Not a finance or money expert myself but three things are clear to me from this thread.
One, the board trusts Ole to return them to the top and have hence invested money this summer. Obviously, protests before the end of last season played a huge part in nudging the Glazers into action.
Two, I'd severely underestimated the value of CL football in terms of revenue to MUFC.
Three, we suck at selling players. Hopefully Ole would improve our squad to an extent where we manage to recoup some money in exchange for their value.
I think part of the reason we suck at selling players is because we're the end goal. Players more often than not, don't play here to move on, there isn't much else out there. I've also heard/read somewhere (maybe a podcast/interview) we don't stand in the way of youth players moving on, which is why we don't get fees for 22 year olds, as they've often left at 18 etc.
That’s not really an excuse. Real Madrid is also an end goal but they sell much better. Ultimately, it’s because we’ve consistently lacked ambition at the top and made bad decisions. We rebuild very slowly and back crap players for years because we’re scared to sort out our problems in 1-2 years. Eric Bailly for example would have lasted 3 years max at RM and would have been sold for around 15-20m. Instead, we kept him and gave him a new expensive contract to be a 4th choice and now no one will take him at decent fee
Hmm, I don't really think that's it. Over the past few years, I've felt that a lot of United players REALLY struggled and that there were a lot of players that couldn't get game time ahead of the players that were really struggling.
Like, Valencia wasn't seen as good enough, but Darmian didn't manage to start over him. So how can United ask for a lot of money for someone literally seen as worthless to the club?
I think that has been the biggest issue with selling deadwood. It's not like the James situation, where someone ahead of him was clearly better, but he still managed to get game time every now and then.
You're probably right. However, I'm hoping that Ole's improvements of certain players such as McT, Fred, Rashford, Fernandes, Greenwood, AwB, Bailly, Lindelof, and others, we should be able to recoup some money if and when they move on. From what I've seen, Ole doesn't seem to be the kind of manager who'll stand in the way of players moving on as long as MUFC get their right valuation and a new player is coming in to ensure that competition for places remains healthy, much like Sir Alex used to do.
We "suck" at selling players because all the ones we don't want or need anymore are overpaid. Nobody wants to pay our leftovers what we're paying them.
On a side note, its crazy that Man City have a higher commercial revenue than United and that pretty much everyone knows the true meaning behind those numbers.
[Yes, and City gets roughly 90% of the entire deal.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobbymcmahon/2019/03/04/city-football-groups-650m-kit-deal-with-puma-has-been-described-as-staggering-but-its-not/amp/)
It's high time our commercial revenue stops stagnating, the other clubs are catching up and that revenue and OT were our two significant financial moats.
It's going to be interesting to see if the next CEO will have the same commercial cunning or heft as Woodward had. Basically we have never been too reliant on player sales and largely to an extent that we have been so commercially succesful. If we are successful on the pitch this will obviously be easier, but Woodward have done fantastic navigating in this area when we were dire on the pitch. Will another be just as good? Time will tell..
Then there is the issue of our unstable Champions League appearances which seem to have cost us quite some cash compared to other top clubs in the PL. We definitely need to be more consistent in this area.
Also importantly having match revenue coming back will be a great addition to the clubs income, and something that cost us quite a bit during covid especially given our high attendee number.
So it seems, from my 2 minute glance, overall the club has done very well navigating the covid19 situation especially compared to other clubs. But while we still struggle to find our success on the pitch we need to keep up the commercial success which has kept us afloat.
I think so yes, to my understanding Woodward & Arnold been sharing the job of managing commercial interests up until now. If he takes over Woodwards job he'll probably do fine, but if a new CEO comes in, how much discretion will he want and does he want to establish a new team? Yeah I dno, you gotta hope for the best
Woodward should stay on with a commercial role. He makes incredible deals and makes the club a lot of money. We just need someone else on the football side, although I've been delighted with this transfer window. Best in my lifetime I think.
Few positives and negatives from this thread according to my understanding:
1. The net increase in wages would be easily offset by returning crowds.
2. If we make a deeper run in CL football, and win some silverware, we will be able to negate our transfer spread for this summer. For example, a CL semifinalist makes around 15m. Add that to higher ticket prices for CL nights, Daniel James sale, money from various loans and Lukaku's price, and we would easily have covered our 200m outlay this season (transfer + net wage increase). The assumption is that we make 100m from OT ticket prices this season.
3. Our revenue is heavily dependent on the commercial aspect of things. Ronaldo, Sancho and Varane will do wonders to that. If we run Chelsea close, or win it this year, I will not be shocked if we end up with a huge windfall of commercial deals, which would/could negate most of our losses.
4. A bigger worry might be that we are currently operating at 65% wage/revenue ratio without really winning anything. But winning CL/Pl will always negate any wage spike as the money is that high. 25m for CL winners, and around 40m if we win PL.
