Could we please start investing in PL-proven talents again?

andersj said:
It has been repeated for years. But during Klopps five first year they invested 50 % of their funds in the PL. Same with Arteta.

For the past five windows Man Utd have invested close to €900 mill. €65 mill in the PL. Less than 10 percent.
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This doesn’t really mean anything though because it conveniently cuts out Maguire, AWB, Schneiderlin, mata, Fellaini etc.

I think every single United fan worldwide would agree recruitment under the Glazers was a joke.

With Ineos we have 1 summer window of data but signs are promising in my mind: Maz, Ugarte and Yoro seem great for different reasons (none from the PL) and I think De Ligt will prove shrewd business (none PL) and it’s really Zirkzee (who is young so may well come good or be sold for profit) who is looking sketchy and he was relatively cheap because he was non PL.

Bruno is probably our best transfer (none PL), Amad is also non PL, just because we signed some duds doesn’t mean there aren’t good players out there in other leagues I.e Kudus instead of Antony, Dias instead of Lindelof, Rodri instead of Matic. It’s about sciuting, not PL proven.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
This doesn’t really mean anything though because it conveniently cuts out Maguire, AWB, Schneiderlin, mata, Fellaini etc.

I think every single United fan worldwide would agree recruitment under the Glazers was a joke.

With Ineos we have 1 summer window of data but signs are promising in my mind: Maz, Ugarte and Yoro seem great for different reasons (none from the PL) and I think De Ligt will prove shrewd business (none PL) and it’s really Zirkzee (who is young so may well come good or be sold for profit) who is looking sketchy and he was relatively cheap because he was non PL.

Bruno is probably our best transfer (none PL), Amad is also non PL, just because we signed some duds doesn’t mean there aren’t good players out there in other leagues I.e Kudus instead of Antony, Dias instead of Lindelof, Rodri instead of Matic. It’s about sciuting, not PL proven.
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The fact that the players you mentioned found success at other clubs doesn’t automatically mean they would have thrived here. While I agree that Bruno Fernandes has been our best signing since Sir Alex, it’s worth considering whether some of the other recruits might have performed better if we had both a settled team and a clear, long-term plan for integrating them.

It’s crucial to ask: what made these players successful before they joined us? And more importantly, did we replicate those conditions at United? Take Paul Pogba as an example—he excelled as an advanced No. 8 in a midfield three at Juventus, yet we often deployed him in a double pivot, a role that didn’t play to his strengths.

There are countless factors at play here, and unfortunately, we didn’t always create the right environment for success. Without the proper structure, strategy, or consistency, we’ve been left asking why certain players didn’t fulfill their potential at the club. It’s a lesson in the importance of not just signing talent, but also maximizing it within a cohesive system.
 
It would seem logical that we buy from abroad as those players should be cheaper, and yet we're paying stupid money for them too. So we might as well buy PL players.

Two teams in the relegation zone have better strikers than us for feck's sake.
 
Lentwood said:
Yes, and that's the key point isn't it...you used to be able to do that, now you can't.

In 2004, it was a perfectly viable (arguably optimal) strategy. Let Everton, West Ham and Leeds waste time scouring the lower leagues, signing flop after flop until they eventually hit the big time...and then take that player from them for £20/25m.

Nowadays it's not possible. IF the player wants to join, and IF we can convince these clubs to sell at all, you're looking at crazy fees...and I am accounting for inflation there...£20/25m for a world class star like Rooney or Ferdinand in the early 2000s was a big fee but those players might cost over £100m now...Rooney arguably more as a forward after his breakthrough European Championships with England. You might pay £150m+

Most PL clubs in the 00s needed to sell to balance the books. Not the case now with the huge TV deals.

Unfortunately, we now have to get good at identifying players early, signing them quickly and moving the lads out who don't succeed quickly.

Cherry picking three top talents a year from our rivals won't work and would cost billions of pounds.
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This just isn't true though. Other clubs are doing this. We see it in the proportion of overall transfer spend.

We can also see it in individual transfers. Amadou Onana cheaper than Casemiro etc.
 
Honestly it doesn't matter where we're buying from if our scouting is still as shoddy as it's been. Clubs like Brighton buy from abroad a lot and are successful. We mostly just need to sort out our recruitment process.
 
