I was voicing simmilar fears 2-3 years back. I couldnt understand why we were putting ourselves in more vunerable postion with each passing transfer window.
January Transfer Window
- Thread starter Alock1
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I was voicing simmilar fears 2-3 years back. I couldnt understand why we were putting ourselves in more vunerable postion with each passing transfer window.
We made 146mil profit last year, adding the 35mil loss allowance on FFP, 180ish.
The loss is allowed over a three year period I think. So, I think we can actually spend 200 million in a single window without being worried about the FFP. We'd be lucky to spend one-fourth of it.
The idea that the FFP are going to dictate how much we spend. Hilarious.
I don't trust Woodward, simply because he has no clue about football. He is a business man and a Glazer puppet. He would also look more at home in Thunderbirds than Old Trafford. He said as long as we sell shirts all will be fine.
We can spend more considering our profit last year and spending only 27.5mil on Fellaini. I think we'll spend close to 100 million.
At the very least we need a CM, a winger and a LB. That should cost about 70-80m and should be the bare minimum
And we'll get no one.
Dunno if this was posted, it's from the official site, from Moyes: ""The club have always said it’s long-term here. We know the type of players we want aren’t available in this window. We’d like them now if we could get them, but it’s more than likely we won’t be able to."
The old guard need replacing but we now face a summer of potentially having to settle for 'second best' as the Champions League clubs mop up the best talent. We'll always be an attractive proposition for English players though so I hope we would make someone like Barkley a top target.
Oh feck off Moyes. Glazers too.
I can't say I 'trust' him, purely because I don't know him, but I'd imagine he's fairly well-versed on modern football. He's been involved with United for 9 years, in which the football landscape has transformed dramatically.
Whether that translates to committing to fund the kind of investment we need remains to be seen. But I would imagine he understands football.
He's been saying this all along,for those who would listen.But if we hear the same well rehearsed words from the club in the summer,then we have reason to worry.
This. If we dont add quality in the summer, thats when i would start getting really worried.
People are really overrating the role of signing players as being key to Woodward's performance as judged by his bosses, the Glazer's. They care about one thing, the bottom line profit. Signing the best players doesn't necessarily make financial sense.
We're a club that is now designed to achieve third position and quarter final cup runs. That's the ''sweet spot'' financially, the Glazer's believe. If you look at the numbers involved with having a squad like Real, Barca or even City, you can see how there position makes perfect sense (again, financially - which is the trophy they care about).
We're a club that is now designed to achieve third position and quarter final cup runs. That's the ''sweet spot'' financially, the Glazer's believe. If you look at the numbers involved with having a squad like Real, Barca or even City, you can see how there position makes perfect sense (again, financially - which is the trophy they care about).
We won the league last year. For feck sake Fergie, couldn't even achieve his objective of finishing third.
I think you're confusing us being non-financially reliant on winning, with aiming for the runner up spots.
I think you're confusing us being non-financially reliant on winning, with aiming for the runner up spots.
It's hard to see how being top of the pile in football can be profitable these days, with the ludicrous sums pumped in by various billionaires. Admittedly we won't retain the same commercial appeal if we aren't winning things left, right and centre, but that's not to say we'd lose all commercial appeal, and the decline would be gradual. But the sums required to make us competitive with City and Chelsea are truly astronomical, in terms of transfer fees and wages. The clubs leading the way in this aren't thinking about profit, they're thinking about buying success, whatever it takes. How can a serious, profitable business compete with that? It's hard to see how anyone wanting to make a profit would be interested in investing those kinds of sums, especially in the expectation it won't end there, it'll just continue to spiral up indefinitely.
Did he not say them words last summer?
I just don't know what people are expecting this summer. We are not all of a sudden going to turn into a Chelsea spending spree club.. which is what it will take to get player when we have no champions league football to offer.
We'll sign someone before the window closes. Right? RIGHT?
No. We could still remain very competitive and profitable quite comfortably. Even if United went out and spent 250 million over the next two seasons we'd still be in the black.
Anyone we sign now will be classed as a panic signing.
No chance. Glazers have no money.
Every pundit, ex-player, current manager, etc, are all harping on about how difficult it is to sign players in the January transfer window and then you have Neville at the beginning of MNF stating that Everton should do their utmost to bring in a striker this window with Lukaku simply a loanee.
