The funniest part about paying £4 million more than the release clause for Fellaini is that it all started as an attempt from Woodward to show that United would not be taken to the cleaners by other clubs.
Glazernomics: The UNITED Index
- Thread starter Rory 7
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) and Imran (@Annihilate Now!) are here to discuss Amad saving our blushes in a win against Southampton as well as our now annual loss at home to Brighton. They discuss Amorim's post-match comments, revisit how mid-table we may or may not be, and discuss some transfer news.
Proposing Jude Bellingham to spend some time with U18.
We lost Ruben Diaz over 5M as we offered 40 when they wanted 45M and next year city signed him for 50M, we signed Maguire for 85M.
Hanging on to players like Phil Jones/Martial/Lindelof with big contracts, more than they deserved.
Missing players like Thiago/Cesc in 2013 but finally signing Fellaini for 30M
Missing Caicedo/Kroos/Mane/VDS/Haaland/Touchameni by not pushing enough when they were available for reasonable amount of money but spent big on Pogba(90)/Antony(85)/Sancho(70)/Hoijlund(70)/Casemiro(70)/Mount(55)/Fred(50)/Matic(35)/Lindelof(30) /Maguire(85) /Bissaka(50) when other better targets are available for less money.
The net spend per year since SAF is Moyes(65)/LVG(70)/Jose(80)/Ole(100)/ETH(170) which is 1.3B for 12 seasons
Worst of all is ETH blowing 380M in first 2 seasons on average players and enforcing consequences of that spending for few years down the line.
We lost Ruben Diaz over 5M as we offered 40 when they wanted 45M and next year city signed him for 50M, we signed Maguire for 85M.
Hanging on to players like Phil Jones/Martial/Lindelof with big contracts, more than they deserved.
Missing players like Thiago/Cesc in 2013 but finally signing Fellaini for 30M
Missing Caicedo/Kroos/Mane/VDS/Haaland/Touchameni by not pushing enough when they were available for reasonable amount of money but spent big on Pogba(90)/Antony(85)/Sancho(70)/Hoijlund(70)/Casemiro(70)/Mount(55)/Fred(50)/Matic(35)/Lindelof(30) /Maguire(85) /Bissaka(50) when other better targets are available for less money.
The net spend per year since SAF is Moyes(65)/LVG(70)/Jose(80)/Ole(100)/ETH(170) which is 1.3B for 12 seasons
Worst of all is ETH blowing 380M in first 2 seasons on average players and enforcing consequences of that spending for few years down the line.
Luxury goods
Wasn’t there one where deadwood bragged we don’t need to win trophies to make money, then bragged about how many twitter/instagram followers we had gained in a week and the noodle sponsor
As soon as Woodward and the yanks took over full running of things , every manager we hired was on a hiding to nothing.
“Woodward doesn’t train and pick the players”was what we heard. But creating success isn’t just about picking the right manager , it’s also about creating a winning environment at the club.
We’ve been a joke for over a decade, throwing stupid money away. Many thought the major spending was a signal of ambition and our managers were under performing, when in truth our spending was actually a symptom of our incompetency , while any club/agent that saw woody coming were laughing all the way to the bank.
“Woodward doesn’t train and pick the players”was what we heard. But creating success isn’t just about picking the right manager , it’s also about creating a winning environment at the club.
We’ve been a joke for over a decade, throwing stupid money away. Many thought the major spending was a signal of ambition and our managers were under performing, when in truth our spending was actually a symptom of our incompetency , while any club/agent that saw woody coming were laughing all the way to the bank.
If memory serves, when Pogba arrived from Juve, Woodward was crowing about the number of social media followers the player had. Not what he would do for us on the pitch but how many people he could reach with his Twitter account.
Got taken to the cleaners by every agent out there. From October 2015 through February 2016 United spent more than £10 million on agent’s fees and between February 2017 and January 2018, that number was £18 million. Raiola snagged £41 million from the Pogba more and another £12 million for the Lukaku transfer.
There's a proper term for it though. I called it "Giffen goods" initially in another thread but was corrected by another poster - but I forget what he corrected me with
Basically the whole premises is that the more expensive a good or service becomes, the more attractive it becomes to certain buyers
I Goggled it....its a "Veblen" good. Defined as....
