing to deal with agents and falling out with many of them. Missed out on so many big name players those last 5 years or so and it wasn't all on the board either, he has openly admitted to not like Raiola.
Moyes / Woody hadn't a clue that first summer. LVG arrived late and we done the best we could, following summer everyone had a meltdown cause of sentimentality over riding the fact that we actually needed to rebuild, Fergie would of had rid of RVP and the rest as well if he was 5 years younger. Jose just went for shorterm-ism. Wanted instant impact players and to hell with youth.
It's been a mess from one and all and we are where we are because of how we've treated the football side of things from top to bottom for over a decade.