Is transfer policy, rather than spending the problem?

RedBistro

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A tweet with an image from Sky surfaced in the twitter thread yesterday that stated, apart from PSG, we are the highest spending team. £165m NET spend in the last 5 transfer windows was what it stated, PSG were just over £200m.

Now, I'm not 100% sure if the fees here are accurate, but look at the players in the link below and tell me you don't see a theme.

http://www.transferleague.co.uk/premiership-transfers/manchester-united-transfers.html

£165m spent on the following (last 5 transfer windows (note: not years):

Ander Herrera - £29m - midfielder, finally!
Luke Shaw - £27m - Left Back
Vanja Milinković - £? - Youth Player

NET Spend thus far: £47.7m

Juan Mata - £37.1m - Number 10
Marouane Fellaini - £27.5m - Number 10, tried and failed in midfield.
Janko - Youth player
Varela - Youth player

NET spend for the season: £66.7m

Nick Powell - £6m - Midfielder/Number 10? Youth Player at any rate (currently.)
Shinji Kagawa - £12m - Number 10
Sean Goss - Youth player
Robin Van Persie - £22m - Striker
Angelo Henriquez - £4m - Striker
Alexander Buttner - £3.9m - Left Back
Wilfried Zaha - £15m - Winger/Forward

NET spend for the season: £51.1m​

The previous 2 window to those 3 listed above include NET spending of £51m when we brought in Phil Jones, De Gea, Ashley Young, Smalling, Lindergard, Scholes (back from retirement) Vermijl, and Bebe. I.E. 1 Midfielder who left and came back again.

Now, the year previous season to those 5 seasons is obviously the summer where Ronaldo left......

I can't help but think that a few of those deals, and the money they cost, could have been better off spent elsewhere, and we wouldn't be in such a fecking state right now, Where I feel we may have wasted money:

Fellaini (obviously) £27.5m, Powell £6m, Kagawa £12m, Zaha £15m, Henriquez £4m.

There is £64.5m right there that hasn't really worked out or done anything of note to help solve our problems. I'm not saying they will never work out, or that they're not talented players, because they are. But are any of them what we needed then, or what we need right now? I think not.

Could that £64.5m not have been better spent by both Sir Alex and/or Moyes respectively? I believe it could have been, and while I'm not a fan of the Glazers, and am currently in Woodward out, rather than in mood at the moment, it's pretty hard to say they've not given the managers money.

Conclusion: There is plenty of blame to go around, it shouldn't all be laid at our owners, or our CEOs doorstep.
 
The last season and a bit has been a disaster for all things associated with the club. We have spent enough, certainly more than enough to finish top four. You could argue that we could have put more efforts in to get the bigger names, but even apart from that we have invested poorly. The players have been horrific, so has the previous regime. More or less everything that could have gone wrong has gone wrong. The only thing that not gone wrong is Liverpool not winning the title, and even that had feck all to do with us as we rolled over and allowed them to do the double over us. So yeah, plenty of blame to share around.
 
I agree to certain extent, we've always mocked Liverpool of (over)spending on average/below-average players, but we haven't been far off either in that respect. There's a lot of money that we could/should have spent more wisely. Even Mata looks like a luxury buy in the hindsight. Of course that might change, but that's the impression I get looking at the squad and the transfers.
 
Highest net spenders in Europe (last 5 transfer windows)
  • PSG (£165m)
  • Man Utd (£165m)
  • Barcelona (£155m)
  • Chelsea (£137m)
  • Real Madrid (£126m)
  • Man City (£126m)
 
Yes it definitley is:

  • We never seem to buy the players for the positions that we need = Results in an unbalanced team
  • We refuse to pay top dollar for real quality= Results in us making few top signings and lacking real quality
  • We seem to buy alot of average players and systematically overpay for them= Results in us spending alot of money but not getting real quality in return
  • We give underperforming players way to many chances = Results in these players staying to long at the club and us missing the opportune time to sell them and recover part of our investment
The end result is an unbalanced team that lacks real quality and a very bad net spend because we do spend a bit of money on new players but we absolutley don't get any back from selling players.

