Cost of current squads

Another thing worth mentioning is that every other league has operated in € the whole time.

Has the fluctuation in exchange rate been accounted for when working out what, say, Rooney cost in €?
 
Nowhere near as bad as in other countries though. Look at Spain. There are clubs competing with squads 200 times cheaper than Real Madrid's.
Messi and Ronaldo earn more money in a week than anyone on the Elche team does in a year. At least the PL has the TV deal, La Liga on the other hand is madness in terms of revenue differences.
 
Let's face it guys we have spend quite a lot on the squad we have but too often it went into medicore players that weren't worth their money or into talents that sadly didn't develop as good as we wanted.
 
Oh completely. That issue doesn't go away.

It's just that I'd previously assumed they were using their ill-gotten gains to consistently out-spend us, by a huge margin. Which was comforting, in a way. Looks like I can no longer soften the pain of another City league title using this logic.

As I said above, I would be fecking livid if I was the Glazers. And they're still being told they need to spunk another 50-80 million on central defence and midfield! Fair play to them for continuing to write the cheques. Would be well within their rights to put a stop to all this lunacy, hire a DoF and spend a season or two re-grouping. Basically what Abramovic did a few years back when he stopped investing in their squad for a while.

Thank feck they're going all in or things really would get ugly on here...
Like I said though, their spending is far more recent than ours. Our squad dates about around 10/11 years whereas theirs is around half that. Naturally then it's more likely for them to have a better, younger squad right now.

They've also spent bonkers amounts on players they barely used and shipped out for peanuts.
 
Recalculated whole squad via transfermarkt (using the Euro figures). Problem is inflation and stuff makes it a pain. Likes of Anderson and Nani would have been signed for a lot of Euros but at the time the Pound was in a great position to it. Nani isn't included in the figures as he's out on loan, but if he was included it'd be even worse.

City's is €440.8M

6feMZRn.png

Not just inflation, the market value is also a bit deceptive. Their core of the squad, Zabaleta, Toure, Aguero, Kompany, Silva was brought 4 years ago, who all in today's market will be worth double that. Whereas we are currently replacing our core players, So it is obviously a misleading thing.
 
Oh completely. That issue doesn't go away.

It's just that I'd previously assumed they were using their ill-gotten gains to consistently out-spend us, by a huge margin. Which was comforting, in a way. Looks like I can no longer soften the pain of another City league title using this logic.

As I said above, I would be fecking livid if I was the Glazers. And they're still being told they need to spunk another 50-80 million on central defence and midfield! Fair play to them for continuing to write the cheques. Would be well within their rights to put a stop to all this lunacy, hire a DoF and spend a season or two re-grouping. Basically what Abramovic did a few years back when he stopped investing in their squad for a while.

Thank feck they're going all in or things really would get ugly on here...

I dunno, I'm not yet convinced that the numbers in the OP justify some of the conclusions being drawn. There are far too many variables.

I'd like to see the raw data, in terms of values placed on each squad member, numbers in each squad, how long the headline 'total spend' figure took to amass in years, etc.
 
Not just inflation, the market value is also a bit deceptive. Their core of the squad, Zabaleta, Toure, Aguero, Kompany, Silva was brought 4 years ago, who all in today's market will be worth double that. Whereas we are currently replacing our core players, So it is obviously a misleading thing.

Another very good point.

City's spunking of cash those 4-5 years ago played a huge part in the ridiculous inflation in transfer fees we see now.
 
I really don't think it's a particularly accurate way to judge anything, tbh.

City and Chelsea may not have more expensive squads than ours but that doesn't account for the fact that they've done far more tinkering with their squads than we have. You think they'd have kept players like Anderson, Nani, Young, Valencia around as long as us? No chance. And that's where the crux of their financial situations lie. A transfer to us is an investment, a transfer to them is feck all. Buy a player, see if he fits the bill, if not, get rid and try again.
 
They've also spent bonkers amounts on players they barely used and shipped out for peanuts.

I think this is a good point. We seem to keep hold of our crap expensive buys rather than ship them off. We could replace the likes of Anderson and Young with cheap alternatives without really affecting the overall quality of our squad.

Still depressing that we've spent a lot on these players mind but perhaps skews it a bit when comparing it to other teams.
 
