Why is our transfer approach so abject and shockingly poor?

Well, as pointed out by others above, it's also a question of how many transfers have been completed in the relevant time frame. City, at least, have certainly been much more active in the market than we have during the last five years. If you're bringing in players wildly, you're bound to end up with a few successes here and there.

Secondly, Di Maria, Herrera and Shaw are very recent signings. It's not reasonable to label them either flops or overpriced. They could turn out to be instrumental players for us in the years to come yet.

Fellaini has been much less of an obvious flop this season than he was under Moyes. Mata has never been an outright flop for my money, as he has contributed plenty (admittedly without being positively impressive, but apart from De Gea I don't think anyone has been positively impressive since Fergie's retirement, whether they've been new or old signings).

That said, one may certainly ask whether we've been going after the right targets. It seems to me that we could have - and probably should have - brought in several players either in place of those we ended up signing or on top of these players. Our policy in the market post Fergie isn't easy to understand. It looks like a lack of policy and/or a lack of ability to execute a policy more than anything if you ask me.

And we now have a manager in charge who isn't known as a transfer market specialist at all. It's a bit worrying, I suppose.
 
I do care how much the club pays for and sells players. Maybe its because im from a finance background but it bugs the hell out of me when we have to overpay for players whereas other teams like Chelsea, Bayern and even fecking Madrid are able to bring high quality for reasonable prices. We overpaid for Fellaini, Mata, Herrera, Shaw and Di Maria. All are good/great players but surely we could've negotiated better deals for everyone of them except for Herrera perhaps. Why in the world pay so much for Shaw? Hes a fecking kid man! Maybe he'll turn into one of the best LBs in the world (does not look like it all atm) but still our negotiating ability seems to be really weak. I assume that other clubs constantly want to start bidding wars and with us involved (not shackled by FFP) it raises prices significantly.

We are also relatively poor with outgoing transfers, Welbeck is the most expensive player we've sold since Ronaldo! Its like we dont care how much we sell players as long as we offload them if they are surplus. Look at Chelsea, they've sold Schurrle for €10m more than what they got him for! They've definitely put us on their chump list with the Mata transfer, I think hes a brilliant player but remember he was United's record purchase at the time. It seems that Woodward simply wanted to splash some cash rather than seek value. Kroos, Fabregas and Benatia are just some of the players we could have had this summer for relatively cheap (you might say we werent interested but I would never be able to understand why!)

Point is, just because we are loaded doesnt mean we should go around throwing money away and it doesnt mean we shouldnt seek to sell off our players for cheap. Hopefully we can sell Chicharito and Nani for decent money in the summer, as for incoming its going to be tough but I hope we get some value players or at least not overpay so much.
 
Hamadovich86 said:
I do care how much the club pays for and sells players. Maybe its because im from a finance background but it bugs the hell out of me when we have to overpay for players whereas other teams like Chelsea, Bayern and even fecking Madrid are able to bring high quality for reasonable prices. We overpaid for Fellaini, Mata, Herrera, Shaw and Di Maria. All are good/great players but surely we could've negotiated better deals for everyone of them except for Herrera perhaps. Why in the world pay so much for Shaw? Hes a fecking kid man! Maybe he'll turn into one of the best LBs in the world (does not look like it all atm) but still our negotiating ability seems to be really weak. I assume that other clubs constantly want to start bidding wars and with us involved (not shackled by FFP) it raises prices significantly.

We are also relatively poor with outgoing transfers, Welbeck is the most expensive player we've sold since Ronaldo! Its like we dont care how much we sell players as long as we offload them if they are surplus. Look at Chelsea, they've sold Schurrle for €10m more than what they got him for! They've definitely put us on their chump list with the Mata transfer, I think hes a brilliant player but remember he was United's record purchase at the time. It seems that Woodward simply wanted to splash some cash rather than seek value. Kroos, Fabregas and Benatia are just some of the players we could have had this summer for relatively cheap (you might say we werent interested but I would never be able to understand why!)

