The perennial struggle to sell

croadyman said:
This summer feels like the perennial struggle to both buy and sell due to takeover farce
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Doesn't help that the players we are wanting to shift are on contracts that they will never see again. They know they can stick it out and likely face another manager merry-go-round and be taken into consideration once again. We've entirely created this situation from our own mismanagement.
 
groovyalbert said:
Doesn't help that the players we are wanting to shift are on contracts that they will never see again. They know they can stick it out and likely face another manager merry-go-round and be taken into consideration once again. We've entirely created this situation from our own mismanagement.
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Oh yeah without doubt this is on us paying players far too much and are now suffering consequences
 
Josep Dowling said:
So you think a players wages should be doubled because he joined us? He’s in his early 20s and achieved nothing in his career. Paying nearly £400k per week I’d expect De Bruyne levels of consistency.
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Nice strawman. This is clearly not what KP was saying. They were responding to your comment that £150-200k per week would have been enough to get him, which it wouldn't have.

He was also the most productive player of his age group in Europe (more direct goal involvements than Mbappe) when we signed him so I wouldn't exactly call him some unproven, unknown kid who should be happy to take a pay cut to join us.
 
Can someone poke holes at my estimates based off whatever the credible ish journalists have said?

Fred: 20 to Fulham
Henderson: 25 to Forrest
^ figures leaked to be our magic number and hopefully the clubs will meet it.

If Fred goes, mct won't be sold unless we have the cover. I'm unsure if Mount/Caceido warrant it so il assume he stays if Fred goes.

VDB - no figures or interested parties but I'm guesstimating 15m.

Hannibal - might well be fair game after Zidane got the chop. 15m whispers.

Telles + Baily - 7m? Ha we'd be lucky for double digits.

We've had credible outlets saying our budget is 100-150m.

If we assume a top end of that and consider 80m in player sales that's 200-230m.

Onana, caceido, a CB, Hojlund should be doable in this, but the second striker will be the difficult part.

It may come down to structuring Onana and Hojlund in a lot more staggered terms and submitting to Brighton on unfavourable Caceido installments (or to Chelsea on Mount installments) but the play is doable.

Murtough and Arnold need to be quick and ruthless though.
 
Newtonius said:
We simply have a glaring lack of quality in the squad on reasonable wages.

Clubs have to want the player, be able to afford the fee, and ultimately be able to afford the wages to sttract them. Lukaku to Inter for instance. That same demand just isn't there.

I mean who is stupid enough to pay the £30m+ it would take + the wages for Maguire. Would have to be someone like Chelsea and hes just not good enough.
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I used to think this, but it just doesn’t make sense over the length of time we have failed to sell and the number of players we have failed to sell.

Getting less than we should because of wages? Sure, that would make sense, but we just don’t sell.

At this point we have to be actively preventing sales and that comes from the Glazers.
 
VP89 said:
Can someone poke holes at my estimates based off whatever the credible ish journalists have said?

Fred: 20 to Fulham
Henderson: 25 to Forrest
^ figures leaked to be our magic number and hopefully the clubs will meet it.

If Fred goes, mct won't be sold unless we have the cover. I'm unsure if Mount/Caceido warrant it so il assume he stays if Fred goes.

VDB - no figures or interested parties but I'm guesstimating 15m.

Hannibal - might well be fair game after Zidane got the chop. 15m whispers.

Telles + Baily - 7m? Ha we'd be lucky for double digits.

We've had credible outlets saying our budget is 100-150m.

If we assume a top end of that and consider 80m in player sales that's 200-230m.

Onana, caceido, a CB, Hojlund should be doable in this, but the second striker will be the difficult part.

It may come down to structuring Onana and Hojlund in a lot more staggered terms and submitting to Brighton on unfavourable Caceido installments (or to Chelsea on Mount installments) but the play is doable.

Murtough and Arnold need to be quick and ruthless though.
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Sure.

