Hard to come up with a stupider list than that if they tried.
Our transfers rated - since 2013
- Thread starter Chief123
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Think he was a strong contender with Herrera for MOTM in the final, won more headers than anyone in that game.
It’s not really simple like that nor is it irrelevant as you could argue James made a positive contribution as he is one of the few business deals you’ve got right. Yes, he didn’t quite hit the heights on the pitch but he was bought as a cheap punt and sold for profit. You’ve had a major issue where you’ve bought huge and then lost those players on a free or for a transfer fee much lower than you bought for.
Or outright failed to sell them, because believe it or not expensive players also come with expensive salaries.
Definitely a lot more accurate than Nevilles list.
Blind in red and Maguire in amber 
WT
It’s a cluster-feck as soon as we go down rabbit holes about how player A should be an amber but would have been a green if they’d cost 10m less. It’s so much simpler to discuss whether a new signing was a success based on how they performed. And it makes Neville’s point just as well.
It’s a cluster-feck as soon as we go down rabbit holes about how player A should be an amber but would have been a green if they’d cost 10m less. It’s so much simpler to discuss whether a new signing was a success based on how they performed. And it makes Neville’s point just as well.
I'm not quoting everyone but he has sancho in red so the argument he is ranking the English higher than they deserve to be just because they are English doesn't hold water.
I just don’t think it’s possible to not bring in these other variables when you want to rank them because there are other aspects to recruitment than just how they perform on the pitch. Incoming fees, outgoing fees, wages etc. are all part of the recruitment they are speaking about.
Brunos got to be an amber. I think Hererra could be green. He never let us down.
Yeah thats a shocker too.Blind in red and Maguire in amber
This is the bit that has always puzzled me about the Glazers. Forget whether we 'like' or 'dislike' them...let's just think objectively and rationally for a second....
The Glazers are businesspeople. We can debate all we like about the difference between 'their money' and 'the club's money' but the fact is that £1BN has been spent net on transfers.
Now, if I am a member of the Glazer family, even if the very worst accusations the fans throw at me are true and I don't care at all about league position/trophies and all I am interested in are marketing revenues and the share price, surely at some point I am going to hold the people wasting 'my' money and devaluing my 'asset' to account?
That's before we even get into the money wasted on insane wages! If I were a hard-nosed, American uber-capitalist who cared only about the margins, why would I allow incompetent buffoons to waste my money year-after-year, drag the brand through the mud and tank the share price?
The management of Manchester United over the last decade borders on the criminally negligent and yet the Glazers have never acted to remove any of the people responsible from their senior leadership positions. Again, even if they truly don't care about results, the brand is becoming toxic, the 'customers' are furious, the facilities are outdated, the squad is bordering on worthless, the share price is down 66%....I mean....I would be furious and the likes of Woodward, Arnold, Murtough etc....would have been out of that Boardroom five/six years ago.
The fact is, a Manchester United team that performs on the pitch is better for the Glazers, all-told....and we've seen failure, waste and negligence repeated over and over.
I cannot for the life of me fathom why they haven't acted, it's bizarre
The Glazers are businesspeople. We can debate all we like about the difference between 'their money' and 'the club's money' but the fact is that £1BN has been spent net on transfers.
Now, if I am a member of the Glazer family, even if the very worst accusations the fans throw at me are true and I don't care at all about league position/trophies and all I am interested in are marketing revenues and the share price, surely at some point I am going to hold the people wasting 'my' money and devaluing my 'asset' to account?
That's before we even get into the money wasted on insane wages! If I were a hard-nosed, American uber-capitalist who cared only about the margins, why would I allow incompetent buffoons to waste my money year-after-year, drag the brand through the mud and tank the share price?