Point is, just because we are loaded doesnt mean we should go around throwing money away and it doesnt mean we shouldnt seek to sell off our players for cheap. Hopefully we can sell Chicharito and Nani for decent money in the summer, as for incoming its going to be tough but I hope we get some value players or at least not overpay so much.
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Very good point. Just because we are rich doesn't mean we will remain in our privileged position with Woodward spending cash like the prodigal son. We have spend nearly 250m since Fergie left and our manager just complained about not having a proper midfielder to play. Before that it was complaint about the quality of the defense. We have expensive misfits in Fellaini, Mata & Herrera that would need to be shifted for half or less than half of their buying price. I wonder how long can we continue with this scatter gun transfer approach before it starts hurting us. Already the debt has gone up to 380m pounds.
 
Hamadovich86 said:
I do care how much the club pays for and sells players. Maybe its because im from a finance background but it bugs the hell out of me when we have to overpay for players whereas other teams like Chelsea, Bayern and even fecking Madrid are able to bring high quality for reasonable prices. We overpaid for Fellaini, Mata, Herrera, Shaw and Di Maria. All are good/great players but surely we could've negotiated better deals for everyone of them except for Herrera perhaps. Why in the world pay so much for Shaw? Hes a fecking kid man! Maybe he'll turn into one of the best LBs in the world (does not look like it all atm) but still our negotiating ability seems to be really weak. I assume that other clubs constantly want to start bidding wars and with us involved (not shackled by FFP) it raises prices significantly.

We are also relatively poor with outgoing transfers, Welbeck is the most expensive player we've sold since Ronaldo! Its like we dont care how much we sell players as long as we offload them if they are surplus. Look at Chelsea, they've sold Schurrle for €10m more than what they got him for! They've definitely put us on their chump list with the Mata transfer, I think hes a brilliant player but remember he was United's record purchase at the time. It seems that Woodward simply wanted to splash some cash rather than seek value. Kroos, Fabregas and Benatia are just some of the players we could have had this summer for relatively cheap (you might say we werent interested but I would never be able to understand why!)

Point is, just because we are loaded doesnt mean we should go around throwing money away and it doesnt mean we shouldnt seek to sell off our players for cheap. Hopefully we can sell Chicharito and Nani for decent money in the summer, as for incoming its going to be tough but I hope we get some value players or at least not overpay so much.
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We didn't have the value in the first place, teams like Chelsea/City bought when they're in the surplus, we bought when we're at neck deep, herein we got mugged.
 
Its strange to regard di maria,shaw and herrera as flops already... Its their first year.. also I dont regard Mata as a flop. Sure our transfer policy could have been better but other clubs had flops along the way esp city who bought left and right until they got it right. As for spending we are spending a bit more cause we are playing catchup.
 
Mali_Zeus said:
Its strange to regard di maria,shaw and herrera as flops already... Its their first year.. also I dont regard Mata as a flop. Sure our transfer policy could have been better but other clubs had flops along the way esp city who bought left and right until they got it right. As for spending we are spending a bit more cause we are playing catchup.
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They aren't flops at all. Sign some more players in the summer and everything should slot into place. We will be fine.
 
Theonas said:
Care to elaborate? By unquestionable success, I am excluding Lewandowski or Suarez as I think it's about the same degree of success as Di Maria. Who exactly do you think I am missing from the four I have mentioned.
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Griezmann has been outstanding at Atletico, de Bruyne has been the best player in the Bundesliga this season (alongside Robben), Alonso and Bernat have been excellent at Bayern, and that's just off the top of my head.
 
Mali_Zeus said:
OP regards them as flops or maybe I misunderstood. I agree with you,its not that drammatic..
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Di Maria and Mata's names aren't even in the original post...

Shaw is mentioned as a bright, young player who nevertheless we wildly overpaid for.

The word 'flop' doesn't appear anywhere in the original post.
 
Pexbo said:
I agree.

