It's weird, though. Because they would save a lot of money being well run.
As for Lingard, I have nothing against him. But the club, a well-run club, would've sold him in the summer. Ole should've said that he wouldn't play much and that he should leave for his own sake. If he still wouldn't accept going to West Ham, then United would've done everything they could. But now, just another massive financial loss.
I agree with you. But that just highlights their disinterest in United. They target a dividend of about £20m a season and, as long as that appears, they couldn't care less.
A more interested ownership, even if the interest was just in squeezing value out of the club, would run United a lot differently. Maybe better from some perspectives, maybe worse from others. However, the way the Glazers do it is almost like an absentee landlord who's decided you can spend on the workers that keep the estate going but you can't buy new tools, new sheds etc.
So they basically say: Player costs, yeah you need players to maintain the brand. Fine. Spend. But try convincing them to invest in the stadium, in Carrington. Well we've seen over the past 16 years. There's no interest. So we end up with ballooning player costs, a lot of which is dead weight. But they, mentally, have just written off. Whereas the turnstiles and toilets at Old Trafford have been allowed to rot for years and they couldn't give a damn.
It is bizarre. Because you could save a bit of money on some unneeded players and then really do up Carrington, you could get to something like City's Etihad campus and not even touch the Glazer dividend. But they just don't see the value in that. They're just not interested.
If the club was well-run we wouldn't even have players running into the last year of their deal's playing for us. When a player hits three years out, the club would make a decision: Will we renew this guy's contract or look to sell. The fact we're in a position where a number of players, not just Lingard, effectively have all the leverage because of their contract length shows how bad our football operation has been.
I just hope the club learns from this.