The management of Manchester United over the last decade borders on the criminally negligent and yet the Glazers have never acted to remove any of the people responsible from their senior leadership positions. Again, even if they truly don't care about results, the brand is becoming toxic, the 'customers' are furious, the facilities are outdated, the squad is bordering on worthless, the share price is down 66%....I mean....I would be furious and the likes of Woodward, Arnold, Murtough etc....would have been out of that Boardroom five/six years ago.
The fact is, a Manchester United team that performs on the pitch is better for the Glazers, all-told....and we've seen failure, waste and negligence repeated over and over.
I cannot for the life of me fathom why they haven't acted, it's bizarre
I had a look back at a "Transfers of the 2000s" list just for comparison purposes - it's interesting. There's definitely a lot more slam-dunk greens (Rio, Vidic, Rooney, VdS, and of course the Portuguese wing sensation) no doubt about that, but there's still a ton of reds and ambers if we're applying the same criteria that Nev seems to be using here.
Plenty of people in the "capable pro" bracket like Blind and Fellaini - Park, Saha, and Timmy Howard, Michael Owen on the downswing, maybe Laurent Blanc (though personally I thought he was pretty poor for us). Nothing wrong with that, those signings did exactly what they were meant to do. Should be amber at least.
Plenty of high-profile misses like Di Maria and Lukaku. Veron is the obvious one, but also Forlan, Kleberson, and hey remember when Alan Smith was going to be our lead striker? Anderson never really lived up to a £20m signing. Even Berbatov was amazing for a couple of years but then got moved on, pretty quickly. And yes the price tags were lower, but relative to the transfer prices of the time they were big signings.
Plenty of young players were signed for their potential and it didn't work out, like Depay and James. Remember Dong, Manucho, Possebon, Bellion, Djemba-Djemba, Liam Miller, Zoran Tosic, Ritchie De Laet, Mame Biram Diouf and Gabi Obertan? The club spent real money on all of them, and gave some of them time in the first eleven. True story. Red as it gets, to a man.
Hargreaves was a big spend and never really did much due to injury, like Bailly or maybe Shaw.
And plenty of players like Sancho or Varane who would have got a red after their first season (and with a much better team around them) but went on to be amber or green. Remember Pat Evra's first season? I was #teamheinze back then, how little I knew. Carrick was pretty patchy for a while too.
I'm not saying there's no problem - clearly there's a problem, clearly fewer of the signing have been working out post-Fergie, but if you go back and look at it I don't think it's the night and day change that people seem to think. It can definitely be better, but it's miles from being the biggest problem in my opinion.
Plenty of people in the "capable pro" bracket like Blind and Fellaini - Park, Saha, and Timmy Howard, Michael Owen on the downswing, maybe Laurent Blanc (though personally I thought he was pretty poor for us). Nothing wrong with that, those signings did exactly what they were meant to do. Should be amber at least.
Plenty of high-profile misses like Di Maria and Lukaku. Veron is the obvious one, but also Forlan, Kleberson, and hey remember when Alan Smith was going to be our lead striker? Anderson never really lived up to a £20m signing. Even Berbatov was amazing for a couple of years but then got moved on, pretty quickly. And yes the price tags were lower, but relative to the transfer prices of the time they were big signings.
Plenty of young players were signed for their potential and it didn't work out, like Depay and James. Remember Dong, Manucho, Possebon, Bellion, Djemba-Djemba, Liam Miller, Zoran Tosic, Ritchie De Laet, Mame Biram Diouf and Gabi Obertan? The club spent real money on all of them, and gave some of them time in the first eleven. True story. Red as it gets, to a man.
Hargreaves was a big spend and never really did much due to injury, like Bailly or maybe Shaw.
And plenty of players like Sancho or Varane who would have got a red after their first season (and with a much better team around them) but went on to be amber or green. Remember Pat Evra's first season? I was #teamheinze back then, how little I knew. Carrick was pretty patchy for a while too.
I'm not saying there's no problem - clearly there's a problem, clearly fewer of the signing have been working out post-Fergie, but if you go back and look at it I don't think it's the night and day change that people seem to think. It can definitely be better, but it's miles from being the biggest problem in my opinion.