It’s way more expensive these days

I do agree though if the opportunity is there (eg contract running down) we should be go for it

We seemed to pick Mount when his contract was running down but still paid full price or close to it
 
Bright_Eyes said:
Honestly it doesn't matter where we're buying from if our scouting is still as shoddy as it's been. Clubs like Brighton buy from abroad a lot and are successful. We mostly just need to sort out our recruitment process.
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Yep.

Liverpool offer the textbook example of how to dig yourself out of the hole we're in:

- Invest in high quality scouting and analytics.
- Know what type of football you want your team to play.
- Hire a manager who fits that style of play.
- Sign players who fit that style of play.
- Target players in their early to mid 20's (Firmino, Robertson, Mane, Matip, Salah, Wijnaldum, Alisson and VVD were all signed at 23-26 years old).

There's not much more to it than that, but actually doing that successfully has proven easier said than done.

When we hired our first Director of Data science in 2021 we were seen as being decades behind other top clubs. It's now nearly 2025 and we're being told by our owner that we're still in the last century.

There's no need to add extra largely irrelvant qualifiers like "sign players from the Premier League" to the essentials we're already not getting right.
 
As many have probably mentioned, most transfers are failure and most transfers are within leagues. X proven is a fallacy for many reasons but there are three obvious ones that people continuously ignore, your new signing is now coached by a different person, he has to work with different players that have different tendencies/skills/personalities and for top half teams, the player is expected to perform at a higher standard.

The main issues for players that fail in a new context is due to their new club "failing" to determine whether the skills and personality of the player were a good fit. I put failing between quoting marks because it is a difficult exercise and again most clubs fail to do it at a consistent level which is why it's best to cut your losses quickly and give yourself an other chance with a different player, instead United tends to keep players until their market value cratered.
 
JPRouve said:
As many have probably mentioned, most transfers are failure and most transfers are within leagues. X proven is a fallacy for many reasons but there are three obvious ones that people continuously ignore, your new signing is now coached by a different person, he has to work with different players that have different tendencies/skills/personalities and for top half teams, the player is expected to perform at a higher standard.

The main issues for players that fail in a new context is due to their new club "failing" to determine whether the skills and personality of the player were a good fit. I put failing between quoting marks because it is a difficult exercise and again most clubs fail to do it at a consistent level which is why it's best to cut your losses quickly and give yourself an other chance with a different player, instead United tends to keep players until their market value cratered.
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True, but what makes a top team a top team, is that they have players on the quality who can dig them out of trouble when they aren't playing well.

Look at Palmer at Chelsea atm
Saka/Odegaard at Arsenal
KDB/Haaland in City*
Maddison/Son in Spurs
Isak/Gordon in Newcastle
Pedro/Mitoma in Brighton
Salah in Liverpool etc.

This season we have barely had this, where one/two players are consistent enough to dig is out of trouble even if they aren't playing our best. In the past it's been Bruno/Rashford in occasion the most, but neither haven't been up to that this season.

Which all of all, leaves us where we are.

Whenever you build a squad, you have to identify these players also, who you can rely on even when you aren't near your best.
 
SparcMac said:
True, but what makes a top team a top team, is that they have players on the quality who can dig them out of trouble when they aren't playing well.

Look at Palmer at Chelsea atm
Saka/Odegaard at Arsenal
KDB/Haaland in City*
Maddison/Son in Spurs
Isak/Gordon in Newcastle
Pedro/Mitoma in Brighton
Salah in Liverpool etc.

This season we have barely had this, where one/two players are consistent enough to dig is out of trouble even if they aren't playing our best. In the past it's been Bruno/Rashford in occasion the most, but neither haven't been up to that this season.

Which all of all, leaves us where we are.

Whenever you build a squad, you have to identify these players also, who you can rely on even when you aren't near your best.
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No, what makes a top team is that they generally have more top players than average and also better coaching. Top teams have a high floor and high ceiling due to the fact they have way above average players and that the team is more than the sum of it's parts. They don't rely on a couple of players to coax good results.
 
sullydnl said:
Yep.