1. We are owned by the Glazers and they have final say on sales;

2. Zidane = £1m;

3.We are owned by the Glazers and they have final say on sales.

Accordingly, none of those sales will happen.
 
McTerminator said:
I used to think this, but it just doesn’t make sense over the length of time we have failed to sell and the number of players we have failed to sell.

Getting less than we should because of wages? Sure, that would make sense, but we just don’t sell.

At this point we have to be actively preventing sales and that comes from the Glazers.
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Its actually been a problem even during Sir Alex years. We were winning and had a good team so no one cared but it was an issue. Beckham should have have beena wolrd record transfer. Stam, Ruud etc were all sold with bad prices
 
The wages we pay after buying players is our biggest stumbling block. Antony for example, was reportedly on £20k a week, so why give him £200k a week? Offer him £80k a week which is a phenominal rise and an extensive add ons for wins goals scored assists etc.
Another example Maguire was on £40k and we also increased his to £200k. Why not £100k and add ons?
This should have been done with all players we sign. Increase it by say £50/60k a week at the start and if they are a success, then increase on next contract and its still not breaking a wage ceiling. Now Rashford who is already on £200k will probably be paid £300k+ and consequently all the good players not on that already will want the same.
Its also obviously easier to sell a player on lower base salary than it is on an high one. What if Maguire turns down a move and decides £200k a week to sit on the bench suits him? What if Bailley £80k and Telles £93k do as well? None of them are going to get that elsewhere.
 
MancFanFromManc said:
And didnt they pay in installments? I also recall some stat about them making the money back in shirt sales almost immediately

People used to say that the "only way is down" after leaving United, but that's just not the case. A good player, is a good player. Maguire would do a top job in Italy (or in any team that defends deep for that matter). Martial with his pace and skill should be attracting attention. Sancho bags of potential. Fred has had a top season, the list goes on.

The bottom line is that other clubs see United as a bottomless pit who will pay over the odds and sell cheap. No idea how you change that perception without several years of missing out on all the best players?!?
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Wasnt there a piece in the papers saying RM were rubbing their hands with glee and laughing over Beckham saying they would have paid double.
 
Yep - the salaries are what destroy us everytime. Who in earth thought that DDG should have been on £325k a week? Martial on £250k? Sancho on £250k?

Surely we should have been loading up these deals with big rewards based on success/achievements.

We can’t unload easily, our spend is now restricted by FFP because of these enormous salaries of players that we don't want/need.
 
acolyte said:
Nice strawman. This is clearly not what KP was saying. They were responding to your comment that £150-200k per week would have been enough to get him, which it wouldn't have.

He was also the most productive player of his age group in Europe (more direct goal involvements than Mbappe) when we signed him so I wouldn't exactly call him some unproven, unknown kid who should be happy to take a pay cut to join us.
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I think you’re missing my point. If he’s on £190k per week there is no way we needed to offer him £375k to sign him. If the contract needed to be that high we should have walked away as he really came for money in my opinion. You can’t give young players everything in one go because they think they have made it. It’s arguable we do that to all our youngsters which is why they never hit the height of expectation. Why bother when you’re earning double what you would for any other club in the world.
 
We do give high wages, but I doubt we make it clear to players that they should leave. Like in Maguire case who has two years left, if we have told him that he won't play again for two years and he will rot in the reserves he would probably try to leave.