Examples:

Us buying Mata, very good player, we paid alot of money and he is real quality, but he is a real number 10 and we didn't need anybody for that position. Same with buying RVP and Kagawa in the same summer, one of the two yes, but both seeing as we still had Rooney was not nesc. Result is we are stuck with to many forwards and players that excel in the hole. On the other hand we have not bought any decent midfielders for years, despite us consistenly losing quality in that area, Scholes retiring, losing Pogba to Juve, losing out on Fletcher and Hargreaves due to their injurries, all that time we've been giving Anderson and Cleverley chances but they aren't good enough. Same with the wingers last 2/3 years they have really disappointed but apart from Zaha who also failed we didn't try to adress that situation in the transfermarket. This all creates a very unbalanced team, lacking the players we need and having to many players we don't need.

We don't seem to want to pay top dollar, especially when Fergie was here. Examples are missing our on Hazard on a couple of millions in agent fees, also Modric we could have signed him long before Real got an interest but we never wanted to meet the price Spurs put on him. Last year we didn't offer enough for Fabregas, this year we seem to be dithering around because of transfer fees with Vidal and Di Maria. Once the price goes over £30m we seem very scarred of spending much more. The only example were we paid up was for Mata, and we better be directing our money towards such signing but then for other positions like the midfield, wings and the defense.

We have spend way to much on players like Jones (£16.5m), Young (£18m), Nani,(£17m) Anderson (£20m), Zaha (£15m), Fellaini (£27.5m), Valencia (£16m), Bébé (£7m), Berbatov (£31m), Shaw (£30m), Herrera (£29m). Not that all of them are bad players, but most of them failed, alot of them are considered deadwood right now, some of them have been sold for virtually nothing and every single one of them was overpaid. Shaw and Herrera we'll have to see and wait how they will fare but no doubt £60m for both of them was uncalled for, I don't think any other team in the world would have paid that, no matter what the situation.

Players like Anderson, Nani, Young , Valencia have been kept on for way to long, so long that we are now struggling to offload them and get any sort of decent money for them. We are almost forced to ship them out on a free loan if we want to get rid of them. In short all money we have spend on these players has been wasted and we are left with unsellable players and no transfer income at all.

Something has got to change about our transfer policy because it is absolutley ridiculous and the end result is becoming a real problem now SAF is gone. We should stay away from overpriced average players and direct that money to making real top signings, we'll make fewer of them but atleast they will represent real value for us. If we need numbers, than we should look at cheaper alternatives and not hold up our nose for certain players who are clearly on a bargain deal and we should primarly look at young players with potential who cost almost nothing but will need some time to develop. We should really start buying for the positions we need and start selling some of our players who all occupy the same positions, even if it are top players. Finally if a player is a failure we should be far more ruthless and put him up for sale alot quicker.
 
NoArroJusBeta said:
Yes it definitley is:

  • We never seem to buy the players for the positions that we need = Results in an unbalanced team
  • We refuse to pay top dollar for real quality= Results in us making few top signings and lacking real quality
  • We seem to buy alot of average players and systematically overpay for them= Results in us spending alot of money but not getting real quality in return
  • We give underperforming players way to many chances = Results in these players staying to long at the club and us missing the opportune time to sell them and recover part of our investment
The end result is an unbalanced team that lacks real quality and a very bad net spend because we do spend a bit of money on new players but we absolutley don't get any back from selling players.

Examples:

Us buying Mata, very good player, we paid alot of money and he is real quality, but he is a real number 10 and we didn't need anybody for that position. Same with buying RVP and Kagawa in the same summer, one of the two yes, but both seeing as we still had Rooney was not nesc. Result is we are stuck with to many forwards and players that excel in the hole. On the other hand we have not bought any decent midfielders for years, despite us consistenly losing quality in that area, Scholes retiring, losing Pogba to Juve, losing out on Fletcher and Hargreaves due to their injurries, all that time we've been giving Anderson and Cleverley chances but they aren't good enough. Same with the wingers last 2/3 years they have really disappointed but apart from Zaha who also failed we didn't try to adress that situation in the transfermarket. This all creates a very unbalanced team, lacking we players we need and having to many players we don't need.

