A change in transfer philosophy? Was "Value" a false economy?

Pexbo

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Value. Fergie's obsession in his later years and the bane of a transfer muppet's life.

It was obvious that Ferguson had become somewhat disillusioned with the fees banded around for top players and he felt that as a club we were better off not competing with the Oil club's and rather looking for "value" in the market.

It was this "Value" that saw us shopping around the middle of the market for "bargains". Players with the "potential" to step it up to the next level and now we're stuck with them because their ceiling was never high enough, as reflected by their price and they sit here on their handsome wage in the knowledge that moving to a lesser club will hit them in the pocket, or cost the club a lot of money.

Is spending that bit more on quality the way forward? Does it decrease the likelihood of getting stuck with players not good enough for the club or is it just an amplified risk?
 
Transfer policy over the last 5 years or so has led us to where we are today, that and sentimentality from the club.

Value and a bargain is only able to be seen in hindsight, we absolutely should have pushed the boat out and bought less players but in the elite tier. now were having to overpay for the same players we could have been buying for years.
 
You can not really blame Ferguson for this. It is not his fault that his players form went to shit after he left.
 
Certainly looks like we have abandoned Fergie's weird 'value' bonanza where he signed a load of players for cheapish money. Of course when you add all the fees up it's actually a big outlay for very little return. Hopefully the signings of Mata and Di Maria will prove that quality > quantity every time and we now stick to that path.
 
Kompany was what, 6M GBP? 12M? back in 2008?
Ok that's only one example but there is value there. Just not where we've been looking. Jones and Smalling and Evans have not shown they can step it up like Kompany did.
City also spent 24M GBP on Yaya Toure in 2010. Great value at that price, imo.
 
The way it's been the past few years, £25m almost seems the norm for a player. It's definitely changed and I don't think Ferguson liked it in his later years.

If United truly want to look for value, they should invest more into the scouting system and pick up gems like Vidic and Evra.
 
It did not matter under Fergie as we were still winning. Now that he is gone, we are starting to realise the miracles that he did and like it or not we will have to spend to compete as others have done.
 
Pexbo said:
Value. Fergie's obsession in his later years and the bane of a transfer muppet's life.

It was obvious that Ferguson had become somewhat disillusioned with the fees banded around for top players and he felt that as a club we were better off not competing with the Oil club's and rather looking for "value" in the market.

It was this "Value" that saw us shopping around the middle of the market for "bargains". Players with the "potential" to step it up to the next level and now we're stuck with them because their ceiling was never high enough, as reflected by their price and they sit here on their handsome wage in the knowledge that moving to a lesser club will hit them in the pocket, or cost the club a lot of money.

Is spending that bit more on quality the way forward? Does it decrease the likelihood of getting stuck with players not good enough for the club or is it just an amplified risk?
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Value is always important but it's all relative. Transfers fees have continually increased but have exploded in say the last 5 years. Now we're seeing 30+ million pounds being spent on players in that 18-21 year old kids who haven't dominated their leagues.

Look James Rodriguez as an example talented player but insane transfer fees for someone who was brilliant in the WC but wasn't that great for Monaco. Mangala, Illaremendi, Shaw, etc. Lots of money being tossed out for potential.

Bargins are necessary but it cannot be at the expense of spending money on prospects or potential future stars. You have to spend money on quality which isn't easy, because you have to pay more for player as at a younger age, but you also need to overpay for young talents to bring them but also be willing to take a profit if they don't fit into the system. I don't think Fergie was necessarily wrong to pay for Bebe, Anderson etc and those were errors in judgement which happen at every club. The problems was that he was too confident in those choices and didn't buy other talents who would have been cheaper but less established. For the cost of Anderson you could buy 3-4 talented players who may or may not pan out or you could buy 1 player like a Cabaye who has lesser ceiling but is more established and 1-2 talents.
 
Pexbo said:
Value. Fergie's obsession in his later years and the bane of a transfer muppet's life.

It was obvious that Ferguson had become somewhat disillusioned with the fees banded around for top players and he felt that as a club we were better off not competing with the Oil club's and rather looking for "value" in the market.

