Ratcliffe austerity?

Im not remotely surprised at this. Fans expecting us to continue buying big names for big fees are going to be very disappointed for a few years at least. Im expecting the summer to be pretty low key in terms of incomings.

Ineos I reckon will have no issue spending on youth and potential in favour of Casemiro type deals.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
How do you work that one out?
• Successful loan last season
• Injured until Christmas this year.
• Got 30+ minutes in a game directly after coming back from injury

Now if making a player wait a 8 weeks or so for more opportunities is “ruining their career” then I don’t know what to say really. Feels exactly the way Fergie would’ve eased in a young player.
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I was joking. He couldn’t really have been managed any better up to this point in hindsight. The Amad thread was full of conspiracy theory’s which drive me mad.
 
Rojofiam said:
It's just a pipe dream of mine right now, but if Bellingham wants to come to the Premier League one day, we'll probably be in pole position to sign him, if Ineos will have returned us to the elites by then. The guy's only turning 21 in a few months. I don't see him never playing in Premier League, and all we have to do is just be a top team by the time he leaves Madrid. 2028, maybe.
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Could very well be. He's very young and Madrid generally allow players to leave if they find the compensation adequate. Let's see if he fits into what we want at that time.
 
Rojofiam said:
I acknowledged it in this thread earlier that we cannot attract every generational talent right now. We couldn't even do that at our peak in the late 2000s.

What I was talking about is that Bellingham would very much have been a good signing for an initial fee of 88m, which is what Madrid paid to Dortmund, and even making him one of the highest earners in the Premier League would've been a good decision. If we want to emulate City's success and become one of the best sides in Europe again, we'll need these type of signings from time to time, where the player is just way more talented than the alternatives in his position, and the age is also optimal. Examples of the caliber of talent I'm talking about from the last few seasons: Haaland, Bellingham, Rice, Gvardiol, and there might be others that I don't remember right now, but every one of these four players were objectively most talented available options on the market in their respective positions.

Don't get me wrong: I'm all for developing our own youth prospects into first teamers and superstars, or unearthing unknown gems and developing them into 100 million player, but when a generational talent is available, I don't mind splashing the cash on them. Had we signed Rice for 105m this summer, or 2023, we would literally have a title winning midfield right now in Mainoo, Rice, and Fernandes. We would be set there and only have to worry about backups and competition in the middle of the pitch. As things stand, we're still looking for a #6 and we'll almost certainly have to settle for a worse option, than Rice.
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I think you're reading far too deeply into some off the cuff comments from Ratcliffe if you think we wouldn't be in for those types of players you have mentioned in future tbh mate.
 
Ali Dia said:
I was joking. He couldn’t really have been managed any better up to this point in hindsight. The Amad thread was full of conspiracy theory’s which drive me mad.
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Aye, and that’s also why EtH’s position bothers me so.
ETH already has the best record, by far, post Fergie for using the academy lads.
Ole brought through Greenwood as a mainstay in the first team, Mourinho had McTominay, but ETH already has both Garnacho & Mainoo as pretty cemented in his first team; and now Amad looks like he might be on the brink of a breakthrough also.

That’s exactly what we all want from a United manager, but the conundrum comes in the expectation that, in contrast to Ole, he would coach us to have much more control in games.
I really hope the return of Martinez and Shaw sees a Manchester United team that is much more dominant in possession and maintains more control in games. If we can see that, then I think we could possibly be building something here. The worry is that we’ll get players back and look equally clueless and where do we go from there? With blind faith, or another toss of the managerial dice? Because there doesn’t seem to be a “sure thing” manager out there for me.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
Aye, and that’s also why EtH’s position bothers me so.
ETH already has the best record, by far, post Fergie for using the academy lads.
Ole brought through Greenwood as a mainstay in the first team, Mourinho had McTominay, but ETH already has both Garnacho & Mainoo as pretty cemented in his first team; and now Amad looks like he might be on the brink of a breakthrough also.

