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Clarifying our spending. (self.reddevils)

doesnt_like_pantsHerrera が 投稿

This is not an argument in support of LvG, it's a spiel against ignorance.

When people talk about how much LvG has spent they ramble on about how he's spent 250m. Now whether you like it or not, you can't parade this argument around and shout foul that our squad should be in better shape.

The fact of the matter is, when it comes to improving a squad, net spend IS important. If I want to buy a business it's value is based on it's assets and it's liabilities. It's assets are composed of what it currently has, not what it once had in the past but no longer has ownership of.

If Louis bought Di Maria for 60m and sold him for 55m then we no longer have a player of his calibre and value in the squad. We lost 5m on him and he should no longer be involved in the argument when it comes to the current state of the squad. So why the hell do people include Di Maria in LvG's spending???

What's more, we've been outspent by City in every fucking summer window over the last 6 years. The fact is, to get back to the top, we either need a manager that can produce more than the sum of the squads parts or we need to invest another 200m pounds net into the squad to perform at the level of the top 3/4/5 clubs again. It's as simple as that lads.

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[–]huatry 31ポイント32ポイント  (6子コメント)

Exactly right. You've also got to think about the weekly wage bill for the squad, which has been drastically cut as older established players have been moved out under Van Gaal.

[–]doesnt_like_pantsHerrera[S] 36ポイント37ポイント  (3子コメント)

I think LvG needs to go but I don't think he's done as bad of a job as some people think.

The squad overhaul has been fucking monstrous. Almost everyone from Fergie's era is gone now and that was only 3 years ago (2 considering Moyes didn't really clear any of them out). You look at City and the majority of their starting XI (Aguero, Silva, Toure, Kompany when fit, Zaba, Hart) have been there for 4+ years AND they've been outspending us over that whole time.

He's left the squad a bit thin and managed to incorporate youth. Our injuries have been some of the worst in the Prem and we're only 1 point off City.

I think if you were to ask most United fans who the better manager between LvG and Pellegrini was then most would say Pellegrini. Some have even suggested he take charge of us. Fuck that, City have underperformed way worse than we have.

LvG's transfers haven't even been that bad, I think they've been quite good in all honesty.

My biggest issue is the football is just so dire.

[–]seaders*THE* Paul Parker 6ポイント7ポイント  (1子コメント)

My biggest issue is the football is just so dire.

That's a recurring conversation I have with my mates, too, that the football's been too bad. IF the football was just a little better, in some matches, most things would actually seem much rosier. We have a cracking record against top teams, and the average age of the team now is incredibly young (ridiculously low if you're talking a future front 3 from Martial, Rashford, Lingard and Memphis).

If the football was just a few degrees better, specifically against teams "worse" than us, and we make the Champions League again, I'd be very ok with LvG, and even also us trying to pass the reins then to Giggs. Sure it might go wrong, but so might every single manager we bring in.

People keep going on, and on, and on about us not having an identity, or plan, or anything like that. But it's actually quite the opposite. We tried to go for instant, long-term stability with Moyes. Didn't work, the rebuild / transitioning job showed up to be a lot bigger than previously thought, so we needed a manager to do that. LvG brought in, for the short term, then try for long-term stability again, with Giggs.

Again, if the football was just a little better, against some teams, everything else would be easier to take.

[–]wallpaper_01Giggs 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I do think we are starting to come together now as a team and play a bit better. Personally I would like to see LVG see his contract out. I don't give a shit if Mourinho comes or not, teams he has left have never been in a good state and I'm not interested in a quick trophy season at all. I want prolonged success like we had before, like Bayern and Barca.

[–]dsbm223Blind 5ポイント6ポイント  (0子コメント)

Agree with you. I have been LVG supporter but eventually gave up after those November - December run of games. Although I still like LVG, part of that roots from how he got mediocre (specially defense) Netherlands team playing as a unit and got to 3rd at WC but do admit, its time for mutual goodbye for better of both the club and for himself (to enjoy retirement). If LVG had not been so old school/stubborn and so rigid, he (and we) could have avoided this mess we have now.

Speaking of that, I love most of his signings and the youth he has given chances to.

I feel he should have tried second half of last season's 4-1-2-3 again this season when we played fairly exciting football (man, that 4-2 win over city was something) and got great run of results.