It was this "Value" that saw us shopping around the middle of the market for "bargains". Players with the "potential" to step it up to the next level and now we're stuck with them because their ceiling was never high enough, as reflected by their price and they sit here on their handsome wage in the knowledge that moving to a lesser club will hit them in the pocket, or cost the club a lot of money.

Is spending that bit more on quality the way forward? Does it decrease the likelihood of getting stuck with players not good enough for the club or is it just an amplified risk?
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You can't compete with the oil clubs. How can you compete with PSG? Or Chelsea? Or City?
 
The spending cap has been lifted because of the new TV deal and numerous sponsorships renewals which has added massive amounts to United's revenue. Arsenal have spent 30m+ twice and even Everton can afford a 28m striker. Fergie was severely handicapped under the Glazers he had no issues spending money and breaking transfer records before they arrived. Whilst I detest the Glazers at least they've shown this summer they will invest when necessary.
 
utdalltheway said:
Kompany was what, 6M GBP? 12M? back in 2008?
Ok that's only one example but there is value there. Just not where we've been looking. Jones and Smalling and Evans have not shown they can step it up like Kompany did.
City also spent 24M GBP on Yaya Toure in 2010. Great value at that price, imo.
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Nobody is denying that "value" exists. I'm just saying that it's a risky strategy, especially when you invest in the quantity of punts we seemed to. Not all of them are going to work out and when they don't you're left with yet another player you need to either keep paying or somehow offload.

Dare I say, we're not going to have that issue with Di Maria. For arguements sake (I really don't want to make this United vs Liverpool but they are the best examples. Markovic and Lallana together cost 75% on Di Maria's fee but where will they be in 2 or 3 years time? Will they be any use to Liverpool still?
 
Define 'value'

Fergie did pretty well in the last few years if you look at what he won.

Could he have won a few more with massive expenditure?

Perhaps he could but the fact that he won stuff without throwing zillions away now leaves us able to give the man in charge the financial muscle to build his own team.

I'd rather have had the success we had under Fergie's 'tighter' approach and allow the new man to build than have seen Fergie's spunk loads and have a new man with plans he couldn't afford to put in place.

We've had some fantastic times and Fergie's approach in his latter years means we now have the financial muscle to dare I say it 'go again'.

A little patience required from some me thinks.
 
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adexkola said:
You can't compete with the oil clubs. How can you compete with PSG? Or Chelsea? Or City?
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We just came up with the funds to gazzump PSG for Di Maria. If we had paid £6m to Hazard's agent, we'd have signed Hazard. Which is the pefect example because as I am writing this I find these quotes from Ferguson:

"There is a borderline in terms of what you would think is a good signing for United," he said.

"I see some values on players, like Hazard for instance. To me it was a lot of money. He's a good player, but £34m?

"What we're finding anyway, the climate for buying these top players - not just the transfer fees, the salaries, agents' fees - is just getting ridiculous now.

"In the Hazard deal, Chelsea paid the agent £6m. The (Samir) Nasri situation was the same.

"It's all about what you think is value for a player. I am not envious of those deals at all. We placed a value on Hazard which was well below what they were talking about.

"So if it doesn't work, well we're not worried about that. We think we've got good value in (Shinji) Kagawa."


So, 2 years on would you have rather we went for the pedigree of Hazard or the value of Kagawa?

Which one is the real value here?
 
Pexbo said:
Nobody is denying that "value" exists. I'm just saying that it's a risky strategy, especially when you invest in the quantity of punts we seemed to. Not all of them are going to work out and when they don't you're left with yet another player you need to either keep paying or somehow offload.

Dare I say, we're not going to have that issue with Di Maria. For arguements sake (I really don't want to make this United vs Liverpool but they are the best examples. Markovic and Lallana together cost 75% on Di Maria's fee but where will they be in 2 or 3 years time? Will they be any use to Liverpool still?
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You could use a similar example with Shaw. People have claimed he's overpriced at 30m but Chelsea paid 20m for Luiz and he's 29, they'll need to replace him in 3-4 years if not sooner and the replacement will probably cost another 20m+, by that time Shaw will be 23.
 