I look at the 6 players we signed and I'm happy that we signed all of them aside from the £6m loan punt who was one of the best players in the world just 12 months prior to that signing.

Di Maria - Madrid's second best player last season and UCL Final MOTM - £57m
Rojo - World Cup Finalist and arguably best defender in his league the year before - £16m
Blind - Dutch Footballer of the Year - £14m
Herrera - Questionable price but non-negotiable - £28m
Shaw - English tax, hugely talented, competing with Chelsea, 3 seasons under his belt before he is 20, will prove a bargain - £30m
Falcao - try before you buy on a player most people had in the tier below Messi and Ronaldo just a year before.


I really don't think its that bad.
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No problem with any of the signings personally. My problem is how Van Gaal as used them.
 
JUPITER said:
Di Maria and Mata's names aren't even in the original post...

Shaw is mentioned as a bright, young player who nevertheless we wildly overpaid for.

The word 'flop' doesn't appear anywhere in the original post.
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I wasnt refering to the original post. You dont call them flops but you call them misses. I dont get an obsession with how much we pay or not pay for some player but dont want to get in that conversation either. Shaw will maybe prove to be a great buy for that money in the future..
 
When we signed Ronaldo, we also signed Kleberson, Djemba Djemba, Bellion. Buying "up and coming" players is exciting but it's also risky in terms of failure rates.

I don't think we got worse at making signings (though for the team that paid a record fee for Rio we got awfully sensitive about that £30m boundary) but I think we got more comfortable with the idea of letting the "not quite good enough" hang around. The importance of a strong squad, became a big squad, became an overgrown squad where players could stagnate, which in turn blocked the way for new signings and young players.

This summer was tough. No CL, a change of manager, a bunch of players to move out, and some potential targets (like Vidal and Strootman) ruled out by injury. We didn't pick up a bad bunch though, and if we did overpay then you'd expect that because United had to spend and everyone knew they were coming to "a project" not to instant glory.
 
Mali_Zeus said:
I wasnt refering to the original post. You dont call them flops but you call them misses.
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I've only mentioned Di Maria and Mata's names once in the whole thread and that was just to acknowledge that @JPRouve didn't include them in his 'top signings of the last 5 years' list.

Nowhere else have I even mentioned them.
 
Trigg said:
No problem with any of the signings personally. My problem is how Van Gaal as used them.
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So far.

I think it's square pegs for round holes at the moment because he doesn't think the actual round pegs are quite round enough just yet.
 
JUPITER said:
Having that many wildly over-priced signings that are (thus far) almost all misses, while players like Aguero, Toure, Hazard, Matic, Oscar, Silva and Fabregas have been flowing into our direct rivals (for less money than we've been signing our misses with), to me, points to a fault somewhere in our approach. I just wonder where, because it spreads over 3 managers now.
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When these players moved, we didn't needed them, we were on top of league, like someone else said transfers are cyclic, you won't sign the best players ,if the opportunity doesn't present itself and the opportunity works on both side the players have to be available and you have to need them, otherwise you won't be willing to pay their full price.
 
JPRouve said:
When these players moved, we didn't needed them, we were on top of league, like someone else said transfers are cyclic, you won't sign the best players ,if the opportunity doesn't present itself and the opportunity works on both side the players have to be available and you have to need them, otherwise you won't be willing to pay their full price.
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We needed Hazard, Matic, D Silva, and could have done with Toure. Our midfield has been screaming for signings for years (even when we we're winning things). I was particularly pissed off when I heard City signed Silva for something like 11m.
Of course the Hazard and Matic ones were understandable, since we missed out to Chelsea for bigs fees and wages.
 
