The perennial struggle to sell

RedStarUnited

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Why does it feel like every year we struggle to sell players? I constantly see that its because of wages, but I dont believe United players oaverage are getting paid anymore than their Chelsea counterparts for example.

Jadon Sancho is a year younger than Havertz, has similar stats to him despite not being a starter for us. I cant see a world were we could sell him for anything close to 50 million, yet Chelsea just agreed a deal for 65m to sell Havertz.

Maguire pretty much spent a year on the bench. And still has no real offers to leave us. Even if you can accept he is shite, this is still an England regular in a time when England are actually doing relatively well.

I imagine if we decided to sell Rashford this summer, we wouldn't get anywhere near the amount other teams would. And this is a Rashford who is young and has had the best season of his life.

I cant quite put my finger on it. Maybe all the players that we have are so happy being at United they tell their agents not to bother speaking to anyone.
 
Yeah I'm not sure really. Even back in the SAF & Gill days we were often a soft touch selling wise, though that was played as more doing the right thing for homegrown players which is fair.

I'm assuming it's the damage left by Woodwards calamitous reputation. New owners and a new negotiation team should be able to turn that around in time, though its definitely a sticky one.
 
Wage to quality ratio is completely out of whack at United. Sancho for example is one of the highest paid players in the league, but also utter shit.

No other club besides United possess the dangerous combination of earning hundreds of millions of pounds in revenue, and also being ran by halfwits who haven't got a clue how to spend it wisely. Therefore we struggle to offload all those overpaid players enjoying their ride on the United gravy train
 
Nobody wants Martial. He's just shite and on too high wages.

I'm sure if we flogged Maguire we'd get a decent fee back.

But teams know we are desperate to sell in order to buy. Every summer we have very little leverage due to our amateurish approaches for players and lack of planning.
 
RedStarUnited said:
Why does it feel like every year we struggle to sell players? I constantly see that its because of wages, but I dont believe United players oaverage are getting paid anymore than their Chelsea counterparts for example.

Jadon Sancho is a year younger than Havertz, has similar stats to him despite not being a starter for us. I cant see a world were we could sell him for anything close to 50 million, yet Chelsea just agreed a deal for 65m to sell Havertz.

Maguire pretty much spent a year on the bench. And still has no real offers to leave us. Even if you can accept he is shite, this is still an England regular in a time when England are actually doing relatively well.

I imagine if we decided to sell Rashford this summer, we wouldn't get anywhere near the amount other teams would. And this is a Rashford who is young and has had the best season of his life.

I cant quite put my finger on it. Maybe all the players that we have are so happy being at United they tell their agents not to bother speaking to anyone.
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The bizarre thing is we don’t even set exorbitant prices. Fred 20M, McTominay 25M….you see similar players start at 50M, and still we can’t shift the feckers :lol:
 
Beckham to Real Madrid for £25m in 2003 is still our fourth highest sale ever.
 
DevilRed said:
Nobody wants Martial. He's just shite and on too high wages.

I'm sure if we flogged Maguire we'd get a decent fee back.

But teams know we are desperate to sell in order to buy. Every summer we have very little leverage due to our amateurish approaches for players and lack of planning.
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But isn't this sort of true for everyone? We all know Chelsea need to flog a lot of players for a variety of reasons, and it hasn't stopped them being overpaid for Havertz. Admittedly Kovacic has gone for a reasonable sort of fee
 
T00lsh3d said:
The bizarre thing is we don’t even set exorbitant prices. Fred 20M, McTominay 25M….you see similar players start at 50M, and still we can’t shift the feckers :lol:
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Who are these similar players?
 
DevilRed said:
Nobody wants Martial. He's just shite and on too high wages.

I'm sure if we flogged Maguire we'd get a decent fee back.

But teams know we are desperate to sell in order to buy. Every summer we have very little leverage due to our amateurish approaches for players and lack of planning.
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Everyone knew Chelsea needed to balance the books this summer too. Yet here they are in mid June with nearly 150m of sales nearly done.
 