Pexbo said:
We just came up with the funds to gazzump PSG for Di Maria. If we had paid £6m to Hazard's agent, we'd have signed Hazard. Which is the pefect example because as I am writing this I find these quotes from Ferguson:

.....

So, 2 years on would you have rather we went for the pedigree of Hazard or the value of Kagawa?

Which one is the real value here?
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Eh? At the time it was a close contest.

The oil clubs work under different constraints. How many players did Chelsea, City, PSG cycle through before they got their hands on decent teams? Look at all the money City spent on absolute dross. We have to be more careful with our purchases, as a series of bad buys can set us back for years.

Edit: Didn't Chelsea's CL win sway Hazard?
 
goin4glory said:
You could use a similar example with Shaw. People have claimed he's overpriced at 30m but Chelsea paid 20m for Luiz and he's 29, they'll need to replace him in 3-4 years if not sooner and the replacement will probably cost another 20m+, by that time Shaw will be 23.
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Indeed, it's a great example.

I guess what the point I am making is probably fairly unquantifiable. Ferdinand for example cost us £30m and his contribution was 10 incredible years, how does that compare to Young at £17m? Then you have Berbatov at £30m on the other end of the scale? He was with us for 3 years and lost us £25m + wages.

It's a case of moneyball I guess. If you did the same for every transfer and then made a comparison of the expensive buys vs the Value buys, which would come out on top the real "value for money"?
 
We got away with being a bit miserly in the transfer market (relative to the other elite clubs like Real and Barca and nouveau riche City etc) because of Fergie's brilliance as a manager. If we're going to stay near the top of the game we will in all likelihood have to buy ready made stars as well as shopping for bargains. Its unrealistic to assume our scouting network will be so far ahead of everyone elses that we can build a top team without spending huge money on some players. Fergie was a fantastic judge of player, but even his record in the transfer market deteriorated significantly towards the end of his reign.
 
I think there's nothing wrong with value signings and they are still possible IMO. Pogba isn't the favourite topic around here, but signing him for free has certainly been great business for Juventus and if he moves, they will probably make a fortune. Smalling and Hernandez have done enough for me in our past to think they have been value signings. Hernandez probably needs to move and Smalling needs to improve, but I think they presented good value for what we've signed them.

I'd say Dortmund's and Atletico's team is build around said signing, plus good recruitment regarding young players, it hasn't been bad for them.

Pexbo said:
We just came up with the funds to gazzump PSG for Di Maria. If we had paid £6m to Hazard's agent, we'd have signed Hazard. Which is the pefect example because as I am writing this I find these quotes from Ferguson:

"There is a borderline in terms of what you would think is a good signing for United," he said.

"I see some values on players, like Hazard for instance. To me it was a lot of money. He's a good player, but £34m?

"What we're finding anyway, the climate for buying these top players - not just the transfer fees, the salaries, agents' fees - is just getting ridiculous now.

"In the Hazard deal, Chelsea paid the agent £6m. The (Samir) Nasri situation was the same.

"It's all about what you think is value for a player. I am not envious of those deals at all. We placed a value on Hazard which was well below what they were talking about.

"So if it doesn't work, well we're not worried about that. We think we've got good value in (Shinji) Kagawa."


So, 2 years on would you have rather we went for the pedigree of Hazard or the value of Kagawa?

Which one is the real value here?
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I think the actual mistake here was signing Kagawa and not playing him in his best position, which is something we've done far too much with several players. I genuinely thought we'd move on Rooney with the signing of van Persie and Kagawa. We didn't. You're obviously right that in hindsight Hazard presents better value, but one actually wanted to play for us, while the other didn't. At United especially with Ferguson in charge, I think, that's something that mattered to him.

Overall point is, United is about developing their own great players and less so signing them, I'm alright with that. It's just that our recruitment and management has been poor. Something Dortmund, Bayern, Atletico, even Rome have done better in recent years. I also think we should have been far more ruthless with some players, Anderson for example, and that Ferguson somehow for whatever reason wasn't anymore as he was with van Nistelrooy, Keane and Beckham.
 