We also lack strategy. When a new manager comes we hear about how the manager wants to give all the players a chance etc. No. Just no. Maguire, Martial, etc should have been sold long time ago and without any consultation from ETH (this is happening the last 10 years).
 
wolvored said:
The wages we pay after buying players is our biggest stumbling block. Antony for example, was reportedly on £20k a week, so why give him £200k a week? Offer him £80k a week which is a phenominal rise and an extensive add ons for wins goals scored assists etc.
Another example Maguire was on £40k and we also increased his to £200k. Why not £100k and add ons?
This should have been done with all players we sign. Increase it by say £50/60k a week at the start and if they are a success, then increase on next contract and its still not breaking a wage ceiling. Now Rashford who is already on £200k will probably be paid £300k+ and consequently all the good players not on that already will want the same.
Its also obviously easier to sell a player on lower base salary than it is on an high one. What if Maguire turns down a move and decides £200k a week to sit on the bench suits him? What if Bailley £80k and Telles £93k do as well? None of them are going to get that elsewhere.
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What you are suggesting will lead to squad disharmony. Imagine Antony earning 80k and performing well but someone like Martial, Sancho etc earn 200k without contributing as much. How would Antony feel in this situation? The only way to fix this problem is by creating a squad from scratch and setting a proper pay scale. There is no way to do this, if Rashford gets his new deal every top player in the squad is going to demand parity or close to parity.
 
McTerminator said:
Sure.

1. We are owned by the Glazers and they have final say on sales;

2. Zidane = £1m;

3.We are owned by the Glazers and they have final say on sales.

Accordingly, none of those sales will happen.
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1 and 3 are pretty irrelevant in our current situation.
 
redIndianDevil said:
What you are suggesting will lead to squad disharmony. Imagine Antony earning 80k and performing well but someone like Martial, Sancho etc earn 200k without contributing as much. How would Antony feel in this situation? The only way to fix this problem is by creating a squad from scratch and setting a proper pay scale. There is no way to do this, if Rashford gets his new deal every top player in the squad is going to demand parity or close to parity.
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Yes sadly thats the case. This should have been put into place when the highest player was on about 100k as it would have been easier to implemen over the seasonst and a gradual capped increase over the seasons. They would have to cap it at 350/400k a week now top end and now to make any difference in future on a performance scale, playing time, assists goals etc. Very hard to do, but if we want to shift players on, when the only clubs interested wont pay those salaries, is a right nightmare.
 
Unfortunately this has been something we've always struggled with, even under Fergie.

Our highest sale amount was Beckham if I remember correctly, that was 20 bloody years ago.

Hopefully once this whole sale debacle is over, whoever is in charge appoints a smart individual who can shift all the trash in the squad for reasonable amounts akin to that of Chelsea and City's fringe/youth players that essentially funds their premier signings
 
The club will get priced out of moves for better players and will price others out of moves for our deadwood. Classic formula for a bang average squad.
 
RedStarUnited said:
Its actually been a problem even during Sir Alex years. We were winning and had a good team so no one cared but it was an issue. Beckham should have have beena wolrd record transfer. Stam, Ruud etc were all sold with bad prices
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Exactly, the only consistent factor is the Glazers.

VP89 said:
1 and 3 are pretty irrelevant in our current situation.
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As above, our circumstances have changed massively over the last 20 years. The only constants have been the Glazers and our inability to sell players, so I disagree.
 
McTerminator said:
Exactly, the only consistent factor is the Glazers.



As above, our circumstances have changed massively over the last 20 years. The only constants have been the Glazers and our inability to sell players, so I disagree.
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The constant has also been the Glazers staying, but this summer that's not the case.

They're more than likely selling and the final say on sales makes feck all difference to them now.
 
Honestly, the failure to sell pisses me off so much. 1m for Iqbal jesus christ.

The Mount situation as well. He's an upgrade on Fred, so it wouldn't actually be a bad thing to bring him in for 70m IF we could sell Fred for 30-40 m.

But do we have the nous to sell Fred for a decent price? Do we feck.
 
spiriticon said:
Honestly, the failure to sell pisses me off so much. 1m for Iqbal jesus christ.

The Mount situation as well. He's an upgrade on Fred, so it wouldn't actually be a bad thing to bring him in for 70m IF we could sell Fred for 30-40 m.

But do we have the nous to sell Fred for a decent price? Do we feck.
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Is it really about nous that nobody will pay 40 million quid for Fred? I don't think it is.

