Why do we pay high wages?

[Bondi77]

Kane and Son are happy at Spurs
Mane and Salah are happy at Pool
All Citeh players are happy
Rice is happy at the Hammers
Tielemans and Ndidi are happy
So many better players that are in the Premier League than what we have at our club and yet we pay the most in wages.

I would have thought the allure of playing for Utd with all its history would have meant we did not have to pay over the top wages for sub standard players.

 

[V.O.]

Kane spent all summer trying to feck off, Salah will be on his bike if the scouse don't cough up some serious money, and if you don't think City's players are being 'looked after' by the Sheikh to the tune of a feck of a lot more than what's listed on their books, I've got a bridge to sell you.

But apart from that, yeah, only Barca can compete with us for getting less value out of wages they've doled out in the last few years, but at least the lion's share of that was going to their best ever player.

 

[thegregster]

Citys is actually higher than ours.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...l-in-premier-league-history-at-355m-g2hplj3tj

Chelsea and Liverpool is around the same.

Yet its always Pogba is on 290k a week,De Gea is on 350k that we hear about and our rivials players on less. We always seem to have higher paid individuals.

Something doesn't add up.

 

[antohan]

I was actually wondering about that a few weeks ago. Bonuses for starting, bench, wins, goals, assists, clean sheets, trophies...

The sort of shite I hated pointlessly tweaking on Championship Manager but looks very much like what the lion's share of our players' pay should be about.

 

[antohan]

Citys is actually higher than ours.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...l-in-premier-league-history-at-355m-g2hplj3tj

Chelsea and Liverpool is around the same.

Yet its always Pogba is on 290k a week,De Gea is on 350k that we hear about and our rivials players on less. We always seem to have higher paid individuals.

Something doesn't add up.

They get a lot more bang for the buck though, don't they?

 

[Theonas]

Because we usually go for proven quality and players who play for big clubs where they already are being paid lot of money. We bought players from PSG, Real Madrid, Arsenal, Chelsea and Juventus. You look at City and Liverpool and they barely ever buy from the elite. Their wage bill is much more balanced because also they rarely buy players who arrive with the reputation of Pogba, Ronaldo or Varane if ever.

 

[thegregster]

They get a lot more bang for the buck though, don't they?

They do. I guess when a player is performing the wages get forgotten about.

 

[Litch]

Pogs is probably one of the most recognisable footballers in the world and DDG is probably the goalkeeper that most know more than any other. Neither are the best in their position, but has a brand will command the highest salaries. Football and your worth is as much off the pitch as it is on it.

 

[George Owen]

Because we usually go for proven quality and players who play for big clubs where they already are being paid lot of money. We bought players from PSG, Real Madrid, Arsenal, Chelsea and Juventus. You look at City and Liverpool and they barely ever buy from the elite. Their wage bill is much more balanced because also they rarely buy players who arrive with the reputation of Pogba, Ronaldo or Varane if ever.

Martial and Rashford are by far, our most overpaid players, and they have won feck all in their careers.

 

[Theonas]

Pogs is probably one of the most recognisable footballers in the world and DDG is probably the goalkeeper that most know more than any other. Neither are the best in their position, but has a brand will command the highest salaries. Football and your worth is as much off the pitch as it is on it.

De Gea? Really? He was never even close to the CL latter stages and nowhere near international tournaments. Why would he be more recognizable compared to Neuer, Courtois, Alisson or even Lloris and Donnarumma. Being a great shot stopper and standing out in an average team who has been struggling to make it to the CL for the vast majority of his career is hardly gonna put you on the level of a WC winner like Pogba.

 

[chiz2kul]

whats the alternative? not pay high wages? Good luck attracting top talent.

 

[Litch]

De Gea? Really? He was never even close to the CL latter stages and nowhere near international tournaments. Why would he be more recognizable compared to Neuer, Courtois, Alisson or even Lloris and Donnarumma. Being a great shot stopper and standing out in an average team who has been struggling to make it to the CL for the vast majority of his career is hardly gonna put you on the level of a WC winner like Pogba.

....because he plays for Man Utd and the average person in my opinion would recognise most of those names unless you supported the respective teams. Might be wrong, just think Daves profile is higher. I bet he sells more goalkeeper shirts that all those put together...