Not sure the manager wants to sell anybody either, depends on how close we are on signing someone. If we dont get any funds to buy anyone, we shouldnt sell. We need a squad
 
Bastian said:
Who are these similar players?
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I’m thinking of their level, which (to me) is mid-table premier league level. Feel free to disagree with that but that’s where I’d rate them.
Palinha at Fulham - they’ve set the price at £60M I think.
It would be a bit facetious to include the two from Brighton as they’re at a higher standard, but they’ve both started considerably higher.
Neves was always quoted around the 50M mark.
Maddison is talked about at 45/50M

You get where I’m coming from
 
It is frustrating. The Havertz deal is great business from Chelsea and I'm sure they can't believe their luck that another team is prepared to pay that much for him, to be honest. I don't think you can really legislate for striking gold like that.

The wages definitely do contribute to our struggles to sell players, though. Fulham are reluctant to pay £20m for Fred, Forest are playing hardball over Henderson and West Ham are supposedly having difficult matching Maguire's pay packet. A lot of this is a byproduct of poor recruitment and/or contract negotiation, and we're still paying the price for it now.

One player I do hope we can get a reasonable fee for is McTominay. Newcastle, Everton and West Ham are all reportedly in for him and he's one player I don't think we've given a ridiculous contract to yet. We'll have to wait and see on that one though.
 
We simply have a glaring lack of quality in the squad on reasonable wages.

Clubs have to want the player, be able to afford the fee, and ultimately be able to afford the wages to sttract them. Lukaku to Inter for instance. That same demand just isn't there.

I mean who is stupid enough to pay the £30m+ it would take + the wages for Maguire. Would have to be someone like Chelsea and hes just not good enough.
 
AndySmith1990 said:
Wage to quality ratio is completely out of whack at United. Sancho for example is one of the highest paid players in the league, but also utter shit.

No other club besides United possess the dangerous combination of earning hundreds of millions of pounds in revenue, and also being ran by halfwits who haven't got a clue how to spend it wisely. Therefore we struggle to offload all those overpaid players enjoying their ride on the United gravy train
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Havertz had similar season to Sancho, you can even argue he had worse.
 
RedSky said:
Surely not!?
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The market has gone crazy and all we have done is buy. Even our 2 highest sales, Ronaldo and Lukaku, the clubs that bought them went on to achieve things and then sell them on for a profit.
 
Hasn't the issue always been the wages? The wages we have players on relative to the quality of the actual player has seemingly been quite an issue for us for a while now.
 
CM10 said:
It is frustrating. The Havertz deal is great business from Chelsea and I'm sure they can't believe their luck that another team is prepared to pay that much for him, to be honest. I don't think you can really legislate for striking gold like that.

The wages definitely do contribute to our struggles to sell players, though. Fulham are reluctant to pay £20m for Fred, Forest are playing hardball over Henderson and West Ham are supposedly having difficult matching Maguire's pay packet. A lot of this is a byproduct of poor recruitment and/or contract negotiation, and we're still paying the price for it now.

One player I do hope we can get a reasonable fee for is McTominay. Newcastle, Everton and West Ham are all reportedly in for him and he's one player I don't think we've given a ridiculous contract to yet. We'll have to wait and see on that one though.
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As far as West Ham Ings is on 125g p/w Maguire is 187g p/w. So you can see 130p/w is not far away. Difference is 8.8m over length of contract at UTD. split the difference and give Maguire 4m. So say he is 25m is middle of road fee ( anything above 4.7m plus 4m pay off) gives us a balance sheet profit of 16.3m circa.
 
It feels like we hang onto players with the hope they’ll turn good, then when the signs they were a complete flop from the start begin to sink in, they’ve made a comfortable little life for themselves on the astronomical wages we always offer.

We are our own worst enemies.
 
Cloud7 said:
Hasn't the issue always been the wages? The wages we have players on relative to the quality of the actual player has seemingly been quite an issue for us for a while now.
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Yeah we are paying mediocrity far too much
 
Wages too high to sell imo. Maguire case in point will be paid off to leave. As will likes of Telles and Bailly.

And we are still not learning as we keep giving silly contracts away.
 
Do we really need so many threads complaining about transfers and lack thereof in and out?
 
RedStarUnited said:
The market has gone crazy and all we have done is buy. Even our 2 highest sales, Ronaldo and Lukaku, the clubs that bought them went on to achieve things and then sell them on for a profit.
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Did they? Not so sure Lukaku won anything whilst at Chelsea? (Yes I know he still is at Chelsea)
 
fezzerUTD said:
Wages too high to sell imo. Maguire case in point will be paid off to leave. As will likes of Telles and Bailly.