Liverpool offer the textbook example of how to dig yourself out of the hole we're in:

- Invest in high quality scouting and analytics.
- Know what type of football you want your team to play.
- Hire a manager who fits that style of play.
- Sign players who fit that style of play.
- Target players in their early to mid 20's (Firmino, Robertson, Mane, Matip, Salah, Wijnaldum, Alisson and VVD were all signed at 23-26 years old).

There's not much more to it than that, but actually doing that successfully has proven easier said than done.

When we hired our first Director of Data science in 2021 we were seen as being decades behind other top clubs. It's now nearly 2025 and we're being told by our owner that we're still in the last century.

There's no need to add extra largely irrelvant qualifiers like "sign players from the Premier League" to the essentials we're already not getting right.
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Close thread
 
It's kind of funny how it's turned out. Scott McTominay was the guy everyone hated, yet he is going for the title with Napoli. A PL proven home grown talent and now United are asking themselves why they are so bad at defending set pieces.
 
Chelsea, City and Liverpool are the ones that won the PL since SAF retired.

City 2013-2014, prominent players were Aguero, Yaya, D.Silva, Kompany, and Nasri, only Nasri is the proven PL players signed from Arsenal, the rest signed from outside the PL.

Chelsea 2014-2015, prominent players Hazard, Fabregas, D.Costa, Matic, Terry, Courtois, Willian, Oscar, only Fab is PL proven, the rest signed from outside the PL.

KdB, B.Silva, Fernandinho, and Edersonformed a core of very strong City side that dominated the league between 2017-2019, but they did have PL proved players who were vital to their success like Mahrez, Stones, Sterling, Walker, and Milner.

Looking at more recent examples, Liverpool 2017-2020, had a good mixture of PL players like Robertson, Mane, VvD, Wjinaldum and others from outside like Salah, Allison, Fermino and Fabinho, and City continued to recruit from outside the PL bringing the likes of Rodri, Haaland, Dias, Gvardiol and Alvarez, while Liverpool got Diaz, Szobozlai, Konate, and Gakpo, Arsenal also got amazing players in Odegaard, Saliba, Gabriel.


Obviously the PL is full of talents, Liverpool got their hand on Macalister and Jota, City signed Grealish for a record fee, so did Arsenal with Rice, Chelsea got Caciedo & Lavia, the idea is to have the right player for the right fit, be it from a PL side or from Europe/SA.

In our case and since SAF left, the whole club was in shambles that no matter who we signed it would not work, we signed all sorts of players and nothing worked, hopefully with INEOS and Amorim, it gets better.
 
sullydnl said:
Yep.

Liverpool offer the textbook example of how to dig yourself out of the hole we're in:

- Invest in high quality scouting and analytics.
- Know what type of football you want your team to play.
- Hire a manager who fits that style of play.
- Sign players who fit that style of play.
- Target players in their early to mid 20's (Firmino, Robertson, Mane, Matip, Salah, Wijnaldum, Alisson and VVD were all signed at 23-26 years old).

There's not much more to it than that, but actually doing that successfully has proven easier said than done.

When we hired our first Director of Data science in 2021 we were seen as being decades behind other top clubs. It's now nearly 2025 and we're being told by our owner that we're still in the last century.

There's no need to add extra largely irrelvant qualifiers like "sign players from the Premier League" to the essentials we're already not getting right.
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Basically this.

Uniteds problem is we constantly buy players either before their prime and can't delevop them into players of value. Or buy players towards the end of or after their prime meaning we don't get a lot of mileage out of them.
 
Marwood said:
There's no doubt we overpaid for Maguire and AWB but that was just United being stupid as opposed to a Prem League tax.

But we also did that with Antony, Hojlund, Casemiro. Possibly Martinez. Maybe even Yoro.

You've also compared fees from different eras there.

When we signed Lindelof we could have got Maguire for half the price from Hull.

This idea there's always a Prem League tax is a bit outdated for me.

Although the bigger part of this for me is the age bracket the OP mentions. Crucial I think.
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I did compare players across eras but the fact that Lindelof and De Ligt can be bought for similar fees or Darmian and Mazraoui suggests that prices can be compared across time periods.