 

[Bondi77]

De Gea? Really? He was never even close to the CL latter stages and nowhere near international tournaments. Why would he be more recognizable compared to Neuer, Courtois, Alisson or even Lloris and Donnarumma. Being a great shot stopper and standing out in an average team who has been struggling to make it to the CL for the vast majority of his career is hardly gonna put you on the level of a WC winner like Pogba.

Probably because he plays for us and that is how they get their popularity and that is really what the post is about.

 

[wolvored]

whats the alternative? not pay high wages? Good luck attracting top talent.

This. Who would come here if City Pool Chelsea were all offering the same wages for a player. Winning stable teams, against the shit show we have had here for 8 years and nearly 9. Unless the player already had an affinity for Utd of course, that might be the only way. Unless/until we get back to winning ways, top dollar will be the norm for Utd.

 

[sparx99]

It’s nothing new is it? Roy Keane was the best paid player in the Premier League. I’m sure Rio and Rooney had mega deals along the way.

It’s the supporting cast that seem to get overpaid more now than anything else. Lingard and Henderson were more egregious than De Gea and Pogba for my money. At least the latter two were key parts of the team at the time.

We seem to have developed a fear of letting anyone half decent leave and ‘embarrass’ us. Hence the over stocker squad if overpaid mediocrity. If the board were serious about turning things around they should allocate £30m for paying off players and subsidising wages to move players on.

 

[Theonas]

@Litch @Bondi77 Sure that gets you lot of exposure but with almost 10 years in and out of the CL, let alone the latter rounds and his abysmal record internationally, I think we are overestimating a little bit how popular we make players. It's us who buy marketable players like Pogba and Ronaldo to keep us popular and keep our name afloat among the younger generation. Playing for us alone has hardly been that profitable popularity wise the past few years. Yes, The PL carries a huge caché but it doesn't make legends and ingrain names in popular culture like the WC or in modern days, the CL. It is why Cantona who let's not forget, had a much better career with us and was a bonafide star in every way, enjoyed a significantly lesser profile outside of our bubble compared to other French players at the time for example.

 

[Theonas]

Kane and Son are happy at Spurs
Mane and Salah are happy at Pool
All Citeh players are happy
Rice is happy at the Hammers
Tielemans and Ndidi are happy
So many better players that are in the Premier League than what we have at our club and yet we pay the most in wages.

I would have thought the allure of playing for Utd with all its history would have meant we did not have to pay over the top wages for sub standard players.

None of those players were considered super stars when moved except maybe a couple here or there. Also, we signed mega stars on astronomical wages from Schweinsteiger, Falcao to Varane and Ronaldo. It's really hard to not mess up your wage structure if your dressing room has a couple of players who are way ahead of the rest. It is why you will hear other big clubs having a strict policy on the gap between their big players. Us and Barcelona are the most high profile clubs who just didn't get the wage structure right, except we can at least afford it. Bayern are starting to face the same problem with their "second tier" players now demanding wages that will be comparable to the first tier (Neuer, Lewandowski and Müller). It's a tough balancing act that City and Liverpool seem to have done very well indeed.

 

[elmo]

....because he plays for Man Utd and the average person in my opinion would recognise most of those names unless you supported the respective teams. Might be wrong, just think Daves profile is higher. I bet he sells more goalkeeper shirts that all those put together...

That's basically saying he should get paid higher just because playing for us makes him higher profile, which is a dumb as feck reason to overpay players.

 

[Mr PG]

We haven’t had a football system to rely on where we just buy players with a certain profile to fit the needs so we buy great talents hoping they’re intelligent enough to fit together so we can’t even tell if a player like Martial is what we need or not until Ragnick came in.

He’s willing to let Pogba and Martial leave without much of a fight but says he’d love 2 Cavani’s hint hint hard work and grit as well as intelligence. Also brought Elanga into the team and he’s so good because he has clear instructions of how he wants him to play.

 

[Adam-Utd]

it seems to be an ego thing.

Even our squad players are on crazy high money.

We pay Martial 200/250k a week I believe, you have to ask what he’s done to earn that?

Chelsea are about to potentially lose 1 of the best centre backs in the league as he wants 200k a week we’d be giving that to phil jones if he signed a new deal!

 

[Theonas]

We haven’t had a football system to rely on where we just buy players with a certain profile to fit the needs so we buy great talents hoping they’re intelligent enough to fit together so we can’t even tell if a player like Martial is what we need or not until Ragnick came in.