Financially it seems Serie A is the most equal league, kind of ironic that for the last two seasons it has been the most one sided out of the major 5 leagues.
 
I dunno, I'm not yet convinced that the numbers in the OP justify some of the conclusions being drawn. There are far too many variables.

I'd like to see the raw data, in terms of values placed on each squad member, numbers in each squad, how long the headline 'total spend' figure took to amass in years, etc.

The elephant in the room is that old favourite, net spend. Selling Ronaldo for the money we did means our owners haven't invested as much money in that squad as these figures might make you think. Of course, clubs like Chelsea, Liverpool and Spurs selling players for huge money in recent years that doesn't work quite as much in our favour is it might have done in the past.

I agree there's a timebound element which might be distorting things. We've invested heavily when transfer fees are at an all-time high. Although it's worth bearing in mind that the figure in the OP dates back to the January 2013 transfer window (before we signed Mata?) and our lot of our most expensive players were signed a good while ago (Nani, Anderson, Rooney etc.)
 
Does the figure for City include all the players they have out on loan?

Yeah, that's a good point. Plus all the money they've spent on players who are young enough to still be part of their squad but were shipped out ages ago, while we've been forced to give our expensive players every possible chance to eventually come good.
 
They do not have to as it is not about the running costs for the squad but about what the acquisition of the players cost. Bayern and Barca have a homegrown spine - Athletico and Dortmund work with special systems and with cheap player imports and are sucessful with it.

Dortmund are beginning to change a bit though.

Weidenfeller free
Langerak 500k
Großkreutz free
Piszczek free
Hummels 4.2m
Subotic 4.5m
Sokratis 10m
Ginter 10m
Schmelzer free
Durm free
Bender 1.5m
Kehl 3.2m
Kirch 350k
Gündogan 5.5m
Sahin 8m
Jojic 2.2m
Blaszczykowski 3m
Hofmann free
Mkhitaryan 27.5m
Reus 17m
Aubameyang 13m
Immobile 19m
Ramos 10m
Ji free

Which amounts to €119,25. Their success has driven up prices for them too and some of those bargain-players won't come to them at all because of the competition in their squad (iirc Brandt and Goretzka both turned them down because of that), and on the other hand they need most of their new players to be on a certain level already.
For example I doubt they could buy Hummels for €4.5m again? More like double at least if Bayern even would be willing to sell to them at all, where they bought Lewandowski for €5m as their second striker in the past they now bought Ramos for double that amount.
Like I said though, their spending is far more recent than ours. Our squad dates about around 10/11 years whereas theirs is around half that. Naturally then it's more likely for them to have a better, younger squad right now.

They've also spent bonkers amounts on players they barely used and shipped out for peanuts.

What? City started spending big in 07/08, the only relevant players from before that at United are Rooney+Carrick and the former's value hasn't even gone down.

The elephant in the room is that old favourite, net spend. Selling Ronaldo for the money we did means our owners haven't invested as much money in that squad as these figures might make you think. Of course, clubs like Chelsea, Liverpool and Spurs selling players for huge money in recent years that doesn't work quite as much in our favour is it might have done in the past.

I agree there's a timebound element which might be distorting things. We've invested heavily when transfer fees are at an all-time high. Although it's worth bearing in mind that the figure in the OP dates back to the January 2013 transfer window (before we signed Mata?) and our lot of our most expensive players were signed a good while ago (Nani, Anderson, Rooney etc.)

I think net spending is a secondary topic in this context. Because since we look at whole squads it doesn't matter if the 50m for player x came from the owner, from the club itself or from a transfer fee. The question still remains: you have 50m to spend what can a competent club buy with that.
A lot more relevant are wages and agent fees imo.
 
Last edited:
400m plus and nothing to show for it so far. Disappointing how much money we have wasted.

Nothing to show for it? How so? Most of our squad are from the pre Moyes days, so all are multiple trophy winners. Yep Fellaini, Mata, Shaw & Herrera are nothing to show for it purchases so far, but to completely omit what our squad have won over the last decade is just wrong!
 
While we were harping on about no value in the market, clubs were cleaning up players who now cost a feck load.
 
You'd have to do the value of English teams in £'s would you not as it was stronger in years gone buy so you got more for you money so to speak.

