During the window, the excuse will be, "there were not suitable players available".
Once the window closes, "there are many players interested in joining MUFC".
The crazy thing is that some fans actually what Woodward and Ole say.
The truth is that they are on a tight budget and they can't spend huge amounts of money.
Last Summer our net spend was around £70M. This Summer it was around £65M. This suggests that yearly spend is around the £70M mark.
And for those who still believe that we will be buy in January: take note that we generally don't spend in January (we bought Mata when Moyes was here and we were desperate and Sanchez, when he was available for a low transfer fee).
The crazy thing is that some fans go with what makes sense to you without checking all that much, and making up facts as you go.
As someone who enjoys financial statements, from both MUFC and in general, I can tell you that that statement is utter bolony. The club has cash to spend. It does however not have oil owners who are happy to invest money into the club at no interest.
I mean, sure, we're on a budget, the same way Manchester City or Chelsea are on a budget. Ie. we're complaint with FFP. I think you're making the assumption that bidding £80m for a player means we pay £80m right away. That is almost never the case. Large cash deals are more often than not settled in installments so the annual spend is less than the total sum. (Almost all, not all deals are constructed this way. When Griezman joined Barcelona, Barca had to take up a bank loan to cough up the whole sum on the spot, to name one example).
In fact, we have quite the balance outstanding on previous transfers that's still being paid off. Fortunately the club is run by people who are extremely competent, who have managed the task of paying the clubs debt interest, player transfers, enormous wage bill and STILL turn a profit.
I know for a fact that the clubs financial situation is structurally sound enough to have a net spend greater than £150m and still have financial reserves in case of a unforseen drop in revenue (fact: gross revenue is increasing regardless).
I feel this is the perfect time to once again repeat that we tried to buy Christian Eriksen AND trade Lukaku for Paulo Dybala (the club tried HARD to make this one work, it fell through due to image rights) in the summer transfer window, which would have landed our net spend somewhere in the region of £170m (james,Maguire,AWB,Eriksen at £20m (ballpark, probably a overvaluation for the single year)). Ed Woodward enquired Dortumunds chairman before the window started about Jadon Sancho, we never placed a bid since the message was quite clearly that they would not entertain an offer. Sanchos valuation is £100m
Just because we don't have a net spend of biblical proportions, doesn't mean we aren't willing. The club VERY clearly are plenty willing to invest into the OGS project.
There are a few factors that will indicate that this January window is different than normal. Most importantly that the manager himself has indicated that there might be business done. Or it might not, this depends entirely if the players we are targeting can be had.
Erling Haaland is obviously a target, Oles head scout would not be scouting the player in Austria personally if there wasn't, especially this close to the transfer window opening. January might be the only window we have to avoid a costly bidding war. The same with Sancho,but we don't have any reliable sources on Sancho being a target in Jauary so right now that is simply wishful make believe.
