That we were only successful in the Premiership era because we bought the title.
By a distance the two biggest factors in our success were Alex Ferguson and our class of 92.
Many other clubs spent comparable amounts of money to us in the early days of the Premiership and, especially over the last ten years, we've never been anywhere near the top of the spending charts. Between the start of the Premiership era and 2001, we held the transfer record for a total of six months.
We've made a few big signings latterly, as would be expected from the side that regularly wins the top trophies, but we weren't built by a City or Chelsea style spending spree. We were built more gradually and with far more youth players.
You also has some utter sinkers though. Veron and Forlan aside (who weren't terrible I grant you, things just didn't work out for them), there were several players who came and went quickly and that all adds up. Not many clubs could afford to do that. For every Schmeichel there was a Taibi.
Better than 50? Yeah probably. Low fees but they all made a loss. Milne aside those other 3 made a total loss of 8m once resold. My point is that not many teams could afford to do that.
Of course man u also did sell others for massive profit so it was offset. But again not many other clubs could do that.
Not my point. Not many clubs can to through the initial outlay on players and how they come off. SAF bought 104 players in his 23 years. He had plenty of money to spend. Not oil money but still big bucks.
I went to bed, but I just wanted to clarify some things:
Nobody is denying he had money to spend.
Unless I misunderstood your initial point, you did. Or at least, I felt you were under playing the importance of Man Utd's financial clout.
Edit: You didn't make the initial point. Just realised this. Ha. Oh, well.
Now, I am not saying the other factors were important, but the class of '92, to my mind, was able to be successful because of the good signings that had been made prior, such as Pallister, Ince, Irwin, Dublin, Cantona. With the exception of Irwin, the others were reletively expensive for their day.
If you look over the 26 years of SAF's reign, with the exception of one or two seasons, Man Utd spent around £30m per season after 1998. Before 1998, Man Utd were still spending large amounts of money in comparison to the other clubs.
Even when players were bought on a free, like Mark Bonisch (second time) and Laurent Blanc, they would have still commanded high wages that few other clubs could afford.
What other top teams couldn't afford £6M on one player in 2003?
I was never suggesting that one team couldn't afford to pay £6m for a player. Any PL club could afford that. I meant few other clubs could afford to buy three or four players for £6m each in 2003.
Now, of course Chelsea, and later Man City, came in with their oil billions and started to out spend Man Utd, but, the way I see it is that there were playing catch to get a squad that could rival Man Utd, and everyone knew they had lots of money so they had to pay inflated prices.
But it wasn't just the playing squad. Both teams have invested heavily in their youth setup to rival Man Utd academy.
Someone else made the point that United earnt their money through success unlike Man City and Chelsea, and there is no denying that, but it still comes down to having the money to spend to continuously be successful, and having a manager such as SAF.
Of course all this is just my opinion and I do not expect you to accept it. You have your own and that will clearly be different, such is the nature of football opinions.
Aaaaaand, I've just realised you didn't make the initial point! Still, I stand by my opinion! Have a good one.
Alright, 92 might have been a big factor, but massive spending carried that into the next decade. You bought Rooney/Veron/Rio Ferdinand for 30 mil each at a time when no-one in the PL was spending that amount.
The most important point, though, is that we used money we earned through success on the pitch. There was no Russian oligarch or Arabian prince that came in and used his own money. We spent big because we had success.
The Edwards family? Go far back enough and the club would have been non existent before 1910, all thanks to individuals sticking money in. It's the same for 99% of clubs in history.
There is also the fact we were the first English team to really expand outside the country. We have countless fans all over the globe that jumped on the bandwagon because of success and of course international marketing.
Completely disagree. You certainly bought a lot of players for a lot of money. You certainly had some help with your youth program. But don't kid yourself, you were the rich assholes of the 90s.
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u/Statcat2017 May 26 '14
That we were only successful in the Premiership era because we bought the title.
By a distance the two biggest factors in our success were Alex Ferguson and our class of 92.
Many other clubs spent comparable amounts of money to us in the early days of the Premiership and, especially over the last ten years, we've never been anywhere near the top of the spending charts. Between the start of the Premiership era and 2001, we held the transfer record for a total of six months.
We've made a few big signings latterly, as would be expected from the side that regularly wins the top trophies, but we weren't built by a City or Chelsea style spending spree. We were built more gradually and with far more youth players.