I think some overestimating of the viability of selling some of our players for the values people expect is going on in this thread. A selling transaction is not rocket science that requires miraculous powers of persuasion by us. It comes down to the appeal of our players and the interest they gather from other clubs. That's where the problem lies. That appeal is low for many reasons. We can't just produce a high bidder for Fred or any bidder for Anthony Martial. At that point it's nothing to do with our skill, it's about selling a lemon. You need an interested party or ideally parties to drive a price up.

The answer is...stop buying rubbish players. If you want sell on value , price that into the overall strategy. An alternate option is...address the wage structure from top to bottom so the economics of a sale actually work. That's a long term project.
 
Abraxas said:
Is it really about nous that nobody will pay 40 million quid for Fred? I don't think it is.

I think some overestimating of the viability of selling some of our players for the values people expect is going on in this thread. A selling transaction is not rocket science that requires miraculous powers of persuasion by us. It comes down to the appeal of our players and the interest they gather from other clubs. That's where the problem lies. That appeal is low for many reasons. We can't just produce a high bidder for Fred or any bidder for Anthony Martial. At that point it's nothing to do with our skill, it's about selling a lemon. You need an interested party or ideally parties to drive a price up.

The answer is...stop buying rubbish players. If you want sell on value , price that into the overall strategy. An alternate option is...address the wage structure from top to bottom so the economics of a sale actually work. That's a long term project.
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While I agree with you that we need to stop buying bang average players for big money (we just simply can't help ourselves when it comes to overpaying), I do think some nous helps.

Maybe the negative press on all our players doesn't help, but I don't think they are so crap that they are unsellable. Maybe 40 million for Fred is too much, but's there's not even a 20 million bid for us to consider. How can it be? Chelsea seem to have no problems getting rid of Havertz and Abraham for decent money.
 
spiriticon said:
Honestly, the failure to sell pisses me off so much. 1m for Iqbal jesus christ.

The Mount situation as well. He's an upgrade on Fred, so it wouldn't actually be a bad thing to bring him in for 70m IF we could sell Fred for 30-40 m.

But do we have the nous to sell Fred for a decent price? Do we feck.
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I’m curious why 1m for a player who is rated higher in the eyes of fans (based on one preseason) than management is the thing that pisses you off? He wasn’t anywhere near being top dog in the reserve levels and we can’t get silly prices for all reserves
 
golden_blunder said:
I’m curious why 1m for a player who is rated higher in the eyes of fans (based on one preseason) than management is the thing that pisses you off? He wasn’t anywhere near being top dog in the reserve levels and we can’t get silly prices for all reserves
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Because he's a very young talent and people usually pay more for potential? I don't mind selling him if we deem him not good enough, but we should be able to eke out 5 or 10 million really if we tried harder. If it were Chelsea he's be gone for 20 million+ probably. We are not extracting the maximum from the deal.

There has to be a strategy here. If we buy at a price, we need to be confident that we can recoup some of that fee if the transfer doesn't turn out well. For the last few years, it's been us buying at sky high prices and sell low, or even worse, release on a free.

It's just not a great strategy and every year we do this, our negotiating power in the market diminishes. People take us for mugs, if they don't already do so.
 
spiriticon said:
Because he's a very young talent and people usually pay more for potential? I don't mind selling him if we deem him not good enough, but we should be able to eke out 5 or 10 million really if we tried harder. We are not extracting the maximum from the deal.

There has to be a strategy here. If we buy at a price, we need to be confident that we can recoup some of that fee if the transfer doesn't turn out well. For the last few years, it's been us buying at sky high prices and sell low, or even worse, release on a free.

It's just not a great strategy and every year we do this, our negotiating power in the market diminishes. People take us for mugs, if they don't already do so.
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People over estimate how much young reserves are generally sold for. Just because Liverpool once fleeced Bournemouth it doesn’t mean that was the normal market working. Generally they are sold for smallish amounts especially when they have had limited first team experiences

Additionally I know that United since Fergies time have never deliberately overpriced young players so that they have a better chance at finding a club.
 