We don't seem to want to pay top dollar, especially when Fergie was here. Examples are missing our on Hazard on a couple of millions in agent fees, also Modric we could have signed him long before Real got an interest but we never wanted to meet the price Spurs put on him. Last year we didn't offer enough for Fabregas, this year we seem to be dithering around because of transfer fees with Vidal and Di Maria. Once the price goes over £30m we seem very scarred of spending much more. The only example were we paid up was for Mata, and we better be directing our money towards such signing but then for other positions like the midfield, wings and the defense.

We have spend way to much on players like Jones (£16.5m), Young (£18m), Nani,(£17m) Anderson (£20m), Zaha (£15m), Fellaini (£27.5m), Valencia (£16m), Bébé (£7m), Berbatov (£31m), Shaw (£30m), Herrera (£29m). Not that all of them are bad players, but most of them failed, alot of them are considered deadwood right now, some of them have been sold for virtually nothing and every single one of them was overpaid. Shaw and Herrera we'll have to see and wait how they will fare but no doubt £60m for both of them was uncalled for, I don't think any other team in the world would have paid that, no matter what the situation.

Players like Anderson, Nani, Young , Valencia have been kept on for way to long, so long that we are no struggling to offload them and get any sort of decent money for them. We are almost forced to ship them out on a free loan if we want to get rid of them. In short all money we have spend on these players has been wasted and we are left with unsellable players and no transfer income at all.

Something has got to change about our transfer policy because it is absolutley ridiculous and the end result is becoming a real problem now SAF is gone. We should stay away from overpriced average players and direct that money to making real top signings, we'll make fewer of them but atleast they will represent real value for us. If we need numbers, than we should look at cheaper alternatives and not hold up our nose for certain players who are clearly on a bargain deal and we should primarly look at young players with potential who cost almost nothing but will need some time to develop. We should really start buying for the positions we need and start selling some of our players who all occupy the same positions, if it are top players. Finally if a player is a failure we should be far more ruthless and put him up for sale alot quicker.
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End the thread. Everything needed is here. Our transfer policy is and has been aweful.

Whoever decided a 15m punt on zaha was required should have got sacked.
 
Another failure of our transfer policy -Ashley Young and Antonio Valencia. Both of them could have actually been sold for c.£10m each this summer. Instead, we decided to award Valencia a new contract (still don't know what he did to deserve that), and by the looks of things Young is going to get a chance to stay here because he did well in preseason despite showing that he is not cut out for this level for the last three seasons. And we'll continue to carry these two players with us until they become essentially worthless. This right here is the biggest problem we have, not being able to let go of our players.
 
We'd never have got 10m for Young. No-one would pay his wages either. He's going to be used as a wing back/squad player until we release him it seems.
 
NoWinNoFee said:
Highest net spenders in Europe (last 5 transfer windows)
  • PSG (£165m)
  • Man Utd (£165m)
  • Barcelona (£155m)
  • Chelsea (£137m)
  • Real Madrid (£126m)
  • Man City (£126m)
Click to expand...

It's somewhat misleading though.

9 players who left were on 1 year rolling contracts (Berbatov, Van Der Sar, Scholes, Giggs, Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra, Owen, Neville). Brown and O'Shea had 1 year left when they went and Hargreaves was released.

Our other signings? Youngsters who have shown potential (Anderson, Nani, Zaha) who we had to pay a premium for because that's what you do with youngsters. They haven't worked out, and when they leave will make a huge loss unfortunately. It could have gone the other way though..

The remaining? Players who we signed for that all important squad depth. Unfortunately, being United we had to pay premiums on those too as they might not have been worth a lot to us, but were worth a lot to the teams selling them as they were their best players. Obviously these players were never going to increase in value at United.
Teams won't offer us huge money for these players as they know we want to get them off our books due to the huge wages, and they'll need to pay those wages themselves. They know we can't play hardball, because they can only go down in value the longer we keep them and we'll be paying them lots of money to sit on the bench.
 
It seems like all of our transfer issues can be negated by hiring a proper DOF.... but with Woodward as CEO that will never happen...he appears to be one who likes the spotlight.
 
We bought Kagawa early, obviously with a view to linking him with Rooney. RvP was unthinkable at that point. Suddenly, he was a real option so he was snapped up. I can understand that.
 
