Net spend

Spent

Darmian £12m
Schwienstiger £14m
Schneiderlin £22m?
Depay £25m
Romero £nil

Cost: £73m

Sold

ADM £44m
Nani £4m
RVP £4m
Henriquez £1m
Rafael £?

Incoming £53m

Outlay £20m

Hmmm Warchest of £200m - someone appears to have added to many zeros to the figure. Better get a move on Ed.

Originally Posted by The Stella Fella

Spent

Darmian £12m
Schwienstiger £14m
Schneiderlin £22m?
Depay £25m
Romero £nil

Cost: £73m

Sold

ADM £44m
Nani £4m
RVP £4m
Henriquez £1m
Rafael £?

Incoming £53m

Outlay £20m

Hmmm Warchest of £200m - someone appears to have added to many zeros to the figure. Better get a move on Ed.

Indeed . Pedro will add 20-25 mill tho although de gea might recoup a bit more , big centre forward needed

saving it for Bale

going on net spend United are running at over £90m in the last 5 windows post-Fergie/Gill with a scrambled 4th place to show for it so far

previous 3 seasons post-Ronaldo it was £40m with 2 league titles (& a CL final) to show for it

Originally Posted by Semantic Lisp

going on net spend United are running at over £90m in the last 5 windows post-Fergie/Gill with a scrambled 4th place to show for it so far

previous 3 seasons post-Ronaldo it was £40m with 2 league titles (& a CL final) to show for it

Maybe if we'd gone straight to LVG without employing that absolute utter clown Moyes first, last season would have reaped a trophy or two.

Originally Posted by Semantic Lisp

going on net spend United are running at over £90m in the last 5 windows post-Fergie/Gill with a scrambled 4th place to show for it so far

previous 3 seasons post-Ronaldo it was £40m with 2 league titles (& a CL final) to show for it

Thanks for that. I think the fact that we were more successful when Fergie was here will have gone over a lot of people's heads.

Originally Posted by bigMikeA

Maybe if we'd gone straight to LVG without employing that absolute utter clown Moyes first, last season would have reaped a trophy or two.

doubt it but we'll never know

by the time this window's out I expect United will have effectively trebled their net spend in the 3 seasons post-Fergie/Gill just to hang onto the coat tails of Chelsea (or whoever is top ;-})

No point spending big money on a player just for the sake of it

If a genuine world class player becomes available and really wants to join us then fine but I don't see that happening this window

Originally Posted by Semantic Lisp

going on net spend United are running at over £90m in the last 5 windows post-Fergie/Gill with a scrambled 4th place to show for it so far

previous 3 seasons post-Ronaldo it was £40m with 2 league titles (& a CL final) to show for it

So you're comparing an arbitrary period where the squad didn't need major rebuilding to a period where it did to prove what point?

Originally Posted by atticusgrinch

So you're comparing an arbitrary period where the squad didn't need major rebuilding to a period where it did to prove what point?

That he's an idiot?

Originally Posted by atticusgrinch

So you're comparing an arbitrary period where the squad didn't need major rebuilding to a period where it did to prove what point?

it's not really an arbitrary period, it's comparing like with like 3 summer windows either way from the point fergie and gill stepped aside

many many people - maybe even the majority - considered that during fergie's last 3 years the squad did in fact require major rebuilding. many people blame his last 3 years for the rebuilding now being done and portray him as having £#%&!ed it up and taken his eye off the ball.

from my pov the numbers don't show one argument up against the other anyway, they simply show how well ferguson managed his squad and its constant evolution and what a tough act that is to follow. worth emphasising that a number of the players fergie bought in, including the most criticised of them (Rooney, Smalling , Jones, Young, Valencia...), have been retained and even had their contracts renewed under Moyes and now LVG as well.

Originally Posted by Semantic Lisp

it's not really an arbitrary period, it's comparing like with like - 3 seasons either way from the point fergie and gill stepped aside

many many people - maybe even the majority - considered that during fergie's last 3 years the squad did in fact require major rebuilding. many people blame his last 3 years for the rebuilding now being done and portray him as having £#%&!ed it up and taken his eye off the ball.

from my pov the numbers don't show one argument up against the other anyway, they simply show how well ferguson managed his squad and its constant evolution and what a tough act that is to follow. worth emphasising that a number of the players fergie bought in, including the most criticised of them (Rooney, Smalling , Jones, Young, Valencia..., have been retained and even had their contracts renewed under Moyes and now LVG as well.

And a lot of Ferguson's signings got old with no suitable replacements lined up. And a lot more have been unceremoniously binned off.