That’s exactly what we all want from a United manager, but the conundrum comes in the expectation that, in contrast to Ole, he would coach us to have much more control in games.
I really hope the return of Martinez and Shaw sees a Manchester United team that is much more dominant in possession and maintains more control in games. If we can see that, then I think we could possibly be building something here. The worry is that we’ll get players back and look equally clueless and where do we go from there? With blind faith, or another toss of the managerial dice? Because there doesn’t seem to be a “sure thing” manager out there for me.
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I think they will give him and lots of the more talented people at the club another season to see how they react to working under a more efficient organisation. I include Murtough in that after his work setting up the youth system especially which seems to be thriving. All the noise at the moment is about English youth signings and that’s pretty exciting.

ETH can still get the players up for the toughest games so he hasn’t lost the dressing room. We are just lacking in rotation players who could become better than our starters and lastly we need to become a bit more ruthless on the pitch with our chances when we are putting teams under pressure. As a club we’ve lost that belief but it’s slowly coming back. That feeds into the performances and morale and workrate too. I think the Liverpool game has probably bought him the time to finish his team.
 
Karel Podolsky said:
That's West Ham, Newcastle level
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West Ham who won a European trophy last season and are currently 3 points behind us?
Newcastle who we only just pipped to 3rd last season and went toe-to-toe with PSG in the Champions League?

Both clubs have made some impressive recruitment over the past few seasons, with players being considered hits and more valuable. I'm not saying we would sign any of these players, but: Paqueta, Kudus, Bowen (West Ham), Guimaraes, Gordon, Trippier (Newcastle)... all decent players purchased for far less.

The main point being, that we've been guilty of putting 'all our eggs in one basket' with big purchases (i.e. Sancho, Antony) and for them to flop spectacularly. Then we're left with no money to correct the mistakes in future windows.

If we spread the funds around more players, yes, some will still flop, but we only need one of those players to be a hit. We would just need to be a club that is willing to shift on deadwood early for a change, which shouldn't be as difficult with recruited players on far more modest contracts.
 
van Nistelrooy said:
West Ham who won a European trophy last season and are currently 3 points behind us?
Newcastle who we only just pipped to 3rd last season and went toe-to-toe with PSG in the Champions League?
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Wow, the Conference league. Lets aspire to be like West Ham.

If we spread the funds around more players, yes, some will still flop, but we only need one of those players to be a hit. We would just need to be a club that is willing to shift on deadwood early for a change, which shouldn't be as difficult with recruited players on far more modest contracts.
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Or none of them become hits and we slide further down the table. Look at where Newcastle are right now. While we rightfully make digs at Howe, most of their fans are still behind him and blame the players for being a midtable team. Honestly I think only Bruno has been an actual good signing, and he's one of the first they're willing to offload this summer.
 
mu4c_20le said:
Wow, the Conference league. Lets aspire to be like West Ham.


Or none of them become hits and we slide further down the table. Look at where Newcastle are right now. While we rightfully make digs at Howe, most of their fans are still behind him and blame the players for being a midtable team. Honestly I think only Bruno has been an actual good signing, and he's one of the first they're willing to offload this summer.
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Was expecting Isaak to become a Haaland lite and he seems to he scoring but not at at clip is he ? Anthony Gordon is also perhaps showing a net possitive ?

Their team is realistically a mid table team though.

i hate how people refer to Sir Alex and his time in the club to justify 'austerity'. Sir Alex bought Veron, Cantona, RVP, RVN, Berbatov, Rio, Rooney, DDG. These were all known quantities either world beaters or obviously about to become world leaders.

If u want to be Man Utd u need leaders and quality - i agree with the statement u can't necessarily buy a squad (Real, City, Paris do it though) but yah i agree with your comment if we start collating Diallos and Malacias we are Southampton we're not United. I am really concerned about the principal statement for Jim
 
Theo88 said:
Was expecting Isaak to become a Haaland lite and he seems to he scoring but not at at clip is he ? Anthony Gordon is also perhaps showing a net possitive ?

Their team is realistically a mid table team though.

i hate how people refer to Sir Alex and his time in the club to justify 'austerity'. Sir Alex bought Veron, Cantona, RVP, RVN, Berbatov, Rio, Rooney, DDG. These were all known quantities either world beaters or obviously about to become world leaders.

If u want to be Man Utd u need leaders and quality - i agree with the statement u can't necessarily buy a squad (Real, City, Paris do it though) but yah i agree with your comment if we start collating Diallos and Malacias we are Southampton we're not United. I am really concerned about the principal statement for Jim
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Pretty sure he didn't list Isak because at 70-80m he wouldn't be considered austerity. But yeah, I agree that a better term would be 'shrewd', we just need to be wiser in the market and know what we are looking for. We shouldn't pass up on Rooneys when they come along, beause they were crucial to our successes.
 
