What has been Man Utd’s best ever outgoing transfer?

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

Inspired by the best ever transfer thread. But a different take which has been our best ever sale of a player? Not about our biggest transfers, as clearly we would all have rather kept Ronaldo than get £80m.

a couple come to mind:

. Dion Dublin - bought for £1m. Unfortunately got injured, but we bought Eric as a result. Sold for £2m to to double our money, and £2m was big at the time. Went on to have a really good career, and such a nice guy. But never a United player.


. Morgan Schneiderlin - awful player. Sold for £20m rising to £24m. Did brilliantly to get most of our money back on a £25m purchase.

. Lukaku. Not wanted, playing badly, poor attitude. We massively overpaid for him in the first place. What a summer, when your choices are Lukaku and Morata...

Somehow we got in the region of £73m for him. If it wasn’t for Conte we would have made a big loss.

what have you got?

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

Schneiderlin, my lord the clamour for him on this place
How on Earth we almost got our money back I’ll never know.

 

[AgentSmith]

£57 million for Di Maria a year after signing him for £67 million wasn’t bad considering he and we publicly wanted him gone.

£18 million for Welbeck was solid as well given the fee at the time.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

Selling a clearly crocked Whiteside was also good business.

I love Everton

 

[Gary_Walsh_Nou_Camp_Hell]

Amazing we got £15m when selling Veron.

Poor spell at the club and injuries setting in.

 

[Ali Dia]

In hindsight If we’d sold DDG for £45 million that would have been up there.

 

[Remember the geese]

Mkhitaryan straight swap for Alexis Sanchez looked a really good bit of business initially I thought. Until the actual playing football bit started.

 

[Pexbo]

Alexis Sanchez to Inter Milan was a relief and a half.

 

[United58]

Lukaku was a great sale (especially considering the money we got for him), his touch was dire and he slowed us down a lot. A moaner off the field too

 

[AgentSmith]

Alexis Sanchez to Inter Milan was a relief and a half.

We paid £15 million for Inter to have him on loan and £9 million for him to move to Inter permanently.

And it was still a great deal for us given the situation.

 

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

We paid £15 million for Inter to have him on loan and £9 million for him to move to Inter permanently.

And it was still a great deal for us given the situation.

it was such a relief to finally get rid of him - but I wouldn’t class him as a good (outgoing) transfer.

 

[Rado_N]

Lukaku definitely.

 

[AgentSmith]

it was such a relief to finally get rid of him - but I wouldn’t class him as a good (outgoing) transfer.

No neither would I.

But it’s almost a different set of rules for a transfer that bad and that costly. The ability to cut our losses painlessly and smoothly was as @Pexbo said - a relief and half and then some.

Looking forward, if we get close to £20 million for Lingard from Moyes with a year left on his contract that’ll be near the top of the list. As will getting rid of Jones, regardless of where he goes.

 

[Teja]

VdB to Ajax for 30m :trollface:

j/k jury's still out and he's still young.

Lukaku I'm not convinced has been the best outgoing transfer, it's not like he's shit and Inter weren't total suckers for buying him. Their top goal scorer, close to top of Serie A and has them in a title challenge in a race that has had a single winner for the past decade.

 

[mosschopps]

Surely its got to be Ronaldo. When you put together value for money we got out of him and transfer fee. May not have wanted him to go but Man utd certainly made their money.

 

[Chairman Steve]

A complicated deal which involved Keith Gillespie going to Newcastle whilst they gave us Andy Cole. Scenes of the geordies yelling at Keegan at St James Park asking why was Cole sold, and Keegan saying they got an equally talented player in Gillespie in return.

Gillespie never really excelled despite being highly rated back then, and Beckham came through later that year and the rest is history as they say.

 

[AgentSmith]

If Fergie had stayed for another year I think Rooney to Chelsea for £25 million might be up there.

 

[JPRouve]

Lukaku definitely.

I agree with that one, in fact it was a good deal for everyone involved.

 

[RedDevil@84]

£18 million for Welbeck was solid as well given the fee at the time.

Think we gave him away cheaply. There was this English player premium still going at that time. And English attacking players would have costed much more to buy. So at least I felt he got away on the cheap.
But he was a local lad and was looking for regular opportunities. So it was good to allow him to get what he wants.

 

[Leftback99]

Mkhitaryan straight swap for Alexis Sanchez looked a really good bit of business initially I thought. Until the actual playing football bit started.

If you ignore what we did with it we effectively got £30m for Mkhitaryan. That's got to be one of our better 'sales'. Although it looks like he's doing alright this season.

 

[USREDEVIL]

Sanchez

 

[Wilt]

Surely its got to be Ronaldo. When you put together value for money we got out of him and transfer fee. May not have wanted him to go but Man utd certainly made their money.