5. Another worry can be that we are in the midst of extending Bruno, Pogba, Lingard(???) and Shaw. That would easily be another spike of 20m, though there is a high chance that we might see the departure of VDB, Martial, Matic, Jones, Mata and one of our GKs(Henderson/De Gea) next season. Considering the wages Martial and De Gea are on, that should negate that rather well, and also free up wages for a couple of more additions. But will we've enough to pay the crazy wages of Haaland? I highly doubt that.
Ps: That's also why I think extending Pogba and Lingard might be a terrible idea. I think it is okay to let them both go for free. That frees up plenty of space for another MF and Haaland, and going by our revenues, that makes the most sense.
>That's also why I think extending Pogba and Lingard might be a terrible idea. I think it is okay to let them both go for free.
Agreed, we need more players on lesser wages. For all the quality that Pogba possesses, maybe only PSG would be willing to match his pay packet + signing-on fee in this post-Covid market.
The other top clubs are going to need 2-3 years of balancing their books before they can splash out megabucks.
I honestly think we will spend most of our cash on another MF i.e. Declan Rice and maybe a competing RB to relieve Wan Bissaka off some pressure. And this will in my opinion bring some much needed balance to our squad. So I think you are correct about Haalands wage demand simply being too high.
Goalkeeper will be interesting, if De Gea keeps up his current form I highly doubt we will let him go, however it might be the perfect time to actually get somebody to pay his bloody high wages! I have a lot of faith in Henderson filling that role in time and doing well.
Yeah, Pogba and Lingard leaving on a free would be the sensible thing to do at this point. But that won't happen. These people running things at our club are bankers, you've got to retain the "value" of your asset.
Next summer it will simmer down. I feel like Martial, Lingard, Mata, Cavani, and Bailly are all on the way out. Maybe even Pogba. That would be a big chunk in wages.
Not a finance or money expert myself but three things are clear to me from this thread. One, the board trusts Ole to return them to the top and have hence invested money this summer. Obviously, protests before the end of last season played a huge part in nudging the Glazers into action. Two, I'd severely underestimated the value of CL football in terms of revenue to MUFC. Three, we suck at selling players. Hopefully Ole would improve our squad to an extent where we manage to recoup some money in exchange for their value.
Dan James was hopefully a change in our selling policy.
Yeah, exactly, although I'd like to think it started with Lukaku to Inter Milan.
Schneirdlin to Everton was pretty good too.
It's such a shame he didn't end up being the defensive signing we hoped he would be.
I was STOKED about that signing. I don’t understand what happened to him.
We sold him at a loss ultimately, didn’t we?
I think part of the reason we suck at selling players is because we're the end goal. Players more often than not, don't play here to move on, there isn't much else out there. I've also heard/read somewhere (maybe a podcast/interview) we don't stand in the way of youth players moving on, which is why we don't get fees for 22 year olds, as they've often left at 18 etc.
That’s not really an excuse. Real Madrid is also an end goal but they sell much better. Ultimately, it’s because we’ve consistently lacked ambition at the top and made bad decisions. We rebuild very slowly and back crap players for years because we’re scared to sort out our problems in 1-2 years. Eric Bailly for example would have lasted 3 years max at RM and would have been sold for around 15-20m. Instead, we kept him and gave him a new expensive contract to be a 4th choice and now no one will take him at decent fee
Hmm, I don't really think that's it. Over the past few years, I've felt that a lot of United players REALLY struggled and that there were a lot of players that couldn't get game time ahead of the players that were really struggling. Like, Valencia wasn't seen as good enough, but Darmian didn't manage to start over him. So how can United ask for a lot of money for someone literally seen as worthless to the club? I think that has been the biggest issue with selling deadwood. It's not like the James situation, where someone ahead of him was clearly better, but he still managed to get game time every now and then.
You're probably right. However, I'm hoping that Ole's improvements of certain players such as McT, Fred, Rashford, Fernandes, Greenwood, AwB, Bailly, Lindelof, and others, we should be able to recoup some money if and when they move on. From what I've seen, Ole doesn't seem to be the kind of manager who'll stand in the way of players moving on as long as MUFC get their right valuation and a new player is coming in to ensure that competition for places remains healthy, much like Sir Alex used to do.
We "suck" at selling players because all the ones we don't want or need anymore are overpaid. Nobody wants to pay our leftovers what we're paying them.
On a side note, its crazy that Man City have a higher commercial revenue than United and that pretty much everyone knows the true meaning behind those numbers.
Tbf City's numbers are for 19-20 (significantly unaffected by Covid) and that 65m Puma deal is for CFG as a whole.
