Joao Neves | signed for PSG

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Sorry that's just not true. If we got a Van Dijk for example, the effect would be astonishing.

There is a real debate to be had if João Neves would be transformative enough for our midfield to warrant spending big - I would argue he is, but I can't totally see the argument as to why he isn't.
Well I don't think it would be astonishing.

Firstly we have no idea if we bought Van Dijk he would be any good. We bought Maguire for more money, trying to get our own Van Dijk, so that was a bad example.

Even if we got someone as good as Van Dijk, what about every other position? What about our injuries and other players leaving? What about our midfield and attack?

We barely are able to field a reasonable 11.
 
It's delusional to think Neves would transform us to a top 4 side, while we ignore the other positions. We gotta be clever to buy as many quality players as possible in one window. Otherwise we are gonna end up like last year where we wasted money on Mount and Onana (or even worse).
 
Well I don't think it would be astonishing.

Firstly we have no idea if we bought Van Dijk he would be any good. We bought Maguire for more money, trying to get our own Van Dijk, so that was a bad example.

Even if we got someone as good as Van Dijk, what about every other position? What about our injuries and other players leaving? What about our midfield and attack?

We barely are able to field a reasonable 11.
I do understand the risks, but you can obviously see the payoffs too with big transfers. Maguire was just not a smart transfer based on how we wanted to play. If there was a aerially and physically dominant CB, who can cover big spaces, he would be worth spending a large chunk of our budget on.

Just look at Liverpool's CLs winning team back line, Robertson (10m), Van Dijk (75m), Matip (Free), Trent (Academy). You can spend big on key players and not have to continually spend the same fees to improve the team. If players leave, we just have more money? We're linked with Tosin, Barkley and others on free transfers. We're linked with transfers direct from South America as well (Anselmo, Thalys and couple of others linked). I don't see a problem in investing big in big talents - Joao Neves is one of those for me.
 
I do understand the risks, but you can obviously see the payoffs too with big transfers. Maguire was just not a smart transfer based on how we wanted to play. If there was a aerially and physically dominant CB, who can cover big spaces, he would be worth spending a large chunk of our budget on.

Just look at Liverpool's CLs winning team back line, Robertson (10m), Van Dijk (75m), Matip (Free), Trent (Academy). You can spend big on key players and not have to continually spend the same fees to improve the team. If players leave, we just have more money? We're linked with Tosin, Barkley and others on free transfers. We're linked with transfers direct from South America as well (Anselmo, Thalys and couple of others linked). I don't see a problem in investing big in big talents - Joao Neves is one of those for me.
I don't think it's the right time, I think we would gain far more value for a deeper more complete squad than a big player.
 
I don't think it's the right time, I think we would gain far more value for a deeper more complete squad than a big player.
I don't think they are mutually exclusive, but I understand your point of view.
 
you definitely don't have any clue how football business works. we have to replace about 10 players and you wanna spend half of our budget on one player? Then you are even more reliant on free transfers. We're not gonna sign Neves this year.
Thank you for the compliment.

With a masters degree in finance and writing my thesis about sport economics, I actually do have a clue how football business works. For this summer's transfer spending, we will have plenty of leeway in FFP terms. The greater obstacle is cash, which I think our new owners will manage, either through INEOS loans or using some of the capital injection Ratcliffe has provided for infrastructure.

If you want to educate yourself more on the topic, I suggest you read @Messier1994 post on here or on Twitter
 
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Thank you for the compliment.

With a masters degree in finance and writing my thesis about sport economics, I actually do have a clue how football business works. For this summer's transfer spending, we will have plenty of leeway in FFP terms. The greater obstacle is cash, which I think our new owners will manage, either through INEOS loans or using some of the capital injection Ratcliffe has provided for infrastructure.

If you want to educate yourself more on the topic, I suggest you read @Messier1994 post on here or on Twitter

I think he has a point. We need minimum one CB, 2 midfielders, 1 striker and 1 left back.

Thats 200m gone.
 
Thank you for the compliment.

With a masters degree in finance and writing my thesis about sport economics, I actually do have a clue how football business works. For this summer's transfer spending, we will have plenty of leeway in FFP terms. The greater obstacle is cash, which I think our new owners will manage, either through INEOS loans or using some of the capital injection Ratcliffe has provided for infrastructure.

If you want to educate yourself more on the topic, I suggest you read @Messier1994 post on here or on Twitter
So, mr.expert, do you reckon our summer budget will be big enough to spend 100m on Neves and still make 5-6 signings?
 