At times we look like we'd rather sign for example Ashley Young for 18m rather than spending a few more millions and attracting a top talent. That's the feeling I get from most of our transfers anyway. We thought Hazard was too expensive when we offered 32m and his agent asked for 8m which would have made his transfer a total of 40m. It's like we're not ready to pay that premium to buy a top shelf player so we end up spending 100m on five 20m rated players rather than three 32m rates ones. That's how I see it anyway.
 
Last 5 windows is a hugely cherry picked stat and ignores the years of underinvestment which has left the squad in it's current shape. If Scholes/Giggs/Rio/Ronaldo had of been replaced properly we wouldn't be in this mess. As for going forward yes we've certainly made mistakes in the transfer market and need someone like LVG who can be ruthless in shaping the squad going forward.
 
NoWinNoFee said:
Highest net spenders in Europe (last 5 transfer windows)
  • PSG (£165m)
  • Man Utd (£165m)
  • Barcelona (£155m)
  • Chelsea (£137m)
  • Real Madrid (£126m)
  • Man City (£126m)
Click to expand...

what about net spenders?
 
To the OP: Yes.

We'd be better off spending big bucks on top players/the right players than waste a zillion on several average ones/not needed.
 
overspent dramatically and embarrassingly. Fellaini was obviously a shambles buy, Zaha and Young stick out as shockers as well. The obsession with paying through the arse for English talent in the last few seasons has also been unjustifiable and silly. Which brings me to Luke Shaw; say long term investment all you like but I will not accept that £27M on a good left-back is acceptable when we need to spend massive money on 5 world class players across the team. Why are other teams doing good business and we're sitting on our arses? It's really worrying. Completely mad to think that he cost £3M less than Cesc Fabregas. Something's gone wrong there hasn't it?
 
ravi2 said:
It seems like all of our transfer issues can be negated by hiring a proper DOF.... but with Woodward as CEO that will never happen...he appears to be one who likes the spotlight.
Click to expand...
We need to see how bad Woodward really is in concluding deals and how much of it is his fault. Van Gaal clashed with the sporting director of Bayern and Barca because of the transfers, I don't think identifying targets is the issue, just the negotiating and concluding of the deals. If that's the case we may aswell just use external agents to do the deals and not a whole DoF/sporting director, who is usuelly responsible for way more than just transfers
 
Oo0AahCantona said:
End the thread. Everything needed is here. Our transfer policy is and has been aweful.

Whoever decided a 15m punt on zaha was required should have got sacked.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately that may have been SAF so a bit late there. If it was any of the coaches or his brother as scout, they've all gone.
 
Over last few years the problem is definitely how we have spent our money rather than how much we have spent, even in the current transfer window we have paid sky high prices for both of our signings. Take our midfield we have spent over £50m on 2 players which is a huge amount of money but better players have been sold within the last year for similar fees or considerably less. We have also spent too much on areas where we didn’t really need players (Kagawa & Mata) and then neglected to sign players to improve the weaker areas of the team. We don’t seem to be picking up the bargains we used to either, good players don’t have to cost a fortune, Vidal was a £7m not that long ago, we need to be signing him at that point not 2 years later when he is worth 6 or 7 times more same goes for the likes of Reus, Gundogan and numerous others.

Also have to question a lot of the younger players we have signed; Jones, Smalling, Powell, Zaha, Henriquez, Bebe, Anderson, Nani have all cost significant sums of money but have failed to live up to their potential so far, there is still time for some of them but others will be moved on for one reason or another, in recent years we have also missed out on Varane, Courtois, Sterling, Oxade Chamberlain, James Rodriguez, Ramsey and Bale. They were all players we looked at but either decided not to sign or lost out to other teams on it is too simplistic to just blame the manager, the scouts, the owners, Woodward as there is probably failure right across all divisions (as well as other reasons like personal preference etc) but the club should be thinking of ways to improve how money is being spent.
 
Spielmacher said:
We need to see how bad Woodward really is in concluding deals and how much of it is his fault. Van Gaal clashed with the sporting director of Bayern and Barca because of the transfers, I don't think identifying targets is the issue, just the negotiating and concluding of the deals. If that's the case we may aswell just use external agents to do the deals and not a whole DoF/sporting director, who is usuelly responsible for way more than just transfers
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So I guess Moyes was the fault last year and Woodward will be the fault this year, i wonder who next year?

