Manchester United Thread 25/26 - Teamtalk/Transfers/Gossip Mod Note in OP 26.09.24

If the talk from many of the itk journalists is the club are currently looking at/enquiring about:

Mbuemo

Gyorkores

Ekitike

Osimhen

Watkins

Martinez

Costa

Marco Carnesecchi

Ederson

So they are exploring a good few deals. They just take time. Teams don't seems to be clammering for any of those players so potential for better deals to be done as the window moves on.

Some clubs have made 4 or 5 signings but nothing to say they won't be crap signings that don't improve them at all. Outside Liverpool and City I don't see any other clubs making fantastic signings that I'd be jealous of.

Thats why I think we shoulda been looking at say Kyle Walker-Peters/Jamie Vardy.

Are they going to make us title contenders? Fùck no.

Are they going to be first choice or even on the bench if everyone is fit? Fùck no.

Are they available, cheap, and provide depth in areas we are badly lacking depth? Yes

Are they going to be demanding 100k+ a week and demanding long contracts? Highly doubtful and if they are then fùck em.

But we always have to do a month per player big money move. Its no wonder the squad is so patchwork with gaping holes.

140m in PSR is a lot of transfer room. Cunha's transfer fee was 62.5m and salary 10millon per year over 5 years which means for PSR purposes the deal costs 22.5m per year. The problem is cash not PSR. For PSR the cost is spread over the duration of the contract. The reason we cannot close transfer deals is we are trying to spread the actual payments as well. Given SJR's interview earlier in the year where he highlighted the cash flow issues you can understand why other clubs want as much cash upfront as possible

100%. United conceded 54 goals last year. 13 more than Liverpool.

United scored 44 goals. 42 less than Liverpool.

There are a lot of issues but attacking output is a far more pressing issue than the goalkeeper.

Are you sure about that:

• 2023-24: Net loss of £113.2 million.
• 2022-23: Loss of £28.7 million.
• 2021-22: Loss of £115.5 million.
• Over past 5 years: Total losses exceed £370 million.

Then we come and say, we will pay you back over 3 years after Ratcliffe has said we were in danger of running out of cash.

I dont believe we are at risk of a real liquidity crisis but probably for the next 12-18 months we are a bit too close for comfort until all the overpaid have been moved on and existing transfer commitments on some of the overpaid repaid.

Supporters continue to keep their heads in the sand about the dire financial situation. And the fact the we act so slowly and try to negotiate every penny of every deal serves to highlight how bad it is.

Can someone link me to where it says the 140m includes installments because from what I read (possibly incorrectly) it was the transfer as a whole i.e Cunha's 62.5m counts as that figure from the 140m.

On digging the £140m figure is not actually what United can spend under PSR. Its the Pre Tax losses Red Football limited can book for 2024/2025 and still be compliant with PSR. So if for example all other business booked against Red Football limited makes a loss of £100m they only have £40million PSR space and if it makes a profit of £100m they have £240m.

These are the books for Q1 2025 compared to 2024

You can see in the Amortization row where the costs of previous purchases is booked.

Now it looks to be a better position that last year with increased revenue and lower costs. We also benefit a bit from all the costs of running the business not falling on Red Football Ltd but rather on the PLC.

Is it the right thing for the long term sustainability of the club to book another £140m in losses though and even if it is do we have cash flow or are we willing to take on additional debt to support that spending

Completely agree on the forward line being more of a priority than Onana.

Even if he's making some howlers will cost us at most 10 goals.

A better forward line this season should increase our goal output by 20-30 goals. We should have a minimum of a net positive of at least 10+ compared to this season.

I think it was clear from Radcliffes interview and from the redundancies of regular workers that they are trying to bring in a new culture of looking after money in such a way that gets us out of this mire sustainably.

Anyone bleating on about stopping the penny pinching and just pay the money and get so and so in, is not really interested in change.

Surely it's a mixed bag of over spending and spending poorly? Antony (not good enough), Sancho (ignored attitude issues, better at LW where we had Rashford and Martial) Hojlund (too inexperienced) Casemiro (too old) etc all players we spent too much on.

Whilst I could accept a KWP or Semedo coming in for depth there is no way we should ever be linked with Jamie Vardy. He's 38 and past his prime, we'd be a laughing stock

This.

We'd get more use out of adding Vardy to the depth chart than KWP or Semedo. Not to forget you've also got Dorgu as another that can cover RWB spot.

There's ideal world and there's real world.

In an ideal world, we wouldn't even give Vardy a cursory glance. We'd have a top class striker, a backup that would be starting for most teams outside the Top 4-6 and a highly rated young third choice who was ready for sporadic first team action to develop.

In the real world, and considering our real world financial mismanagement, a 38 year old free transfer who was recently relegated is better than any up front option currently at the club, including a €70 million striker who still gets labelled as raw despite having over 200 senior appearances and is turning 23 this year.