It's delusional to think Neves would transform us to a top 4 side, while we ignore the other positions.
Hardly anyone is genuinely arguing that João Neves is going to transform us into a Top 4 side, to be fair; that's reductio ad absurdum, not a good faith argument. What some do think is that, given his qualities, he would give a boost to our midfield collective, and form a potent long-term partnership with Kobbie Mainoo (provided the coaching and organization is up to scratch (as that can throttle talented players... we need look no further than Enzo Fernández and Moisés Caicedo at Chelsea), and they strike up a decent understanding). Signing someone like him would also not not equate to ignoring other positions, if the club makes the right manoeuvres in the mercato (particularly identifying budget-friendly squad options and wrt. player sales, which would lead to a maxmization of resources).

Also, folk seem to have this idea that we must first build a squad on the cheap (including that rather unpleasant @Hammondo chap), and then add quality pieces — as if that's the only way of going about things (and also as if accounting techniques like amortization are a figment of our imagination), full stop. One does get the sense that this line of thinking is informed by the development of, for example, Arsenal in recent years (who went for relatively cheap options first, and progressively loosened the purse string to splurge on the likes of Rice, Jesus and Havertz) But we should note that Manchester United always has some of the highest revenues in club football, even when the club misses out on the Champions League — and has lots of wiggle room to sign difference-makers, even with FFP and PSR concerns.

In comparison, Arsenal trailed the heavyweights by €200 million or thereabouts in terms of annual turnover, so they were forced to abide by smaller budgets as they went about refurbishing their squad. That isn't to say that we should waste money or pay over the odds for players who are not top talents (as we did for Antony, among others), but if the right profile of top talent is available, we might want to make a serious move instead of throwing our hands up in the air in defeatist fashion. Should also add that I dunno if João Neves is going to be worth a €100 million fee, and am not arguing that we should compulsarily cough up that much money for him.

VGf6OtR.png
 
I think he has a point. We need minimum one CB, 2 midfielders, 1 striker and 1 left back.

Thats 200m gone.
He definately has a point about us needing more than one player. I think we need at least six new players. Two CBs, a LB, two CMs and a striker but that is for another discussion.

When we're looking at our squad cost before any sales, Martial will be released who earns ~£13m a year, Varane and Wan-Bissaka will be fully amortised (~£12m and ~£9m respectively in yearly amortisation costs). So before any sales, we're taking ~£34m off our cost base.

To put Joao Neves back into the perspective, signing him for his release clause of ~£105m would cost us ~£21m a year, plus wages of let's say £4m-£6m a year = £25m-£27m a year.

In my opinion, Sir Jim Ratcliffe has been very succesful in creating the narrative that we don't have a lot of money to spend, so the clubs that will try to take us to the cleaners can think otherwise. I think we're going a big summer ahead.
 
So, mr.expert, do you reckon our summer budget will be big enough to spend 100m on Neves and still make 5-6 signings?
Again, thanks for your polite tone.

To answer your question, yes, see my post above. If we manage to offload just a few others, we will definately have room.

For example, selling Sancho would save us combined ~£30m a year in wages and amortisation alone, before taking a potential fee into account. That is basically another £100m player if we don't give out silly wages, like in Sancho's case.
 
There's multiple solutions though, its not all about spending big on a player or 2 (which i do think is what's needed) and its what Klopp has done really well.

It should be a combination of:

1. Investing in the squad; Neves, Todibo etc
2. Promoting youth; Garnacho, Mainoo, Kambwala this year, we may see more of Amad, Amass, Gore (or other(s)) next year; and
3. The biggie is getting more out of what we have got, namely: Rashford, Antony, Mount, Hojlund, Bruno

As with everything there's no quick or easy fix, it takes time and next season will potentially be a bit up and down.
 
Hardly anyone is genuinely arguing that João Neves is going to transform us into a Top 4 side, to be fair; that's reductio ad absurdum, not a good faith argument. What some do think is that, given his qualities, he would give a boost to our midfield collective, and form a potent long-term partnership with Kobbie Mainoo (provided the coaching and organization is up to scratch (as that can throttle talented players... we need look no further than Enzo Fernández and Moisés Caicedo at Chelsea), and they strike up a decent understanding). Signing someone like him would also not not equate to ignoring other positions, if the club makes the right manoeuvres in the mercato (particularly identifying budget-friendly squad options and wrt. player sales, which would lead to a maxmization of resources).

Also, folk seem to have this idea that we must first build a squad on the cheap (including that rather unpleasant @Hammondo chap), and then add quality pieces — as if that's the only way of going about things (and also as if accounting techniques like amortization are a figment of our imagination), full stop. One does get the sense that this line of thinking is informed by the development of, for example, Arsenal in recent years (who went for relatively cheap options first, and progressively loosened the purse string to splurge on the likes of Rice, Jesus and Havertz) But we should note that Manchester United always has some of the highest revenues in club football, even when the club misses out on the Champions League — and has lots of wiggle room to sign difference-makers, even with FFP and PSR concerns.