He’s willing to let Pogba and Martial leave without much of a fight but says he’d love 2 Cavani’s hint hint hard work and grit as well as intelligence. Also brought Elanga into the team and he’s so good because he has clear instructions of how he wants him to play.

Exactly! We are the only high profile club in Europe with maybe Real Madrid who aim at just buying enough good players and hoping they make it work. Solskjaer helped that either by being weak or maybe that was indeed his vision of football since he was just trying to copy what worked in the '90s. When you buy high profile, the expectation is they deliver independent (or at least more independent) of the system/structure blabla so of course they will ask for higher wages that say someone like Bernardo Silva, Cancelo, Dias or Rodri who arrive with a reputation of being good solid players but no superstars difference makers.

 

[Wilt]

Because Utd are known for paying over the top for players and offer ridiculous bloated wages as a sweetener.

It’s mainly down to greed. Unfortunately most Utd players have little allegiance to the club, they’re here for the money.

And because they’re paid so much, we can’t get rid of them ….very few clubs (if any) will match their Utd wages.

 

[Matthew1972]

I'm surprised most of you even care anymore. This team has been a letdown for years now. Even in the games they win, watching them makes me sick. Bottom table clubs making them look silly, and struggling to score goals with supposed world class players on the team? Why bother? I stopped watching this team at the end of 2021 and will spend my time doing other things. I'll check back in Summer, and watch next season until it's apparent they suck again, when I'll stop. Probably around October.

 

[mu4c_20le]

If I had to pinpoint a specific time, it would be when we signed Sanchez. That was the first time we heard about discontent from players regarding wages and wanting parity. After that we started handing out new deals like candy.

 

[Abraxas]

Because we pay our top players ridiculous amounts of money. Which you probably have to in order to firstly attract them and then to extend contracts.

Once you do that it becomes hard to stop even the squad players spiralling to wages that are beyond the reach of clubs that you would want to offload them to if they are surplus to requirements.

It comes down to the wage structure at the club and maintaining some kind of acceptance among the players that will not give the manager constant problems with morale. Players are well informed on what their colleagues are on and it becomes a tool of negotiation. This is why no matter what the wage structure a club has it will always be the case that a top clubs average players will be on more than the best players at lower clubs. It's not just about ability, it is about market position. That's why it makes no sense to compare players at Man Utd, Bayern, City, Chelsea to Leicester City players.

Clearly all is not well, though. It gives us a lack of flexibility in the market in terms of sales, which affects our ability to bring people in. So everything that you gain by attracting players you may be losing in other areas. It also leads to very inefficient use of funds when you have scores of players on wages well above what their ability alone dictates. But it's not so simple unless we set a completely new idea and take years to work towards it.

 

[Beans]

Kane and Son are happy at Spurs
Mane and Salah are happy at Pool
All Citeh players are happy
Rice is happy at the Hammers
Tielemans and Ndidi are happy
So many better players that are in the Premier League than what we have at our club and yet we pay the most in wages.

I would have thought the allure of playing for Utd with all its history would have meant we did not have to pay over the top wages for sub standard players.

The whole point of Rangnick is to start buying the right sort of player again.

 

[R'hllor]

Because we dont have anything else to offer them. Paying high wages to some well established players that joining via transfer is one thing but the amount of money we giving away to contract extensions to players that didnt deserve such payrise is just mental. Reasons why we doing it are also crazy and dumb.

People talking about lure of money and CL as most important aspect of us attracting players, that shit did wonders for us last 10 years, yea right.

 

[Ali Dia]

We are run like Real Madrid lite, but more like their spoiled little brother trying to keep up. That’s the best the Glazers could come up with in the last 10 years. A few players on the biggest wages in the country backed by a misfit cast of youth and failed transfers. It’s got no soul or flexibility. At least Real are consistently at the front of the line when generational talent emerge out of the pack and their squad scouting and youth usually seems to be on point. They still sell and bench players better than we have playing here every week. They simply keep the talent moving until they hit gold and winning at football is their main objective. We pop up the odd time when it’s clear they aren’t that interested (Sancho Pogba) but we will surely let Mbappe and Haaland go to Spain without any real fight whereas with the money we are spending players like that should be the next logical step for the richest and most ambitious clubs but once again we will most likely step aside and reaffirm our place in the food chain. Benzema on a free in a few years.