Veblen goods are luxury goods that are considered status symbols.
The high price of Veblen goods can make them seem more valuable and of higher quality.
Consumers may feel the need to buy Veblen goods to fit in with others.
Veblen goods are also known as "snob" goods.
Nails it to be fair!
Yes that sounds like it
Scouting 800 right backs before signing Wan Bissaka for £50m.
10xing Antony's (and pretty much anyone's) salary for 'reasons'.
Giving Moyes a 6 year managerial contract, watch him pass on Thiago for Fellaini, watch him try to replace Evra with Leighton Baines, then sack him after 30-40 games.
Becoming a sieve for transfer leaks and stories, with our singular goal to dominate every single transfer market news cycle with ongoing sagas. Hey at least we're relevant in the media! That reminds me are we still in for Wesley Snejider or are we fully concentrated on De Jong?
An accountant's obsession with 'Book Value' and extending shit players' contracts to, what, maybe stretch the amortisation of their cost over more years? I guess the paper napkin book value of a first eleven that cost £10m each is £110m (amortised over however many years and ignoring how shit they are), and maybe accountants can convince investors that a team of Phil Jones, Jadon Sancho and the rest of the spoofers are worth the money we paid for them. Anyways Book Value is a cornerstone of the Woodwardian School of how to be shit.
Give Schweinsteiger a massive pay day, he cries in sick for the year then we watch his fat arse waddle out for the World Cup with Germany in the summer.
10xing Antony's (and pretty much anyone's) salary for 'reasons'.
Giving Moyes a 6 year managerial contract, watch him pass on Thiago for Fellaini, watch him try to replace Evra with Leighton Baines, then sack him after 30-40 games.
Becoming a sieve for transfer leaks and stories, with our singular goal to dominate every single transfer market news cycle with ongoing sagas. Hey at least we're relevant in the media! That reminds me are we still in for Wesley Snejider or are we fully concentrated on De Jong?
An accountant's obsession with 'Book Value' and extending shit players' contracts to, what, maybe stretch the amortisation of their cost over more years? I guess the paper napkin book value of a first eleven that cost £10m each is £110m (amortised over however many years and ignoring how shit they are), and maybe accountants can convince investors that a team of Phil Jones, Jadon Sancho and the rest of the spoofers are worth the money we paid for them. Anyways Book Value is a cornerstone of the Woodwardian School of how to be shit.
Give Schweinsteiger a massive pay day, he cries in sick for the year then we watch his fat arse waddle out for the World Cup with Germany in the summer.
There should be an entire section detailing exactly how much each agent got from United and under which manager. Make it salacious, spell it out clearly how much Raiola got by ferreting Pogba around (and making Lukaku the player who has commanded the most cumulative transfer fees in football history). We seemed to dine quite a lot with Mendes under Mourinho and Raiola too. The influence of ETH's agent. £70m for Hojlund.
Stewards on Stretford upper appointed to stop anti Glazer flags being hung post Milan at Home (2009-10).
The completely random appointment of Solskjaer. (and I like the guy)
Letting Sir Alex pick his successor - cut from the same cloth etc
Putting us up for sale only to do a 'just kidding lel' on us 18 months later.
The completely random appointment of Solskjaer. (and I like the guy)
Letting Sir Alex pick his successor - cut from the same cloth etc
Putting us up for sale only to do a 'just kidding lel' on us 18 months later.
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We signed him a year after the WC.
Didn't we spend a fortune unveiling the Zlatan transfer only for him to announce it for free on his own social media?
This is how the guardian reported it at the time. It wouldn't surprise me if this is closer to the truth.
Rodrigo García Lucas, Alvaro Reig Gurrea and Guillermo Gutiérrez were photographed entering the league's offices on Monday afternoon, with less than 12 hours to go in the transfer window. The three men represent the Spanish law firm Laffer, which oversaw Bayern Munich's successful move for Javi Martínez. That deal was completed by paying the buyout clause, against the wishes of Athletic Bilbao.
It is understood the lawyers had been instructed by United to attempt to find a resolution to the transfer and, according to sources at the Spanish league, did so with the formal authorisation from Manchester United.