Common sense dictates that the problem is we either have no money or the money is not being well spent.
I believe us to have the money but Woodward, for some reason, only seems to be good at bidding for inanimate objects.

We lost our first game primarily because he could not do his job.
I hope we dont lose more because of him.
 
ravi2 said:
So I guess Moyes was the fault last year and Woodward will be the fault this year, i wonder who next year?

Common sense dictates that the problem is we either have no money or the money is not being well spent.
I believe us to have the money but Woodward, for some reason, only seems to be good at bidding for inanimate objects.

We lost our first game primarily because he could not do his job.
I hope we dont lose more because of him.
Click to expand...
But there's no Director of Football in the world who's only doing transfers, it's always a bond between management and coaching. And LVG clashed with that type of person, all I'm saying is that it wouldn't be necessary to hire a DoF, LVG will know which players he wants and we should hire external agents for the transfers, like we allegedly did with Mata.
 
RedBistro said:
Fellaini (obviously) £27.5m, Powell £6m, Kagawa £12m, Zaha £15m, Henriquez £4m.
Click to expand...

I disagree about these transfers being bad. I'm not sure what wages they're on (which I hope isn't too high, apart from Kag) and wages may be an issue with some of our purchases, but I think these represent fair transfer fees, which we will likely recoup.
 
Say Goodbye said:
I disagree about these transfers being bad. I'm not sure what wages they're on (which I hope isn't too high, apart from Kag) and wages may be an issue with some of our purchases, but I think these represent fair transfer fees, which we will likely recoup.
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Kagawa was a good buy for the price, he just didnt work out, thats fine as he was a good player when we signed him. I completely disagree with zaha, powell and henriquez for a combined 25m pounds. thats money for another top player we need if we were actually able to land them.
 
What policy?

Bidding ridiculous money (like 25m for Vidal) for World Stars wasting time and ending up with overpriced plan C or D players?
 
NoArroJusBeta said:
Yes it definitley is:

  • We never seem to buy the players for the positions that we need = Results in an unbalanced team
  • We refuse to pay top dollar for real quality= Results in us making few top signings and lacking real quality
  • We seem to buy alot of average players and systematically overpay for them= Results in us spending alot of money but not getting real quality in return
  • We give underperforming players way to many chances = Results in these players staying to long at the club and us missing the opportune time to sell them and recover part of our investment
The end result is an unbalanced team that lacks real quality and a very bad net spend because we do spend a bit of money on new players but we absolutley don't get any back from selling players.

Examples:

Us buying Mata, very good player, we paid alot of money and he is real quality, but he is a real number 10 and we didn't need anybody for that position. Same with buying RVP and Kagawa in the same summer, one of the two yes, but both seeing as we still had Rooney was not nesc. Result is we are stuck with to many forwards and players that excel in the hole. On the other hand we have not bought any decent midfielders for years, despite us consistenly losing quality in that area, Scholes retiring, losing Pogba to Juve, losing out on Fletcher and Hargreaves due to their injurries, all that time we've been giving Anderson and Cleverley chances but they aren't good enough. Same with the wingers last 2/3 years they have really disappointed but apart from Zaha who also failed we didn't try to adress that situation in the transfermarket. This all creates a very unbalanced team, lacking the players we need and having to many players we don't need.

We don't seem to want to pay top dollar, especially when Fergie was here. Examples are missing our on Hazard on a couple of millions in agent fees, also Modric we could have signed him long before Real got an interest but we never wanted to meet the price Spurs put on him. Last year we didn't offer enough for Fabregas, this year we seem to be dithering around because of transfer fees with Vidal and Di Maria. Once the price goes over £30m we seem very scarred of spending much more. The only example were we paid up was for Mata, and we better be directing our money towards such signing but then for other positions like the midfield, wings and the defense.

We have spend way to much on players like Jones (£16.5m), Young (£18m), Nani,(£17m) Anderson (£20m), Zaha (£15m), Fellaini (£27.5m), Valencia (£16m), Bébé (£7m), Berbatov (£31m), Shaw (£30m), Herrera (£29m). Not that all of them are bad players, but most of them failed, alot of them are considered deadwood right now, some of them have been sold for virtually nothing and every single one of them was overpaid. Shaw and Herrera we'll have to see and wait how they will fare but no doubt £60m for both of them was uncalled for, I don't think any other team in the world would have paid that, no matter what the situation.