Given the colossal amount of money that a top club can make, you have to speculate to accumulate. "Value" aka "bargain" is less important than getting quality players who fit in with the team and keep the juggernaut rolling forward on and off the field. Glasers now seem to have accepted this reality.
 
surf said:
Given the colossal amount of money that a top club can make, you have to speculate to accumulate. "Value" aka "bargain" is less important than getting quality players who fit in with the team and keep the juggernaut rolling forward on and off the field. Glasers now seem to have accepted this reality.
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A strategy is more important than throwing money at the problem until it is solved. What is our strategy for addressing holes in our squad, in a sensible manner?
 
adexkola said:
A strategy is more important than throwing money at the problem until it is solved. What is our strategy for addressing holes in our squad, in a sensible manner?
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You can see that in the Di Maria transfer. Expensive, quality, fills a big hole in the squad.
 
adexkola said:
A strategy is more important than throwing money at the problem until it is solved. What is our strategy for addressing holes in our squad, in a sensible manner?
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I'm sure he didn't mean it as a direct jibe at Ferguson, but I wonder whether when Van Gaal said "I don't buy players for buying players sake, I buy players to prove my selection", he was implying that there is no need to buy these speculative players in the hope that they come good or "fill a squad position". LVG wants to buy a player because he thinks he needs him to improve the team and if that costs a lot of money then so be it.

For me that is a much better transfer strategy than buying a player you hope will fill a role in your squad.
 
To me "value" was just another "we're not interested" to save face when our primary targets chose to go elsewhere. Was Fergie thinking value when he spent 30 Million on Berbatov or 17 Million on mid-table winger with one year left on his contract or 20 Million+ on a 28 year old striker or when he was willing to smash our transfer record for an unproven Brazilian in Lucas?

I think one area that hurt us was the overpriced young player with potential market became the highest market. This is an area where we had our biggest hits and an area that we were ahead of most clubs because we were willing to be patient and pay the most in this market. There was a time around 2004 when a club like Real Madrid would baulk at the idea of signing an 18 year old Rooney and would rather sign Shevchenko and sign Rooney at a later date when he reached his potential. That has changed and Anderson would've probably had 50 Million price tag and every major club chasing his signature if it were the same situation today. With that we had to look at the lower end of this market which is hit and miss to begin with in order to continue his 100% correct philosophy of building through youth.
 
I wouldn't be surprised to see us go revert back to more modest spending once we've bought ourselves out of this horrendous mess and the squad is finally rectified.
 
matherto said:
Oh feck off, yes you can.

You can blame him for buying the players in the first place.
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Are you joking? Fergie had a very similar team to the one Moyes had and won the title by a street. Since he has left many of the players he managed to form a cohesive unit with, that were exciting to watch are now playing badly. Did they become bad players over the space of 4 months or is it that we have lost the skill and genius of a manager who knew how to get the best from the players he had and shape them into a winning machine. I know what I think and I don't think it all rests with the players perceived ability levels.
 
adexkola said:
Eh? At the time it was a close contest.

The oil clubs work under different constraints. How many players did Chelsea, City, PSG cycle through before they got their hands on decent teams? Look at all the money City spent on absolute dross. We have to be more careful with our purchases, as a series of bad buys can set us back for years.

Edit: Didn't Chelsea's CL win sway Hazard?
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City and Chelsea though, they had to start somewhere. Chelsea already had good players like Desailly, Terry, Gallas, Lampard, Zenden, even Zola too. They still had to buy better players though, and offload the current ones. But a platform was still there. It's City who went through a lot of players.

The way I remember it, We were pretty much in for Hazard, and he would've come our way if we had paid the money to his agent; We didn't and he chose Chelsea. Announced it on twitter 'I choose the European champions'.
 
Pexbo said:
Value. Fergie's obsession in his later years and the bane of a transfer muppet's life.

It was this "Value" that saw us shopping around the middle of the market for "bargains". Players with the "potential" to step it up to the next level and now we're stuck with them because their ceiling was never high enough, as reflected by their price and they sit here on their handsome wage in the knowledge that moving to a lesser club will hit them in the pocket, or cost the club a lot of money.
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Nail. on. the. head.

