Have we become what we once criticised?

This topic contains 23 replies, has 12 voices, and was last updated by Alfie07 Alfie07 6 years, 9 months ago.

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  • #1493633

    Manthistle
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    • :

    During the Premier League era under Fergie we spent a total of £543.85m on players (£228.20m net), however since he retired we’ve spent £465.80m (£341.55m net) on new players and are looking like spending circa £200m this summer. Now, granted, the cost of players has sky rocketed in recent years but historically we’ve been able to hold the moral high ground when it came to clubs like City and Chelsea spending silly money on player after player all the while ourselves staying reasonably competitive, albeit still on budgets that exceeded most Premier League clubs at the time.

    My question now though is are we hypocrites given our recent spending? Have we become what we once criticised?

    #1493642

    We have become a buying club yes. This has happened because our two managers had no idea what they were doing and spent crazy amount of money on crappy players, just because the money was available to them. Mourinho is also spending a lot not only because it’s his style but also because he needs to repair the squad to bring it back to standard.

    Once our playing level is back to a level high enough to compete for Premier League and Champions League titles then the spending will drop to that of other normal clubs like Liverpool and Arsenal (as it was during Fergie era) and we’ll only sign in positions we really need to (unlike City and Chelsea who spend money just because their owners like big shiny new signings).

    #1493654

    jm1502
    Participant
    • :

    We’ve always tried to buy the best players mate – Keane, Stam, RVN, Veron, then there’s the ones that got away like Shearer. We just got overtaken and now we’ve come to the realisation that to compete, you’ve got to throw money at it. We just bought badly. Tell me, what’s the alternative, and please don’t tell me it’s the youth team. We had one good crop in 92 and only 3 or 4 of them were the real deal.

    #1493655
    hatters
    hatters
    Participant
    • :

    @manthistle. If we try be neutral for a second we have to admit that SAF completely bullied the league in terms of transfers before Chelsea and City came onto the scene. We could pretty much pick and choose the best players from any team in the league bar Arsenal and we were usually the highest spenders.

    The arrival of the owners at Chelsea and City has done wonders for the competitiveness of the league and they had to pretty much spend their way there to send statements of intent. After their doping one can argue that Barcelona, PSG, and Real Madrid had similar splurges when they built teams over the last 8 or so years breaking records left right and centre (Ronaldo, Kaka, Suarez, Neymar, Ibrahimovic, Luiz, Moura, Higuain, James, Thiago etc.). I don’t think you can point to any top European team at the minute without pointing to some kind of a splurge.

    As Sympathy says, it’s really embarrassing the amount of money Moyes and van Gaal have flushed down the toilet and I reckon if we had signed Mourinho to come in straight after SAF we probably would be winning trophies now with a new squad for about the same cost of what van Gaal and Moyes spent.

    I never criticized Chelsea or City for their spending so I reckon it just is what it is, if a football club wants the best players (and therefore) trophies these days, you simply have to pay the big bucks.

    #1493662
    Diabolo Rouge
    Diabolo Rouge
    Participant
    • :

    That’s my part here.. When SAF was here, there was no tv deal sponsorship like now. So it is related. The more money, the more you spend. Liverpool and Arsenal are struggling to compete with the likes of City and Chelsea. Only United are able to compete with them. Its looks like you have already started your agenda against Mourihno and posters here. You know what.. Morata, Perisic and Fabihno are strongly linked. And guess what this may happen within 2 weeks now. So stop complaining ans get in for these coming pre-season and new season.. And once more Mourihno looks like to keep DDG and our spine is getting better.. Pogba, Herrera, Morata, Fabinho, Bailly, Lindelof,Rahford, Martial. That is a young team. GGMU

    #1493664

    nil
    Participant
    • :

    There’s no question that we spend exorbitant amounts of money compared to most other clubs that aren’t part of the financial elite in World football (City, United, Chelsea, PSG, Real, Barca and the like). As mentioned previously, you have to account for the considerable rise in transfer fees, of course.

    However, specifically compared to City, Chelsea and clubs of their kind there’s a difference for me. Our expenditure has been possible because of football related activities, being a strong sports brand and running a successful football club. City and Chelsea et al, conversely, wouldn’t in any way be able to compete the way they’re able to today if they hadn’t had insane amounts of oil money pumped into their clubs.

    I’ve never critizised clubs for spending a lot of money. Milan did it in their day, Real Madrid started doing it way before most other clubs – didn’t they break the World record twice in the space of year with Figo and Zidane? And so on. But when that happens because some rich oil billionaire wants to play real life Football Manager, it’s becomes disconnected from football as a sport. Gaining success like that will rarely command respect.

