Where are we in the pecking order for the top players?

[The red panther]

Bayern are more like us under Fergie. Dominant in the domestic market but never competing with Barcelona, Real or previously Juventus, Milan, Inter when it comes to the best Latin/South American talent. They still don't.

Its not because they aren't after players that they couldn't get them.

I think Bayern can get any player if they wanted euqally to Real and Barca.

 

[Theonas]

Its not because they aren't after players that they couldn't get them.

I think Bayern can get any player if they wanted euqally to Real and Barca.

I am sorry I don't get that part. Do you mean they just don't try for those players? My point is due to mainly cultural reasons, South American and Latin players never favoured playing in England or in Germany. The destination was always the Italian or Spanish league. It has opened up as of late of course with us getting players like Veron and Ronaldo with City and Chelsea also assembling a lot of Brazilians, Spaniards and Argentininas and the Italian league at a relative low. But they still do not consider England or Germany to be the perfect dream/romantic place to be and it is hard to imagine that ever changing due to many factors. Of course when a team is successful like us under Fergie or Bayern now, they will have more pull simply because they offer the chance to win trophies but to the average person let alone player from those countries, it just does not compare to Barcelona, Real, Milan, Juventus and I am tempted to throw in Inter in there.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Teams like Barca, Madrid, Chelsea, Arsenal, PSG, have the "Big City" factor behind them, we don't, Sanchez wife only wanted London for example, ditto Di Maria's Mr's wanting Paris. Lucas Moura etc etc
It's always been an extra added issue when attracting players outside the UK.

 

[The red panther]

I am sorry I don't get that part. Do you mean they just don't try for those players? My point is due to mainly cultural reasons, South American and Latin players never favoured playing in England or in Germany. The destination was always the Italian or Spanish league. It has opened up as of late of course with us getting players like Veron and Ronaldo with City and Chelsea also assembling a lot of Brazilians, Spaniards and Argentininas and the Italian league at a relative low. But they still do not consider England or Germany to be the perfect dream/romantic place to be and it is hard to imagine that ever changing due to many factors. Of course when a team is successful like us under Fergie or Bayern now, they will have more pull simply because they offer the chance to win trophies but to the average person let alone player from those countries, it just does not compare to Barcelona, Real, Milan, Juventus and I am tempted to throw in Inter in there.

That is my point yes because they have great players from their own academy like Müller and Lahm and they can cherry pick the best players that come from their competition like Lewandowski, Neuer, Alaba and fill in the holes with intelligent purchases fromother competitions like Martinez, Vidal, Costa, Robben ect...

So they aren't in the market for galatico signings or the next latin american wizkid because they have access to more than enough quality players from their own backyard. That doesn't mean they couldn't get them if they wanted to. If Bayern goes on the market they are very efficient and get whoever they want and they usually get them for reasonable prices aswell.

 

[Red-Jeff]

It doesn't matter. United have been more succesfull moulding the next big thing into a super star. We haven't faired as well with super star buys

Hope that can continue and it looks promising with the likes of Martial and Shaw around but I worry about it with all if the changes the club has gone through recently.

 

[Theonas]

That is my point yes because they have great players from their own academy like Müller and Lahm and they can cherry pick the best players that come from their competition like Lewandowski, Neuer, Alaba and fill in the holes with intelligent purchases fromother competitions like Martinez, Vidal, Costa, Robben ect...

So they aren't in the market for galatico signings or the next latin american wizkid because they have access to more than enough quality players from their own backyard. That doesn't mean they couldn't get them if they wanted to. If Bayern goes on the market they are very efficient and get whoever they want and they usually get them for reasonable prices aswell.

