While Manchester United sat and watched as other teams outspent them in the transfer market for the last few years of Sir Alex Ferguson’s tenure, ‘prudence’ is certainly not a term that you would ascribe to United’s current transfer policy.
Indeed, Manchester United fans now have evidence to suggest that the club can compete, on a financial basis, with any football institution in the world.
They certainly have commensurate spending power to any Premier League side.
But, when you look at the summer books, you have to imagine that Manchester United are preparing for one more huge outlay at least.
Because they have spent around £78m so far: £25m on Depay, £25 Schneiderlin, £13m Darmian, £15m Schweinsteiger, Romero (Free)
But their sales amount to around £55.8m so far – Di Maria £44.3m, RvP £4.5m, Nani £4.5m, Rafa da Silva £2.5m – and with David de Gea likely to command in excess of £20m that almost balances up the books completely.
So it’s almost inevitable that Manchester United will be one of the biggest spenders in the remaining weeks of the widow.
Manchester United certainly won’t want to let the likes of Manchester City out strengthen them this summer.
They have already bought Raheem Sterling (a player who United would surely have signed given the chance) and are looking set to bring Kevin de Bruyne in to further reinforce that front line.
Reus – Manchester United need a new superstar
Manchester United need to act fast because there are still top players out there with great qualities.
Paul Pogba, Felipe Anderson, Marco Reus, De Bruyne himself, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Pedro, Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo would all improve the first team.
But can any of them be snared at this point?
Time is running out and Manchester United are still short of the quality up top that will be required to make credible challenges for silverware.
One thing is for sure – it will be a highly eventful few weeks for Manchester United between now and September.
Red Rupert
Aug 12, 2015 at 5:42 am
Plus Henriquez brought in a modest fee and with Evans, Hernandez and possibly others to follow out that’s the books balanced. Then there’s the 1 mil per week saved on wages with that lot out the door. The incoming players will earn around half that amount between them.
Red Rupert
Aug 12, 2015 at 5:52 am
the Glazers doing nicely here since 7 years ago 80m for Ronaldo was replaced with Owen on a freebie and Rio, Vidic, Evra and Giggs have either not been replaced or only in the past few weeks and people wonder how we finished 6th with Moyes. The club are earning a fortune in sponsorship revenue with 75m per season from adidas alone, never mind 76,000 gates every home match. Lazy journos saying how we’re splashing the cash are clueless, even if it is our own earned cash and not a lottery win like Ciddy and Chav$ki.