AS Manchester United flail about in the transfer market, making bids for troublemakers Adrien Rabiot and Marko Arnatouvic, it’s easy to laugh along to the Muppet Show farce of it all.Chuck a few custard pies, enjoy a few internet memes, wonder how a financial man like Ed Woodward was left in charge of the footballing side for so long.
United were interested in ArnautovicCredit: Getty
A move to Old Trafford is still on the cards for RabiotCredit: Getty
But it is only when you fully consider the bald facts that the sheer scale of incompetence in United’s transfer business becomes so utterly staggering.
Between the exit of Sir Alex Ferguson in 2013 and last summer’s return of Cristiano Ronaldo, United signed THIRTY players for £10million or more – and not a single one has been a genuine success.
All major clubs have their expensive flops. The market is a shark pool and no transfer is a guaranteed success.
Footballers are human beings. We get that. A 50 per cent success rate would be a very decent number.
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But zero out of 30 over a nine-year stretch is extraordinary. Even Everton under Farhad Moshiri have made the occasional decent buy.
United have only made a profit on two players bought since Ferguson’s exit – Daley Blind and Dan James – not that either of them covered themselves in glory at Old Trafford.
Just look through that list of United recruits and try to argue a case for any of them being an unqualified, value-for-money hit.
Bruno Fernandes looked as though he was the man to buck this long-standing trend when the Portuguese arrived in January 2020.
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But after a largely brilliant 18 months, his form fell off a cliff last season, during the death throes of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s reign, and has not recovered.
Others have had their moments. Romelu Lukaku was a goalscoring cult-hero for a time.
And even at £80m, a world-record fee for a defender, Harry Maguire started well enough – but now the captain has become the latest in a long line of players to be dragged down into a swamp of mediocrity.
United fans used to sing a sarcastic song about the English press scoffing at Anthony Martial’s £50m transfer fee.
They haven’t sung it much in the last two years, which have brought a total of five Premier League goals for the Frenchman.
There was an assumption that once the hapless Woodward left the building, United might rediscover a semblance of professionalism in their transfer dealings, under John Murtough and Darren Fletcher.
And while it is far too early to judge this summer’s recruits – Lisandro Martinez, Christian Eriksen and Tyrell Malacia – the bid to sign French midfielder Rabiot and the aborted attempt to capture the 33-year-old Arnautovic seem more comedic than ever.
The fact that United have ceased their interest in Bologna’s former Stoke and West Ham forward due to the anger of fans simply adds to the ‘make it up as you go along’ aura.
Woodward, a nodding dog for the ruling Glazer family, was only ever a symptom of the problem.
The root cause has always been the Glazers themselves.
After hiding behind Ferguson’s genius for eight years, following their 2005 takeover, the Americans have been horribly exposed since the great Scot departed.
Pogba’s big money return to Man Utd didn’t go to plan as the Frenchman returned to Juve for freeCredit: Getty
Ronaldo started the Premier League season from the benchCredit: Rex
There are many reasons why United fans have revolted against the Glazers – the leveraged takeover, the debts, the dividends, the detachment and the erosion of Old Trafford as a stadium.
But in purely footballing terms, that list of incoming transfers since 2013 is most damaging of all.
United are a football club who used to win the biggest trophies.
Had they continued to do so, the majority of their fanbase would have overlooked the rest of those issues.
Among the cast-iron flops, you may all have your particular favourites.
Mine was Alexis Sanchez – with United apparently ‘hijacking’ his move from Arsenal to Manchester City, then the triumphalist unveiling video of the Chilean playing concert piano on the Old Trafford pitch, then three goals in 32 league games.
Or there’s the enduring mystery of spending £50m on Fred, or Marouane Fellaini, whose very presence in the United side summed up the sudden, sharp demise of the early post-Fergie years.
Several promising youngsters have been snapped up, only to regress – Jadon Sancho, Aaron Wan Bissaka, Memphis Depay, James and Donny Van de Beek – aka Van de Bench – among them.
There’s also been a strange addiction to signing ageing forwards – Zlatan Ibrahimovoc, Edinson Cavani, Ronaldo, Radamel Falcao – a trend which looked as if it might reach its nadir with the possible arrival of Arnautovic.
But maddest of all must be the Manchester-to-Turin boomeranging of Paul Pogba – a free transfer to Juventus, a world-record £89m to United, another free back to Juve after six wasted years for club and player.
And now United are ready to shell out £15m on the unreliable Rabiot, who only has a year left on his deal in Turin.
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It’s almost as if Juventus saw the mug punters of United coming.
Looking at that bloody great list, it’s clear that it would have been difficult to miss them. More