- Over the last 6 of Fergie's seasons, we've spent nearly £261,600,000 in total (£43,600,000 per year on average). Not that bad at all considering 'no value in market'.
- The big thing is that only 27% can be taken as unqualified success. An astounding 73% of that money have been in failures, if you include Young & Valencia to this list, though I think they will be phased out eventually.
- Seasons 07/08, 08/09 & 09/10 have been a total disaster in terms of transfers, picking up in 10/11 and increasing gradually till date.

The point being, we need to have a balance between proven vs potential. Fergie's choices usually are more right than wrong, but his transfers are questionnable, to say the least!

Season 12/13 - £63,000,000

Success:
Robin Van Persie £22,000,000

Failures:
Shinji Kagawa £12,000,000
Alexander Büttner £3,900,000
Wilfred Zaha £15,000,000

TBD:
Nick Powell £6,000,000
Sean Goss £100,000
Angelo Henrique £4,000,000


Season 11/12 - £52,900,000

Success:
Phil Jones £17,000,000
David De Gea £18,900,000

TBD:
Ashley Young £17,000,000


Season 10/11 - £27,200,000

Success:
Chris Smalling £10,000,000

Failures:
Bebe £7,400,000

TBD:
Javier Hernandez £6,000,000
Marnick Vermijl £300,000
Anders Lindegaard £3,500,000


Season 09/10 - £21,000,000
Success:

Failures:
Gabriel Obertan £3,000,000
Mame Biram Diouf £2,000,000

TBD:
Antonio Valencia £16,000,000


Season 08/09 - £35,750,000
Success:

Failures:
Demitar Berbatov £30,750,000
Zoran Tosic £5,000,000
Ritchie De Laet ???


Season 07/08 - £61,750,000
Success:
Rafael Da Silva £2,500,000

Failures:
Manucho ?
Nani £13,500,000
Tomasz Kuszczak £2,150,000
Anderson £15,000,000
Owen Hargreaves £17,000,000
Fabio Da Silva £2,600,000
Rodrigo Possebon?

TBD:
Carlos Tevez £9,000,000
 
If Fergie was still here then I believe he would have continued to buy a consistent 1-2 players per season to keep the team going and winning. For example, we wouldn't have panicked all of the summer of 2013 and ended up with Fellaini. He would have brought one or two decent players in that he had on his long term watch-list. Then again this summer, he would have brought a couple more in.

We are panic buying for the simple reason that the squad is dropping to bits with no long term strategy. Until now. That's why I'm happy that VDG is being a little more choosey over his purchases as he has a clear plan and long term vision for the team.
 
Keeps It tidy said:
You can not really blame Ferguson for this. It is not his fault that his players form went to shit after he left.
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To be fair to Ferguson AND the players, form was poor from time to time for the last few seasons of SAFs reign. There were often 45s even sometimes 90mins of poor performances, though we were often still managing to get results. Pretty sure I've said "that wasn't a great performance, but ..." when coming away from OT more and more over the last few seasons under SAF.

As far as "value" goes - I can't remember where it was, but someone elsewhere wrote a great post - the crux of it was showing that other teams (Chelsea? City?) may spend a lot, but will get a few seasons service, a career-peak player AND THEN a good resale value. In terms of Buying/selling, the good resale value surely offsets the initial outlay & the post questioned whether we were doing good business as a lot of our signings weren't going to have a good resale value. I'm recalling and paraphrasing badly - but the gist of it was that.

The bottom line is that if you're looking for a bargain, the risk of the wrong purchase is higher. Potential = gamble. Then the problem is that, for whatever reason, we've hung onto some of the players who haven't fulfilled their potential. The bigger problem then becomes that, in a misfiring First XI, it's hard for players to come in & show any potential.
 
As some have said, there is nothing wrong with looking for value when the dedicated staff have the ability to properly assess players. The scouting is key.
 
Value? We have had no value in the past few years. We've spent average amounts on loads of crap when we should have spent big amounts on world class talent. De Gea's probably the best signing we've made in recent years. £17M on Young sticks out like an old man's willy.
 