I am impressed by all the signings we've made last year and Fellaini has even improved under Van Gaal

its the combination of players on the same team sheet and the tactics that have made many of the players look poor

I think the manager has to take a major part of the responsibility - evidenced by no one bar De Gea really playing well consistently this season

the team is certainly less than the sum of its individual parts.....I'd seriously question giving Van Gaal another 100 million without having guarantees about the way the team is going to play in future
 
Our way of going on about business is a psychologial problem that often happens in business when one part has upper hand on the other (more money) and the other (man united) has got big, but limit funds. We can't afford paying too much and we can't afford picking the wrong player. What happens is that we try to negotiate in a market where there's very little room to do so - it's the sellers market. What happens is that we end up in a position where we end up having to pay too much for a player that we didn't want to begin with, just because we're getting pushed into a corner where there's no way out. In the stock market this is a very common factor where actors start running after stocks that they were waiting for. Instead of acting right away they end up having to pay an overprice.

Doing a lot of business on the last day is a typical sign of not having control. It's what happened to us this summer and the same thing happened to Arsenal that summer where they brought in 7 players on the last day - mostly a-/B rated names.
 
Cassidy said:
We needed Hazard, Matic, D Silva, and could have done with Toure. Our midfield has been screaming for signings for years (even when we we're winning things). I was particularly pissed off when I heard City signed Silva for something like 11m.
Of course the Hazard and Matic ones were understandable, since we missed out to Chelsea for bigs fees and wages.
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That's a fan opinion Fergie continued to win, and thought that the players in question didn't worth the money or the effort, as for Matic, Moyes was in meltdown, he wasn't thinking clearly, the man accepted to sign Mata.
 
If you ask me, getting Falcao on loan rather than buying him was a master stoke!

Imagine for a second, we paid 40+ millions for him...
 
Cassidy said:
We needed Hazard, Matic, D Silva, and could have done with Toure. Our midfield has been screaming for signings for years (even when we we're winning things). I was particularly pissed off when I heard City signed Silva for something like 11m.
Of course the Hazard and Matic ones were understandable, since we missed out to Chelsea for bigs fees and wages.
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Silva was £24m
 
RedStarUnited said:
If you ask me, getting Falcao on loan rather than buying him was a master stoke!

Imagine for a second, we paid 40+ millions for him...
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We probably will decide to sign him for those €40m in the Summer.
 
JPRouve said:
When these players moved, we didn't needed them, we were on top of league, like someone else said transfers are cyclic, you won't sign the best players ,if the opportunity doesn't present itself and the opportunity works on both side the players have to be available and you have to need them, otherwise you won't be willing to pay their full price.
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We actually needed all of them at the time of their moves to our rivals.
 
Sarni said:
We actually needed all of them at the time of their moves to our rivals.
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We did, but Ferguson who is a bit "special" thought otherwise, and in his own little world he was right because he was able to win without these additions.

Edit:
  • If I'm not mistaken when Touré moved, we had Carrick, Fletcher and Scholes all in-form. And apparently he was very greedy.
  • For Silva we were playing with two strikers Rooney and Hernandez, and that was a good partnership
  • We should have tried to sign Aguero
  • Matic, Moyes was meltdowning.
  • Hazard, his agent was greedy and was under Abrahmovich spell, after the yacht party invitation.
 
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Successful said:
Our way of going on about business is a psychologial problem that often happens in business when one part has upper hand on the other (more money) and the other (man united) has got big, but limit funds. We can't afford paying too much and we can't afford picking the wrong player. What happens is that we try to negotiate in a market where there's very little room to do so - it's the sellers market. What happens is that we end up in a position where we end up having to pay too much for a player that we didn't want to begin with, just because we're getting pushed into a corner where there's no way out. In the stock market this is a very common factor where actors start running after stocks that they were waiting for. Instead of acting right away they end up having to pay an overprice.

Doing a lot of business on the last day is a typical sign of not having control. It's what happened to us this summer and the same thing happened to Arsenal that summer where they brought in 7 players on the last day - mostly a-/B rated names.
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I agree, that there is little room to negotiate transfer frees. I disagree that there is not room to navigate. Its not about negotiating transfer fees, but about identifying alternatives. Thats what puts you in a good bargaining position and thats what United is missing. We already lacked proper scouting in the last years under SAF, but he compensated for it and won regardless. There are many options in the market, but we just pick(ed) the wrong ones.
 