Whether he’s fully truthful there or not, it’s the right play. We’ve been mugged off in the transfer market for far too long thanks to Woodward’s Disneyland.
 
JB7 said:
I think you're reading far too deeply into some off the cuff comments from Ratcliffe if you think we wouldn't be in for those types of players you have mentioned in future tbh mate.
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I do think we will be in for them.
 
mu4c_20le said:
Wow, the Conference league. Lets aspire to be like West Ham.
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Yet, on the last 3 occasions we've been in the Europa League, we've failed to win it. Then this season, we embarrassed ourselves in the Champions League by finishing bottom of a group we should have easily qualified from.

However, we're still just one place above little old West Ham with Moyes as their manager. We shouldn't "aspire" to be them. Maybe just look at how they are achieving similar levels to us with a fraction of our budget.
 
Even if there is a lot of money to spend it wouldn’t make sense to spend huge sums on 1 or 2 players, also have to face the reality that players like Bellingham and Mbappe are not going to join us anyway.

We need a lot of players so spending more sensible sums on young, hungry players who are on the way up is undoubtedly the way forward. Once number of players we need starts to reduce there will be more scope to spend higher sums on individuals, in a similar way to what Arsenal have done.
 
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Yakuza_devils said:
I prefer our academy player like Garnacho, Mainoo, Amad, Rashford, Greenwood and etc rise to become important players for the club. There are more satisfaction seeing them grow to be a superstar.

We are proud of our academy and this is a sensible way forward.
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I am with you. But if we solely rely on the academy and don't buy world class experienced players as well for the youngsters to look up to and learn from we will not be challenging for the Prem. And we would have to accept that.
 
Robertd0803 said:
Im not remotely surprised at this. Fans expecting us to continue buying big names for big fees are going to be very disappointed for a few years at least. Im expecting the summer to be pretty low key in terms of incomings.

Ineos I reckon will have no issue spending on youth and potential in favour of Casemiro type deals.
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The problem for me with the Ratcliffe way was always the money. With Rat we keep the Glazers' control of the purse strings while fans like me go starry eyed at the Ineos boss's Man Utd fandom. It is a smokescreen to the reality. I don't care he is British. I don't care he goes to games, although it is fantastic PR. I want to see the debt loaded on my club gone. And the Glazers he is effectively protecting out.
 
Calling this austerity is insulting.

We won’t be cutting budgets. We’ll be spending more money, more efficiently.

I can’t stand the planet-raping twat, but he’s very right headed on this. We’re at least 3-5 years away from attempting to buy the final piece(s) of the jigsaw for world record fees. It would be insane to spend a £100-150m budget on 1 player. We need to be getting in 3-4 players with that kind of money.

Yes it’s hard. But it’s not impossible. Arsenal may have spent dickloads on Rice and Havertz, and perhaps too much on Jesus, but Martinelli was under £10m, Saka was free, Zinchenko was £30m, White £50m, Saliba £25m, Raya £25m (paid next year), Odegaard £25m.

Arsenal have spent a fortune in a 3 year period, but they’ve signed so many players for that money.

We could debate the successes and failures, but they spent their money well before dropping £100m on Rice.
 
Red Comet said:
The problem is that any players we try to sign will come with inflated fees because we are Manchester United. We were quoted £50 million for Sean Longstaff who back then only looked promising; not exactly exploded into the scene a-la Rooney nor impressed like Mainoo.

Anthony was also supposed to be signed as a development player rather than the finished article; we were quoted (and paid) £80m when our own scouts were only valuing him at £20m.
Hoijlund is also supposed to be a development player and we have to pay £60m.

We paid in the region of £18 million for the likes of Amad Diallo and Dalot who were clearly coming in as hot prospects, and it took them a while before they would be ready for first team. During SAF years when we were constantly challenging and winning things fans are more open to the occasional involvement of these sort of players as rotational players. Nowadays we are so starved for success that we. demand near instant impact and this will put a lot of pressure on them to perform right away; which is not conducive to their development.
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Whilst I think you're correct, I also think we've give ourselves a label of dumb money across Europe.