    #1493671
    hatters
    hatters
    Participant
    • :

    @nil. I beg to differ there. Of course, historically massive clubs like Manchester United, Bayern Munich, Barcelona, or Real Madrid can compete financially with all of the new crop (PSG, City, Chelsea etc.) because of heritage and football related activities (ie. running a successful football club).

    It feels more organic and I admit I do, as a fan, take a bit of pleasure in the fact that we have more “authenticity” to our club compared to the newcomers but I don’t think it is anything to harp on about nor is it any real stick to beat the respective clubs about. In my opinion, clubs like City, PSG, or Chelsea are simply lucky to have drawn investors during a crucial period in world football when the elite old guard (Barcelona, AC Milan, Juventus, Real Madrid, Manchester United, Liverpool *cough cough*, Bayern Munich etc.) were threatening to bore the entire football world as they had gained revenue streams due to a mixture of being the best historical teams and the coinciding effects of globalization.

    I think when we look at it, the Premier League is a much, much better league to watch than the others and that is all thanks to the billionaires who entered – mostly Roman Abramovich.

    Of course at some point there has to be some kind of change in the way money runs football so heavily but in the end I reckon financial doping has made the sport much more appealing globally.

    And then there’s Leicester..

    #1493673
    redblood
    redblood
    Participant
    • :

    Nobody cares anymore mate,anybody can spend their money as they please.If you want to keep up with the competition and fight for the trophies then you have to spend.Simples.

    #1493682

    happyhurling
    Participant
    • :

    Was going to say what Nil said. It’s all relative and I think the point is we built our empire from the ground up. We weren’t just given a billion pounds like we’d found cheat mode on championship manager. And through it all, all the success and all the money we’ve still manabged to stay true to our traditions and principals. We still look to bring youth players through and that’s amazing when you consider the pressure of being the most successful club in the world.
    So, get your point, but no – we’ve not become what we once criticised. But, to keep up, we’ve had to compete without City and Chelsea by spending big.
    I suppose there’s a point to be made about player attitudes as well. Players have become very greedy and money hungry. Imagine a player 15 years ago choosing to play for City over United. No chance!
    And now it seems to be all of their childhood dreams!! ??

    #1493686

    yorkshireman200
    Participant
    • :

    No doubt we have spent/bought badly in recent years but the cause of the excess spending is due to the Glazers frugality in the early years when they couldn’t invest in the team because of the debt repayments they brought with them. We hardly spent at all, then we spent badly and only now do we appear to be spending wisely on the right players. Lets hope they’ve learnt their lesson?

    #1493709

    Manthistle
    Participant
    • :

    Good points lads, well made.

    I was never one to criticise city and Chelsea, etc. however I did highlight that we acheived what we had without outspending everyone else. It was also good to point out to Liverpool fans when they thought they had the moral high ground even though they out spent us.

    It was also good to note the amount of players playing in the prem who came through the Utd ranks which is still the case.

    Plus we gave teenagers more game time than any of the other top 6 last season.

    Future is bright. Not quite Spurs bright, but bright.

    #1493723
    redblood
    redblood
    Participant
    • :

    happy-The most successful club in the world?

    #1493749

    mudmudd
    Participant
    • :

    That,s just how football works nowadays. Even a decent player like van dijk cost about 70 million. Our so called youth system is shit and can’t even produce a quality let alone a terrific player.

    #1493751
    MacGuffin
    MacGuffin
    Participant
    • :

    For those who miss my essays ………..

    HISTORICALLY
    We were big spenders in terms of being willing to pay huge fees for a player IF he was considered a critical component AND had the right profile (eg Pallister, Keane, RvN, Rooney). These players were normally young (under 25) and spent their entire top flight career with us. This meant the huge fee translated to a relatively modest annual cost.

    Much of the rest of the team would be free homegrown, bargain buys signed young (Ole) or solid emerging players from small clubs who could be bought relatively cheap. The key to our success was signing players (replacements) before they were needed and moving older players as it became clear they were on the wane. eg. Keane-Ince, Ronnie-Ole, RvN-Cole, Rio-Stamm. This meant success could be maintained without interuption due to deterioration in team quality.

    The maths means the expensive star signings with long playing careers ahead of them, supported by homegrown & budget signings resulted in reasonable total transfer expenditure. We spent on quality ! The converse was the Benitez Liverpool who spent more than us in total but it was quanity not quality.

    btw – It is the star quality players that unlock the park-the-bus teams turning draws into wins and top4 into titles.

    THEN THE GLAZERS RODE INTO TOWN …….
    After the Glazers there was a noticeable change. In the 8 years that followed under SAF, we signed just 2 players costing over 20m. and one of those (RvP) was close to 30. This is at a time top players were going for 40m. We were linked with many many top players but it always ended with NO VALUE. Imagine had we paid the price and bought Hazard instead of budget B choice Kagawa.