I agree with the first part. You can say the same about us in the '90s and early '00s. We pretty much could get whoever we wanted from Britain from Keane, Irwin, Rio, Rooney and so on. But to suggest that they can get whoever they want is as wrong as to suggest we could do that. England or Germany simply do not carry the same romantic ideals to players from Latin or South American countries compared to Spain or Italy. We are talking about a deep cultural connection, weather preference and the simple fact that we are talking about players who grew up watching their idols playing in Spain or Italy which naturally make them feel more ties and dream more about those places. Of course, culture and boyhood heroes are not the only factors at play here and a player will always value money, trophies, playing style, manager and so on which is why the Italian clubs fell off the pecking order. But as long as Barcelona and Real can offer these things on top of their background, and if/when the Italian giants come back, they will always have first dibs ahead of the English or German teams.

 

[Cnaiür urs Skiötha]

I would say it depends on the Player. For some it might be more attractive to join Barca or Bayern as titles are more or less guaranteed in the short term.
Some might see the Chance to join us now and become a first teamer from Minute 1. In the end I think we are "too big to fail" in the Long run so it should only be a matter of time before we are back challenging for PL and CL.

Players like Reus or Griezman seem to be quite happy where they are and they might win titles with their current Teams in the coming years as well.

I agree that it is always more difficult to get a top Player who is already a key Player in one of the top sides.

This is why I think we should be looking at Players like Kane etc. having the potential to become one of the very best. Players like Bale, Neymar or Müller do not really have an Intention to join us as Long as there are no conflicts with their actual Teams.

 

[KingMinger22]

If we had a good team, we would be behind only Barca and Real.

 

[diarm]

I guess if you're a player it depends on a number of things:

Club Profile - How famous is the club? How recognisable or prestigious is it? How will my sponsorship be affected? In this we are right at the top, along with Real and Barca and slightly ahead of Bayern, Juventus, AC Milan and Liverpool.

League Profile - Where does the domestic competition rank among the biggest in world football? Similar to club profile in terms in terms of prestige and recognition (and thus sponsorship). The Premier League is the most watched and arguably the most exciting. However, while the overall quality of the league (and resources of smaller clubs within it) is improving, it is clear that the quality of the top sides within the PL has fallen below Spain, Germany and possibly even France and Italy now.

Location - What is the city like for food, entertainment, or to raise a family? How is the weather? What is the tax situation? We're always going to be behind Spain and Italy here.

Manager - Who is the manager? What is his track record like? Does his style suit mine? Rightly or wrongly, the perception of Van Gaal's authoritarian and conservative style is probably hurting us a little here. Issues with Valdes and Di Maria likely haven't helped and our failure to get the best out of exciting attackers could well raise question marks for top players.

First Team - How good is the current team? How will I fit in? What potential is there to improve? Are they competing for the biggest trophies? We're a distance from the top here at the moment. Our first team is far from the strongest in England at a time where the quality of the best English sides is well below that of the best European sides.

Resources - How much money does the club have? Can they afford to buy top quality players and how much can they pay me? We're right at the top here. We have the finances to compete with anyone and our financial power means we can spend without worrying about FFP or such.

Club Structure and Philosophy - How well organised and stable is the club? How professional are they in their interactions and business? What is their track record for developing players and providing a platform for great players to shine? This is an area where 10 years ago we would have been right at the top of the table. However since Fergie's retirement, some might even argue a few years before it, this is an area we seem to be falling behind in. The club appears to lack direction and a sense of purpose.


Now for each player, some of these factors will be more or less important depending on the individual. Some may not factor into their thinking at all. But to be one of the most attractive sides I think you'd need to have at least 5 of these nailed down.

Barcelona are the only team with 7/7 imo.
Bayern suffer as the BL doesn't have the same profile as La Liga or EPL and Munich is not quite as attractive as Spain or Italy to live in.
PSG lacks the club profile and history of the biggest sides and Ligue 1 is well below the top leagues.
Madrid are behind with their structure and manager but have an excellent profile and top location, league, resources and first team.
City are well behind on club profile but you'd have to say are strong everywhere else except maybe manager.
Juventus are a little below the top on resources, location and league profile but otherwise are strong.

United have only really got Club Profile, League Profile and Resources at the moment. 3/7 isn't good enough to be ranked among the biggest draws.

