Would love our club to buy a squad like that but it’s never happening under the Glazers. We could do all that in one or two summers if they had a serious plan for us.Even though that £700 million figure seems outrageous at first glance, Merson is not entirely wrong, I think...especially considering there has been a paradigm shift in transfer market economics in the post Neymar to Paris Saint-Germain era. Real Madrid, for example, have spent approximately £450 million in the last couple of seasons despite winning three European Cups on the trot, Barcelona have spent close to £600 million in the last three seasons, Juventus, who are traditionally quite reserved with their money have parted with ~£400 million since 2018, even Atlético have spent upwards of £350 million on incoming players since 2018 — and these teams had stronger platforms to build on, too. I'm not arguing that all of that was money well spent, it wasn't always...just pointing toward the spending by the Spanish Big-3 and the lone Italian heavyweight as they relentlessly strengthen their teams for intoxicating taste of European glory.
Liverpool are often cited for their comparatively cheap rebuild job in recent years but they are outliers from the general trend in the elite rung of club football because of the shrewdness of Klopp and Edwards in that period, and got extremely, extremely lucky with the trio of Firmino, Mané, Salah — one of the best pieces of business any club has done for a specific portion of the pitch in this decade (up there with Pirlo, Vidal, Pogba for Juventus). Additionally, their manager is worth £200+ million on his own because he engineers the system their players thrive in, motivates them to outperform (vis-à-vis the transfer spending), and has a history of assembling, or getting the best out of, a very competitive team without an elite-tier budget (like at Dortmund where Lewandowski, Gündogan, Reus, Hummels, Großkreutz, Piszczek, Kagawa, Bender cost less than £100 million combined and Götze, Schmelzer came through the ranks).
United probably needs a #9, a right winger, a multi-purpose midfielder, a central midfielder, a defensive midfielder, a leftback and maybe a central defender to complete the starting XI. Taking the names that are usually touted by Redcafe posters...
Estimate of £500 million (maybe a bit more if selling clubs jack up the prices) for 6 players and we might have a team that can consistently contend for the league title. Once that initial task of getting the XI up to scratch is complete, you have you address depth as well, and...there's no guarantee that every one of them will be an instant or long term hit, so the spend could well balloon up to £700 million when you account for variables like replacements or miscellaneous additions to create a competitive edge. If the objective if to re-establish United as a domestic force and an equal of traditional European adversaries, the Glazers will have to spend at least £500-600 million (or hope they get extremely lucky with the appointment of a proverbial alchemist as the manager, or build a robust footballing structure like at Ajax or Red Bull Leipzig/Salzburg...which is unrealistic and will take time to bear fruit, or all of the aforementioned at once).
- Sancho: £160m
- Maddison: £80m
- Florentino: £70m
- Ruiz: £80m
- Håland: £50m
- Chilwell: £60m
Even though that £700 million figure seems outrageous at first glance, Merson is not entirely wrong, I think...especially considering there has been a paradigm shift in transfer market economics in the post Neymar to Paris Saint-Germain era. Real Madrid, for example, have spent approximately £450 million in the last couple of seasons despite winning three European Cups on the trot, Barcelona have spent close to £600 million in the last three seasons, Juventus, who are traditionally quite reserved with their money have parted with ~£400 million since 2018, even Atlético have spent upwards of £350 million on incoming players since 2018 — and these teams had stronger platforms to build on, too. I'm not arguing that all of that was money well spent, it wasn't always...just pointing toward the spending by the Spanish Big-3 and the lone Italian heavyweight as they relentlessly strengthen their teams for the intoxicating taste of European glory.
Liverpool are often cited for their comparatively cheap rebuild job in recent years but they are outliers from the general trend in the elite rung of club football because of the shrewdness of Klopp and Edwards in that period, and got extremely, extremely lucky with the trio of Firmino, Mané, Salah — one of the best pieces of business any club has done for a specific portion of the pitch in this decade (up there with Pirlo, Vidal, Pogba for Juventus). Additionally, their manager is worth £200+ million on his own because he engineers the system their players thrive in, motivates them to outperform (vis-à-vis the transfer spending), and has a history of assembling, or getting the best out of, a very competitive team without an elite-tier budget (like at Dortmund where Lewandowski, Gündogan, Reus, Hummels, Großkreutz, Piszczek, Kagawa, Bender cost less than £100 million combined and Götze, Schmelzer came through the ranks).
United probably needs a #9, a right winger, a multi-purpose midfielder, a central midfielder, a defensive midfielder, a leftback and maybe a central defender to complete the starting XI. Taking the names that are usually touted by Redcafe posters...