And we are still not learning as we keep giving silly contracts away.
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Which raises another question, who agrees to these above the market pay packages?. We are offering wages that no one else will ofer for players that no one wants. Similar to when we renewed Ole when there was no reason to, he was never going to go anywhere.


Oranges038 said:
Do we really need so many threads complaining about transfers and lack thereof in and out?
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Its more about discussions around our inability to sell. Which has been on going for a decade or more.
 
UnitedSofa said:
Did they? Not so sure Lukaku won anything whilst at Chelsea? (Yes I know he still is at Chelsea)
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We sold Lukaku to Inter not Chelsea, Conte wanted him badly and they went on to win the league. This is what triggered Chelsea to buy him again.
 
We tend to hire players who we pay extremely high wages. Far more than their actual worth (see Rashford and his new contract) and then we're stuck because nobody else will pay that. We also have the problem that we are in the media eye more than anyone. It's very obvious when our players are not good enough, they become memes and it's much harder to convince other clubs to buy them.
 
Camy89 said:
It feels like we hang onto players with the hope they’ll turn good, then when the signs they were a complete flop from the start begin to sink in, they’ve made a comfortable little life for themselves on the astronomical wages we always offer.

We are our own worst enemies.
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Pretty much this.

From a fan perspective, I think the Class of 92 thing has brainwashed some fans into believing we can shit out amazing talents regularly, so it’s always ‘give them games because Scholes, Beckham needed them‘ which then goes into ‘give them a season’ and then ‘give him another season’, and by then they’ve been exposed to be limited as players and worth very little to what people were thinking.

Our academy has done an excellent job if they can produce a player that can play at just Premier League level, let alone United level.

It would be interesting to see if some of that mindset bleeds over into the actual running of the club, since we reward our youth players handsomely for seemingly just hanging in there in terms of playing in the first team. The Glazers and Woodward probably found it’s cheaper to promote youth than buy real talent and then hide behind the ‘United is all about youth’ spiel.
 
RedStarUnited said:
Which raises another question, who agrees to these above the market pay packages?. We are offering wages that no one else will ofer for players that no one wants. Similar to when we renewed Ole when there was no reason to, he was never going to go anywhere.
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I have no real idea. However if i was to have a guess it would be to a) warn off other clubs if our players exceed their level b) to raise their value if they do want to leave for a Real or Barce.

I believe though the high wages is the biggest reason the club is so rotten and pre ETH ambition less. Sub standard players earning a huge crust and lack of motivation to win.
 
It's the Glazers/ Woodward.

Like when your dad tells you that you don't need to buy a new PS5 because you already have a PS2 at home. The club's ownership buys players to fit certain profiles based supposedly on data science. Then they expect those players to work 100% of the time. Selling these players is not an option because it means admitting they got it wrong and taking a hit on the Balance Sheet. So we're stuck with the first CB we bought or first RB we bought until they finally get too old.

Meanwhile, City are trading in their old consoles for upgrades every couple of years, playing every single AAA game along the way, having the time of their lives. It's why Pep has gone through a million fullbacks and been able to discard any one who who doesn't quite come up to scratch.

Transfers are only successful about 50% of the time. Every other team seems to know that. United don't. It comes from the owners and the same kind of risk aversion we're now seeing with the sale of the club.
 
Devil You Know said:
It's the Glazers/ Woodward.

Like when your dad tells you that you don't need to buy a new PS5 because you already have a PS2 at home. The club's ownership buys players to fit certain profiles based supposedly on data science. Then they expect those players to work 100% of the time. Selling these players is not an option because it means admitting they got it wrong and taking a hit on the Balance Sheet. So we're stuck with the first CB we bought or first RB we bought until they finally get too old.

Meanwhile, City are trading in their old consoles for upgrades every couple of years playing every single AAA game having the time of their lives. It's why Pep has gone through a million fullbacks.

Transfers are only successful about 50% of the time. Every other team seems to know that. United don't. It comes from the owners and the same kind of risk aversion we're seeing with the club sale.
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Would be good to know what our retention rate is compared to other teams. Do other teams have their Phil Jones' for example or it's just more amplified at the club you support?
 