Solius said:
Beckham to Real Madrid for £25m in 2003 is still our fourth highest sale ever.
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Which world class players have we ever sold really? Beckham Ruud Ronadlo all to Real and apart from Barca and Bayern the only obvious step up in terms of wages and prestige from us. It’s a really small market. Ince to inter? Stam was a great player. lukaku in terms of the fee. The rest of the time the lads are on really big money and are about to majorly step down in class. None of the rest ever really panned out to be anything special again either. Phil Neville, Andreas, Adnan, Micheal Keane, Henderson are all decent players but nothing special. I would say the low fees we receive for the majority our players are about right. I still don’t understand why we didn’t sell Lingard for 15/20 million when he was on form. It’s just a poor state of affairs from an operational perspective. It was the most obvious thing in the world. Same with Henderson for 40 million or whatever it was going to be.
 
golden_blunder said:
I’m curious why 1m for a player who is rated higher in the eyes of fans (based on one preseason) than management is the thing that pisses you off? He wasn’t anywhere near being top dog in the reserve levels and we can’t get silly prices for all reserves
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Because other clubs are selling players for anything from £6-20+million.

We are practically giving ours away for nothing, or let them run their contracts down and leave for literally nothing.

One of the reasons Chelsea, City and even Liverpool have a better budget is because they sell their unwanted and youth players for good amounts.

Youth systems are a core entity of modern clubs for income, not every signing will break into the first team but can and will have decent careers elsewhere, we unfortunately are treated like mugs by other clubs looking for younger, development talent and smile when we are.

Chelsea made over 200 million since 2015 from selling youth players who weren't good enough for the senior team alone.

City sold a handful of youth players who haven't played a minute of first team football for over 60 million plus addons just last year.

Hell, Liverpool sold Ryan Brewster, who scored 0 goals, for 20-25 million.

We are a clown show.
 
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golden_blunder said:
I’m curious why 1m for a player who is rated higher in the eyes of fans (based on one preseason) than management is the thing that pisses you off? He wasn’t anywhere near being top dog in the reserve levels and we can’t get silly prices for all reserves
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Check how much rivals sell the same talents for and look at how budget restricted we are.
 
JustCoco said:
Because other clubs are selling players for anything from £6-20+million.

We are practically giving ours away for nothing, or let them run their contracts down and leave for literally nothing.

One of the reasons Chelsea, City and even Liverpool have a better budget is because they sell their unwanted and youth players for good amounts.

Youth systems are a core entity of modern clubs for income, not every signing will break into the first team but can and will have decent careers elsewhere, we unfortunately are treated like mugs by other clubs looking for younger, development talent and smile when we are.

Chelsea made over 200 million since 2015 from selling youth players who weren't good enough for the senior team alone.

City sold a handful of youth players who haven't played a minute of first team football for over 60 million plus addons just last year.

Hell, Liverpool sold Ryan Brewster, who scored 0 goals, for 20-25 million.

We are a clown show.
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It doesn't just Hurt our budget but makes the club look an easy target in general to negotiating with.
 
RedStarUnited said:
Why does it feel like every year we struggle to sell players? I constantly see that its because of wages, but I dont believe United players oaverage are getting paid anymore than their Chelsea counterparts for example.

Jadon Sancho is a year younger than Havertz, has similar stats to him despite not being a starter for us. I cant see a world were we could sell him for anything close to 50 million, yet Chelsea just agreed a deal for 65m to sell Havertz.

Maguire pretty much spent a year on the bench. And still has no real offers to leave us. Even if you can accept he is shite, this is still an England regular in a time when England are actually doing relatively well.

I imagine if we decided to sell Rashford this summer, we wouldn't get anywhere near the amount other teams would. And this is a Rashford who is young and has had the best season of his life.