[–]ManUToasterDiego Forlan 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

You've also got to think about the weekly wage bill for the squad

I remember recently (no more than a year ago) there was a really good "study" (not sure how proper it was tbh) that attempted to find the single mot important correlation between football teams and their success. They, perhaps unsurprisingly, found that wage rather than singing fees were the most accurate way to predict success.

The fact that ppl defend Woodward pointing out our recent signings kinda shows how reluctant we are to join this new era of commercialized football. Up until the moment Fergie retired we could gloat about our honorable ways and how we overachieved every year, but without SAF we can no longer keep the old United culture of developing players and only making a marquee singing every other season, you can't do that against teams that spent a billion pounds over a few years....

This is not to attack Woodward specifically, I just mean to say we are not doing enough. I like this new approach we showed with Martial, we are still going for young promising players (still probably saving a lot of money if you consider what he'll be worth soon), and if we go through with Renato Sanchez that might show what's to come (although his price seems insane, so did Martials idk). However, I think if we want instant, sustainable success, we need to be balancing the Martials, Sanchezes, Rashfords, etc., with top experience players (and this goes back to the high wage correlation). I think now we are getting the youth right, but the experienced players we have are not the right mix. Rooney keeps pushing players out of position (or he gets played out of position which is arguably worst), Mata doesn't really fit in out system, Carrick slows down the play insanely, Bastian just needs to stay fit... I think where we need our experience top players is CB, ST (so Rashford, Wilson, and Martial can be main striker in a few years), and just one CM like Shwainsteiger (having two like with Carrick just gives a manager the temptation of playing the slowest midfield alive and that scares me).

[–]honey_pie -3ポイント-2ポイント  (0子コメント)

And also left us with a thread-bare squad. If mourinho/whoever sees fit to bulk up the squad (which he probably would, he says he wants 2 quality players at each position) then we have achieved nothing on wages in the long run.

LVG also tried to bring in high-wage players; falcao was on huge wages as ADM. The only real success in that area was moving on RVP. But he has been replaced by Schweini as an old high-earner.

[–]ChickenSun 6ポイント7ポイント  (2子コメント)

You're right.

Also I like ask people who bring up LVG's spending which of the players you said we shouldn't have signed at the time? We needed more depth in centre midfield signed a world cup winner on the cheap and one of the best defensive mids in the league. Needed a right back? signed italy's starting fullback. Needed more goals? signed the top scorer in the Dutch league. I think the only one people seemed to question at the time was Martial who's arguably gone on to be the best signing.

The accusation shouldn't be that LVG spent too much or poorly it should be that he's not getting enough out of the ones he signed.

[–]targeryian 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

That's true to an extent but you don't pin your hopes of scoring 20+ goals a season on a left winger from the dutch league. Also you don't pin your hopes on Wayne Rooney who's infamous for being a slow starter to the season and isnt a proper striker. Martial again shouldn't have been relied upon.

Looking at all Fergies teams and all the top teams around the world the one thing they don't take risks with is goals (Apart from Arsene but they aren't exactly setting the world alight). Fergie always bought a striker that could guarantee goals - Berbatov, Tevez , Andy Cole, Yorke , RVN , Ole , RVP etc..

That has been the difference this season.

[–]ChickenSun 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I don't think this refutes anything I said? I mean what you're saying is we need another attacking option. We know that. Also maybe we shouldn't have let Hernandez go though for me despite his form I struggle to see him working in this team because of his poor link up play. I guess he probably over estimated what he would get from Rooney. However anyway as I said none of this suggests that the money he spent was poor.

Again another option could have been to invest in a premier league attacker rather than memphis but there are other factors like potential/cost/wages/type of player. I think Yeah he took a risk on his attacking options but I don't think the aim was ever for this team to be a top level team this season. There are too many young players for that.

[–]_redmeScholes 11ポイント12ポイント  (4子コメント)

It's a lazy point to complain about money spent.

The more accurate point is LvG (and I'm not a hater) is that he didn't buy all the players he needed in the first place.

We needed a class CB (and this is before Smalling 'stepped up' and Blind 'proved' himself). To be fair, we still do. I don't think Jones cuts it and for all the good Blind has done, he is still a cover player. A CB pairing of Smalling plus whoever, with Rojo/Jones/Blind able to fill in anywhere needed (and our injury record requires them all).

We needed a striker to rival Rooney, someone who will give you 20+ goals no questions asked. Martial landed but isn't stepping up to the goal requirement yet, but is a fantastic purchase nonetheless. He's found another gem with Rashford but are United going to hedge their bets on him over one of Europes established strikers?