In comparison, Arsenal trailed the heavyweights by €200 million or thereabouts in terms of annual turnover, so they were forced to abide by smaller budgets as they went about refurbishing their squad. That isn't to say that we should waste money or pay over the odds for players who are not top talents (as we did for Antony, among others), but if the right profile of top talent is available, we might want to make a serious move instead of throwing our hands up in the air in defeatist fashion. Should also add that I dunno if João Neves is going to be worth a €100 million fee, and am not arguing that we should compulsarily cough up that much money for him.

VGf6OtR.png
Well if going from 6th to 4th is more than "Astonishing", then we must be speaking two different languages.

Arsenal spent big after years of not spending much, we have continually spent big.

Chelsea sold a lot and has a lower net spend than us.

The regulations simply restrict us.
 
It doesn't have to be though and all of those transfers don't have to be paid up front.

Agree but then doesn't it include the wage part as well ? Let's day we put 25m upfront for 5 players . Including wages, wouldn't it touch 200m ?
 
Agree but then doesn't it include the wage part as well ? Let's day we put 25m upfront for 5 players . Including wages, wouldn't it touch 200m ?
I don't believe it's as simple as that, wages are stretched out over the contract too, so there's fee + wage spread out over the contract - hence Chelsea doing 7 year contracts. Our yearly costs can't be too much, but selling players like Rashford and McTominay or fully amortized players (Martial must surely be one), means pure revenue into the coffers to mitigate that. Also the lowering of the wage bill makes us more profitable too, so if we have these supposed performance based contracts, we should be more than capable of a massive summer if that's what we want.
 
Watched a few of his games now.

Impressive with and without the ball.

A top young midfielder. Would be an excellent acquisition whoever gets him
 
Watched a few of his games now.

Impressive with and without the ball.

A top young midfielder. Would be an excellent acquisition whoever gets him

Err sorry this thread is for discussing financial record-keeping. Not sure why you're bringing some lad's football skills into it.
 
Err sorry this thread is for discussing financial record-keeping. Not sure why you're bringing some lad's football skills into it.
This. Thought I clicked into the wrong thread. I want to hear more debates on why moneyball will get us back to the top rather than generational talents.
 
Great looking player but a bit of an awkward fit with Mainoo. Both highly technical players probably best as 8s, linking play and creating solutions. In the PL, I don't think either is cut out to be a DM that sniffs out transitions, covers big spaces if necessary, and helps control matches with counter-pressing. You could play them together in front of a player like that. But you still need that DM player and probably you need a very high scoring front three because while both Mainoo and Neves seem plenty capable of contributing in the final third with their technical quality, neither of them is a KDB/Bruno/Odegaard/Wirtz/Musiala/Bellingham type of final third attacking force.

It seems like over the course of the season Benfica has become less likely to pair Neves with an expansive player like Kokcu in the double pivot and more likely to pair him with a bruising DM like Florentino Luis, especially in bigger games. I think that is probably the way you get the best out of him, just like Mainoo.
 
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Just look at Liverpool's CLs winning team back line, Robertson (10m), Van Dijk (75m), Matip (Free), Trent (Academy). You can spend big on key players and not have to continually spend the same fees to improve the team. If players leave, we just have more money? We're linked with Tosin, Barkley and others on free transfers. We're linked with transfers direct from South America as well (Anselmo, Thalys and couple of others linked). I don't see a problem in investing big in big talents - Joao Neves is one of those for me.

Van Dijk and almost all of Liverpool's other big money signings in the Klopp era were signed at 23-26 years of age, and until he had a team challenging for titles and reaching CL finals most of them also had PL experience.

I don't think the success of Liverpool's recruitment strategy of the past decade or so is an argument for spending big on 20 year olds.
 
Great looking player but a bit of an awkward fit with Mainoo. Both highly technical players probably best as 8s, linking play and creating solutions. In the PL, I don't think either is cut out to be a DM that sniffs out transitions, covers big spaces if necessary, and helps control matches with counter-pressing. You could play them together in front of a player like that. But you still need that DM player and probably you need a very high scoring front three because while both Mainoo and Neves seem plenty capable of contributing in the final third with their technical quality, neither of them is a KDB/Bruno/Odegaard/Wirtz/Musiala/Bellingham type of final third attacking force.

It seems like over the course of the season Benfica has become less likely to pair Neves with an expansive player like Kokcu in the double pivot and more likely to pair him with a bruising DM like Florentino Luis, especially in bigger games. I think that is probably the way you get the best out of him, just like Mainoo.

We badly need a DM in anycase so that's no block to this happening.

An athletic DM who is at least decent on the ball with two hardworking, very technical no.8's in front. What's not to like?
 