 

[Shark]

We've essentially become Liverpool in the transfer market they can't sign any big names and neither can we.

Both us and Liverpool can't offer a massive chance at silverware or champs league.

We've signed Di maria, Falcao, Bastian, along with other relatively big names over the past two summers. Compare those to Liverpool' signings and you'll see you're talking absolute rubbish.

 

[Bwuk]

Bayern, PSG, Barca & Real are ahead of us.

The rest of the top European sides it's mostly down to if they have a personal preference, and who'll pay them the most £££

 

[Snow]

Caf loves to take its brush and paint broad strokes over every subject. This isn't America where you're assigned an order in which you pick players.

 

[dannyrhinos89]

We've signed Di maria, Falcao, Bastian, along with other relatively big names over the past two summers. Compare those to Liverpool' signings and you'll see you're talking absolute rubbish.

Di Maria never wanted to come here in the first place, woodward just threw so much cash at madrid they couldn't turn it down then he left after a season.

Falcao was always destined to fail because he's so past it in top level football yet we attracted him because we paid him a ridiculous wage.

Schweinsteiger is NOT the player he was at for the majority of his Bayern career that's why they were happy to let him leave. He's done ok for us but he's not the midfield general he was.

So 2 of thise players are no longer here and you'll find you're the one talking rubbish if you think this club can now attract the top tier players. The best we can hope for is the type of players liverpool also sign....The mid tier players like blind, rojo, firmino, benteke, depay etc that's the level we can attract now.

The muller, neymar, bale, griezman, pogba , lewandowski of the world we've got no chance to sign.

 

[Varun]

@Balu nailed it at the first go.

Top clubs can't buy each others top players from each other, not unless you are Real and that too under special circumstances. You need to buy these players before they go to one of your peers and at that juncture, we have as good a chance as any.

 

[sunama]

Behind

Real
Barca
Bayern
PSG
Man City

I'll go along with that.

 

[Eckers99]

This conversation comes round all the time and the answer is always the same. With the possible exception of Veron (and latterly Di Maria), we've NEVER been able to get the established megastars. Pele, Cruyff, Zidane, Maradona...traditionally names like this just don't come to United. Be it the city, the climate, the culture, the wages (in the past)...whatever the reason we just weren't that appealing to the elite players.

We've bought the best youngsters, the best British talent, the up and coming foreign players. If we're going to suceed then that's what we'll keep doing rather than pointlessly chasing the Neymars and Mullers.

And, even with the wages we can now offer, we're still behind Barca, Real, Bayern, PSG, City and Chelsea. We're in that tier with the likes of Juve, Arsenal and Milan.

 

[Manchester Dan]

I'd back City to be in with a chance to sign a player above any club other than Barca, Real and Bayern. But I agree that there's no fixed pecking order and player preference will dictate beyond those top tier 3.

 

[sun_tzu]

Each player is different and I would suggest a whole range of factors including (but not limited to) wages, role in the team, how good the team is, what country they play in (language, tax arrangements, quality of the league), the city they will live in and how they and their family feel it would suit them, relationship / admiration with the manager or other players. Any affinity to the club (fan etc) and the perceived prestige of playing there plus of course cl football and the likleyhood of getting that season after season
If the weather was nicer in the UK, we were based in London, the higher rate of tax was reduced, our owner was mega rich and would happily chuck endless money into wages and Pep was our manager we would probably be in a better place for attracting players.

As it is I think if you discount real and Barca as being on a different level then being in the premier league and able to pay amongst the highest wages in the world gives us a strong start... Not being in London and having (by our recent standards) a poor team certainly does not help

 

[Borys]

I don't think signing top players while they are at top clubs is the problem. Like a few posters said before, it rarely happens anyway.

The issue and the question is, do we stand a chance to sign Neymar from Santos, Hazard from Lille, Lewandowski from Dortmund, Griezmann from Atletico, De Bruyne from Wolfsburg etc. So basically players who attract the attention from all the clubs.