I cant quite put my finger on it. Maybe all the players that we have are so happy being at United they tell their agents not to bother speaking to anyone.
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You buy in for big money on hefty contracts and they are unfortunately not top notch players that other clubs think are value for money , case in point Maguire is on decent money but clearly not good enough for a top team , Phil Jones has been at OT for ten years and not been shifted. Or the club is not ruthless enough anymore to bin them off if they are not good enough.Ferguson let Pogba go yet you foolishly bought him back for 89 million doesn’t make sense
 
spiriticon said:
Because he's a very young talent and people usually pay more for potential? I don't mind selling him if we deem him not good enough, but we should be able to eke out 5 or 10 million really if we tried harder. If it were Chelsea he's be gone for 20 million+ probably. We are not extracting the maximum from the deal.

There has to be a strategy here. If we buy at a price, we need to be confident that we can recoup some of that fee if the transfer doesn't turn out well. For the last few years, it's been us buying at sky high prices and sell low, or even worse, release on a free.

It's just not a great strategy and every year we do this, our negotiating power in the market diminishes. People take us for mugs, if they don't already do so.
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He’s 20, not very young. Simply being 20 years old doesn’t make you worth millions.

Talent? He doesn’t possess an exceptional amount.

If it was Chelsea? Don’t be ridiculous, he’d have been released at 14 for being nowhere near their level.

Iqbal’s pedigree consists of:
Consistently failing to make match day squads for the u18s as a first year.
Not being a key figure as a second year in the u18s
Failing to make a single appearance in the FA Youth Cup.
Regularly dropped for the big u18s matches.
Despite being the oldest age group in the UYL he still couldnt hold down a spot.
Had to be played out of position for the u23s because he wasn’t good enough to earn it in his favoured role.
When given the opportunity to play in his favoured role he shrinked away with average at best performances and didn’t remotely stand out for one of the worst u21s sides in the country.
Never received a single invitation to an England youth camp.
Had one decent pre-season performance which was played at a walking pace.
Struggles to be involved for bloody Iraq.
Is one of the slowest and weakest footballers ever.
Went for work experience at Preston and the manager said he wasn’t ready for the Championship.
Given 0 minutes by Ten Hag.


What on that lists screams £10m?

How much do you think Charlie Savage is worth? Charlie McCann went for just under a million too. Another average youth player the level of Iqbal. Or Martin Svidersky, or Callum Whelan. Average youth players aren’t worth much.
 
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Lee565 said:
It doesn't just Hurt our budget but makes the club look an easy target in general to negotiating with.
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Well exactly and it clogs up the stream to first team for our youth.

We sold Gardner - a first team quality player who really should have been on the bench and getting eased into the senior squad - because our squad was to big, but our squad is too big because we won't sell.

Our solution? we finally sell someone and it's him instead of people he should be replacing.

Whole club is backwards, These are high, elite businessmen and it boggles my mind.

If I worked in a shop and I was told I need to get rid of stock, so sold a new model of phone in the back for £50, instead of selling the old Nokias we've had on shelves for months or years for a fiver, I'd get strung up and spitroasted by management.
 
limerickcitykid said:
He’s 20, not very young. Simply being 20 years old doesn’t make you worth millions.

Talent? He doesn’t possess an exceptional amount.

If it was Chelsea? Don’t be ridiculous, he’d have been released at 14 for being nowhere near their level.

Iqbal’s pedigree consists of:
Consistently failing to make match day squads for the u18s as a first year.
Not being a key figure as a second year in the u18s
Failing to make a single appearance in the FA Youth Cup.
Regularly dropped for the big u18s matches.
Despite being the oldest age group in the UYL he still couldnt hold down a spot.
Had to be played out of position for the u23s because he wasn’t good enough to earn it in his favoured role.
When given the opportunity to play in his favoured role he shrinked away with average at best performances and didn’t remotely stand out for one of the worst u21s sides in the country.
Never received a single invitation to an England youth camp.
Had one decent pre-season performance which was played at a walking pace.
Struggles to be involved for bloody Iraq.
Is one of the slowest and weakest footballers ever.
Went for work experience at Preston and the manager said he wasn’t ready for the Championship.
Given 0 minutes by Ten Hag.