Was it too much to ask to buy EVERYONE we wanted in those 2 windows? We'd probably be 3rd at least if we had just one or two extra buys last season, but the haters would say "£300m+ spent and only 3rd? Leceister ahead of United?

[–]TrickyxoneMemphis 8ポイント9ポイント  (2子コメント)

The thing is the evidence points to the club are not willing to spend money, would we have been allowed to spend £250m without the outgoings to offset that, SAF the greatest ever manager wasn't stupid, he must have seen that the defence was on it's last legs, that our midfield had been shit for years (ffs no matter how good they were he had to play a 38yr old winger and get scholes out of retirement to play CM), that our best two strikers were getting older and becoming more injury prone yet due to his skills he managed to drag every last bit out of it, why didn't he go out and buy the players needed?, my opinion is he wasn't allowed to, when was the last time he spent what could be classed as big money Rio?. Moyes for whatever his faults isn't stupid he managed to get Everton to top 4/5 every season yet he only bought Fellaini, IMO Mata was a panic buy by the board to appease sponsors and fans to PROVE we were willing to spend, does anyone here honestly believe Moyes wanted Mata, he's the exact opposite of the way Moyes plays. LVG spent a decent amount but when you need to replace Rio, Vidic, Evra, Giggs, Rvp players who captained there national team then what he spent was a drop in the ocean, to replace those with peak top players if it's even possible would cost hundreds of millions. Ed loves telling us all how he's buying us Ramos, Neymar, Bale, Muller etc totally unrealistic players to show us we're willing to spend, it's ok saying that when everyone with half a brain knows there's not a prayer in hell we could get any of them.

Utd havent bought a ready made top class player for years, the two most expensive we're both bought were rejects from another top club and we vastly overpaid for both, the rest of our big money buys we're potential, can we really blame SAF, Moyes and LVG for this or is it the board?

[–]ThadderfulRooney 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

Definitely the board, ever since the glazers took over its been run more and more like a business. When their first focus is profits you have to look at what they're actually doing - stripping money (read: success) from the club until they find a suitable balance - presumably top four.

[–]honey_pie 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

without the outgoings to offset that

I don't see the outgoings being money driven. He got rid of everyone he thought (often wrongly) couldn't cut it and practically gave them away. That's understandable with ageing players on high wages like RVP, but Kagawa, Rafael, Chicharito etc were not given away for peanuts because of financial pressure.

[–]honey_pie 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I think Jones has deserved a chance to be the CB we needed. This has probably passed at this point though.

[–]xtfftcValencia 4ポイント5ポイント  (3子コメント)

The other day we had some discussions on the sub with people suggesting Mourinho didn't get enough financial support at Chelsea.

He spent 100m to improve a squad that finished four points on top, and then the next summer he spent 70m on his PL-dominating team. Yet people tend to think he didn't get enough money at Chelsea and this is one of the reasons he failed so miserably at building long-term.

Yet van Gaal spending 250m on a team that finished 7th and 4th is seen as a gigantic sum.

170m for a team that finished 2nd and 1st = not enough.

250m for a team that finished 7th and 4th = top club spending.

People are willing to believe anything as long as it fits their narrative...

[–]ThadderfulRooney 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I don't know if you're talking about me because I said Mourinho's spending is misunderstood but thats not what I said at all.

I actually think LVG didn't spend enough, and that Mourinho probably overspent on players he didnt want - if he got the players he wanted he would have been better off. Thats something you need to do to keep a championship winning team ticking over and constantly improving - a failure of Manchester United in the last decade and look where we are because of it.

For various reasons and some you mentioned, post Ferguson managers needed to spend more than they did.

[–]rhyzzzRooney 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

Yet van Gaal spending 250m on a team that finished 7th and 4th is seen as a gigantic sum. People are willing to believe anything as long as it fits their narrative...

Speaking of that, Moyes finished 7th, LVG finished 4th, his second season hasn't been finished yet.

[–]xtfftcValencia 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

True, but my point was that the squad he inherited was very poor. Virtually the whole core of the team retired or moved away. 250m to replace that is peanuts.

At the same time Mourinho needed a similar amount of money to strengthen a title-winning squad, and failed.

[–]manudevil7Beckham 2ポイント3ポイント  (9子コメント)

First of all, Angel Di Maria was sold for £44.3 million, which is a loss of £15.4 million, not £5 million.

