Original title: Deeply digging into the chaos of Manchester United signings: Behind Pogba’s free departure is the failure of 40 people and 1.2 billion in 9 years
Manchester United recently announced a series of official announcements, but not signings, but Pogba, Lingard and Mata leaving the team after their contracts expired. Their free departure is a double loss for the Red Devils, both competitively and financially. It also reflects the chaos in Manchester United’s signings in the nine years since Ferguson retired.
Sir Alex retires, Manchester United’s signing methods change
In 2014, Marcos Rojo joined Manchester United from Sporting on a five-year contract. It wasn’t long before United received a call from a reporter asking the club to respond to news that an Argentine judge was considering bringing Rojo back to the country in response to allegations of bodily harm in a scuffle with a neighbour.
It happened in 2010, but Manchester United knew nothing about it. They spent £16m on a player without knowing he was the subject of a criminal investigation. Rojo was never charged, but as a result, he had to wait a month for a work permit.
United employed just 12 full-time scouts in the final years of the Ferguson era, but the club still signed some of the best players in the world. And usually, Sir Alex will offer his ideas to scouts based on advice he hears from old friends or colleagues.
Before signing a player, Ferguson would know everything about them – not just their technical ability but their character. Ferguson spoke to those who worked with the signing targets, the players themselves, their families – a kind of due diligence that seems to have been overlooked in Rojo’s signing.
Many, including Van Gaal, have accused United of spending more time on the business side of the club than on first-team matters. But the club also knew they had to have the best players in the world to be successful. After the Rojo incident, they ensured more background checks on transfer targets, but made many other types of mistakes.
9 years, most signings fail
United have spent around £1.2bn on transfers in the post-Ferguson era and they have only won one FA Cup, one Europa League and one League Cup. So how many of the 40 players United signed over the past nine years have been successful?
Some of these signings are inconclusive. Sancho, for example, has only been here for one season, and with the right guidance and dedication, he could become one of the best wingers in the Premier League. However, most signings have failed.
Perhaps the most damaging to the club came in the two years after Ferguson announced his retirement in 2013. At the time, United still believed the club could run a transfer operation the way it did in the Ferguson era.
However, they tried and failed to sign Baines and ended up signing Fellaini for £27.5m only to miss out on a chance to get him for £23.5m. Thiago, Bale and Cesc Fabregas are seen as possible targets, but none are willing to come.
Moyes signed Mata from Chelsea for £37.1 million in January 2014, breaking the team’s all-time transfer fee when he realised that Manchester United might be out of the top four.
In fact, Manchester United did not take away the power of signings from the manager. Van Gaal, who replaced Moyes in the summer of 2014, spent almost £150m on Rojo, Luke Shaw, Herrera, Di Maria, Blind and Falcao.
Van Gaal wants to put Falcao, Rooney and Van Persie up front. Five years ago, they might have been one of the deadliest attacking lines in European football, but due to injuries, none of the three strikers are at their best.
United spent £16m on Falcao (£6m on loan, £10m in wages) and he ended up scoring as many goals as centre-back Smalling.
Manchester United paid £59.7m to Real Madrid, but Di Maria stayed for just one year before leaving for PSG. The Argentine Angel was arranged by Van Gaal to play in the midfield. He could hardly get the ball in the game and could not play his own characteristics. He also fell out with several teammates off the field.
In the summer of 2015, Manchester United opened the checkbook again and introduced 6 new aids: Memphis Depay, Damian, Schweinsteiger, Romero, Martial, Schneiderlin.
Van Gaal believes that the £6.8million move to Manchester United is a good deal, but neither he nor the Red Devils have noticed that the German midfielder has only started 82 games in the past four years.
“Bayern sold us a fragile item,” a United employee said later. Guardiola, then Bayern coach, didn’t understand United’s behavior: “Unfortunately, he has never been in good shape for the past three years.”
As for Depay, he likes the extravagant lifestyle but Van Gaal, who coached him during his tenure as Holland manager, thinks he can keep him in check. But Chef Fan was wrong. Depay has annoyed some of his team-mates, with many United players thinking he is not putting football first.
Mourinho was initially given the same transfer control as his predecessor when he took office. He wants two players at each position, and wants most of them to be experienced players.
As a result, Depay and Schneiderlin were eliminated, while Shaw, Rashford and Martial were criticized by madmen. Schweinsteiger was sent to train with the youth team and is seeking a transfer.
Mourinho wants strong, arrogant and preferably experienced players to use his counter-attacking style. That’s why Ibrahimovic, Bailly joined and Pogba returned. The only player who doesn’t meet that criterion is Mkhitaryan, who just won the Bundesliga Player of the Year at Borussia Dortmund.
Biggest failure: Sanchez
At this time, Manchester United believed that the style of the Ferguson era must be changed and the recruitment department should be expanded. So by 2016, the club had added more than 50 scouts, aiming to cast the net as widely as possible in the transfer market.
However, this only confuses Mourinho, who does not know which senior member of the team to turn to. Marcel Bout, the head of global scouting who only left the club in April, was a close friend of Van Gaal, who was replaced by Mourinho.
During the 2017-18 season, Mourinho continued to bring in experienced players such as Matic and Sanchez. The Chilean star’s base salary is £391,000 a week and he has only scored three league goals in his 18-month Manchester United career.
There are signs that Sanchez’s final six months at Arsenal have dropped, but United have continued to bid, in part because doing so could repel City.
Sanchez is a strange person. Sometimes, he trains like a demon. During one training session, one of Mourinho’s coaches told the players to rest for a few minutes on the sidelines. But Sanchez ignored it and continued to do dozens of push-ups until the other players returned to training.