Great looking player but a bit of an awkward fit with Mainoo. Both highly technical players probably best as 8s, linking play and creating solutions. In the PL, I don't think either is cut out to be a DM that sniffs out transitions, covers big spaces if necessary, and helps control matches with counter-pressing. You could play them together in front of a player like that. But you still need that DM player and probably you need a very high scoring front three because while both Mainoo and Neves seem plenty capable of contributing in the final third with their technical quality, neither of them is a KDB/Bruno/Odegaard/Wirtz/Musiala/Bellingham type of final third attacking force.

It seems like over the course of the season Benfica has become less likely to pair Neves with an expansive player like Kokcu in the double pivot and more likely to pair him with a bruising DM like Florentino Luis, especially in bigger games. I think that is probably the way you get the best out of him, just like Mainoo.
Young and promising players like Joao Neves and Nico Williams are available in the summer. Both of them have release clause in their contract and are affordable for Man United. Either one will be a good signing for United.
 
Young and promising players like Joao Neves and Nico Williams are available in the summer. Both of them have release clause in their contract and are affordable for Man United. Either one will be a good signing for United.
Neves release clause is hardly affordable
 
The big wigs will need to be very clever with our budget doubt we will see us spending 100m on a 20 year old.
 
If he's as good as Vitinha on PSG then sure 100M.
Neves is even more hyped but I would say the talent is similar. Neves is better defensively and more of a workhorse, Vitinha is a magician like Mainoo.

Neves could become a Modric level player, though with fewer trivelas.
 
Is he better than Vitinha? They both have similar kind of profile.
 
Affordable for Man Utd. Man Utd has the resource to buy the best player available in the market. It has almost double the revenue than Arsenal.
That’s a very generous double.

Arsenal 2023 revenue : £464m
Man Utd 2023 revenue: £648m.

I expect the difference to fall to £100m or less this season with your extra income from CL. We have more money for sure, but we also have a debt to service and a lot of administrative bloat. Gross spending between the two clubs are pretty similar since Arteta came in, you’ve hardly been paupers.
 
I am trying to think of a teenager signed for 100 mil that justified the outlay.
Struggling so far, J. Felix went for more I think, but don't feel he delivered on that price.
Havertz was bought for less, and is doing decent at Arsenal, but still don't feel the initial price (70 mil?) seems justified.
Was Mbappé signed for 100 mil from Monaco? It is the only example I can think of so far...
 
I am trying to think of a teenager signed for 100 mil that justified the outlay.
Struggling so far, J. Felix went for more I think, but don't feel he delivered on that price.
Havertz was bought for less, and is doing decent at Arsenal, but still don't feel the initial price (70 mil?) seems justified.
Was Mbappé signed for 100 mil from Monaco? It is the only example I can think of so far...
Mbappe was 160m I believe.
 
I am trying to think of a teenager signed for 100 mil that justified the outlay.
Struggling so far, J. Felix went for more I think, but don't feel he delivered on that price.
Havertz was bought for less, and is doing decent at Arsenal, but still don't feel the initial price (70 mil?) seems justified.
Was Mbappé signed for 100 mil from Monaco? It is the only example I can think of so far...

What did Madrid pay for Bellingham?
 
Affordable for Man Utd. Man Utd has the resource to buy the best player available in the market. It has almost double the revenue than Arsenal.
Its not affordable especially when you need at least 6 new players and there is something called FFP
 
He definately has a point about us needing more than one player. I think we need at least six new players. Two CBs, a LB, two CMs and a striker but that is for another discussion.

When we're looking at our squad cost before any sales, Martial will be released who earns ~£13m a year, Varane and Wan-Bissaka will be fully amortised (~£12m and ~£9m respectively in yearly amortisation costs). So before any sales, we're taking ~£34m off our cost base.

To put Joao Neves back into the perspective, signing him for his release clause of ~£105m would cost us ~£21m a year, plus wages of let's say £4m-£6m a year = £25m-£27m a year.

In my opinion, Sir Jim Ratcliffe has been very succesful in creating the narrative that we don't have a lot of money to spend, so the clubs that will try to take us to the cleaners can think otherwise. I think we're going a big summer ahead.
Is that presuming we spend in payments for neves rather than all upfront?
 
And of course at what cost we can get CBs in and other players
At the moment, it looks like a promotee, a free transfer and a purchase for CB's, plus whatever we get for selling (Maguire, Varane, Lindelof), so it's not that out there (should sales come off); from our own kitty, it sounds like a pipe dream given all the other areas we need in, but with sales at CB and CM, it really doesn't seem particularly improbable.
 
What did Madrid pay for Bellingham?

100 mil euros apparently, and worth every penny. Odd I remembered it being less, probably confusing the fee with Haaland's.
So I guess Bellingham's fee should be the benchmark.
 
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