Players like Anderson, Nani, Young , Valencia have been kept on for way to long, so long that we are now struggling to offload them and get any sort of decent money for them. We are almost forced to ship them out on a free loan if we want to get rid of them. In short all money we have spend on these players has been wasted and we are left with unsellable players and no transfer income at all.

Something has got to change about our transfer policy because it is absolutley ridiculous and the end result is becoming a real problem now SAF is gone. We should stay away from overpriced average players and direct that money to making real top signings, we'll make fewer of them but atleast they will represent real value for us. If we need numbers, than we should look at cheaper alternatives and not hold up our nose for certain players who are clearly on a bargain deal and we should primarly look at young players with potential who cost almost nothing but will need some time to develop. We should really start buying for the positions we need and start selling some of our players who all occupy the same positions, even if it are top players. Finally if a player is a failure we should be far more ruthless and put him up for sale alot quicker.
Click to expand...

Great post, person with the incomprehensible, unrememberable name.
 
thejtrain said:
I agree to certain extent, we've always mocked Liverpool of (over)spending on average/below-average players, but we haven't been far off either in that respect. There's a lot of money that we could/should have spent more wisely. Even Mata looks like a luxury buy in the hindsight. Of course that might change, but that's the impression I get looking at the squad and the transfers.
Click to expand...

Liverpool wasted £55m on Downing and Carroll but somehow managed to get back around £25m. They got their money back on Adam while Suarez and Henderson look like great signings in hindsight. I know we mocked them for their ridiculous transfers under Dalglish but looking at them now it wasn't such an awful business. Carroll sticks out but as I have said they still got £16m for him.
 
ravi2 said:
It seems like all of our transfer issues can be negated by hiring a proper DOF.... but with Woodward as CEO that will never happen...he appears to be one who likes the spotlight.
Click to expand...

Could we go even further and have a panel of people responsible for the transfers in and out, and player contract management? Obviously with Van Gaal as the lead voice, but with several people individually skilled in...

1) Industry connections with agents and other clubs
2) Money management, wage projections, responsible spending
3) Squad depth, balance, long-term planning

Would help us avoid a repeat of the mess we are in now, overpaying a bloated squad of average players that we are unable to sell, and unable to buy in the right players at any price.
 
Oo0AahCantona said:
Kagawa was a good buy for the price, he just didnt work out, thats fine as he was a good player when we signed him. I completely disagree with zaha, powell and henriquez for a combined 25m pounds. thats money for another top player we need if we were actually able to land them.
Click to expand...

With Powell and Henriquez, they are always going to be somewhat punts when you buy players at 18 years old for that kind of money. They are still very young and if we were to sell them now, we would likely lose a couple of million on them. Not the worst thing right?

Zaha... he will become a decent Premier League player for sure. He might not have the drive to become a top player for us, but I think everyone is judging these transfers in hindsight. I agree he may have been a little on the expensive side for a 'punt'.

We tend to pride ourselves on bringing through youth. Maybe our transfers have been more miss than hit in recent seasons, but I prefer the idea of developing players rather than purchasing superstars a la Madrid. I have faith that Van Gaal will be able to provide Champions League Football next year and nurture the talent coming through the ranks.
 
Galactic said:
Our current transfer policy reminds me of Arsenal's before last season.
Click to expand...

Nothing like Arsenal. We are overspending: Fellaini 27 million, Mata 37 million, Shaw 30 million etc.

Arsenal were trying to get bargains before last season.
 
We haven't bought real quality - we baulked at the prices.

Prices three years ago that we baulked at look extremely good value compared to 2014 and this trend looks set to continue.

We have overpaid for midrange players.

Out "young starlet" purchases - none have come off really.

The resale value of players we have bought is usually at a loss despite transfer fees increasing steadily each season.
 
NoArroJusBeta said:
Yes it definitley is:

  • We never seem to buy the players for the positions that we need = Results in an unbalanced team
  • We refuse to pay top dollar for real quality= Results in us making few top signings and lacking real quality
  • We seem to buy alot of average players and systematically overpay for them= Results in us spending alot of money but not getting real quality in return
  • We give underperforming players way to many chances = Results in these players staying to long at the club and us missing the opportune time to sell them and recover part of our investment
The end result is an unbalanced team that lacks real quality and a very bad net spend because we do spend a bit of money on new players but we absolutley don't get any back from selling players.