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It's not bizarre when you consider that Glazer senior is the one with the brains and who made all the money. He runs the Bucs in the NFL and they are relatively competently run. His moronic offspring were given us to run and have done about what would be expected of incompetent silver spoon feckwits.
Man, I have honestly wondered for the last decade how they have just let things go on and on and on. I can only assume its because they get to take a dividend each year and even though the share price is down the United brand or company value continues to rise. If Chelsea were sold for £2.5bn and that was on a rushed deal, anyone looking to get United will probably need £4bn+.
Its like having a house and the person you let stay in there doesn't maintain it well, you keep buying new expensive furniture that doesnt last and has to be replaced frequently, the roof is leaking etc BUT the property is an amazing location so its value continues to go up over time. So you just keep remortgaging and taking equity out every year and go on about your business.
Its not just the owners, Woodwards whole tenure was weird to me too. He could have hired a DOF a long time ago even its just in name and to have someone else to be blamed for transfers failing but instead he attached his name to all these failed transfers.
Indeed. Incredible when you think about it, given that we signed him for more than his release clause, shortly after his release clause expired, during one of the worst transfer windows the club has ever endured, and yet he's probably one of the best 10 signings we've made in the last 10 years. That's how bad we've been in the market.
Glazer Snr is dead isn't he? Also, it doesn't take brains to see the stock-price fall 66% and think 'better do something about this'?
I mean....I assume they like money???
Do they though? I know a lot of fuss is made about the dividends but I thought there was a long period were they didn't take any dividends? I could be wrong on that but I'd be interested to see the total figure they have taken...I bet it pales into insignificance about what they would/could have made if the club had been run properly or they had invested in something else
Maguire being given a pass by the English media again.
The Mata love here is insane. The opportunity cost of wasting all that money on him, he gave us virtually nothing in terms of the quality you’d hope for from a Man Utd forward, nothing.
I think that's down to the general bias football fans have in favour of attacking players. An attacker can be awful for 90-minutes or even a few games on end and then it's all forgotten with a great goal or assist.
I agree though, Mata was poor for us considering the money we spent. £37m was huge then and would have bought us two decent players in other positions.
I am seeing shades of it with Sancho to be honest. He has been nothing short of terrible for us but because there are flashes of talent he's still widely liked/well-regarded on here.
Also like Mata Sancho isn’t explosive and would seem to fit best as a 10. Mata came off the back of some match-winning performances for Chelsea though, I haven’t seen Sancho at that level ever. Sancho has time I guess.
Fellaini ks abit underrated usually. He scored quite a few decisive goal and at least he could sort of force the issue in a clumsy way.
Not sure Blind deserves to be red. He was never going to be the new Roberto Carlos (or Jaap Stam), but he was decent.
Maguire, so far, surely has to be very much red when factoring in the fact he is the most expensive defender of all time.
Not sure Blind deserves to be red. He was never going to be the new Roberto Carlos (or Jaap Stam), but he was decent.
Maguire, so far, surely has to be very much red when factoring in the fact he is the most expensive defender of all time.
This list is honestly harsh - Fellaini should be in amber and Maguire should be in red. I thought that Fellaini was a ridiculous signing at first, but he gave his all and has a lot more fight than this current lot.
It might be that Sancho was a mistake also. We bought him to play on the right as we have been desperate for a quality RW for years. Now we have him and it's becoming very clear he is better on the left.
The money we have wasted in transfers is staggering.
The money we have wasted in transfers is staggering.
I was so hyped when we signed Mkhitaryan, Di Maria, Schneiderlin, Schweinsteiger.
Based on performances. I know not the most popular way to rate players or managers around here
Mata was one of our best players until 2017/2018 season. That's at least a solid 3 years of good performance. He overstayed his welcome but he can't be classified as a failure. We have made worse signings.