I don't think we're appealing to young players currently. I believe we will be forced to risk a lot of money with transfer targets like we did with Martial until we are on top again.

 

[TrustInJanuzaj]

Yes. Better players. More chance of silverware (including Champions League). Not having to work with LVG is probably a factor at present as well.

If they get Pep i think they'll be easily above us in pretty much every way.

Haha give up man

 

[Dr. J]

All it took was City, PSG, and Chelsea flashing cash despite not being top clubs, and the likes of Agüero, Zlatan, Thiago Silva, Ballack, etc. jumped ship.

United's issue seems to be trying to purchase players who are happy at elite clubs and/or the clubs having no need or desire to sell. If the club decides they want players like Alex Teixeira, Felipe Anderson, Sadio Mane, Romelu Lukaku, etc., they're in play for sure. The issue is, they will have to compete with the other big clubs and pay over the top fees and wages to get them, which they seem more willing to do these days. Chelsea, City, Real, and PSG have completely changed the market, and United seems to be adjusting.

Every club will have its appeal to certain players, though. English weather likely doesn't appeal to players used to heat year round. A club like Madrid has had the Galactico reputation for the past 15 years, which makes it an honor for players to be considered by them. This was accomplished by being an established club who spent over the odds on players. This can be accomplished in England if it's what a club is looking to pay for. Paris now has the appeal that it is an easy league with a team competing for European honors.

United, though, is one of the richest clubs in the world competing in the richest league in the world that will be, if not already is one of the deepest, most competitive leagues in the world. That's quite an appeal to competitive players who don't have an issue with the area. The big problem there is that Britain, Ireland, Iceland, and other countries with smaller leagues that would be attracted to life in England aren't producing elite talent at the rate of Spain, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, etc.

 

[Dr. J]

Real Barca and Bayern
Us, City, Arsenal, Chelsea, Atletico, Juve, PSG etc

Who has Bayern purchased recently aside from Vidal? Their core is German talent and players who develop and want to stay in the Bundesliga. Aside from Thiago, Bayern paid Javi Martinez's release clause, brought in Robben when Real had a fire sale, and Ribery nearly 10 years ago. Douglas Costa was fair game for years--Bayern were the club who jumped on it.

 

[VivaObertan]

We're in the "Not Barcelona or Real Madrid" category which includes Chelsea, Arsenal, Man City and Bayern Munich.

I don't think Juventus (please don't argue Pogba), Atletico, Liverpool or Dortmund could get close to the above in terms of competing for targets.

Missed out PSG, same tier as us.

 

[Dr. J]

I don't think signing top players while they are at top clubs is the problem. Like a few posters said before, it rarely happens anyway.

The issue and the question is, do we stand a chance to sign Neymar from Santos, Hazard from Lille, Lewandowski from Dortmund, Griezmann from Atletico, De Bruyne from Wolfsburg etc. So basically players who attract the attention from all the clubs.

I don't think we're appealing to young players currently. I believe we will be forced to risk a lot of money with transfer targets like we did with Martial until we are on top again.

United was in play for Hazard. Chelsea was willing to pay more, and United supposedly dropped out the running. Lewandowski wanted to stay in Germany. I don't recall United seriously being in for De Bruyne aside from some tabloids drumming up drama when his deal to City was taking longer than expected.

I think we'd very much be in the running for Griezmann if he's a top target. Neymar is a different story, as it seems that the vast majority of South Americans prefer Spain and Italy (to a lesser extent).

 

[Shark]

Di Maria never wanted to come here in the first place, woodward just threw so much cash at madrid they couldn't turn it down then he left after a season.

Falcao was always destined to fail because he's so past it in top level football yet we attracted him because we paid him a ridiculous wage.

Schweinsteiger is NOT the player he was at for the majority of his Bayern career that's why they were happy to let him leave. He's done ok for us but he's not the midfield general he was.

So 2 of thise players are no longer here and you'll find you're the one talking rubbish if you think this club can now attract the top tier players. The best we can hope for is the type of players liverpool also sign....The mid tier players like blind, rojo, firmino, benteke, depay etc that's the level we can attract now.