Herrera's agents were not directly involved in the operation and nor were Athletic Bilbao; they later confirmed to the league that they would seek to block the move, refusing to accept the transfer of money.
The lawyers did not deposit the €36m stipulated in the clause and were not able to meet the necessary requirements as far as documentation was concerned but they did hold talks with league officials. They departed over an hour later citing "bureaucratic difficulties".
They later briefed United as to the difficulties of closing a deal so late in the window; they could not guarantee that it would be completed successfully and without subsequent risks. The Martínez deal, by contrast, had been put together over more than a month.
Faced with the uncertainty and potentially extra costs involved in tax, United decided not to proceed, thereby forcing Herrera to stay in Spain, the sources state. United had told the midfielder to be prepared in the event of a deal going through. Once the deal collapsed, United claimed that the three men had nothing to do with them.
Spain's official buyout clauses are complex and United appeared not to be fully aware of the difficulties inherent in using them. In principle, it is the player, not the buying club, who is supposed to deposit the money with the Spanish football authorities.
However, Manchester United insiders again insisted on Tuesday night that the lawyers were not working directly for them and the deal collapsed at an early stage because they were not prepared to meet the €36m buyout fee.
I can find This which only says they claimed to work on behalf of Utd and This which says the same but also adds when the league contacted us we denied we'd given anyone a mandate to represent us.
It makes zero sense we'd have instructed these lawyers to go and pay the buy out clause on our behalf - we'd have just sent our own lawyers to pay it. Or if we instructed them then the deal would have happened because they'd have paid it, turned up with the correct documentation and would debunk "we weren't aware of the difficulties" because they guys had already done it.
They were chancers.
I guess we will never truly know, but if I was going to put it in a book then I'd take what Herrera says over tabloids.
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No doubt. There are some mitigating factors, of course, but they can't really excuse Woodward's incompetence. But the truth is that SAF ran the football department basically on his own, and he wasn't a big fan of agents' fees himself. It was a part of the "no value in the market" parcel that saw us stagnate from a position of strength while our competition was strengthening every season. This unwillingness, good or bad, led to minimal good connections with the big agents at a time when agent power was really becoming a thing. The 2013/14 season (when Woodward took over), for example, was the first time agent fees in the PL reached £100m in total. They're going upward ever since. So, if we're going to be fair, Woodward found himself in a tough spot. New manager after a quarter of a century, an aged squad in need of transfers and United being perceived (in agents' circles) as a "stingy club to do business with".
Now, it would have helped his cause considerably, if Woodward had any idea how to build a football team. Or if he had used the proper channels of communication to reach the agents, instead of pronouncing to the football world that we can do things in the market that no one else can. But it can explain the idiotic thinking behind his decisions to a degree.
That's why i feel the Fellaini fiasco was a humiliation he never recovered from. We know that Moyes wanted the Belgian and Baines from his former club. The release clause for Fellaini expired on July 31st, United could have got him on the very first day of the transfer window, but Woodward assured Moyes that he could sign him for less money. We let the date pass chasing lost causes (Fàbregas, Alcántara etc.), and on August 19th we made a joint offer of £28m for Fellaini/Baines. Which Kenwright, as predicted, found insulting. With no transfers to show for, Woodward spent the next days gradually raising the offer to £40m. By then, Everton's stance (also easily predictable) was that they can't let go of two first team players so late in the window. Woodward then offered £15m for Baines, and Kenwright told him to feck off. Woodward's response was to tell Fellaini to hand in a transfer request to get Everton to negotiate the transfer. They did just that, but with a few hours for the window to close, they asked to be compensated for not being able to get a replacement. From that point onward, he operated like the son of a millionaire who flaunts his wealth to mask his incompetence.
Yep. Remember the #Pogback.
Woodward revelled in it.
Glazernomics measured this type of signing using ROSMI (Return On Social Media Investment) where a players return could be measured in likes rather than tackles.
Thanks guys for reminding me of this episode. There really is so much ground to cover. I'll file the Fake Agents entry under - Speculative Representative Revenue (SRR), where unauthorized agents attempt to manifest deals through sheer audacity!
Just as alchemists tried to make gold from base metals, the Glazers have tried to make us better with inferior purchases. I propose we *end* the domination of the Glazers and leave us in control of this market.