I will exclude the players we signed this year and last year, so don't go looking for Ronaldo now!
Green (successes)
Bruno
Zlatan
Herrera
Amber (OK, but should have done better)
Blind
Shaw
Matic
Fellaini
Fred
Mata
Cavani (Bordline red. Him being a free transfer just about puts him over the line)
Red (Failures)
Lindelof (Slightly harsh. Might reconsider)
Martial (Performances are amber, but price tag just about brings him down)
Pogba (Performances are amber, but price tag and personality brings him down)
Maguire
Bailly
Rojo
Darmian
Dalot
Wan Bissaka
Telles
James
Schweinsteiger
Schneiderlin
Van De Beek
Sanchez
Depay
Amad
Di Maria
Mkhitaryan
Lukaku
________________________________
10% green
23.4% amber
66.6% red
Amad and VDB can still turn things around, but this is pretty awful stuff. I don't think I'm being overly strict either.
Green (successes)
Bruno
Zlatan
Herrera
Amber (OK, but should have done better)
Blind
Shaw
Matic
Fellaini
Fred
Mata
Cavani (Bordline red. Him being a free transfer just about puts him over the line)
Red (Failures)
Lindelof (Slightly harsh. Might reconsider)
Martial (Performances are amber, but price tag just about brings him down)
Pogba (Performances are amber, but price tag and personality brings him down)
Maguire
Bailly
Rojo
Darmian
Dalot
Wan Bissaka
Telles
James
Schweinsteiger
Schneiderlin
Van De Beek
Sanchez
Depay
Amad
Di Maria
Mkhitaryan
Lukaku
________________________________
10% green
23.4% amber
66.6% red
Amad and VDB can still turn things around, but this is pretty awful stuff. I don't think I'm being overly strict either.
If we're going on just performances it's pretty generous to put Maguire in the amber category when probably the majority of his good performances were in his first season. The club shipped 44 goals in his second season and 57 goals last season, both of which he was a mainstay in defence. Obviously that isn't entirely his fault and in my opinion he's hardly been any worse or better than most of our defenders but you can hardly call the signing a great success.
And unfortunately the transfer fee does impact on expectations. For 80 million ideally you're paying for a world class defender that makes a tremendous difference, not just an adequate/good defender at best. Similarly for 89 million I was expecting a lot more from Pogba than we actually got for 6 years.
Hopefully ten Hag gets Maguire playing at a good level as i still think there's a player there... or an 'amber' one at least!
Blind, ibra and herrera are green to me, blind was probably our best centre back since fergie retired, even vidic was on the slide under moyes.
Herrera and blind were done a disservice by managers especially mourinho who sold blind and then brought bailly and lindelof, he also snubbed herrera routinely for matic and fellaini in midfield.
Herrera and blind were done a disservice by managers especially mourinho who sold blind and then brought bailly and lindelof, he also snubbed herrera routinely for matic and fellaini in midfield.
When you look at it that way our recruitment has been horrendous for the past 10 years. Rangnick mentioned that a club needs to have at least 50% success rate with signings to progress.
On a separate note, Blind should be way higher that list. Considering his transfer fee and his performances for the club, he served us very well.
On a separate note, Blind should be way higher that list. Considering his transfer fee and his performances for the club, he served us very well.
Although there’s a couple that deserve to be in red and a couple who’ve been harshly put in red I think overall that is a disaster. Ibra’s 1st season was a success but meh after that and Bruno since he’s hero Ronaldo has come in he’s been shite.
So expensive signings on incredibly high wages should not be in red / amber because they won the mighty Europa League and League Cup?
Really doesn’t matter in a greater context.
We hardly called players like Hargreaves good signings after all and he actually contributed to our PL and CL winning season.
Really doesn’t matter in a greater context.
We hardly called players like Hargreaves good signings after all and he actually contributed to our PL and CL winning season.
is surely the only explanation.