Originally Posted by atticusgrinch

And a lot of Ferguson's signings got old with no suitable replacements lined up. And a lot more have been unceremoniously binned off.

are you contradicting your previous post then?

as far as the replacements being suitable or not, the bit you've highlighted offers up another contradiction I was highlighting - that whilst outsiders think the players may be unsuitable subsequent managers including this one apparently disagree and have given them new contracts. I dare say that under Ferguson the RB slot would still be Rafael's, but a LB would have been bought by now and Shaw was the obvious candidate...

also, whilst there a bit of a revolving door on the left atm, despite about £130m being spent to fill it Ashley Young has been retained by LVG and has flourished. this resounding endorsement from another great manager is another clear statement that shows that far from being past it Ferguson was still on top of his game right up till the end in most aspects of the job

Originally Posted by Semantic Lisp

are you contradicting your previous post then?

as far as the replacements being suitable or not, the bit you've highlighted offers up another contradiction I was highlighting - that whilst outsiders think the players may be unsuitable subsequent managers including this one apparently disagree and have given them new contracts. I dare say that under Ferguson the RB slot would still be Rafael's, but a LB would have been bought by now and Shaw was the obvious candidate...

also, whilst there a bit of a revolving door on the left atm, despite about £130m being spent to fill it Ashley Young has been retained by LVG and has flourished. this resounding endorsement from another great manager is another clear statement that shows that far from being past it Ferguson was still on top of his game right up till the end in most aspects of the job

Sure.

Originally Posted by Semantic Lisp

as far as the replacements being suitable or not, the bit you've highlighted offers up another contradiction I was highlighting - that whilst outsiders think the players may be unsuitable subsequent managers including this one apparently disagree and have given them new contracts. I dare say that under Ferguson the RB slot would still be Rafael's, but a LB would have been bought by now and Shaw was the obvious candidate...

also, whilst there a bit of a revolving door on the left atm, despite about £130m being spent to fill it Ashley Young has been retained by LVG and has flourished. this resounding endorsement from another great manager is another clear statement that shows that far from being past it Ferguson was still on top of his game right up till the end in most aspects of the job

What conclusions you draw from Fergie's last few years, and the state of the squad he transferred to Moyes in large part depends on what basis you begin from. What was his responsibility? Was it merely to manage the team in front of him? In this case you are right, he was magnificent until the end; or was it to take care to pass on a team that was capable of perpetuating that level of performance? Is it even fair to ask a manager to do not only his job, but part of the next managers too? Whichever angle you come from, there is very little doubt that the emerging quality in no way matched the outgoing quality. Fergie's last title team was very much a last hurrah, a team for the here and now.

In one year this club lost Vidic, Ferdinand, Evra, Scholes and Giggs. Perennial champions and the absolute meat of the changing room. No doubt Ferguson saw that moment coming and realized how difficult it was going to be to sustain a challenge, not only in Europe but in England as well. This is where it gets murky. The players Fergie recruited/promoted in the late stages of his career, were adequate accessories to the engine of the team while they were understudies, but I think it was clear they were completely inadequate to play the lead role. Without question, that played into his decision to retire. However, someone was going to have to deal with it, because it was real and it was coming. This is why it's redundant to compare the spending patterns of the club pre and post Fergie. Same club, completely different circumstances.

Originally Posted by utd99

What conclusions you draw from Fergie's last few years, and the state of the squad he transferred to Moyes in large part depends on what basis you begin from. What was his responsibility? Was it merely to manage the team in front of him? In this case you are right, he was magnificent until the end; or was it to take care to pass on a team that was capable of perpetuating that level of performance? Is it even fair to ask a manager to do not only his job, but part of the next managers too? Whichever angle you come form, there is very little doubt that the emerging quality in no way matched the outgoing quality. Fergie's last title team was very much a last hurrah, a team for the here and now.

In one year this club lost Vidic, Ferdinand, Evra, Scholes and Giggs. Perennial champions and the absolute meat of the changing room. No doubt Ferguson saw that moment coming and realized how difficult it was going to be to sustain a challenge, not only in Europe but in England as well. This is where it gets murky. The players Fergie recruited/promoted in the late stages of his career, were adequate accessories to the engine of the team while they were understudies, but I think it was clear they were completely inadequate to play the lead role. Without question, that played into his decision to retire. However, someone was going to have to deal with it, because it was real and it was coming. This is why it's redundant to compare the spending patterns of the club pre and post Fergie. Same club, completely different circumstances.