The muller, neymar, bale, griezman, pogba , lewandowski of the world we've got no chance to sign.

Rather those players worked out or didn't work out is irrelevant, they are big names and while I agree that we're not signing the absolute top tier talents right now, we are still signing players a tier above Liverpool. To say otherwise is rubbish.

 

[pacifictheme]

Haha give up man

I have no idea what that is supposed to mean. Do you disagree?

 

[dannyrhinos89]

Rather those players worked out or didn't work out is irrelevant, they are big names and while I agree that we're not signing the absolute top tier talents right now, we are still signing players a tier above Liverpool. To say otherwise is rubbish.

Well to compare recent purchase in similar positions

Rojo and sakho
darmian and Clyne
Emre can and blind
Martial and firmino

I don't see how our players are a tier above the Liverpool lot (apart from martial who is top quality) if anything I'd prefer Clyne and Can in our squad to darmian and blind.

 

[Borys]

United was in play for Hazard. Chelsea was willing to pay more, and United supposedly dropped out the running. Lewandowski wanted to stay in Germany. I don't recall United seriously being in for De Bruyne aside from some tabloids drumming up drama when his deal to City was taking longer than expected.

I think we'd very much be in the running for Griezmann if he's a top target. Neymar is a different story, as it seems that the vast majority of South Americans prefer Spain and Italy (to a lesser extent).

It was only an example, there will be others who we will have to fight for, and I don't think we're in strong position right now.

 

[darko]

Real, Barca
Bayern



PSG, Man City, Chelsea
United

Is how I'd see it. We're able to battle the three above us for certain players but most would prefer them. We can't really battle the tier above that, and teams like Arsenal can challenge us from just below too. It's not going to be easy to get top talents.

I would Arsenal above Chelsea. the question is whether they will shell out. but if they match Chelsea, which they are quite capable of doing, they are a better choice at this time.

 

[Von Mistelroum]

I would Arsenal above Chelsea. the question is whether they will shell out. but if they match Chelsea, which they are quite capable of doing, they are a better choice at this time.

Certainly debatable...

 

[AkaAkuma]

I think its more about being competitive with the transfers. Get in early, pay more than the other clubs, tap them up for longer etc.

Memphis chose us over PSG. Its not working out currently, but at the time he was considered one of the top up and coming players.

Martial chose us, perhaps if reports are to believed over Chelsea. We can say now that he looks like a future world class player.

Sliva, Aguero, Toure all joined city when they were in a similiar position to us now. We could have signed them if our transfer policy was different.

The same applies to PSGs signings. They were made before the club was fully established.

Manchester as a city may ultimately mean we may miss out on some players. But its clear that we can attract the best young players - we just have to be more proactive.

 

[Big Ben Foster]

Haha give up man

I absolutely detest City but there's no way you can reasonably deny that they've been way ahead of us these last few years.

 

[ottosec]

I feel that people are overrating Bayern's pull power a lot. I don't think any top player will want to play in Germany over England or Spain. They also don't seem to pay high wages like the top Spanish and English clubs. Their best players are on par wage wise with football virtuosos like Mourane Fellaini and James Milner. If someone like Muller or Neuer would like to leave Bayern the likes of Barca, Real, PSG and about 4 English clubs could easily double their wages.

And to answer the question, probably not very high. A few years ago we were by far the most attractive club in the PL, now there are probably some ahead of us, plus the Spanish wankers real and Barca.

 

[Acole9]

We're below Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, City for sure and possibly PSG.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

Barca, Madrid and Bayern and if it comes to money/life style then we're behind PSG too.

I think we are behind Chelsea and Arsenal because of the London factor, likely City as well if they get Pep. So that puts us down to 8th. There might even be players who are attracted to Klopp rather than LvG. It gets worse the more I think about it.