Estimate of £500 million (maybe a bit more if selling clubs jack up the prices) for 6 players and we might have a team that can consistently contend for the league title. Once that initial task of getting the XI up to scratch is complete, you have you address depth as well, and...there's no guarantee that every one of them will be an instant or long term hit, so the spend could well balloon up to £700 million when you account for variables like replacements or miscellaneous additions to create a competitive edge. If the objective if to re-establish United as a domestic force and an equal of traditional European adversaries, the Glazers will have to spend at least £500-600 million (or hope they get extremely lucky with the appointment of a proverbial alchemist as the manager, or build a robust footballing structure like at Ajax or Red Bull Leipzig/Salzburg...which is unrealistic and will take time to bear fruit, or all of the aforementioned at once).
- Sancho: £160m
- Maddison: £80m
- Florentino: £70m
- Ruiz: £80m
- Håland: £50m
- Chilwell: £60m
Does anyone take Merson seriously?
I mean, literally, any one person?
Yep, hard to disagree with that...would be the ideal way forward, indeed — signings that aren't Galáctico level in terms of outlay because they're overlooked or yet to reach an elite standard, but produce a sub-Galáctico (or even Galáctico level if things good exceedingly well) impact. After all, we did establish ourselves as one of the best teams in Europe partly because of exceptional value-for-money signings like Carrick, Evra, Vidić, Park, Van der Sar in the mid 2000s — but that approach will require the right manager as well as type of composure, timing, expertise and maneuverability (as well as a good deal of cosmic luck, considering not all signings that look sensible at the time turn out as well as you'd hoped: like Mkhitaryan or worryingly Dalot, who was supposed to be our Kimmich/Carvajal) we haven't really evidenced in recent years when you look at our recruitment patterns.If we are going with 'sign the obvious players' then even 700 million isn't enough, we should go with smart signings.
They still had to spend alot in order to compete and get anywhere near a real trophy
Yep, hard to disagree with that...would be the ideal way forward, indeed — signings that aren't Galáctico level in terms of outlay because they're overlooked or yet to reach an elite standard, but produce a sub-Galáctico (or even Galáctico level if things good exceedingly well) impact. After all, we did establish ourselves as one of the best teams in Europe partly because of exceptional value-for-money signings like Carrick, Evra, Vidić, Park, Van der Sar in the mid 2000s — but that approach will require the right manager as well as type of composure, timing, expertise and maneuverability (as well as a good deal of cosmic luck, considering not all signings that look sensible at the time turn out as well as you'd hoped: like Mkhitaryan or worryingly Dalot, who was supposed to be our Kimmich/Carvajal) we haven't really evidenced in recent years when you look at our recruitment patterns.
Even Real Madrid, for all their maniacal spending in the mercato over the years, did a lot of smart business with the re-signing of Carvajal from Leverkusen, Varane from Lens for peanuts, and most notably: the midfield of Kroos, Casemiro, Modrić (arguably the best trio since Xavi-Iniesta-Busquets) for just £65 million — 5 starting XI players through the back-to-back-to-back Champions League winning stretch for less than £100 million, 6 if you include Keylor Navas for just £8 million.
You could possibly swap Chilwell for Tagliafico, Maddison for Olmo, Ruiz for Szoboszlai, etc. from that list — and still manage to build a very competitive team under the right manager (who can build the optimal structure for them) while saving a good deal of money. Though on the basis of our most recent transfer market activity, where we opted for one-the-nose signings like Maguire (highly touted Premier League defender) Wan Bissaka (rated as the best young English fullback after Alexander-Arnold so an obvious target), you do get a sense that we aren't casting a very wide net and aren't fully committed to exploring options beyond our obvious comfort zone (that includes Dan James...who was also a domestic acquisition).
That needs to change if want to lessen the financial outlay through our rebuild, because there's a lot of value to be had — including South America, a market that we don'e explore all that often because of a few less-than-deal past experiences, even though it has produced midfielders like Arthur and Bentancur in recent years when we needed players in those positions/roles — and currently has others like Henrique (Arthur's successor as regista at Gremio) or Guimarães. Targeting Bosman signings would also be a sensible strategy, considering Juventus rebuilt and strengthened with Pirlo, Pogba, Khedira, Alves, Rabiot, Can, Ramsey by being in the right place at the right time and providing the right project/wage-packet for the players. Though with that wheeler-dealer approach, we will have to be ruthless and quickly re-sell players that aren't good fits instead of hanging on to them ad infinitum, like we often tend to do — because you can't get all of the transfers right, and must not be afraid to rectify the errors sharpish.
Do you not see any signs of progression with Ole? When people talk about progression, they always refer to style and attacking play however, do you not think we look better as a defensive unit? We leaked goals left, right and centre last season. This season (obviously we spent big on two players for our back four) we've looked a lot more secure at the back and have restricted teams to few chances. For example, Leicester hardly had any chances against us, Arsenal scored from our mistake, Wolves' only chance came from a worldie from Neves, Newcastle had two long range efforts from outside the box, etc.
Yes, we want to see nice attacking, flowing football, but Ole clearly felt our defence was a big issue that needed sorting this season and he's done that.