Yep

Originally Posted by The Stella Fella

Spent

Darmian £12m
Schwienstiger £14m
Schneiderlin £22m?
Depay £25m
Romero £nil

Cost: £73m

Sold

ADM £44m
Nani £4m
RVP £4m
Henriquez £1m
Rafael £?

Incoming £53m

Outlay £20m

Hmmm Warchest of £200m - someone appears to have added to many zeros to the figure. Better get a move on Ed.

Plus ADM and RVP were on about £250k a week and Nani on £120k, only Schweiners will be on anything near that.

Originally Posted by utd99

What conclusions you draw from Fergie's last few years, and the state of the squad he transferred to Moyes in large part depends on what basis you begin from. What was his responsibility? Was it merely to manage the team in front of him? In this case you are right, he was magnificent until the end; or was it to take care to pass on a team that was capable of perpetuating that level of performance? Is it even fair to ask a manager to do not only his job, but part of the next managers too? Whichever angle you come form, there is very little doubt that the emerging quality in no way matched the outgoing quality. Fergie's last title team was very much a last hurrah, a team for the here and now.

In one year this club lost Vidic, Ferdinand, Evra, Scholes and Giggs. Perennial champions and the absolute meat of the changing room. No doubt Ferguson saw that moment coming and realized how difficult it was going to be to sustain a challenge, not only in Europe but in England as well. This is where it gets murky. The players Fergie recruited/promoted in the late stages of his career, were adequate accessories to the engine of the team while they were understudies, but I think it was clear they were completely inadequate to play the lead role. Without question, that played into his decision to retire. However, someone was going to have to deal with it, because it was real and it was coming. This is why it's redundant to compare the spending patterns of the club pre and post Fergie. Same club, completely different circumstances.

Again, it is a simple truth that Ferguson continued to evolve the squad just as he had always done even into his final season - with the last act being to stick januzaj on the bench at WBA.

Not planning on going over it all again, but key positions had been addressed, certain other players had been scouted and targeted for summer 2013 (albeit none arrived), the strike force was also poised to replace Rooney, and there was supposedly a massive transfer budget (which was doubted but has clearly been proved to be true).

The key point is that just because outsiders question the quality of the players Ferguson bought in, that does not mean he wasn't on the ball, and LVG's decisions to give some of the most criticised players new deals is a major endorsement of what Ferguson left behind.

As far as deadwood or players unfancied and £#%&!ed off, people need to remember that the evolution of the squad is a process and that the real trick to that - the real test of true achievement - is to create and retain success, not to simply buy it. People often talk about Ferguson going all sentimental in his later seasons too on top of his stubborn streak, but this ignores that in his last couple of seasons he moved on some very important players, such as Park, Berbatov, Brown & O'Shea... the evolution of the squad is a process, as this manager is keen to inform people. And he's right, there was no-one better at that than Ferguson, right up until he called it a day

Originally Posted by Semantic Lisp

going on net spend United are running at over £90m in the last 5 windows post-Fergie/Gill with a scrambled 4th place to show for it so far

previous 3 seasons post-Ronaldo it was £40m with 2 league titles (& a CL final) to show for it

So what you're saying is fergie had a great squad, oversaw it's gradual decline via under investment by the club, and then got out at the right time before the shit hit the fan. Quite insightful. I think I agree.

Fergie's squad during his last few seasons benefitted from united's reputation and ferguson's psychological hold over the opposition and often referees. A lot of matches were a struggle with us somehow getting a result. Usually one player had a good period which carried the team too. Nani for a few months, Berbatov, van Persie.

He also had a huge hold over a lot of managers, whether friend or rival.

A team could outplay us, be leading 1-0 and when it got to the final minutes, the opposition team and fans would collectively shit themselves due to expecting a united comeback. As would the ref sometimes and give us 50-50 decisions in our favour, but refs sometimes also went the other way through fear of abus, depending on which way the wind was blowing with the media coverage.

We've lacked all the above since he left. Take away those things and the team's natural level would have been around 2nd-4th, and that's before age and retirements took their toll.

I mostly blame the glazers for the gradual decline of the squad. Ferguson was a great manager and manipulator of people, but he had let certain things slide during the last 5-10 years, which is almost inevitable considering he'd been virtually semi retired during that period and delegated most things. The scouting and youth development became a joke and he largely relied on agent contacts for players.

Originally Posted by Time For Heroes

Plus ADM and RVP were on about £250k a week and Nani on £120k, only Schweiners will be on anything near that.

Saving allegedly £800k per week on salaries apparently £40m pa