You just keep drumming on about the same things, don't you?
A change in transfer philosophy? Was "Value" a false economy?
- Thread starter Pexbo
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You just keep drumming on about the same things, don't you?
Success on the cheap was purely down to Ferguson, we are just another club like Chelsea, City, Real, Barca who pay massive fees now. It's not a big deal.
Honestly, if Hargreaves hadn't been a crock, Anderson lived up to his potential and Nani been consistent, our squad and transfer policy, would look a lot better right now.
But they didn't so we're fecked. Problem is, we didn't react accordingly.
But they didn't so we're fecked. Problem is, we didn't react accordingly.
It's rather harsh putting all our 'value' failures on SAF. Come what may, he was a Utd man and rarely did he every bad mouth the entity. He knew where his bread was buttered and toed the line when necessary. No one here knows what financial constraints were put on him & Gill, while it is just as possible that in their zeal to manage the team properly (both financially & on the field), they might've pinched pennies when they could've been more luxurious. He enjoyed representing the 'virtuous' Old Guard, building his team through the academy & wise purchases vs. the Chelsea/City/PSG nouveau riche teams, who distorted the market. Oh sure, he like splurging occasionally in his later years (i.e. RVP, Berbatov, etc.), but it seemed he was looking for another CR7 bonanza, figuring he did it once, he was probably going to do it again. He didn't want to get caught up in the bidding wars that Chelsea et al were more than likely to win, so he avoided the next hot thing (i.e. Hazard, Ozil, etc) most of the time.
Still, the scouting & recruiting must improve and should not be based on how much we can move the player on in future fees. Like it or not, 'value' screams 'selling' team. Transfers must address the present needs and not just possible 'want to have's' which wind up giving you teams as unbalanced as ours seems to be. The Glazers seem to have loosened the purse strings, realizing that if our team goes pear-shaped too long would mean big financial losses, but the available money has been spent rather foolishly over the last 13 months.
Trust me mate I hate even putting blame and Sir Alex in the same sentence, it's just the 'value' statement he made time and time again should be taken with a pinch of salt when looking at how much was actually spent and what type of players it was spent on. He started with the class of 92, I think he wanted to end with the class of 2012 but unfortunately no other man exists on the planet with the talent Sir Alex has, and it is showing now
I feel Sir Alex would dominate Football right now with our current crop of players, where LVG says a manager has to get that extra 10% out of a player, Sir Alex got an extra 50% out of everybody.There is no "value" was the biggest bullshit Fergie sold us. We never reacted when they were cheap. We were always a year late and then we paid more than doubled if we wanted that player. There were always players available for cheap. He was too late to switch away from the 4-4-2 system which meant certain players could not fit in. Real Madrid has had a fire sale like every other year for the past 8 years or so.
Sneidjer - £12.5m
Robben - £20m
Ozil - £12.5m
Di Maria - £20m
Khedira - £12.5m
Sahin - £8m
Well this was Moyes' feck up:
Thiago - £15m
Strootman - £17m
These aren't exact figures but they are pretty close to the original fee. These are just the ones I could think off of the top of my head. If we do a search on google, we can come up with plenty more.
Sneidjer - £12.5m
Robben - £20m
Ozil - £12.5m
Di Maria - £20m
Khedira - £12.5m
Sahin - £8m
Well this was Moyes' feck up:
Thiago - £15m
Strootman - £17m
These aren't exact figures but they are pretty close to the original fee. These are just the ones I could think off of the top of my head. If we do a search on google, we can come up with plenty more.
To be fair, DDG, Jones, Smalling, RVP were good buys.
Don't understand how Chicharito is TBD. He was a key cog in some campaigns. Same goes for Nani & Valencia, although the bloom has come off those flowers. Sure, it's possible we'll not recoup our fees on them, but they were important players on title winning teams.
Even after Ronaldo left, we had a very good team. We could have had 1 top player added to the squad every season without breaking the bank. Players like Silva, Mata, Yaya Toure, Vidal and countless other players moved for a very reasonable fee, why we did not try and sign them, only Fergie would be able to answer that. If it was monetary reasons, then Fergie was lying for the last few years.
Isn't financial flexibility part and parcel of improving the team? Isn't having multiple options part of improving the team? Too many of the players that were part of the success while Fergie was here haven't transitioned from passengers to drivers (leaders)
Unless you subscribe to the Real Madrid model/PSG model that you just buy whomever you want at any cost. United is in this position because poor decisions were made and there was a failure to acknowledge those decisions and make adjustments.
What has Kagawa exactly contributed for his 12 million? He's taking up a spot, no? Is he producing anything? His value is decreasing, no?
Failure is a relative term here. Failure is predicated on whether or not a player could be replaced by a player of a similar quality without much of a difference. Would things have been all that different had United picked up a different #10 say Ever Banega at the same cost rather than Kagawa the last few years? Not really. Doesn't mean he's not a good player it just means he hasn't provided United with something different unless you're focusing on the picking up the Japanese market but then we're talking about more of a macro conversation.