Secondly, since you argue net spend is important, that is a bigger argument for Jose Mourinho. Since June of 2013, Manchester United have a net spend of £168 million, while Mourinho's Chelsea have a net spend of £54 million. Therefore, our net spend is more than three times Chelsea's.

Mourinho was able to add much needed depth, and he also moved deadwood from the squad, while mananging a net spend of only £54 million.

Source: http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11668/9837133/gary-neville-chelsea-are-a-shining-example-to-other-clubs

[–]doesnt_like_pantsHerrera[S] 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Oh, I agree wholeheartedly. Mou always seems to know exactly who he can get, who he wants and how they will fit. As I said, I'm not defending LvG, I just don't think people understand how big the overhaul was or that we really do need to pump money into class players to compete.

As noted, you either need a manager who can achieve more than the sum of a squads parts (Simeone, Rainier this season etc.) or pump more money into class players.

Also, the Chelsea squad Mou inherited was in a better state than the squad LvG inherited. Chelsea also made money selling youth talents like Lukaku etc for pretty decent money to make their net spend look better.

Edit: and as pointed out by /u/debrocker they sold Luiz and Mata too.. Can't believe I forgot that.

[–]debrocker 4ポイント5ポイント  (5子コメント)

Selling David Luiz, Mata and Lukaku for large sum of money let him have that nice net spend. We don't have players to sell for that kind of money.

[–]danskzwag 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

We don't need to tbh

[–]manudevil7Beckham -2ポイント-1ポイント  (3子コメント)

Why does it matter who he sold? All that matters is he managed to get top dollar for his players, while we sold Hernandez for £12 million. I definitely believe we could have gotten more than that.

[–]debrocker 4ポイント5ポイント  (1子コメント)

Are you trying to tell me that the sum PSG paid for fucking David Luiz was realistic in any way?

[–]ThadderfulRooney 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Thats nothing to do with the manager though, everything to do with the board.

[–]honey_pie -1ポイント0ポイント  (0子コメント)

First of all, Angel Di Maria was sold for £44.3 million, which is a loss of £15.4 million, not £5 million.

yeah I loved this casually cutting our loss on ADM to a third of the actual value. #nobias

[–]TheAwakened -1ポイント0ポイント  (0子コメント)

while mananging a net spend of only £54 million.

Not by choice; the guy who's in charge of hiring players really fucked Mourinho up by buying 2nd and 3rd level players.

If Mourinho had his way, he'd had spent £100M more. It's not a bad thing, I'm just providing a context.

[–]reddit_no_likeyHey... Hey... Sack the manager. 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

When people bring up how much Louis & Ed have spent (250m,) they are saying in a round about way that this is a rich club. And for a big club with that kind of spend power, they sure aren't playing like a team at the top.

[–]Tinkyxwinky 1ポイント2ポイント  (2子コメント)

So why the hell do people include Di Maria in LvG's spending???

I know Di Maria had his own flaws. But when you buy a player like him then put him in a team playing slow possesion, is it really surprising to see him fail?

He's included because it was horrible management. Him being sold doesn't mean the transfer never happened. You can't just pick and choose who to include in our net spend. LVG would've been the one to authorise his selling at the end of the day. He could've done what Everton did to Chelsea with stones and tell PSG to fuck right off. He chose not to, fair enough. But that's why it's included in our transfer record.

Now whether you like it or not, you can't parade this argument around and shout foul that our squad should be in better shape

Why not? You guys are the one that say LVG replaced deadwood at the club and brought in better players as a replacement. Some more expensive than others. So despite the quality of our squad improving, the quality of our football hasn't. The reason why people point out his money spend is because it dispels rubbish about LVG not being given enough funding to do the bare minimum (top 4 and decent football. Passing the CL group stages would've been nice too).

He's had 4 windows to buy whoever he wanted. No one is expecting him to walk the league. But doing better than last year shouldn't be too much to ask for.

I understand your point in saying our spend is only that high because he was replacing so many players. But 250mil is still a lot of money to only be used on transfer fees across 3 windows. It's unfortunate how after all that, teams like spurs have leapfrogged us

[–]doesnt_like_pantsHerrera[S] 4ポイント5ポイント  (1子コメント)

I can't do the quote format because I'm on mobile but

"You can't pick and choose who you include in net spend" shows the ignorance I'm trying to dispel.