RedStarUnited said:
If you ask me, getting Falcao on loan rather than buying him was a master stoke!

Imagine for a second, we paid 40+ millions for him...
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Your face when we pay the £43m for him despite his performances this season is going to be a sight.
 
Gopher Brown said:
Your face when we pay the £43m for him despite his performances this season is going to be a sight.
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can't for a minute believe we'll buy him, unless we were misled over the nature of the deal, and it was to split money into different financial years for Monaco's benefit.
 
Our signings last summer were fine even if they were overpriced. Falcao is the only who's been shite and he's on loan.

The problem was Moyes' dealings, Mata and Fellaini namely. Fellaini...we still haven't figured out where to play him which is a farce. Mata was simply Moyes signing a big player for the sake of signing one without any idea.
 
Pexbo said:
I agree.

I look at the 6 players we signed and I'm happy that we signed all of them aside from the £6m loan punt who was one of the best players in the world just 12 months prior to that signing.

Di Maria - Madrid's second best player last season and UCL Final MOTM - £57m
Rojo - World Cup Finalist and arguably best defender in his league the year before - £16m
Blind - Dutch Footballer of the Year - £14m
Herrera - Questionable price but non-negotiable - £28m
Shaw - English tax, hugely talented, competing with Chelsea, 3 seasons under his belt before he is 20, will prove a bargain - £30m
Falcao - try before you buy on a player most people had in the tier below Messi and Ronaldo just a year before.


I really don't think its that bad.
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Well put.
 
We're probably the only team in the world that could sign three central midfielders in two seasons and still manage to be in desperate need of a midfielder.
 
Sir Alex refused to strengthen as he was good enough to win inspite of that, that has caused a lot of problems.

Dithering Dave didnt help. Waited the entire window and then spunked cash on Fellaini.

Van Gaal hasnt done badly at all.

Its all good mentioning Kroos, Costa and Sanchez but we couldnt have landed any of them as Real are Real and we werent in the CL.
 
A clear sign that we've changed our traditional chaotic approach is that we get our business done at the start of the summer. No more of this fart-arsing around on deadline day looking to sign players. Get the deals done now so when the window opens the players join in the first week.
 
Pexbo said:
Scatter gun approach. They signed a huge amount of absolute dross for inflated prices, of course some were going to turn out alright.
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This - have ppl forgetten about Robinho, Elano, Jo, Benteke, and that Serbian lad who they exchanged for their current benched Serbian lad?

We should have done better esp wrt midfield targets, but we haven't done that poorly either especially as we were always winning titles to go with the mediocre business.
 
I think we have been a victim of circumstances. We didn't capitalise under the last season of SAF's and Gill's reign. They and the board would have known for a while that they were planning to leave especially in Gill's case. You would think that in his last few transfer dealings he would have taken Woodward into them to let him know how its done and give him some experience of the situations.

I feel like SAF knew what players United were lacking and would have sort them out before he left. Fair enough it wouldn't be his team that he was purchasing for but quality players will always shine in quality teams. Especially young stars with potential who could be molded into a the new managers plans.

When they both left we were left in a situation where players didn't want to commit to United as they wanted to see how we developed under Moyes (Horribly). Then that put us in bad stead for this window when it came to attracting players who were already in CL squads. Then on top of that we had a novice head honcho dealing with the transfers, so we were panicked into paying bigger prices in order to rectify our mishaps.

We have to just give this regime under Van Gaal a chance to settle down and find its feet, it is not even a year old and people are distraught about our transfer dealings yet do not want to face the facts of why we didn't do so well.

Fabregas to Chelsea happened on the cheap because Barca wanted Suarez and had to accept Chelsea's offer for Fab to gain funds and a team spot or risk losing out on Suarez.

Kroos to Real, last year of contract and was going to the CL champions who were still in the CL this year. No brainer for the player if you ask me.
 
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