Hopefully that image will quickly erode under the new leadership.
 
Its bizarre that some have read into this austerity rather than we're actually gonna return to identifying talent early and getting into the club to nurture it, rather than pouring more money down the drain like we have been for the past 10 or so years.
 
BAMSOLA said:
Its bizarre that some have read into this austerity rather than we're actually gonna return to identifying talent early and getting into the club to nurture it, rather than pouring more money down the drain like we have been for the past 10 or so years.
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We'll still spend a shit-ton, Ineos will just try to spend it the smart way instead of what's happened in the last 11 years. I wouldn't be surprised if we spent even more under the new (co-)owners, to be honest, until the upcoming squad rebuild is complete.
 
sixdwarf said:
Sir Jim Ratcliffe has said Man Utd will not be trying to land superstar signings such as Jude Bellingham or Kylian Mbappé.
The Ineos chairman, who has taken control of United’s footballing operations after his minority shareholding purchase wants to turn them back into the force we once were. But he does not believe spending big on marquee signings the way to prosper.

Appearing as a guest on the Geraint Thomas Cycling Club podcast, he was asked whether he would try to sign Bellingham. He replied: “He is a great footballer. It’s not where our focus is; the solution isn’t spending a lot of money on a couple of great players.

“They have done that, if you look at the last 10 years, they have spent a lot of money on a couple of great players. The first thing we need to do is get the right people in the right boxes who are managing and organising the club. And make sure we get recruitment right, it is such a vital part of football today.”

United have spent more than £1bn on signings since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013 but have failed to challenge for the Premier League title, coming closest when finishing 12 points behind Man City in 2020/21 under Ole.

"I'd rather find the next Mbappe than spend a fortune trying to buy success,," he said. "It's not that clever, is it, buying Mbappe, in a way?
"Anyone could figure that one out. Much more challenging is to find the next Mbappe or Jude Bellingham or the next Roy Keane."

This for me this is code for we won't have money to spend. When we were at our best we sprinkled stardust amidst the young up coming players.
This does not sound like a blueprint for a future title challenge.
What do you think?
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He literally said that a billion was wasted on shit and we're not doing things that way.

No need for the over analysis is there. He's not wrong
 
USREDEVIL said:
It is.
If people are moaning about what he said, i hope they aren't the same people moaning previously that we paid too much for the likes of Antony, Onana, Sancho et al.
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Arsenal paid £3m to test Raya for a season. He’s not as good as Onana. But he’s going to cost about 50-60% less, plus they get to test him for a year, with a great Number 2 as a safety net. That’s what we need to do. Not be the dumb money on the end of every deal. It’s not magic. It’s humility and sensibility.
 
UnrelatedPsuedo said:
Arsenal paid £3m to test Raya for a season. He’s not as good as Onana. But he’s going to cost about 50-60% less, plus they get to test him for a year, with a great Number 2 as a safety net. That’s what we need to do. Not be the dumb money on the end of every deal. It’s not magic. It’s humility and sensibility.
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No matter how many times Onana's name is thrown into the list of players a lot of you think we overpaid for, it still won't be the truth.
 
Rojofiam said:
No matter how many times Onana's name is thrown into the list of players a lot of you think we overpaid for, it still won't be the truth.
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Jesus Christ mate. I’ve literally said he’s better than the fella in Nets for the team that’s top of the league.

I’m saying that Arsenal paying £3m to test him for a year, then paying £25m ON THEIR TERMS… is better value than paying £40m+ for an unproven keeper like Onana.

That point is unfeckwithable. Grow up.

Yes Onana is better. But out business isn’t.
 
UnrelatedPsuedo said:
Jesus Christ mate. I’ve literally said he’s better than the fella in Nets for the team that’s top of the league.

I’m saying that Arsenal paying £3m to test him for a year, then paying £25m ON THEIR TERMS… is better value than paying £40m+ for an unproven keeper like Onana.

That point is unfeckwithable. Grow up.

Yes Onana is better. But out business isn’t.
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I agree that the Raya deal was a masterclass for Arsenal, but that doesn't mean that the Onana deal wasn't a good one, just worse value, but still a good deal, because Onana was far from being an "unproven keeper", like you claim, unless you don't follow the football world outside the Premier League.
 