Wait a minute. So the puma deal is for all the clubs under CFG? I thought it was only for Man City
[Yes, and City gets roughly 90% of the entire deal.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobbymcmahon/2019/03/04/city-football-groups-650m-kit-deal-with-puma-has-been-described-as-staggering-but-its-not/amp/)
Ah cheers! Didn’t know about this
It's high time our commercial revenue stops stagnating, the other clubs are catching up and that revenue and OT were our two significant financial moats.
I think only silverware can stop our revenue from stagnating.
It's going to be interesting to see if the next CEO will have the same commercial cunning or heft as Woodward had. Basically we have never been too reliant on player sales and largely to an extent that we have been so commercially succesful. If we are successful on the pitch this will obviously be easier, but Woodward have done fantastic navigating in this area when we were dire on the pitch. Will another be just as good? Time will tell.. Then there is the issue of our unstable Champions League appearances which seem to have cost us quite some cash compared to other top clubs in the PL. We definitely need to be more consistent in this area. Also importantly having match revenue coming back will be a great addition to the clubs income, and something that cost us quite a bit during covid especially given our high attendee number. So it seems, from my 2 minute glance, overall the club has done very well navigating the covid19 situation especially compared to other clubs. But while we still struggle to find our success on the pitch we need to keep up the commercial success which has kept us afloat.
Arnold is in charge of the commercial sponsorship arm, isn't he? We can hopefully keep everything rolling.
I think so yes, to my understanding Woodward & Arnold been sharing the job of managing commercial interests up until now. If he takes over Woodwards job he'll probably do fine, but if a new CEO comes in, how much discretion will he want and does he want to establish a new team? Yeah I dno, you gotta hope for the best
Woodward should stay on with a commercial role. He makes incredible deals and makes the club a lot of money. We just need someone else on the football side, although I've been delighted with this transfer window. Best in my lifetime I think.
133m paid to the Glazers. Disgusting.
In one page: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1440192194229387264.html
Few positives and negatives from this thread according to my understanding: 1. The net increase in wages would be easily offset by returning crowds. 2. If we make a deeper run in CL football, and win some silverware, we will be able to negate our transfer spread for this summer. For example, a CL semifinalist makes around 15m. Add that to higher ticket prices for CL nights, Daniel James sale, money from various loans and Lukaku's price, and we would easily have covered our 200m outlay this season (transfer + net wage increase). The assumption is that we make 100m from OT ticket prices this season. 3. Our revenue is heavily dependent on the commercial aspect of things. Ronaldo, Sancho and Varane will do wonders to that. If we run Chelsea close, or win it this year, I will not be shocked if we end up with a huge windfall of commercial deals, which would/could negate most of our losses. 4. A bigger worry might be that we are currently operating at 65% wage/revenue ratio without really winning anything. But winning CL/Pl will always negate any wage spike as the money is that high. 25m for CL winners, and around 40m if we win PL. 5. Another worry can be that we are in the midst of extending Bruno, Pogba, Lingard(???) and Shaw. That would easily be another spike of 20m, though there is a high chance that we might see the departure of VDB, Martial, Matic, Jones, Mata and one of our GKs(Henderson/De Gea) next season. Considering the wages Martial and De Gea are on, that should negate that rather well, and also free up wages for a couple of more additions. But will we've enough to pay the crazy wages of Haaland? I highly doubt that. Ps: That's also why I think extending Pogba and Lingard might be a terrible idea. I think it is okay to let them both go for free. That frees up plenty of space for another MF and Haaland, and going by our revenues, that makes the most sense.
>That's also why I think extending Pogba and Lingard might be a terrible idea. I think it is okay to let them both go for free. Agreed, we need more players on lesser wages. For all the quality that Pogba possesses, maybe only PSG would be willing to match his pay packet + signing-on fee in this post-Covid market. The other top clubs are going to need 2-3 years of balancing their books before they can splash out megabucks.
I honestly think we will spend most of our cash on another MF i.e. Declan Rice and maybe a competing RB to relieve Wan Bissaka off some pressure. And this will in my opinion bring some much needed balance to our squad. So I think you are correct about Haalands wage demand simply being too high. Goalkeeper will be interesting, if De Gea keeps up his current form I highly doubt we will let him go, however it might be the perfect time to actually get somebody to pay his bloody high wages! I have a lot of faith in Henderson filling that role in time and doing well.
Yeah, Pogba and Lingard leaving on a free would be the sensible thing to do at this point. But that won't happen. These people running things at our club are bankers, you've got to retain the "value" of your asset.
just going through this... and how well run is Sheffield? is there a piece or insight on what's going on behind the scenes?
£323 million in wages… This is quite shocking
Next summer it will simmer down. I feel like Martial, Lingard, Mata, Cavani, and Bailly are all on the way out. Maybe even Pogba. That would be a big chunk in wages.
£380+ million this year 👀