What on that lists screams £10m?

How much do you think Charlie Savage is worth? Charlie McCann went for just under a million too. Another average youth player the level of Iqbal. Or Martin Svidersky, or Callum Whelan. Average youth players aren’t worth much.
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Tough but fair.
 
limerickcitykid said:
He’s 20, not very young. Simply being 20 years old doesn’t make you worth millions.

Talent? He doesn’t possess an exceptional amount.

If it was Chelsea? Don’t be ridiculous, he’d have been released at 14 for being nowhere near their level.

Iqbal’s pedigree consists of:
Consistently failing to make match day squads for the u18s as a first year.
Not being a key figure as a second year in the u18s
Failing to make a single appearance in the FA Youth Cup.
Regularly dropped for the big u18s matches.
Despite being the oldest age group in the UYL he still couldnt hold down a spot.
Had to be played out of position for the u23s because he wasn’t good enough to earn it in his favoured role.
When given the opportunity to play in his favoured role he shrinked away with average at best performances and didn’t remotely stand out for one of the worst u21s sides in the country.
Never received a single invitation to an England youth camp.
Had one decent pre-season performance which was played at a walking pace.
Struggles to be involved for bloody Iraq.
Is one of the slowest and weakest footballers ever.
Went for work experience at Preston and the manager said he wasn’t ready for the Championship.
Given 0 minutes by Ten Hag.


What on that lists screams £10m?

How much do you think Charlie Savage is worth? Charlie McCann went for just under a million too. Another average youth player the level of Iqbal. Or Martin Svidersky, or Callum Whelan. Average youth players aren’t worth much.
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Which talents have we sold for a decent fee?
 
We do continually buy poor players. If Zidane Iqbal was rated we'd have clubs bidding 2, 3 or 5 million. There's hundreds of clubs looking for talent to play and sell on. Clubs are not ignoring buying talent because it's United, at least not in this case, this is the market responding again.

We have many lightweight players that seem to struggle stepping into the senior level.

If Fred was worth 30-40 million a club would be on it if the bidding was as low a 15-20m and the price would quickly move up. Fact is we vastly overpaid for him regardless of his Brazil status. A 25-30m player is now much older and worth 15-20.

Blind and Lukaku were still good and had value.

We buy poor, keep the few good ones too long, as well as paying too high wages and other factors. Ultimately the market responds.

We could've got some money for Rojo, Romero, Darmian but the club overvalued poor players. Sometimes you have sell at what the market wants. Every little counts and we've let slip 10s of millions, plus paying wages for useless players.

If some of our players get sold and do well we can sell more and recycle our team better. Our club seems to want a silly fee because we get quoted silly fees but the answer isn't hording crap. You can also build relations, if we don't sell and act like Rojo is worth this much then we get the same back when we buy. We have to grow our reputation to at least being able offload serviceable players. Players either leave vastly underdeveloped, or broken and then no use.

We've took this family club mantra to new level of accommodating, hording all kinds of rubbish. Under Fergie we'd get shut of players of no use or not at the required level.
 
The worrying thing is how do we improve our ability to sell when it's been a problem like people say since the Fergie days
 
donrogersmoustache said:
You buy in for big money on hefty contracts and they are unfortunately not top notch players that other clubs think are value for money , case in point Maguire is on decent money but clearly not good enough for a top team , Phil Jones has been at OT for ten years and not been shifted. Or the club is not ruthless enough anymore to bin them off if they are not good enough.Ferguson let Pogba go yet you foolishly bought him back for 89 million doesn’t make sense
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Phil Jones was released this summer by the way but I get your general point.
 
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