 

[Balu]

I feel that people are overrating Bayern's pull power a lot. I don't think any top player will want to play in Germany over England or Spain. They also don't seem to pay high wages like the top Spanish and English clubs. Their best players are on par wage wise with football virtuosos like Mourane Fellaini and James Milner. If someone like Muller or Neuer would like to leave Bayern the likes of Barca, Real, PSG and about 4 English clubs could easily double their wages.

Müller is supposed to be on 15m Euro/year with the new contract he signed last month. That's about 290k/week in Euro or 220k/week in GBP. If I'm not mistaken only Rooney earns more than that at United and I doubt anyone bar Ronaldo earns more than that at Real.

Good luck trying to 'easily double the wages'.

 

[ottosec]

Müller is supposed to be on 15m Euro/year with the new contract he signed last month. That's about 290k/week in Euro or 220k/week in GBP. If I'm not mistaken only Rooney earns more than that at United and I doubt anyone bar Ronaldo earns more than that at Real.

Good luck trying to 'easily double the wages'.

I might be mistaken, but I was under the impression that the best paid players at Bayern are on 150-160k€/week? I find it hard to believe that the likes of Neuer and Lahm are on €160k and Muller was given €290k.

 

[Balu]

I might be mistaken, but I was under the impression that the best paid players at Bayern are on 150-160k€/week? I find it hard to believe that the likes of Neuer and Lahm are on €160k and Muller was given €290k.

We have several players on more than 10m/year for quite some time now. Lahm, Ribery, Schweinsteiger were the first to sign such high contracts, I think it was 10.5m 5 years ago, which equals around 200k/week. Both Götze and Lewandowski are supposed to be on more than that and most big contract extensions of the last 2-3 years as well.

We had a wage bill of 215m in 2014, which is healthy and well below 50% of our revenue, but it's still massive and not far behind the most expensive squads in Europe. United's was for example 214m in 2014, Arsenal's 166m GBP the same season according to swissramble (which is very reliable with the numbers). The development of the Euro-GBP exchage rate screws the comparison to English clubs a bit, because existing contracts seem more expensive for English clubs now, even though it's actually an advantage for the PL clubs. But with the exchange rate from January 2014, Bayern's wage bill was still higher than Arsenal's. With the exchange rate today, it's the other way round.

What do you think are we doing with all our money? Our revenue has been about the same as United's over the last few seasons and we don't have an owner taking money out of the club. Everything we make goes back into the club.

 

[ottosec]

We have several players on more than 10m/year for quite some time now. Lahm, Ribery, Schweinsteiger were the first to sign such high contracts, I think it was 10.5m 5 years ago, which equals around 200k/week. Both Götze and Lewandowski are supposed to be on more than that and most big contract extensions of the last 2-3 years as well.

We had a wage bill of 215m in 2014, which is healthy and well below 50% of our revenue, but it's still massive and not far behind the most expensive squads in Europe. United's was for example 214m in 2014, Arsenal's 166m GBP the same season according to swissramble (which is very reliable with the numbers). The development of the Euro-GBP exchage rate screws the comparison to English clubs a bit, because existing contracts seem more expensive for English clubs now, even though it's actually an advantage for the PL clubs. But with the exchange rate from January 2014, Bayern's wage bill was still higher than Arsenal's. With the exchange rate today, it's the other way round.

What do you think are we doing with all our money? Our revenue has been about the same as United's over the last few seasons and we don't have an owner taking money out of the club. Everything we make goes back into the club.

My bad, everywhere I looked it said your highest earners are on €160k.

 

[Balu]

My bad, everywhere I looked it said your highest earners are on €160k.

Yeah, I googled a bit and it's really odd. Unless they calculate the weekly wages in a way I don't understand, it doesn't make much sense. In Germany, the wages are always per year, not weekly. But surely it's just the yearly wages divided through 52 and you can compare them, right? And as far as I know, in both England and Germany wages are usually reported as before taxes, not after taxes like for example in Italy.

And looking at the total wage bills, the gap can't be as big as the reported weekly wages in the English media suggest.