I think the continent has caught up to the fact that PL teams have more money and hold out more now. However there definitely still is a PL premium. You are only buying from 19 other wealthy clubs whereas Europe has a variety of different clubs in different financial situations. There are simply more options and as such more good deals to be found. Perhaps rather than a PL premium it’s that Europe has more good value deals.
 
andersj said:
It has been repeated for years. But during Klopps five first year they invested 50 % of their funds in the PL. Same with Arteta.

For the past five windows Man Utd have invested close to €900 mill. €65 mill in the PL. Less than 10 percent.
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Yeah but you're talking about percentages.....what percentage of the total were van Dijk/Mane (£120m) and Rice/Havertz (£170m)?

You can't rebuild a side with players costing £60m+ on average. There are bargains to be had in the PL and abroad, but you have to be wise to them and ready to take the risk. Cast your net far and wide and move quickly.
 
Marwood said:
This just isn't true though. Other clubs are doing this. We see it in the proportion of overall transfer spend.

We can also see it in individual transfers. Amadou Onana cheaper than Casemiro etc.
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Onana isn't good enough though, so it's an irrelevant example

Rice is good enough, he cost £100m...as did Caicedo...who I'd argue is borderline good enough.
 
sullydnl said:
Yep.

Liverpool offer the textbook example of how to dig yourself out of the hole we're in:

- Invest in high quality scouting and analytics.
- Know what type of football you want your team to play.
- Hire a manager who fits that style of play.
- Sign players who fit that style of play.
- Target players in their early to mid 20's (Firmino, Robertson, Mane, Matip, Salah, Wijnaldum, Alisson and VVD were all signed at 23-26 years old).

There's not much more to it than that, but actually doing that successfully has proven easier said than done.

When we hired our first Director of Data science in 2021 we were seen as being decades behind other top clubs. It's now nearly 2025 and we're being told by our owner that we're still in the last century.

There's no need to add extra largely irrelvant qualifiers like "sign players from the Premier League" to the essentials we're already not getting right.
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I agree with you but would add a few more things that are extremely important. I think the role of data analytics is exaggerated by sports journos when it comes to football. The things you've outlined in your post are correct and it's where we have failed. Data comes later not before the things you have correctly mentioned. So whatever strategy a coach wants to implement on the pitch must be then followed through by recruiting the right players by first drawing up a list via the watchful eye and backed up by the data. And that's what Liverpool have been doing with their Chief Scouts Barry Hunter and Dave Fallows who run their recruitment and scouting. But we don't hear about them.

I do believe we've had a strategy as far as wanting to implement a more expansive brand of football with Solskjaer even going on record and saying he wanted to replicate Jurgen Klopp's high line. But the players they (Phelan &Solskjaer) targeted were the wrong players for that particular play style which required players who not only could play in possession but also were strong duellers out of possession when the space opened up in a higher line. Solskjaer ended up with a CB pairing of Maguire and Lindelof and a midfield two of McTominay and Fred. And it was easy to see that Wan Bissaka wasn't good enough on the ball for that particular style of play. I didn't need data to tell me that this was problematic and unsurprisingly things failed.

So I completely agree with you that it's a simple process but the recruitment must mirror the style of play you want to implement. Playing attacking football in a higher line with a high press, requires pace and power along with a high level of technical ability in possession where you progress the ball forward effectively and with consistency. And when you can do that and have a rest defense (CBs & deeper mid) who are strong at eating up ground quickly and winning duels in larger spaces in defensive transition then the system will take shape. All the teams that play a more proactive brand of football are very similar in how they go about implementing their strategies, so the blueprint is there for all to see. And if you first know what you want by observing the market and recruiting players for how you want to attack and how you want to defend in a higher line then data analytics will help to back that process up which will be led by the chief scout who I believe is Christian Vivell right now.

So whether the players are from the EPL or from elsewhere, the key for me is to recruit players for a strategy which observes each players in-possession and out of possession abilities in relation to their position on the pitch. Why is this difficult to understand for them? I don't know, hence discussions then overcomplicate things.
 
hellhunter said:
Can't help thinking of Schneiderlin, Mount and Shaw when I read this
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Juan Mata was 25 when he joined,
Fellaini was 26,
Maguire 26,
Wan Bissaka 21.

All big money transfers from PL clubs in a good age group (Maguire at the time a world record for a CB), none of them worth it.
 