Rojofiam said:
If you think 44 million was too much for a keeper like Onana, I wonder how much the fair price would've been in your opinion?
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His price wasn't too bad to be honest, compared to the likes of Antony. But for $50m euros i would expect a better shot stopper. However, in the last few weeks he's been quite good. I'm hoping he will prove to be a good buy in the long run.
 
Ali Dia said:
He almost ruined Amads career!
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I know he scored a great goal at the weekend but he's yet to show he's a keeper, let's face it. Maybe he will (in which case ETH can have the credit)
 
USREDEVIL said:
His price wasn't too bad to be honest, compared to the likes of Antony. But for $50m euros i would expect a better shot stopper. However, in the last few weeks he's been quite good. I'm hoping he will prove to be a good buy in the long run.
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I feel like he's been good all season other than the 6 CL games, where he had some atrocious howlers.

His reputation before United was also way higher than I think a lot of people realize, because my impression has been that people believe we signed some unknown dud just because ten Hag worked with him in the past.
 
sixdwarf said:
I agree we spent a lot but not on Galacticos. And a big part of me thinks it is the perfect austerity pitch. Glazers hide in the background during while out spend diminishes.
I agree we have to be way more savvy with our spend. And am all for finding young jewels. But that shouldn't be at the expense of spending less. The danger is we end up like the English Ajax.
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If by this you mean selling players to the richest teams (rather than winning loads domestically) I do think that will happen but there’s no reason you can’t be successful and make huge money developing and then selling players. Look at Garnacho and the RM rumours, whilst they don’t seem to be genuine right now, I have no doubt that is his dream club given his background. There’s no issue with that. But we need to sell well. If it’s a one off talent like Ronaldo then you keep them but Garnacho isn’t close to that level, so you develop him, PR the shit out of him and then rinse Real’s wallet until the moths fly out.
 
Rojofiam said:
I agree that the Raya deal was a masterclass for Arsenal, but that doesn't mean that the Onana deal wasn't a good one, just worse value, but still a good deal, because Onana was far from being an "unproven keeper", like you claim, unless you don't follow the football world outside the Premier League.
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Read it again pal. Both posts. Onana was unproven in the league. The fella went to a CL final but that doesn’t always translate well for keepers. I wasn’t hating on him. At all.

We are literally in the same side of Onana being class. And Raya being great business. No idea what got your back up.
 
UnrelatedPsuedo said:
Read it again pal. Both posts. Onana was unproven in the league. The fella went to a CL final but that doesn’t always translate well for keepers. I wasn’t hating on him. At all.

We are literally in the same side of Onana being class. And Raya being great business. No idea what got your back up.
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Onana wasn't dumb money either, that's my point. Raya was better value, but that doesn't make Onana's fee bad business, just worse value. You literally said "dumb money"
 
Rojofiam said:
Onana wasn't dumb money either, that's my point. Raya was better value, but that doesn't make Onana's fee bad business, just worse value. You literally said "dumb money"
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Jesus Christ lad. Read it all. There’s context.

- United are unequivocally the dumb money on the end of every deal.
- We pay too much, when we’re not competing with anyone for signatures.

Nobody else was offering the money for Onana that we were.

Are you honestly suggesting that paying £44m for a player new to the league, is a better bet than a £3m loan fee for a PL proven keeper that’s among the best in the league for everything we’re looking for?

It was a fecking insane decision and was dumb. It’s endemic in our club. We had no canny people doing smart things. That’s dumb money.

To close… I think Onana is a better keeper that Raya. But he’s paid 5x more. We paid £41m more to find out if he’d work here. He had AFCON commitments (admittedly we MAY not have know ). And… Arsenal are comfortably in the top 3 for a £3m outlay. His signing was not bad. He’s a great keeper. But it was properly nutty to spend £44m instead of £3m + a potential £27m to secure a ballplaying keeper.

You’ll be proven 100% correct if he stays for a decade and we win a PL/CL. But a team better ran than us, solved the problem cheaper. That’s evidence of being dumb.

It’s rammed home by the fact that he’s an EtH guy. If the new manager doesn’t rate him or want what he has… he’s Kepa, or any of the other keepers Chelsea have doubled a small fortune on.

Honestly, two things can be true at the same time. He is brilliant. But it wasn’t a smart way to fill that position, considering the state we are in.
 
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