Man United - the team that gets me excited? 2024-2026

[Wilf]

Ratcliffe may be many things but putting in an initial £1.2b with a commitment to invest a further £237m may not be quite in the skinflint bracket. He completed the final £79m investment in mid December taking his share in the club up to 29%. This £79m is unlikely going on transfers though.

The club needs to address a number of financial issues and owners' ability to bail out clubs is more limited these days with the PSR criteria. The headlines from their November figures are that :

Clubs owe them £94m in transfer fees ( all in installments)
They ow clubs £413 million in transfer fees ( all in instalments)
Of the above some £200m is due in the summer
£714m of financial debt.
Commercial revenue down 5% (been declining in real terms since 2016).
Broadcast revenue down 20% (£8m) with no UCL.
The cost of their squad goes through the £1 billion total for the first time £1,028,94
Large capital issues with the stadium

Some of this can be offset by a) ideally winning the Europa League b) getting to the final or semi final
Qualifying for Europe , top four and therefore the CL looks out but there is the route above or finishing 5/6/7 or winning the FA Cup
Selling players, selling youth players is better for amortisation and Rashford fits that.
Reducing salary costs by selling players or releasing players at end of contracts or possibly renegotiating contracts
Ratcliffe has already cut the Xmas bonus and party for staff, laid off 250 , increased tickets prices including those for people with disabilities, and ended donations to the player's charity.

It is possible for the club to buy however they will probably need to sell or have agreements to sell. They can offer longer contracts with bonuses to offset annual costs but that will mean buying younger players or those under the radar rather than older more well known players.

Here is the players' wage bill to peruse:

View attachment 457421

Here's a site that evaluates players' transfer values although its always the market that decides

Manchester United - Detailed squad 24/25

Man Utd at a glance: The compact squad overview with all players and data in the season Overall statistics of current season.

www.transfermarkt.com

Quite a list that if you go down it, bearing in mind the salaries and in some cases the length of contract:

Casemiro - expensive bench warmer, legs have gone, long past the point he should have finished
Bruno - sent off every other week, but at least tries
Rashford - entourage... got a gob on.... oh dear, all that potential
Mount - perma injured, poor sod
Antony - absurdly over priced partner beater
De Ligt - doing okay, haven't really noticed
Maguire - best of the bunch. Who'd have said that 18 months ago. Fair play though/
Sancho - still paying shed loads of money to play for someone else, presumably.
Erikson - 150 grand a week, a decent pension for an older gent
Shaw - perma injured, poor sod
Mazraoui - doing okay... ish
Onana - would be a decent reserve keeper, but that's about it
Martinez - silly haircut

The above probably demonstrates why I'm not a sports journalist, but still...

 

[Wilf]

Or to put it another way, it cost the Ineos geniuses £10 million to replace Ten Hag. Could have kept Casemiro sat on the bench for 28 weeks for that kind of money.

 

[The39thStep]

Or to put it another way, it cost the Ineos geniuses £10 million to replace Ten Hag. Could have kept Casemiro sat on the bench for 28 weeks for that kind of money.

Dont forget Asworth cost £2-3m in compensation to Newcastle and his departure six months later from Man United will require further compensation to be agreed

 

[Humberto]

They've signed Antony and loaned him out.

 

[Humberto]

Unless they haven't.

 

[Wilf]

They've signed Antony and loaned him out.

Oh aye, he's probably gone this January, permanent or loan, along with a couple of others inc. Casemiro. I was just commenting on the United hierarchy's sense of 'value' as represented by that table. They buy dear and sell cheap and what comes inbetween ain't all that great.

 

[Lotte]

Garnacho has the shittest hair in the squad.

I don't think United will be relegated. One, all three promoted teams are pretty badly off and two, Palace and Everton are arguably worse. Everton got thumped by this United team and are the only team to have lost to Saints. Palace aren't great either, which I'm a bit puzzled about. Wolves might come good now they've got Pereira. I think they'll get by. They'd have to monumentally shit the bed and/or the teams below them would have to get much better for them to be anywhere near relegation.

 

[Wilf]

Garnacho has the shittest hair in the squad.

There's room for debate, certainly, but for me it's Martinez. Tbh, I'm jealous about anyone with hair, but he's got a great shock of black hair. The sort of stuff you could do a lorry pull with. He then thinks 'I know, I'll cut a swathe through to make it into a neo mullet'. A sign of the malaise in the squad.

 

[cloudyday]

While discussing the array of terrible haircuts in the manu team the other night it was pointed out that none came close to the awfulness of the Andy Carrol braid. I couldn’t disagree, it’s like some sort of Gigeresque seahorse clamped to his skull.

 

[tommers]

 

[Lotte]

Martinez does have a questionable hairdo, I agree.