Does this only apply to us? It's becoming one of the most annoying cliches in football.
But being in the black isn't the measure of success is it? It's what gets you more, success with massive investment or coasting along without. If we can keep commercial revenues coming in, even if they decline a bit, and not spunk massive sums on wages and transfer fees, who's to say that wouldn't be better for the bottom line? You may feel you know the answer to this without doubt, I'm not sure you do, I know I don't.
No way of knowing which tactic they will employ. My guess will be that it's somewhere in the middle. Reasonable amounts invested in players something close to but probably slightly more than what we had been investing annually up to now. If you take the Ronaldo money out of the equation we've actually spent a reasonable amount pretty much every year for the last 4-5, but never a lot on one player or never on a player who will improve us massively immediately apart from RvP. I can see that 40 odd million per summer sum continuing and if properly managed would probably keep us somewhere in the top 4 region. As fans we of course want much much more than that/
That would seem like the most obviously profitable route, investing but not getting dragged into crazy bidding wars, competing in tournaments enough to keep sponsors happy. The more I think about it the harder it is to see any other outcome in the near future. If FFP was successful it might change things but I doubt it'll have much impact. In the longer term the best chance of us getting back to the top is via a sugar daddy. I'm sure there are plenty of billionaire United fans who would love the kudos of putting us back at the top.
As it stands we're just too expensive to be a plaything. The opportunity was there at the time the Glazers bought United but it's gone now thanks to the Value they have added to the club. You really don't see anyone coming in spending 1.5+bn and then having to invest massively in the squad.
We're out of that zone for good I'm afraid and our best hope is to probably go back to being a PLC again.
(BTW, I know feck all about the economics and am only giving my totally uneducated opinions)
You're probably right. Tho it may end up being that our value has peaked, if we don't turn things around on the football pitch our value will decline a bit and we may be more affordable to an important Saudi prince or someone. There must be a couple of United fans with a couple of billion knocking about.
Yip. I heard some people using the fact that 250 million was knocked off our value as a stick to beat us with. feck that, I'd love another couple hundred million to fall off the value and hopefully we become a more enticing prospect to potential buyers. My biggest worry though is that we have to go through yet another leveraged buy out and end up in an even worse situation that we are now.
Hard to imagine anyone having enough liquid cash to buy us outright. Any takeover of this size would be debt financed.
Aye, so with us now being worth so much there would be even more debt against the club than there would be with the Glazers.
This is probably the wrong thread, but if there was a full float on the stock exchange wouldn't it pretty much remove that possibility?
only super rich Arabs or the like could do it realistically
the only way I could see it happening would be if fans voted with their feet and the slump we're in became long term
It wouldn't take many seasons of floating around 7th for the OT average gate to fall massively.
I can't see our value ever falling to the depths that it would be attractive to rich playthings. City were brought for just for £80m, Chelsea for £140m, even if the club's present value was halved we would still be only £50m short of what the Glazers initially paid for us in a leveraged buyout.
gates have always been great at Old Trafford though.....
I am 35 though and remember the 80's well
I wonder how the younger generations of fans would react to us becoming a cup side lol
this place is ready to implode judging by some of the posts
Sadly I think you're right, but if it falls enough then hopefully these will bail and we can go back to being a PLC.
Gates were great back then, but the size of the ground was a hell of a lot less. I just can't see us regularly filling 70+ thousand seats if we're playing like this. Combine that with being out of Europe and things start to look bleak financially for the owners.
Very different to the 80s now tho. Would be very surprised if you saw the same kind of loyalty now. Fans are used to being treated like consumers, that's how they'll behave.
That's not really how it works....
The shares quantify the value of the club but they are only second class shares so people could buy them all up, but never force a take over like the Glazers did.
Because of this, the Club is worth whatever the Glazers say it is worth and whatever someone is happy buying it for. The shares might indicate the club being valued at £1.6bn when in reality, in order for the Glazers to sell you might have to offer them £3bn
My point was that if profits have dropped then it's less fun for the Glaziers and there has to be a point where they decide enough is enough and jump ship. If that does happen then the club having a lower market value will be better for us surely because there's less chance of a debt laden buy out and even in the event of one the club being worth less means there would be less debt.