Still, the call for Glazers not spending money doesn't look the case when you look at the numbers. €430m is around £350 still in todays money right?
 
You'd have to do the value of English teams in £'s would you not as it was stronger in years gone buy so you got more for you money so to speak.

Still, the call for Glazers not spending money doesn't look the case when you look at the numbers.

I started off doing that, but on transfermarkt when you use the English site they've got the current exchange rates rather than the historical, so Anderson shows as costing more than he actually did. Just a pain in general to do so kept it as Euros. At some point I might convert them all into pounds at when the actual transfer was done, but not got the time to at the moment.
 
Pointless exercise this as you have big money signings like Rooney, Carrick and Anderson who have won everything there is to win at the club!
 
I started off doing that, but on transfermarkt when you use the English site they've got the current exchange rates rather than the historical, so Anderson shows as costing more than he actually did. Just a pain in general to do so kept it as Euros. At some point I might convert them all into pounds at when the actual transfer was done, but not got the time to at the moment.

I was in no way suggesting you should do it! That'd be hell to do. Just thinking aloud.

Either way, what we've learnt is we've spent a shit tonne of money.
 
Yeah, that's a good point. Plus all the money they've spent on players who are young enough to still be part of their squad but were shipped out ages ago, while we've been forced to give our expensive players every possible chance to eventually come good.

Yeah you would have to take into account the millions and millions City and Chelsea have spent on players and then got rid of after 1 or 2 years where as we are stuck with our expensive flops.

The likes of Lescott or Robinho or Jo or Adebayor or Shevchenko or Shaun Wright Phillips etc.

We've still spent a lot over the last few years though and most of it poorly to be brutally honest.
 
It would be interesting to see the cost of each team when 'years service' are taken into consideration. Our £30mil for Rooney has stretched a lot further than City's £40mil for Fernandinho for example as he's been in the club that much longer.
 
The money spent on Shaw, Fellaini and Anderson looks absolutely fecking bananas when you compare it to the quality players in the same positions in other teams.

Obviously, Shaw can still come good. He'll have to come very fecking good though!
Like you say with Shaw he can still prove to be worth it. Look at Rio, nobody will ever say he was overpriced after the service we got from him. This is something other teams don't often get.
 
Like you say with Shaw he can still prove to be worth it. Look at Rio, nobody will ever say he was overpriced after the service we got from him. This is something other teams don't often get.

Yeah, I agree.

I'm not entirely convinced a left back can ever be worth the sort of money we spent on Shaw, mind you. Not as influential a position as a CB or CM, which is why all the other clubs on that table have spent relatively little on that position.

That's neither her nor there, though. I'm not going to judge him by his fee. If we over-spent by 10-15m that's no skin off my nose, especially as it doesn't seem to have hindered our ability to spend a load of money since. If he turns out to be a great LB for the next 10 years then it's all gravy.
 
You have to look at turnover of players. Eg, compare the money City have spent on Strikers over the last 5 years compared to our own. It may be cost of current squad but not necessarily what was spent to get to that position. Really is a futile exercise.
 
It would be interesting to see the cost of each team when 'years service' are taken into consideration. Our £30mil for Rooney has stretched a lot further than City's £40mil for Fernandinho for example as he's been in the club that much longer.

Agreed, you can't take that out of the equation, particularly if you're trying to perceive value.
 
Yeah, I agree.

I'm not entirely convinced a left back can ever be worth the sort of money we spent on Shaw, mind you. Not as influential a position as a CB or CM, which is why all the other clubs on that table have spent relatively little on that position.

That's neither her nor there, though. I'm not going to judge him by his fee. If we over-spent by 10-15m that's no skin off my nose, if he turns out to be a great LB for the next 10 years.

I don't necessarily disagree, but if he's a mainstay for 10 years then it's much more cost effective than signing a new first choice LB every few years.

This is basically where the stats in the OP fall down in terms of the 'spent more than City and Chelsea' conclusions.

Realistically I think you are safe to continue comforting yourself over City having bought the league :)
 

Yes, these figures for Spurs are far more accurate than those given in the OP (£250m).

244.7m euros is about £195m, which accords with what I mentioned earlier.

And of course United's total figure has now been increased - compared to your current table - by 80m euros with Di Maria's signing, making a total of 512.5m euros
 
Last edited: