Which club in the PL is better run than Manchester United?

Gycraig said:
Can’t remember where but I saw a chart comparing our increase of revenues compared to other clubs from when the glazers took over and we didn’t particularly when it comes to increasing revenues. We were just miles ahead in the first place.

We have a net spend of over a billion over the last 10 years we have won a couple of trophies and our facilities are falling apart around us which is believed to be one of the main reasons the glazers are selling up.

We have spent just about the most money in the league, most of it wasted, won next to fk all since Fergie left our facilities are knackered and we are again hoping a manager can turn it round for us.

Being “well run” would be spending money well updating facilities as needed and winning top trophies, not spending too dollar on the team for naf all returns.

None of what I have seen under glazers ownership even comes close to being well run, we have hired the wrong people and let them wreak havoc, each manager comes in and just buys who he wants resulting completely mismatched teams with players suitable for completely different playing styles.

We have just about spent the most on players and not won much. If being well run is getting good noodle sponsors we have possibly done ok.
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We have doubled our revenue's under the American cretins, since the takeover.
That's one thing that cannot be doubted.

Being well run to me comes down to being competitive on the pitch, being profitable and having a saleable product, all things United have been this season.
Chelsea would have been a 'well run' club up til this season, that's how quickly things can change in football.
 
Champ said:
The Glazers and Woodward have doubled revenues (that's adjusting figures accordingly to inflation),
That takes some doing, so it's a bit churlish to say 'it would have happened like that anyway ' or words to that affect, because it wouldn't have.

As for 'throwing away a billion ' that's not true, as we have a team there on the field, a training ground etc etc. Could we have spent the money better? Sure, could the footballing side of things been better? Sure. But have we just burnt £1b with nothing to show for it? No, to say so is hyperbolic and overly dramatic.

Is that tantamount to a club poorly run? Not fully, no. Again, certain aspects have improved, whereas others have been left to stagnate somewhat despite the money being there, yet United have never slipped into obscurity and remain competitive.
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It would have as the premier league as a brand was only growing and our success due to Sir Alex and often inspire of the inept clown family was a major contributing towards that.

Yes it absolutely is tantamount to a poorly run football club. Certain aspects have improved? Well none relating to the actual football where we’ve been run like an absolute joke. Hyperbolic? Yes. But it’s the a fitting summary of the disgraceful reign of the glazers.

We haven’t slipped into obscurity? Wonderful, let’s pat them on the back for not sabotaging the club I guess. If on a football front you’ve failed miserably then you cannot he deemed to have done an acceptable job at running the club. Maybe there’s some unified fans like you that salivate over revenue numbers but you’d be in a minority (of you and the glazers in all likelihood).
 
amolbhatia50k said:
It would have as the premier league as a brand was only growing and our success due to Sir Alex and often inspire of the inept clown family was a major contributing towards that.

Yes it absolutely is tantamount to a poorly run football club. Certain aspects have improved? Well none relating to the actual football where we’ve been run like an absolute joke. Hyperbolic? Yes. But it’s the a fitting summary of the disgraceful reign of the glazers.

We haven’t slipped into obscurity? Wonderful, let’s pat them on the back for not sabotaging the club I guess. If on a football front you’ve failed miserably then you cannot he deemed to have done an acceptable job at running the club. Maybe there’s some unified fans like you that salivate over revenue numbers but you’d be in a minority (of you and the glazers in all likelihood).
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:lol:

Football changes quickly, Arsenal faded into obscurity post Wenger and have since came back for example, Newcastle haven't all of a sudden become a 'well run' club in a season, yet they've gone from poor to top four in a season.
Chelsea have gone from top four to mid table.

United have never finished below 7th in the premiership, many other 'well run' clubs have.
People have a tendancy on here to be overly dramatic.
Should we be doing better? Yeah I'd say so, does that mean we are poorly run? Not really.
 
Besides recent Chelsea, Everton, the clubs that went down to the championship and maybe Wolves I think we're pretty much the worst run club.

The amount of wages we pay for the quality in the squad we have is astonishing.
 
SAFMUTD said:
Besides recent Chelsea, Everton, the clubs that went down to the championship and maybe Wolves I think we're pretty much the worst run club.

The amount of wages we pay for the quality in the squad we have is astonishing.
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If you're talking about a last decade, Arsenal are a very good shout too. It's just that right now they're on their highest point in a long time, so it feels a bit wrong to call it.
 
Champ said:
Football changes quickly, Arsenal faded into obscurity post Wenger and have since came back for example, Newcastle haven't all of a sudden become a 'well run' club in a season, yet they've gone from poor to top four in a season.
Chelsea have gone from top four to mid table.
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Change doesn’t happen arbitrarily. Newcastle needed new owners to have this fantastic elevation. Chelsea needed Boeley to have the opposite effect. We will need the incompetent Glazers gone before we achieve any greatness. Waiting on some random magic to happen under them will see us go 30 years without the league. They’re capable of that and even more.

Champ said:
United have never finished below 7th in the premiership, many other 'well run' clubs have.
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Only because we are Sir Matt and Sir Alex’s Manchester United and hence the luxury of incredible resources to waste. Well run club :lol:
Champ said:
Should we be doing better?
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By a country mile. Your response to this question shows your delusion.


Champ said:
does that mean we are poorly run?
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Absolutely
 
Lemoor said:
If you're talking about a last decade, Arsenal are a very good shout too. It's just that right now they're on their highest point in a long time, so it feels a bit wrong to call it.
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Yeah arsenal was shit until a couple of seasons ago where they decided to replace their deadwood and replace it with youngsters which now are giving them fruits. But yeah good shout, like you say it feels wrong to call them at this moment but taking away this season they been pretty awful for about 10-15 years.
 
amolbhatia50k said:
Change doesn’t happen arbitrarily. Newcastle needed new owners to have this fantastic elevation. Chelsea needed Boeley to have the opposite effect. We will need the incompetent Glazers gone before we achieve any greatness. Waiting on some random magic to happen under them will see us go 30 years without the league. They’re capable of that and even more.


Only because we are Sir Matt and Sir Alex’s Manchester United and hence the luxury of incredible resources to waste. Well run club :lol:

By a country mile. Your response to this question shows your delusion.



Absolutely
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So I'm intrigued, tell me what magic Newcastle owners did on the space of a month other than spend money for the upturn in results to happen?

Because interestingly enough under the Glazers we won the league multiple times to begin with.
What changed to then suddenly become a poorly run club?

Theres one common denominator for sure, certainly in both Newcastle and United's stories here.

United fans on here have a big habit of throwing shade on the club, whether that be by saying we're the worst run club ever, can't complete transfers, have poor facilities, have a crumbling stadium, don't have data analytics, etc. None of which is ever really true, it's just people venting their frustrations that we don't have Sir Alex or a modern equivalent.

The stadium could do with an update sure, but it's not crumbling.
We have managed to pull off some incredible transfers, especially in the past few windows.
Our facilities have been updated recently both for men's and women's teams and are still in the process of doing so.
We have a vast amount of data scientists and analytics team now.

The Glazers need to go, and I don't doubt that things may well be better under new ownership, but again that's not tantamount to United being 'poorly run', it's just a club that could be run better in certain aspects.
 
Champ said:
Because interestingly enough under the Glazers we won the league multiple times to begin with.
What changed to then suddenly become a poorly run club?
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The football structure they inherited during that absurd buyout retired and they started getting much more hands-on. Since then we never even came within 10 points of a league title and never got past QF of Champions League despite insane transfer and wage expenditures.
 
Champ said:
As much as I detest the Glazers, the one thing they did well along with Woodward was increase the sponsorship turnover.
Heck, they even set up an office in London built just to get new sponsorship deals.

Unfortunately football is a business, there's no getting away from that, and United as a business have been run very successfully.

As a successful footballing entity it's been the bare minimum really, a few scattergun trophies with little cohesion up until recently but that's still better than majority of teams in the league.

Terminal decline is quite dramatic, United were in a good position when the Glazers came in purely down to Sir Alex, it's arguable to say that the team was already in decline then, certainly from a business perspective it was.

Again, this whole question comes down to how one defines being a well run club.
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Champ said:
:lol:

Football changes quickly, Arsenal faded into obscurity post Wenger and have since came back for example, Newcastle haven't all of a sudden become a 'well run' club in a season, yet they've gone from poor to top four in a season.
Chelsea have gone from top four to mid table.

United have never finished below 7th in the premiership, many other 'well run' clubs have.
People have a tendancy on here to be overly dramatic.
Should we be doing better? Yeah I'd say so, does that mean we are poorly run? Not really.
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You seem to be completely ignoring that where a team finishes in the league is generally based on how much they spend on wages and transfer fees. Obviously a well run team with a relatively low budget can still finish outside the top 7, if they did finish in the top 7 that would be a massive overachievement. United have generally underperformed in relation to their expenditure over the last 10 years and not sure they have ever overperformed. On top of that, the squad we are left with now is very poor in relation to the amount we have spent on it for example we don't have a vaguely competent striker.

The clubs commercial operation was good when the glazers first came in but the gains they delivered in sponsorship have long since tailed of and I suspect many other pl clubs have increased their revenue by a greater proportion over the last 10 years now
 
Utd had an accountant doing the transfers for yrs, there's the worst reason why Utd were and are badly run!
 
Sir Erik ten Hag said:
So this thread is just an overview to see which club in the PL is better run than us (Apart from City obviously) and what can we learn from observing how they are run?
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I don't even think City are particularly well run. They have just consistently spent more than any other club on planet Earth since about 2009. Money = trophies and there are many such cases -
Blackburn, Chelsea, Real Madrid, the 90's Juventus and AC Milan, Barcelona, ourselves and Manchester City. You spend the most money you get the most trophies, if you -extrapolate over the long term- and don't use isolated cases of failure and/or success in the odd season as proof that money doesn't work for teams. Because it clearly does. We spent the second most overall and have finished second quite a few times.

If it had been City who needed to sign someone in January 2023 they wouldn't have loaned Weghorst, for instance. They would have used a shell South American or Catalonian company to """""loan"""" Dembele or whoever to come in, while in reality paying 50-60million because that's the advantage money gets you. That plus the complete indifference to financial regulations. And I'd argue if we could bring on someone better than Weghorst in the FA cup final, our odds of winning just that cup would have drastically increased. Money is the difference between well run/not well run.
 
Everton, Leeds, Spuds all worse run. We've still won some trophies in the last decade.

Everton spent half a billion and have been flirting with relegation for 2 years. Spuds are basically the same as us only they've won nothing. Without Kane they'd be lost. Leeds are a joke.
 
Ibrahimorich said:
Everton, Leeds, Spuds all worse run. We've still won some trophies in the last decade.

Everton spent half a billion and have been flirting with relegation for 2 years. Spuds are basically the same as us only they've won nothing. Without Kane they'd be lost. Leeds are a joke.
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Spurs were in a much worse situation on pretty much all fronts than us 10 years ago. They completely stalled since Pochettino decline, but before that they were doing a very impressive job.
 
Matt851 said:
You seem to be completely ignoring that where a team finishes in the league is generally based on how much they spend on wages and transfer fees. Obviously a well run team with a relatively low budget can still finish outside the top 7, if they did finish in the top 7 that would be a massive overachievement. United have generally underperformed in relation to their expenditure over the last 10 years and not sure they have ever overperformed. On top of that, the squad we are left with now is very poor in relation to the amount we have spent on it for example we don't have a vaguely competent striker.

The clubs commercial operation was good when the glazers first came in but the gains they delivered in sponsorship have long since tailed of and I suspect many other pl clubs have increased their revenue by a greater proportion over the last 10 years now
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I'm not denying United have underperformed, but just because a team has underperformed doesn't mean that they are run poorly, it's not a black and white situation.

Could United be run better? Yes in certain aspects, but in other aspects they are run incredibly well.

Last year our wages were behind that of Liverpool and City, yet we have outperformed Liverpool this season.

It's a case of certain people on the Caf willing to throw the club under the bus due to their disdain for the owners without actually thinking or looking at the bigger picture.
 
Brighton and Hove Albion are the best run club in the Premier League. Their scouting network and recruitment is miles ahead of everyone else.
 
Matt851 said:
Why quote last years wages rather than this years? It's fair to say we were a long way behind Liverpool last year
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I was making a point at how quickly football changes.
Point proved I'd say.
 
rimaldo said:
they’re just charges, they mean nothing at this stage, just like my caution for indecent exposure.
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we heard about that. But I also heard that you were going to be let off with police saying there was nothing to see here.
 
Champ said:
It was, but nevermind
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How so? Here's Pools and United statement. United is in both last seasons higher on wages and that's despite the fact that Liverpool was probably paying a lot more in bonuses, since they were doing much better.
 
As others have said, Everton have got to be the worst run club in the league. To have spent the amounts that they have, on utter dross, and be in consecutive relegation battles, is scandalous.

What summed it up for me was when they sold Digne, one of their best players, to Villa because he had a falling out with Benitez, who the fans hated. And then a couple of weeks later they sack Benitez anyway!!!

Dysfunctional!
 
Lemoor said:
Spurs were in a much worse situation on pretty much all fronts than us 10 years ago. They completely stalled since Pochettino decline, but before that they were doing a very impressive job.
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Arguable. Take away Kane and what were they though? I think having one of the best strikers in the world, who has been incredibly loyal has masked a lot of deficiencies. Sacking Poch was probably an example of bad management.
 
Brentford and maybe Brighton are the only teams that are doing well imo. It's too early to tell about others like Villa, Fulham, Crystal Palace, Bournemouth, Arsenal and Notts Forest.

All the others are shite imo.
 
With the Glazers in charge and their business men buddies having the final say on transfers and player contracts I think the question should be which club in the PL isn't better run than Manchester United?
 
We are a well run club in term of selling ourself as a Global brand. Looking at our signings in the past.
We’ve maintained the popularity and raked in the profits. I won’t say that’s a badly run business, unbelievable how they’ve been pulling this con off without any true success though.Thats their MO and very few club are capable of it.
 
Depends what you mean by 'well run'. The commercial side should more or less run itself. I mean if you were a business and wanted your brand to be associated with a football club, you would choose United over any other club, particularly City with all the charges against them. From a buying and selling of players, I think we leave a lot to be desired. Liverpool, Brighton and City seem to do it better, without fuss or fanfare. United seem to do all their business via the media.
 
Champ said:
We have doubled our revenue's under the American cretins, since the takeover.
That's one thing that cannot be doubted.

Being well run to me comes down to being competitive on the pitch, being profitable and having a saleable product, all things United have been this season.
Chelsea would have been a 'well run' club up til this season, that's how quickly things can change in football.
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It’s only down to the PL explosion in sponsorships. I imagine liverpool have 4x their income in the same period.

United were once ahead of Madrid and Barcelona and now they are quite far behind. That’s the main story here.

The Glazer’s have been a hinderance not a help in income growth. We are the biggest club on the planet fame wise and somehow they made us no longer the biggest club on the planet monetarily.
 
The Glazers’ biggest mistake of the entire tenure here is letting Woodward run the football side. He was a disaster for us. A guy who thought he could be another Perez or Galliani but was far from that. The decision making either side of his tenure is much better than when he was actually here.

The Glazers are way too passive as owners though. They should have been building up their football contact network since they stepped through the door but I get the feeling they did feck all, and just sat back and hoped for the best, then when SAF decides to retire plus Gill as well, then the shit hit the fan.

They turned to Woodward who helped complete their dubious takeover, who was probably their only friend in the entire world of football. They don’t know anyone and they don’t want to know anyone. They only know reactive and nothing to proactive. When we have a shit season, they splash the cash. When we have a good season, they tighten the purse strings as opposed to striking when the iron is hot.

The 2013 summer transfer window was a spectacular feck up and in hindsight set the tone for the next decade at United.
 
Things change very quickly, but whilst City signed Alvarez and Akanji for relative peanuts, and also enjoyed success at Academy Level
Oscar Bonavena said:
If Sheikh Whatshisface pulled out of City in the morning, it would all fall to shit right quick. That's hardly "well run", that's just relying on someone else's money.
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So essentially, City made a profit from the last Summer Transfer Window, and ended up with a more clinical forward line.
Meanwhile, the most expensive signing from the previous Summer, enjoyed a far more productive season, once he’d got to grips with the Manager’s obsessive tactical philosophy.
They also dispatched the one disruptive presence to Bayern Munich, whilst players such as Foden and Mahrez never once complained about the lack of game time

It’s almost as if the club knew what they’re doing, whilst others preferred a scattergun approach.
 
Scottynaldinho said:
Yes, forgot Everton but pound for pound, and if the timeline is a decade, we are undoubtedly the worst.
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Agreed 100%.
How the hell can you spend all the money we have and end up with a squad which is dire?
If somebody told me 5 years ago, that we'll spend £500M but the challenge would be to not win a trophy, I'd be scratching my head how I would engineer such a failure.
But somehow, we actually managed it, without trying to fail.
 
Champ said:
We have doubled our revenue's under the American cretins, since the takeover.
That's one thing that cannot be doubted.

Being well run to me comes down to being competitive on the pitch, being profitable and having a saleable product, all things United have been this season.
Chelsea would have been a 'well run' club up til this season, that's how quickly things can change in football.
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Average Salary: https://www.statista.com/statistics...-in-football-clubs-english-premier-league-uk/

Average Revenue by year 05-22:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/271665/revenue-of-manchester-united/

Largest Net Spend over Last 10 Years:
https://www.statista.com/statistics...ee-spending-of-premier-league-football-clubs/

We're successful in terms of making money... but the way we've used it and the return on investment in terms of success on the pitch Is abysmal. I'm sure most here would agree.

Operating Expenses of Manchester United:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/383889/manchester-united-operating-expenses/

do all teams in the league have higher expenses than revenue every year? Since 2017 that's been the case for us
 
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Eli Zee said:
Average Salary: https://www.statista.com/statistics...-in-football-clubs-english-premier-league-uk/

Average Revenue by year 05-22:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/271665/revenue-of-manchester-united/

Largest Net Spend over Last 10 Years:
https://www.statista.com/statistics...ee-spending-of-premier-league-football-clubs/

We're successful in terms of making money... but the way we've used it and the return on investment in terms of success on the pitch Is abysmal. I'm sure most here would agree.

Operating Expenses of Manchester United:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/383889/manchester-united-operating-expenses/

do all teams in the league have higher expenses than revenue every year? Since 2017 that's been the case for us
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Now I'm no business man but United gained a profit in the year proceeding the lockdown, and are on course to do the same this year, it's only the past few years we've seen a hit due to COVID and lack of Champions League football. Had United been in the Champions League last season the prediction was for record revenue for any club, alas that didn't happen.

Even then United still have cash reserves, moreso than some other clubs.

Can't argue that we should be doing better, but we also could be doing a lot worse, Chelsea, Leicester, Everton have all shown what can happen when you get things wrong, on the case of Leicester and Everton it's getting things wrong over a few seasons, with Chelsea it's happened in a short space of time.
 
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