You can blame Fergie, or the scouting department if you like, but this is a type of argument which rarely holds up. Anyone can cherry pick a handful of fantastic purchases during a given timeframe with the benefit of hindsight and proclaim United's purchases as failures. We conveniently overlook all the dreadful ones though.
My opinion is that "no value in the market" phenomenon arose for 5 distinct reasons:
1) United was actually constrained for a period by Glazer debt, which nobody wanted to admit publicly.
2) The spending of the big 2 in Spain, coupled with the mega rich sugar daddy owners inflated the market
3) In conjunction with #2 we saw a rapid increase in players, agents, etc. demanding their share of the action - in rapidly rising fees, wages, etc. Selling clubs also became able to raise their demands.
4) Ferguson was buoyed by the success if Ronaldo, Vidic and Evra. I think he honestly thought that: Anderson looked great when he first arrived, Nani looked a bargain for some time, and in Chicharito he found a bargain that proved that a "value" based approach worked. He was dismayed at Veron, Hargreaves and Berbatov. I think he was emboldened by Chicharito. Proof that a value signing could rival a 30 mil Berbatov.
5) SAF built a massive squad to challenge on all fronts by supplementing a strong core with value signings and promoting from within. As a result we ended up with a load of value players on high wages, a reliance that the academy can still produce quality, and we ran the quality we had until the wheels came off.
Last season, we were screaming for Jones, Smalling and Evans to be played in their proper positions. The narrative picking up steam is that it's Moyes' fault Rio, Vidic and Evra are gone. Maybe so, but none of those 3 would have accepted a bench role (as some seem so keen to assume), and probably they'd want multi-year extensions to their contracts.
Just to be clear, I'm not blaming SAF. The harsh truth is this. SAF made mistakes. Gill made mistakes (Pogba anyone?). Moyes made mistakes. Woodward made mistakes. Our scouting department made mistakes. We made a mistake in appointing Moyes and he made mistakes. Our medical team has let us down. Some players have failed to reach their potential. Our academy doesn't look capable of producing another class of 92. And our owners saddled us with a shitload of debt, and may or may not be willing to invest for improvements on the pitch. Louis Van Gaal has or will make mistakes (this 3-5-2 is bloody annoying).
That's where we are. These discussions about blame are pointless. The question now is, "Can we move on, and how?"
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I agree with most of your post but this. If anything we have the most talented group of individuals coming up since 92 from the academy/reserve teams in Pearson, Rothwell, Wilson, Pereira, Lawrence, Blackett.
I like the idea of buying young prospects and developing them through coaching into World beaters. The reality though is you can never tell where a players ceiling is. So it seems safer to buy 'the finished product' and if we look at Real, City, Chelsea as examples this has proved to be a successful model for them over the last few years. Too many of our future stars have proven to be quite mediocre in the end.
Fair point, and I hope I'm wrong on that one.
However, I'd like to expand on my point and make it clearer. If I think about the past 20 years or so, I can name a handful of clubs whose academies actually, or in theory if they'd managed to hold on to their players, could have built the spine of a team around academy players:
Barcelona
Manchester United
Southampton
Ajax
PSV Eindhoven
West Ham United
That's about it that I can think of off the top if my head. I'm sure someone can chime in with some other examples.
I really hope we have solid talent coming out of the academy. But I'll take one or two. Expecting another class of 92 is really stretching it. That's once in a lifetime to me (can't resist a Talking Heads pun here).
Success means they have been a consistent important contributor for multiple seasons. I would say Rafael is a success, but Kagawa is highly debatable. Berbatov had a good season, but overall he was sold in relatively short time because we didn't want him here.
Looks like wages have risen to the point where City's deals for Aguero and Yaya now seem reasonable.
This is the nonsense we get on the Caf. People here will brand Berbatov a catastrophic flop even though he won a golden boot playing for United in the premier league, and build up the likes of Kagawa for past glories whilst playing for Dortmund.
They absolutely are reasonable given the return. Perhaps City didn't plan it that way, but you cannot question the ROI.
Except City are 700 million pounds in the hole from their "investments". Something you can only do with a mad billionaire owner.
But we might have been able to buy those two and remained profitable.
They are "in the hole" for investments in the Eastlands (Etihad) area and signing players like Robinho, Adebayor and Wayne Bridge. If you want to pick examples of City's misadventures and excesses in the transfer market, Aguero and Yaya Toure are two of the worst you could could choose, mate.
Yes, they are, obviously their deals for Bridge, Adebayor, Robinho and several others would be bad even in today's market.
but many felt that the deals for Aguero and Yaya were also a case of over paying. And I think they were, but if they were made today they would seem normal.
You do know "No value in the market" means that "get the most out of the money given to you".
I feel for Fergie, could of won 3 Cl more if he had the money.
I feel for Fergie, could of won 3 Cl more if he had the money.
So you think a golden boot season is good return for the team considering the money spent on him?
We have spent as much if not more in the last few years as those clubs, only we bought utter dross for the large parts.