PL proven is a myth. Players are always unproven in the league until they are proven. It all just comes down to good scouting and decision making.

Numerous examples of the PL's best players coming from outside and the same applies to managers.
 
greater wall said:
It's kind of funny how it's turned out. Scott McTominay was the guy everyone hated, yet he is going for the title with Napoli. A PL proven home grown talent and now United are asking themselves why they are so bad at defending set pieces.
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Just because Napoli is pushing for the title and McT is having a good season, doesn’t mean we were wrong to sell him, does it? His best position was clearly as a “10” of sorts (is he even playing that at Napoli before I go on a merry tangent?) & he was never surpassing Bruno here at United.

He was one of the few sellable assets we had (due to a combination of good performances considering his wage) and he wanted gauranteed game time (rumor is EtH wanted to keep him).

All this considering Serie A is probably a league “inferior” to the PL anyway. Alas, all that being said, I’m glad he’s doing well! I really like Atalanta too, so I’m torn on who I’d like to win the title between them (ignoring milan).
 
FortunaUtd said:
Juan Mata was 25 when he joined,
Fellaini was 26,
Maguire 26,
Wan Bissaka 21.

All big money transfers from PL clubs in a good age group (Maguire at the time a world record for a CB), none of them worth it.
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Because they all had obvious flaws. 3 lacked pace and 1 lacked technical ability.

If we signed players such as Gibbs-White, Mbueno, Wissa, maybe Outtara I am sure they would not disappoint.
 
Lentwood said:
Onana isn't good enough though, so it's an irrelevant example

Rice is good enough, he cost £100m...as did Caicedo...who I'd argue is borderline good enough.
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Well we're comparing Premier League players to players from Europe in terms of cost.

If we can only count players who are definitely good enough based on posters subjective opinions this becomes a much shorter and trickier conversation.

Onana not good enough, yeah OK. Casemiro also not good enough. But also more expensive, higher wages, 8 years older, no sell on fee.

It doesn't have to be all or nothing in any one way but ultimately there's no way United can have their primary transfer focus being overseas players who cost less than £30million. No manager will get long enough to make that work.
 
FortunaUtd said:
Juan Mata was 25 when he joined,
Fellaini was 26,
Maguire 26,
Wan Bissaka 21.

All big money transfers from PL clubs in a good age group (Maguire at the time a world record for a CB), none of them worth it.
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For sure we overpaid but we're United and that's what we do. None of them were a roaring success either.

But Maguire and AWB immediately improved us. They both had good spells, properly contributed, sometimes put in top performances(AWB in particular).

A prime Mata now in that left N0.10 spot? Everybody would say yes. We simply didn't use him properly.

Even Fellaini, should never have been bought but his attitude and application were top notch. He did score some important goals, we won a Europa League with him playing a big role.

Far from perfect but still way better than lots of the overseas players we've signed. Where we're left scratching our heads as to how on earth have they got here.
 
Andy_Cole said:
Morgan Schneiderlin

Close thread
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Let me add the one we all apparently collectively repressed

Romelu Lukaku for 80m from Everton, 24 years old. It hardly gets more PL proven.

Marwood said:
For sure we overpaid but we're United and that's what we do. None of them were a roaring success either.

But Maguire and AWB immediately improved us. They both had good spells, properly contributed, sometimes put in top performances(AWB in particular).

A prime Mata now in that left N0.10 spot? Everybody would say yes. We simply didn't use him properly.

Even Fellaini, should never have been bought but his attitude and application were top notch. He did score some important goals, we won a Europa League with him playing a big role.

Far from perfect but still way better than lots of the overseas players we've signed. Where we're left scratching our heads as to how on earth have they got here.
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I'd argue the same is true for all the overseas players. I'm not arguing against signing top talents entering their prime from smaller PL clubs, by the way. Let's do it. But they are not structurally better than top talents signed from elsewhere, only probably a bit more expensive.
 
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andersj said:
That we have, relatively, spent little on PL proven players since Ferguson left. And you could argue that when we spent a bigger share than now (2013 to 2019) we did better. Despite buying poorly in the PL.
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What’s the trend like for others clubs as would assume it is similar in that the % of poaching from direct PL competitors declines as those clubs get more and more able to resist selling their players?
 
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