RedStarUnited said:
Why does it feel like every year we struggle to sell players? I constantly see that its because of wages, but I dont believe United players oaverage are getting paid anymore than their Chelsea counterparts for example.

Jadon Sancho is a year younger than Havertz, has similar stats to him despite not being a starter for us. I cant see a world were we could sell him for anything close to 50 million, yet Chelsea just agreed a deal for 65m to sell Havertz.

Maguire pretty much spent a year on the bench. And still has no real offers to leave us. Even if you can accept he is shite, this is still an England regular in a time when England are actually doing relatively well.

I imagine if we decided to sell Rashford this summer, we wouldn't get anywhere near the amount other teams would. And this is a Rashford who is young and has had the best season of his life.

I cant quite put my finger on it. Maybe all the players that we have are so happy being at United they tell their agents not to bother speaking to anyone.
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United pay players high salaries so teams either want them with a huge discount or on loan with United paying more than half of that.
 
A number of reasons.

I think the narrative surrounding players shouldn’t be disregarded. By and large, our players are viewed as failures, as they were all brought in to help us win the league and we don’t. Sometimes we don’t even qualify for the Champions League. The conversation surrounding the club is always that of under achievement and that is the case with the players. In reality, these players are still better than, and finish above players viewed in a more positive light. But relative to expectation, all our players are seen as rubbish.

Someone like Maguire will have fans of any club outraged for going for him. He is seen as shit, but the reality is more a case of shit for United, not for West Ham. Those clubs want to sign promising players, while ours are all a bit damaged and judged.

If you compare that to City or Liverpool - their squads are seen as the standard, and clubs would love the opportunity to take even some of their fringe players who are title winners and simply unlucky to not be able to break into the best team in the league. Chelsea have a different model where they keep players on loan to retain value. But yea, even fringe players are seen as more valuable when you contribute to success rather than contribute to failure. Any player at Brighton will probably have a higher stock than those at United, despite United simply being better and finishing above them because Brighton are seen to have had an impressive season and not us. In fact, we are seen to be impressive this season, but even last season - we struggled to sell and were lambasted but still finished above teams like Brighton but just a different narrative.
 
The main problem we have with selling is the ridiculous wages we give players as no one else pays as much outside of City so the players would rather sit on their contracts and leave on a free, even our fringe players or players we send out on loan are on ridiculous wages.

I may be wrong but isn’t Henderson in the top 5 best paid keepers in the league ? We gave him £100K a week yet he’s played what ? 15-20 games for us and spent 2-3 years out on loan.

We pay Sancho one of the top 5 wages in the entire league and yet he’s our third choice left winger and default second choice (Greenwood would/will start over him as well as Antony) right winger then wonder why we’re stuck with him unless we subsidised his wages til the end of his contract.

I’m sure Martial is on £250K a week yet spends 2/3 or 3/4 of the season injured then there’s De Gea and his obscene contract and there’s still people in the club that apparently want to keep him as second choice but pay him around £200K a week as it’s seen as a good deal in saving almost half his current wages.

We managed to move Welbeck on for £16 million years ago which was a good deal but then he wasn’t on crazy wages so surely the geniuses should be able to see the clues in front of them.
 
RedStarUnited said:
We sold Lukaku to Inter not Chelsea, Conte wanted him badly and they went on to win the league. This is what triggered Chelsea to buy him again.
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Damn, so we did!

Could have sworn he went to Chelsea first, then Inter, then back to Chelsea, then on loan back to Inter :lol:
 
1) People in charge for transfers are completely incompetent. First Ed and then Murtough.
2) In selling players you must be a little bit ruthless. We are not. We never push players out.
3) Manager power in transfers. Jose, Ole and now ETH all wanted huge huge squad. Eth rather kept Mct and Maguire in january as 5th choices than giving green light for selling them.
 
- Absurdly high wages
- Hanging on to players for too long instead of "failing fast", resulting in their market value eroding
- Giving players the comfortable option of remaining as a squad player instead of telling them "leave or you don't play at all"
- Judging by how reactive we are with buying players, I assume we're the same way with selling. Meaning we're not approaching agents and clubs during the season, and instead end up scrambling in July and August.
 
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