    And it seems the success with Ronnie had gone to SAF Glazers head as if SAF believed he had the midas touch. We brought in countless budget players and convinced ourselves (despite evidence to the contrary) they would become stars. Then when they didn’t we were left in the brown stuff.

    Whereas before we would let top players go when SAF felt they were on the slide (Beckham, Stamm, Keane, Cole etc) the Glazer SAF kept established stars well past their sell by date (Scholes, Giggs etc).

    Myself and others saw the signs and warned an iceberg lay ahead ……..

    #1493752
    MacGuffin
    MacGuffin
    Participant
    • :

    THEN THE CRASH CAME
    Once we lost the Fergie Factor and the aging stars the Glazer house of cards collapsed. The team SAF left had NO STAR player under 30 other than DDG. The only SAF “stars” LvG inherited were a Rooney on the slide and an old Carrick & RvP. It was clear the team had been run down to virtually nothing.

    THE CONCLUSION
    Keeping with my property analagy, the Glazers bought prime property in perfect condition and failed to maintain it. Instead of replacing the aging roof they said “it can wait”. And when they did do repairs, they chose the cheaper products.

    Eventually, failure to qualify for the CL made it clear the 5 star property had became 3 star and huge investment was needed to regain its 5 star rating. This is the opposite of what the Mansour and RA did. They bought cheap 3 star properties and invested to convert them into 5 star residences.

    From a Glazer perspective their business plan worked. They used almost every penny from the “rental” revenue from the 5 star residence to pay the mortgage. Then 10 years later, inflation means the revenues are much higher, the mortgage payments relatively smaller and there is money for repair and rennovation. BUT is there enough? How long will it take?

    MANTHISTLE STATISTICS
    Manthistle statistics are unfairly skewed because SAF (Glazer) postponed spending on maintenance & improvement thereby pushing the cost onto his successor.

    THE UNSPOKEN
    To compound the problem what has happened to our scouting and youth development programs. In the past we have always been able to find gems at bargain prices. How many have we found since the Glazers. And our youth program would produce stars and decent squad players.

    We have the financial resources to hire top scouts & coaches and pay signing fees for youth. Our global reputation & appeal should attract promising players from around the world. We should be the Oxford University of football, the BP of resource exploration and exploitation.

    It seems, like the UK economy, we have ceased being manufacturers and are now importers & exporters selling shirts & sponsorship. We are like Umbro, a Manchester company with great tradition and local factory, taken over by Americans and now had its products made abroad, imports them, brands them then re-sells worldwide.

    PS – If ever another sheikh or oligarch comes along and decides to buy a cheap club with strong tradition and high local population (Newcastle, Sheffield, Birmingham, Everton, WHU ) and invests to make them a CL team, there would be another competitor for top4.

    #1493774

    jm1502
    Participant
    • :

    Couple of decent essays there Mac, although I was struggling towards the end of the second. Nevertheless, 8 and 7 out of 10 respectively.

    #1493819

    Manthistle
    Participant
    • :

    I think you have a point Mac but maybe it’s not as extreme as you are making out. I agree that some players have been kept far too long compared to what the previous ‘cut off point’ was pre Glazers.

    I don’t agree that spending changed as much as you make out though. The market changed when Abramovich arrived and inflated transfer fees but for every Rooney and Rio, who were marque signings, you had your Evra, Vidic, Ronaldo, who were relativity cheap in comparison. Post Glazer we bought Berbatov for over £30m, De Gea for £19m (for a GK that is significantly high), RvP (that was a poor buy IMO given his age. Very short term thinking from SAF which is more the Mourinho sort of purchase), plus just below your convenient £20m threshold you had Carrick, Hargreaves, Young, Jones, etc.

    I also don’t agree with your comparisons. I would say Keane was bought to replace Robson, not Ince. Ronaldo was in no way bought to replace Solksjaer and Rio was bought after Stam had already been sold.

    I agree about the scouting. It’s been poor for a while now. When SAF arrived in 1986 he significantly increased the scouting network. We found gems like Schmeichel, Solksjaer, Stam, Forlan (to some extent), Heinze, Park, etc. but I can’t remember the last one.

    I think you’re being a bit harsh on Kagawa. He was fantastic at Dortmund and although he was cheaper than Hazard he looked the real deal. I don’t think I can recall many players from the Bundesliga coming to the prem and doing well. Mkhitaryan has certainly struggled and he was Bundesliga player of the year last season.