Klopp, on the other hand, was slightly different. He had a style, but his defence for a long time until he purchased Van Dijk was pretty weak.
God know if Ole will be here long term, but to me he's built, or is certainly in the process of building, a solid foundation for the attacking players he wants to bring in.
Doesn’t look like a huge spend to me considering where they are now. They’re arguably the best team in Europe while plenty of their European counterparts have spent far more than them in the same timeframe.
Anyhow as I alluded to in a later post; my point is that people need to stop droning on about spending mental amounts. First and foremost we need to sort our structure out and get a DOF in place with the right manager and coaching staff. We need a manager in the Pep / Klopp mould that has an actual vision and a system. We’ve spent a feck tonne of money since Klopp took charge at Liverpool and look at the absolute state of us. As I said, spending money certainly hasn’t been our problem, it’s how we’ve spent it. How much combined did Liverpool spend on Mane, Salah and Robertson and how much did we spend on Pogba? The two fees must be similar. Whereas other teams sign players to fit a style, we just fragrantly throw money around at the wrong players and have no coordinated transfer strategy.
Obviously Klopp was going to spend, he needs a very specific type of a player to play in his system. But he showed clear signs of progress after literally weeks and was thus backed. Our problem has been a distinct lack of modern day coaching post Fergie. We literally play with zero semblance of cohesion and have no idea how to play as an attacking unit. It’s sad, so fecking sad, that we’ve fallen to where we have but muppets like Merson spouting that we need to just throw money at the problem isn’t the answer, as we’ve proven time and again post Fergie.
Liverpool have the best fullbacks in the league and what was their combined transfer total? I don’t think either are nearly as good as they look under Klopp but that’s what a world class coach / manager will do. The coaching our players receive is nothing short of disgraceful. We haven’t adapted any of our playing methods to modern day football and it’s frightening how far behind the other top European clubs we are. While coaches and managers have been evolving their methods we’ve went for four managers who have / had zero intentions of evolving with the footballing world. I literally have no words for Ole, great guy and a legend as a player, but a woeful manager with no ideas how to coach this team into even attempting to play modern cohesive attacking football.
We don’t need £700m at all, we just need one top CF, one top CM and not to have 10 players injured between September and November every year
We badly need a left back and a right winger. People really need to stop assuming Shaw will come good.We don’t need £700m at all, we just need one top CF, one top CM and not to have 10 players injured between September and November every year
I don't think anyone disagrees with that. However we will still need to spend a lot of money, there is no getting round that fact
Well we have spent a-lot of money post Fergie, that's a fact. Again, the point is that we need structure in place before we spend anymore money otherwise we will end up with more Freds, Mkhitaryans etc. We need a modern day manager with a vision to come in and build a team, that will inevitably cost money but it's about spending the money wisely mixed with coaching what we already have and improving players.
Merson randomly spouting that we need to spend £700m offers zero context or insight into what we actually need. Sure we could feasibly spend that amount and be as bad as we are now, in five years time. This is what will happen if we keep appointing the wrong managers and don't have ant strategy in the transfer market.
And as I have said, we do not disagree
But that's the whole point, these so-called 'football experts' randomly spouting what we apparently need to spend offers zero context into our situation. Had this group of players been properly coached by a modern manager for 2/3 years now, we would be far better off than we are now. That would have been without spending a single penny more than we have and having the exact same squad.
Not if you do not have the required quality in the squad. See Liverpool under Klopp for the first 2/3 seasons, didn't really improve much in terms of league positions, they played good football but the also did under Rodgers. It wasn't until they started adding real quality that they became a top side.
No one is saying we can't get better with coaching, but United want to be challenging for the big trophies which will require spending.
Fact is we need:
A new structure at the director level
A new manager with excellent coaching staff
A lot of new players (both with experience and also young talent)
We will not compete long term without doing all of this, pundits talk about different things. Some talk about the structure, some talk about the spending, some talk about the manager. Fact is it all needs doing
My point is, we would be better off than we are now. Hence we wouldn't be where we are in the league while struggling against teams like Rochdale and AZ. We need those things as I've alluded to in earlier posts. Our coaching for years now has been beyond atrocious and it's part of the reason the team looks so utterly clueless. There are a multitude of reasons which I've already touched on but poor coaching / management has finally taken it's toll and we've hit rock bottom.
You quoted a post where someone said Klopp had to spend to compete. I'm pointing out that no one disagrees with your point so you're arguing for no reason. We will need to spend to get to where we want to, we have to do a lot of things.
I originally brought Klopp into it so it was they who originally quoted me. My point now, as it was then, was that there is far more to consider than just saying throw money at the problem which was a direct response, from me, to Mersons rubbish.
Ive told you that we do not disagree here so there is no need to keep discussion it
Merson isnt talking rubbish just like Neville isnt talking rubbish when he says we need a restructure. They are all right, we need to do all of it
A restructure without the investment will not get us where we want
700m and a sniff at that.