We ended up with the quality concentrated in the older players. We've only just lost our "class of 92" players. We've only just lost our plc signings. Some of this is part of the buying potential Vs buying proven argument - it's more exciting seeing a player grow up - but in recent years we seem to have trouble cutting our losses when the potential wasn't fulfilled. We also struggled with the idea of the word proven, without the PL proven modifier.

Value? There's value out there, but it's something you can only really assess with hindsight. Cantona was good value, but so was Rio, and that's why real value isn't about the transfer fee alone.

No one wants to be a Real Madrid, so obsessed with shiny toys, they'll ignore footballing sense to capture another one. On the other hand, their net spending over the past 5 years (including the Kaka/Ronaldo summer but ignoring this one) has run at about 60m/year. It's a lot but it's not financial madness for a club with their profits.

We have to find a sustainable financial and football model. Such is the nature of modern football, we'll have to find it fast.
 
In truth out scouts have been having a bit of a mare and so has Sir Alex in transfer market. There's nothing wrong on going for value but the signings must really represent value. Instead what we have done is gone in the market and repeatedly over spent on players that will never been good enough for us and repeatedly given these lads numerous chances. We brought in Smalling and Jones so that they can take over from Rio and Vida and they both don't look ready to do that. We thought Evans would play a big part in the future of our defence yet he's being rag-dolled by the Afobe's of this world. Those three at this rate are going to cost us planty of money not because of 'value' strategy but because they don't seem like the real deal. If we had gotten in Verane and Laporte as the future of defence at such cheap prices we'd be in a much stronger standing but we didn't. Fabio and Rafael were supposed to take over from Neville and Evra but they've instead sent our doctors bill sky rocketing.

Its been apparent for many years that Ando isn't gonna be the Scholes' replacement as first hoped but we still continued to dream. We believed Cleverley was as big a talent as Thiago but that's quite clearly false. Both have failed quite miserably to replace the great midfield maestro so we suffered the consequences of our actions and have now made an emergency signing in Hererra. We didn't bother to bring anyone in to one day take over Carrick's position so now we have a squad without any recognized holding mids if he's unavailable. He himself is getting older by the niggling injury and looked well below par the last time he played.

Our wingers produced for a season or two and ceased producing since then, they produced in the past so we didn't want to be to hasty. Today its become apparent that none of them are of the quality we need at the club so its somewhat of a crisis. We spent something like 50 million pounds on the market for these wide players but they hardly look worth 5. Zaha is also looking like a bust which is extremely concerning cause we spend lots of money on him too.

Our inability to develop some of the youth products that we had has also hurt us substantially. Pogba is now a fine footballer that we cant use cause of a lack of opportunities. Our other top prospect in recent years is a jailbird in waiting.

We had a good strategy going but our execution has left a lot to desired.
 
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I think it's pretty obvious that as long as we were where we wanted to be, i.e. top of the league, the Glazers didn't want to sanction too many big-money signings because they didn't see the need. Now the alarm bells are ringing and they will spend what it takes to get us back, probably hoping that we then won't have to spend too much the next five years after this summer's outlay.

Plus, of course Fergie was a cheapskate.

EDIT: And what RooneyLegend said. We tried to save money by buying cheaper players but 18 million for Young and 16 for Valencia isn't better value than the 25 million City paid for Silva.

We spend quite a lot of money on gambles like Bebe, Obertan and Diouf, and paid way over the top for the likes of Smalling and Jones
 
I think you get what you pay for basically. Football has changed a lot. We were once in a position as a club where we were one of only 2 possibly 3 places a top talent would want to move in this country. There is now a lot more money and competition for these players and we haven't adapted until recently. Personally I feel we have had a flawed logic towards the end of Fergies era where we refuse to pay top money for elite players, refuse to pay agents and refuse to give talented youngsters high wages. It left us in a position where we were recruiting players who had average or slightly above average ability hoping they would improve and on a lot of occasions it simply hasn't worked out. Players want to play for us but they also want to make the most of their talents. I think a player would be stupid to accept a lower wage just to play for a certain team. Who knows if Januzaj would have stayed if we didn't offer him decent money? He would have probably followed in Pogba's footsteps abroad.
 
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