The worst part is now we’ve started to play that same game and spend similar amounts of money it still doesn’t move the needle for us after years of no value in the market and letting the team, scouting and the youth setup fall behind. We have to overpay players to join an organisation that isn’t successful any more. What I’m trying to say is we fall well short in between the two schools of thought of value and a rigid system or just flat out buying success. We are always just spending or innovating to catch up, not to get ahead. The owners have no conviction or plan and our team unfortunately reflects that year after year.

 

[Skills]

Because we've got feck all else to offer players. We don't have Liverpool's fanbase/culture, Madrid's history or prestige and nor the playing environment that Man City provide.

And we definitely don't have an instinctive winning culture at the club. That was there because of Sir Alex.

 

[RedDevil@84]

Salah will be on his bike if the scouse don't cough up some serious money

I think Salah will extend for some lowly amount like 350k.

 

[Red_toad]

Martial and Rashford are by far, our most overpaid players, and they have won feck all in their careers.

I’d suggest you fact check that….

 

[hobbers]

I’d suggest you fact check that….

They've both won 1x FA cup, League cup and Europa League.

Not really much to write home about for a 26 and 24 year old, earning about £500k a week between them, who at different times when they were younger were spoken about as if they're on a similar level to Mbappe and Haaland.

 

[Nordmore]

Because we're run by morons who don't have a fecking clue about football?

 

[Harry190]

Same reason big companies pay more. Because it's the name of the game. Top clubs are the top of the mountain. They need to show it to the players.

 

[devilish]

As Woodward once said, United struggles to sign more then 3 players per summer. Which means that they prefer retaining players then buy new ones. Thus we give crazy salaries to anyone who shows a hint of good form. This 3 player per year max strategy means that we also tend to go for proven talent, who would hopefully sort the issue for good. Thus we've got players like Ronaldo, Varane, Cavani and co who would want crazy money.

United need a cultural shift. It needs experienced people who are specialised in their job in negotiating with players, they can coordinate with scouts, they can spot a talent from miles ahead and are well versed with dealing with agents and clubs. We've got some dropout Moyes left, Matt Judge and Darren Fletcher instead.

 

[kthanksbye]

Because we don't know how to scout.

 

[devilish]

Because we don't know how to scout.

I don't think its a matter of scouting. The club struggles greatly in negotiating with other clubs for players. Woodward himself once said that it struggles to go past the 3-4 new signings per year which explains why both Maguire's (whom we started negotiations with during Mou's time) and Sancho's deal took us 2 summer windows to complete. That shapes the entire club's strategy as the club simply can't afford an exodus of players. Its also cautious in allowing players to go as well. Thus we give players crazy salaries simply to remain here.

 

[RedDevil@84]

I don't think its a matter of scouting. The club struggles greatly in negotiating with other clubs for players. Woodward himself once said that it struggles to go past the 3-4 new signings per year which explains why both Maguire's (whom we started negotiations with during Mou's time) and Sancho's deal took us 2 summer windows to complete. That shapes the entire club's strategy as the club simply can't afford an exodus of players. Its also cautious in allowing players to go as well. Thus we give players crazy salaries simply to remain here.

So we don't know how to negotiate as well.

 

[hobbers]

Part of the reason we can only sign 3 players a season is because we've gone for players like AWB, Maguire and Sancho. Overrated massively overpriced English players at clubs who are usually excellent at extracting maximum value from the market like Leicester and Dortmund.

When LVG was here and we were going for Rojo, Blind, Schneiderlin, Darmian etc, the deals were much more straightforward, albeit all terrible targets in the first place.

The other main reason we can only sign 2 or 3 a season is because we've had a saturated squad list every fecking summer going back to LVG, because of all the imbecilic wages we've offered leaving us unable to move players on. Hopefully this summer at least 5 or 6 players force their way out and open up space in the squad list and on the wage bill.

 

[Bestie07]

Bitten once, twice shy. Ever since Pogba left us on a free to join Juventus and become a superstar there, we have been extremely cautious in letting the same scenario happen again with any of our players and this in turn has made us hand out ridiculous contracts to players based on their future potential rather than what they currently bring to the team. Huge contracts were given to Martial, Rashford, Lingard, and even Henderson when they had done nothing to justify the size of the contracts offered. We could have sold Henderson for upwards of 25 million after his season with Sheffield United knowing we already had DDG on huge contract that we could not get rid of, but instead we rewarded Henderson with a huge contract and proceeded to not play him at all.

I honestly don't think we have a strategy at all.