    I think the constant changing of managers doesn’t help either. Each new manager will want their own players and may not want the players his predecessor chose. Zaha, Kagawa, Shaw, Martial, Schneiderlin, etc. equals big money spent and a high player turnover. Thats why we need to stick with Mourinho and hope he doesn’t press the self destruct button in the next few years.

    Good points overall though and I agree with your general theory.

    #1494193

    nil
    Participant
    • :

    @hatters:
    “In my opinion, clubs like City, PSG, or Chelsea are simply lucky to have drawn investors during a crucial period in world football when the elite old guard (Barcelona, AC Milan, Juventus, Real Madrid, Manchester United, Liverpool *cough cough*, Bayern Munich etc.) were threatening to bore the entire football world as they had gained revenue streams due to a mixture of being the best historical teams and the coinciding effects of globalization.

    I think when we look at it, the Premier League is a much, much better league to watch than the others and that is all thanks to the billionaires who entered – mostly Roman Abramovich”.

    Reasonable points. You’re certainly right that real life FM of billionaires have made the PL more interesting. Of course, it has. We arguably have 6 clubs who have a real chance of winning the league, and the number of superstar players have increased exponentially over the last 10 years or so. I am, however, not quite on the same page.

    For me, one of the defining points is a clubs ability to be competetive and challenge for the league and in Europe. Are you able to challenge because you, as a football club, have worked your way into that position, or did you reach that position over night because of a massive amount of injected funds?

    You use the word “authenticity” and I’ll go even further. Consider the hypothetic notion that Abramovich or some of the other similar investors decided that perhaps their money were better spent investing in something else, pulled their financial backing and sold the club to a new owner who wasn’t in the same way minded on providing an ample cash influx to keep buying new players and what have you. Would City, Chelsea et al retain their competitiveness or would they eventually fade into the same mediocrity that they’ve wallowed in for years before their sugar daddy showed up? My point is, the ability of those clubs to compete is to an extent artificial and, for me, so is whatever accolades that come their way because of it.

    And if one’s looking for a reasonably good example of being able to make it today’s football without that type of sudden, unrelated cash injection, I think Spurs is doing a good job showing that it’s actually possible, over years, to work your way from top-half to top end.

    Call it a wish to maintain the moral high ground or grasping at straws in a footballing World that’s become more competitive. Maybe so. And I might be forced to eat my own words. But I’d prefer to see Arsenal or Spurs winning the treble 5 years in a row over seeing City winning the CL or any other trophy just once, just like it would pain me if United in some way reached a point where, for example, oil money was necessary to keep us in contention.

    #1494264
    MacGuffin
    MacGuffin
    Participant
    • :

    @nil – United owe much of their success due to:-

    1] Our fan loyalty produced historically higher attendances than our results deserved, making (keeping) us a big club.

    2] Being first to exploit commercial opportunities gave us significant financial advantage. True its down to our endaevours but its the salesmen more than the players.

    3] Forcing the creation of the PL through threatening to form a breakaway league. This diverted TV money from being distributed among 4 divisions to just PL clubs. Furthermore the distribution system meant money was not distributed solely on the basis of performance, the most watched teams would get more money giving United an advantage due to their greater fansbase and reputation.

    4] Pushing for the creation of the CL with (a) group stages (b) 3-4 clubs qualifying (c) seeding, meant the top clubs were almost assured of more money. The money enabled the purchase of players to keep the top clubs at the top.

    We were at the fore in stacking the odds to ensure the big clubs stayed big and it became almost a cartel. This is evidence by the same clubs being in the the top4. But for City and Chelsea it would have been United Arsenal Liverpool every year.

    Contrast the league standings in Division1 with those of the PL. In the PL days you had the likes of Notts Forest, Derby, Ipswich champions. Clubs like Blackburn, Everton. Villa, Spurs, Newcastle etc. were all in with a chance. We helped make the playing field uneven !

    sold the club to a new owner who wasn’t in the same way minded on providing an ample cash influx to keep buying new players and what have you.

    Manchester United ending up having to fight for top4 !

    The FA removed rule 34 thereby changing football from a sport to a business (I disagree with that change). Since it is a business why shouldn’t a businessman buy a company and invest to transform it from an unsuccessful company into a successful one. You are advocating protectionism to prevent investment and competition.

    #1494433
    hatters
    hatters
    Participant
    • :

    @nil. I understand where you are coming from in the way that the billionaire investors are pretty much throwing money at clubs and gaining a somewhat unfair advantage (compared to other clubs that aren’t part of the historically elite clubs) but I have to say that in the end we have to say that it pretty much is the only option for any club to bridge the gap between themselves and the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona, or Manchester United.

    As MacGuffin has alluded to, I reckon the new oil money clubs are good for the interest of competitiveness in football.

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