Examples:

Us buying Mata, very good player, we paid alot of money and he is real quality, but he is a real number 10 and we didn't need anybody for that position. Same with buying RVP and Kagawa in the same summer, one of the two yes, but both seeing as we still had Rooney was not nesc. Result is we are stuck with to many forwards and players that excel in the hole. On the other hand we have not bought any decent midfielders for years, despite us consistenly losing quality in that area, Scholes retiring, losing Pogba to Juve, losing out on Fletcher and Hargreaves due to their injurries, all that time we've been giving Anderson and Cleverley chances but they aren't good enough. Same with the wingers last 2/3 years they have really disappointed but apart from Zaha who also failed we didn't try to adress that situation in the transfermarket. This all creates a very unbalanced team, lacking the players we need and having to many players we don't need.

We don't seem to want to pay top dollar, especially when Fergie was here. Examples are missing our on Hazard on a couple of millions in agent fees, also Modric we could have signed him long before Real got an interest but we never wanted to meet the price Spurs put on him. Last year we didn't offer enough for Fabregas, this year we seem to be dithering around because of transfer fees with Vidal and Di Maria. Once the price goes over £30m we seem very scarred of spending much more. The only example were we paid up was for Mata, and we better be directing our money towards such signing but then for other positions like the midfield, wings and the defense.

We have spend way to much on players like Jones (£16.5m), Young (£18m), Nani,(£17m) Anderson (£20m), Zaha (£15m), Fellaini (£27.5m), Valencia (£16m), Bébé (£7m), Berbatov (£31m), Shaw (£30m), Herrera (£29m). Not that all of them are bad players, but most of them failed, alot of them are considered deadwood right now, some of them have been sold for virtually nothing and every single one of them was overpaid. Shaw and Herrera we'll have to see and wait how they will fare but no doubt £60m for both of them was uncalled for, I don't think any other team in the world would have paid that, no matter what the situation.

Players like Anderson, Nani, Young , Valencia have been kept on for way to long, so long that we are now struggling to offload them and get any sort of decent money for them. We are almost forced to ship them out on a free loan if we want to get rid of them. In short all money we have spend on these players has been wasted and we are left with unsellable players and no transfer income at all.

Something has got to change about our transfer policy because it is absolutley ridiculous and the end result is becoming a real problem now SAF is gone. We should stay away from overpriced average players and direct that money to making real top signings, we'll make fewer of them but atleast they will represent real value for us. If we need numbers, than we should look at cheaper alternatives and not hold up our nose for certain players who are clearly on a bargain deal and we should primarly look at young players with potential who cost almost nothing but will need some time to develop. We should really start buying for the positions we need and start selling some of our players who all occupy the same positions, even if it are top players. Finally if a player is a failure we should be far more ruthless and put him up for sale alot quicker.
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Absolutely bang on.

We need to sign a couple of top players now to get competitive again.

No more midrange young talents at high prices.

Record breaking fees for the real deal.
 
We don't seem prepared or willing to adapt to the fact that the oil money has had a huge impact on transfer values worldwide. The fact that two of the oil clubs are operating successfully in England at United's expense doesn't seem to have registered fully yet.
 
Say Goodbye said:
I disagree about these transfers being bad. I'm not sure what wages they're on (which I hope isn't too high, apart from Kag) and wages may be an issue with some of our purchases, but I think these represent fair transfer fees, which we will likely recoup.
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I like to see you try and get anywhere near 15 million for Zaha at this moment in time.
 
Our only way out of this mess is to buy big and start generating success on the pitch again.
Only from a position of power we can afford to haggle a bit, Woodie needs to realize that .
 
dirtygringo said:
We don't seem prepared or willing to adapt to the fact that the oil money has had a huge impact on transfer values worldwide. The fact that two of the oil clubs are operating successfully in England at United's expense doesn't seem to have registered fully yet.
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I feel as though Woodie and the rest of the board sit in their ivory towers and tell themselves tales of how great MUFC is not realizing that Chelsea and City are already running away with the title next season.
 
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