We could have got £100m+ if we’d hung on for a couple of years

 

[caid]

Selling van nistelrooy worked out pretty well tbh

 

[2cents]

How much did we get for Ince? I was a huge fan and gutted we sold him, but Fergie tended to know exactly when a player’s time was up.

 

[T_Model101]

John Obi Mikel
Apparently we got £12M from Chelsea after he had already officially signed for us, but decided to move to them instead

 

[caid]

How much did we get for Ince? I was a huge fan and gutted we sold him, but Fergie tended to know exactly when a player’s time was up.

7.5m apparently. Half a Shearer

 

[2cents]

7.5m apparently. Half a Shearer

Good price in 1995. We didn’t miss him.

 

[Berbasbullet]

John Obi Mikel
Apparently we got £12M from Chelsea after he had already officially signed for us, but decided to move to them instead

Correct answer, can’t believe we got that.

 

[Ramshock]

Didn't we sell Gary Pallister for a profit (not counting inflation) after many years of great service?

 

[Gator Nate]

Alexis Sanchez to Inter Milan was a relief and a half.

We paid £15 million for Inter to have him on loan and £9 million for him to move to Inter permanently.

And it was still a great deal for us given the situation.

It was like getting a new £26 million signing.

 

[Infordin]

In the spirit of this thread, does it matter if the outgoing player flopped at their next club or not?

For instance, both Di Maria and Lukaku clearly had to leave Man United, but they both performed well at their next club.

Or does the winner of this thread have to be someone who also flopped at their next club? Aka Schneiderlin

 

[SadlerMUFC]

We won't have many good sell stories because if we are selling a player it's typically because we don't want him or he wasn't good enough. So that's going to automatically drive the price down. Outside of Ronaldo, I can't think of a player we have sold that we wanted to keep hold of. Has there been any others that have put in a transfer request and left even though the club wanted to keep them??

 

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

In the spirit of this thread, does it matter if the outgoing player flopped at their next club or not?

For instance, both Di Maria and Lukaku clearly had to leave Man United, but they both performed well at their next club.

Or does the winner of this thread have to be someone who also flopped at their next club? Aka Schneiderlin

I think it’s a consideration. So I wouldn’t consider Beckham, Ronaldo or Stam as great sales, and part of the reason is that they were still good: great players who did really well at their next clubs.

I wouldn’t consider Di Maria a good sale as we made a big loss on him, and (personally) think we didn’t get enough for him. Lukaku on the other hand, I was astonished we were able to get the fee we did for him.

furthermore with Di Maria you could see he was a brilliant player, and it was a loss to the club that he went (putting aside his astonishingly bad attitude). With Lukaku, he’s not been missed, and wouldn’t have been of use if he was here.

 

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

We won't have many good sell stories because if we are selling a player it's typically because we don't want him or he wasn't good enough. So that's going to automatically drive the price down. Outside of Ronaldo, I can't think of a player we have sold that we wanted to keep hold of. Has there been any others that have put in a transfer request and left even though the club wanted to keep them??

good question. Off the top of my head. Maybe Kanchelskis.

 

[SadlerMUFC]

good question. Off the top of my head. Maybe Kanchelskis.

Kancheslskis still had some good years in him, but we put him up for sale. He had a falling out with SAF so we didn't want him anymore. It wasn't like he left for Everton and we still wanted him...

 

[Oranges038]

What about Mark Hughes? I know he was a very good player during his time at Utd. But, came in as a schoolboy sold for 2m bought back for 1.8m and sold again for 1m.

Selling Beckham too, I think the time was right for him to move on. Fergie got that one spot on.

 

[James Peril]

In hindsight If we’d sold DDG for £45 million that would have been up there.

Hardly. He would have had a few CL’s in his cabinet and we would have hated him for leaving. Who knows how much of his so-called decline is down to lack of motivation for playing for a team with zero title credentials the last few years and counting.

 

[groovyalbert]

Controversial as he was my childhood hero and was worth loads more, but Beckham to Madrid for £25m and bringing in Ronaldo as a replacement for half the fee was genius in hindsight.

 

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

Kancheslskis still had some good years in him, but we put him up for sale. He had a falling out with SAF so we didn't want him anymore. It wasn't like he left for Everton and we still wanted him...

wasn’t it to do with his agent threatening the club? I don’t think we wanted to sell him for footballing reasons.

 

[Kag]

Agree re. Schneiderlin and Lukaku. We recouped the fees for both and didn’t look back. Neither of them were remotely good enough to play for us, too.

Schneiderlin was a really odd one. He was genuinely brilliant at Southampton. Exactly the sort of player we were often criticised for not buying even when it was obvious (it had to be) that he was primed and ready to go to the next level.

That move killed him. It’s easy to sit here now and say he was never good enough in the first place, and that he went on to struggle at Everton, but it was genuinely sustained form at Southampton that deservedly got him the move. Maybe during a different time period, with a different set of players, it might have worked out. But it didn’t, and that was that.

Lukaku is a halfwit. £73 million back was exceptional business.