Note: This article is a reply to BlueChampions’s piece on Manchester United’s spending. It’s a good article and raises some interesting points that I’ve discussed here.
Replace Chelsea with Arsenal, Liverpool or Tottenham and you’ll get the same answer – there is plenty of misinformation spinning around and sometimes Chelsea fans have no choice but to believe the spin fed to them by the media.
Before anyone gets a chance to rant about this, I just want to point out a few things:
1) BC is going to get killed for the bias 🙂
2) Jose is a master baiter – he manipulates the argument to his own purposes very well. People ARE asking Liverpool and Arsenal why they didn’t challenge for the title. People ARE asking Man Utd why they failed at San Siro or at Wembley.
And yes, there will be pressure on Man Utd and Liverpool to perform because of the buys, but you forget the pressure on Chelsea because of the expectations attached with that club – expectations they’ve built themselves.
3) If Chelsea want to be a world class club, they need to match or better Man Utd’s ambitions. So to claim on one hand that their ambitions are modest while ignoring the club’s aims is a bad case of selective memory.
4) To put Man Utd’s buying in perspective – the Glazers have more or less announced / let it be known that they are providing 25m per year for players, plus 25m extra in case there’s a special buy like we brought in Rooney. Mind you, this 25m per year plus the 25m emergency fund was planned with minimum results – 3rd place Prem, 2nd round CL, 3rd/4th round domestic cups.
AND last season United did not lose any money in the transfer market – whatever they spent on Carrick was made up by the Ruud transfer and the Obi Mikel money.
AND this summer, even with the Tevez transfer, we’re not spending 50m or 70m. The Nani and Anderson deals are staggered payments with several clauses attached to them. Tevez will be the same, either a loan or a staggered payments deal.
In all scenarios, AFTER buying Tevez United would have spend 40m. Is that a lot? Yes, of course. But United would have spent less than the two years’ transfer budget in their hands (last year’s 25m plus this year’s 25m).
5) United splurged less than Chelsea AND they now have a squad that will grow together in the long run. No need for United to spend more either.
6) Sheva’s deal was 30m+.
7) Something people don’t realise is that the business of football is one of assets. You HAVE to be in it for the long haul – 10+ years – to make real money out of it. Glazers’ aren’t going anywhere, neither are the Pool owners. Roman? I doubt he’ll leave either.
8) Issue of debts – regrettable but we’re living with it. I could similarly point out that Chelsea is going in loss and that the plan to be financially stable by 2010 is overambitious and racked with uncertainty simply because of the astronomical wages Chelsea pay their players.
There are financial concerns for both clubs – United have a fixed plan to repay that debt and it involves a long-term commitment on and off the pitch. That does NOT make the club financially unsound – the only serious point of trouble United will have is if the next coach cannot help Man Utd qualify for the Champions League. That’s a risk all top four clubs have.
I’d also advise you to read this – Chelsea and Liverpool takeovers all about the money – and read comment #2.
Overall, I seriously don’t think you should believe what the spin doctors push on your plate. Get your facts straight mate.
What you said is 100% true, United are working on their players to make them better whilst Chelsea just buy world class players.
ya u r right n SAF has already mentioned about the money comin in with the new lucrative TV deals..
70m spent(assuming tevez also)-the important thing here is all of them r young.nani-20,anderson-19,tevez-23 n OH-26(he will have his best yrs at OT)…
we havent spent loads of money on a 30yr old..[:P]
risk factor is also very less with these buys becoz they r young n very talented..
This is so poorly written and riddled with holes that it’s impossible to argue with.
Are you sure about the £40 million thing because it’s a great bit of business if it is I thought that it was £50-55 million.
In the article you said that the clubs will be sold for a profit, I heard that the Glazers already turned down an offer of £1 bn+ so they seem as though they wont be in too much trouble with money and there is also the Tampa Bay Buccaneers which is worth about £600 million.
Agree with you on Mourinho I wonder what he will blame for failing to win the league this year, injuries? “we are not shown preference in our fixtures” is a common one for both Chelsea and Liverpool. On your post about Benitez yesterday one Liverpool fan wrote that Liverpool didn’t win the league because they had a few away games at the start of the season and said that they couldn’t score against Bolton and Everton because the PL conspired against them.
You’re probably being a sceptic here. Abramovich could happen to be INTO chelsea. But then I’ll be as delusional as everyone else.
You’ve raised a very interesting point though. Abramovich is a billionaire and thinks like all the other rich bastards out there. Buy something that has the potential to be worth 100 times what it was worth. Everyone calls it creative buying. Donald Trump constantly does it with land and Buffet with business and now with the EPL’s potential, it is no wonder more and more billionaires are exploiting the EPL.
Don’t want to get into this Big money signings thing again…
Just wondering… why did BlueChampion omit the ‘bad bottle of wine…’ phrase/sentence in his extract :-). I think that the complete sentence would have summed up the relationship between the 2 clubs more.
And the point of this article is?
I’m pretty sure Sheva’s figure was never publicly released, so his fee is unconfirmed.
To be honest, in the end, Man Utd are and will always be looking into the future. They know that players age and will lose their quality. Why do you think Utd have always had a bit of a slump after a winning streak? Because players are not as good as they have been. SAF has learned from this and if the young players he wants are highly priced then so what? It gives him a chance to mould them into world class players who will always be looking to learn. On the other hand, with Chelsea, they keep on buying established players. Since Mourinho has taken over, how many players from the youth academy have played in the EPL? I’d say max of 4. And they say they have one of the best youth academies in England……..?!?!
I thought this was a very fair article, although every team will try and buy the best players they can with the money at their disposal. So every team will try and buy the league to some degree Chelsea have had plenty of money recently and have spent a lot, however Man U and Liverpool have been doing this for years!
If any Man U fan accuses Chelsea of buying the league HE MUST ACCEPT THAT HIS CLUB HAS BEEN DOING EXACTLY THE SAME, equally Jose can not accuse Man U of buying the league. Ferdinand, Vidic, Ronaldo, Rooney,Van de Sar, Evra, Hargreves , Nani, Van Nistleroy, Silvestre, Tevez and many more were bought to help Man u win the league.
All the premiership clubs are trying to buy the league but now with more foreign investors at A. villa, West Ham, Man C, Liverpool as well as Chelsea and Man U BUT SOME HAVE MORE MONEY THAN OTHERS.
What’s up with the first 5 words of number 2? Say it out loud.
Well spotted Jack
Was that done on purpose Ahmed?
🙂 the master baiter thing is something that I’ve been running for a while, read the linked article to get the back story.
And ‘well spotted’? mate, if you’re not reading it wtf are you doing? 😛
Yeah sorry about that, I wrote the comment on a kind of spur of the moment type thing before I went through the link but still when you are kind of just ‘speed reading’ you don’t really realise these things until they are pointed out.
MU shud have signed Pazzini! or Bojinov! or Huntelaar! these three r world class youngsters, equivalent to Tevez! but minus the baggage and controversy of Tevez! hohohho!