Di Maria would be included as both an incoming and an outgoing transfer so our net spend on Di Maria's single season would be the £15m loss we took on him.

You can't include the full £59.7m and talk about full expenditure because we haven't added £59.7m of value to the squad... We sold him.

In the process of buying him and selling him we lost roughly £15m of squad value and that's LvG's fault, he should take the blame for that and be judged on those figures because it's the only fair way of establishing a basis of comparison.

[–]Tinkyxwinky -2ポイント-1ポイント  (0子コメント)

£59.7m and talk about full expenditure because we haven't added £59.7m of value to the squad...

But i never said that. I said it's a part of the 250mil given to LVG across the 3 windows to attempt to improve our football in general. Completely excluding not only implies that LVG had nothing to do with the signing, but it also implies LVG "only" got around £190mil to try replace all the players he sold. How his signings turned out and who got sold is a different story. People throw around the 250mil figure as a response to those who say LVG wasn't free to sign whoever he wanted because of money. No one told him to chase Neymar, Ramos and Muller all summer. I'm assuming he got every realistic target.

Besides, even if you look at netspend alone, how many teams had a higher netspend than us since LVG joined? I don't think Arsenal, Leicester, Wolfsburg and PSV did. I'm not sure about City, Spurs and Chelsea though

[–]RedDevilAndy -1ポイント0ポイント  (0子コメント)

I dont care how much money we spend on TOP players, yeah here lies the fault we've not signed top quality players in the last 3 years. I dont care if we spend 70mil on James, 80mil on Lewandowski (just examples obviously) just get the fucking TOP quality players in.

[–]rdc216 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

LVG still spent £250m on his own players; therefore he spent £250m towards his own vision. He sold the players he didn't want and he acquired the players he did.

[–]bfoong 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Not every player you want is going to fit the scheme of things. You don't have an actual idea until they are part of it.

[–]ChristianKrell -5ポイント-4ポイント  (3子コメント)

Revolutionary thinking. Absolute eye-opener. Why has noone ever expressed this before...

[–]doesnt_like_pantsHerrera[S] 2ポイント3ポイント  (2子コメント)

A lot of people are unaware of the reality and just eat up a media narrative. If people didn't like it this post would've been downvoted. You don't have to be a condescending asswipe.

[–]ChristianKrell 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

I don't have to. And yet, here we are.

[–]YoungJumpWazza 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

We already have our fair share of edgy contrarians, you're late to the party

[–]SPQRRome -1ポイント0ポイント  (1子コメント)

My peeve with van gaal is how he keeps harping on the fact that there is no value in the market. Alderweireld? Mahrez? Kante? Payet? Vietto? Khedira? These players were ridiculously cheap, available and could walk straight into our starting xi. My point is, there is no such thing as "no value in the market". It is just a lazy excuse for our poor transfer dealings.

With the money we have, we should be dominating the transfer market with successful transfers. Instead, our only evidently successful transfers were martial and shaw. We are honestly stooping to mediocrity by claiming our transfers are not anywhere close to a disaster. We are getting completely humiliated by clubs with a quarter of our transfer budget. Atletico, Juventus...etc.

[–]doesnt_like_pantsHerrera[S] 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I definitely agree. I've always wondered whether, in part, the structure of the club is at fault. Woody is not a footballing man and there must be a certain degree of disconnect between who he wants and what he considers value for money and what LvG wants.

[–]honey_pie -2ポイント-1ポイント  (0子コメント)

we've been outspent by City in every fucking summer window

Haven't City pretty much been the world's biggest spenders post-SAF? It seems like a very biased yard stick. I struggle to think of another club in world football that has outspent us in this period, and yet the go-to is always city city city. AFAICT, not Bayern, Real, Chelsea, Barca, Dortmund, Arsenal (duh), Liverpool, PSG even? The fact that city have underperformed their spend does not mean that we should be fine with the same. And frankly, they have a much better squad than ours even if they are not performing like it. But if you ask me sales have been our issue more than our purchases.

I look at post Ferguson since we know we underspent then, but started from his end with a league-winning squad (however flawed).

[–]NGU-BenSchweinsteiger -3ポイント-2ポイント  (0子コメント)

The fact of the matter is, when it comes to improving a squad, net spend IS important.

Remember how much we laughed at that Arsenal fan on that vine talking about net spend? Well, here we are.