However, he was frustrated with Mourinho’s tactical direction and management style and was emotionally troubled off the pitch by his split with girlfriend Mette Rodriguez.
With Ibrahimovic struggling through injury, Mourinho signed Lukaku from Everton in the summer of 2017 for a whopping £90m. The madman doesn’t like Martial, so he made it clear in the 2018 pre-season that if the Frenchman went to a “right club”, he would not object to his departure. However, Martial is one of Joel Glazer’s favourite players. And Manchester United executives fear that if Martial leaves, he could become one of the best players in Europe, embarrassing the Red Devils.
Mourinho’s dissatisfaction with the board escalated that summer after they refused to bring in Maguire. In December 2018, Madman was sacked, Solskjaer took over, and half a year later, Maguire came again.
Cristiano Ronaldo’s return, and Pogba’s departure
Personality-wise, Solskjaer likes players who are humble off the pitch, those who go to games in club suits and sign autographs for fans. On the pitch, he needs confident players. They have to be young, hungry and fast, and Sanchez, Lukaku and Matic don’t fit that style.
In the summer of 2019, Lukaku made it clear that he wanted to go to Inter. At first, he claimed the hamstrings started to tighten, then calf pain, then ankle pain. A few weeks later, Manchester United reached a deal with the Serie A giants.
At this point, Manchester United updated their scouting database. They proudly claim that there are 804 right-backs in the database. As a result, Crystal Palace’s Wan-Bissaka was selected out of the 804. He’s a great tackler but negligible offensively.
Let’s take a look at Manchester United’s signing process: First, the manager tells the club what needs to be improved. The recruiting team then uses their database to come up with a shortlist; the data and video analysis team then whittles down the list to 10; senior scouts meet with Solskjaer every four weeks to propose two to three to the Norwegian A choice is made by the coach.
If Solskjaer objected to these options, he could veto them. The recruiting team also has veto power. Negotiations director Matt Judge will start talks with clubs and players once the target is approved – having left United this summer.
The signing process is so complicated, the results can be imagined. And Manchester United are also having a tough time selling players. They often renew players who don’t deserve new contracts, just to keep them from free transfers. The original intention of this idea is to protect assets, but if the assets are too expensive to be acquired by other clubs, it will backfire, such as Jones, Bailly, Rojo and others.
The arrival of Daniel James and Maguire when Solskjaer’s first full season in charge brought United’s spending in the summer of 2019 close to £150m. However, James has never been a fit for Manchester United and Maguire has now become the main target of criticism from United fans.
Six months later, Bruno Fernandes landed at the Theatre of Dreams and suddenly became Manchester United’s super thigh. But in the past season, his performance has also become increasingly mediocre, sinking with the Red Devils.
For most of Solskjaer’s time in charge, he has looked to bring in young players. But at the end of his era, Cavani, 35, and Ronaldo, 37, were chosen.
Ronaldo is an odd signing. Super agent Mendes was in Manchester for a week-long visit last August.
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola is seriously considering an offer for Ronaldo, but some of his assistants have reservations about whether Ronaldo’s arrival will disrupt the harmony in the dressing room, as he will be the club’s top-paid player with a weekly salary of more than £400,000 .
When Guardiola was still hesitating, Manchester United suddenly made a decision, and Ronaldo returned. Judging from personal data, the president has 18 goals in the Premier League and 24 goals in all competitions, which is quite good, but he is considered not in line with Manchester United’s style of play, especially in high pressing.
Pogba is another huge controversy. Manchester United paid £200 million for him over six years, but what did they get in return? In 2019, he publicly stated that he was considering “a new challenge elsewhere”, but was not punished by Manchester United for it, or even sold. Until recently, when his contract expired, he left the Red Devils for free for the second time, and he also received a loyalty bonus. What a joke.
From Rangnick to Ten Hag, Manchester United have to sign and rebuild Solskjaer. After class, interim coach Rangnick failed to sign in this winter window. Next, it will be handed over to Ten Hag.
He will report to new CEO Richard Arnold but will work closely with director of football Mutaaf.
Boot and former chief scout Jim Lawler have left to simplify the scouting team led by Steve Brown. Ten Hag’s budget in the transfer market this summer is £120m, plus any income from player sales.
Considering that Matic, Mata, Pogba, Cavani, Lingard and Grant leave for free, while Bailly, Jones, Wan-Bissaka and Martial may also be sold, this summer Window, Manchester United must be very busy.
Ajax’s Timber, Lisandro Martinez and Anthony are all on Ten Hag’s shortlist. De Ligt and Frenkie de Jong are also veterans of the new Manchester United coach. Villarreal defender Paul Torres is very much appreciated by him.
Rangnick said before his departure that it might only take two or three transfer windows to fix Manchester United’s problems, provided they buy the right players. However, missing out on next season’s Champions League means that Manchester United are not as attractive as they used to be. Unless United bring in the right players in a row over the next few years, they risk falling further behind Manchester City and Liverpool.
Rating of signings in the post-Ferguson era (1-5 from low to high, excluding youth players)
Level 5: None
Level 4: Romero, Ibrahimovic, B fee
Tier 3: Mata, Luke Shaw, Martial, Lukaku, Matic, Lindelof, Fred, Dalot, Maguire, Sancho, Ronaldo
Tier 2: Fellaini, Herrera, Blind, Valdes, Damian, Pogba, Mkhitaryan, Bailly, Grant, James, Ighalo, Van de Beek, Tellis , Cavani, Varane, Heaton
Tier 1: Rojo, Falcao, Schneiderlin, Depay, Schweinsteiger, Sanchez, Wan-BissakaReturn to Sohu, see more
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