Manchester United, that didn't last long. Seven up

[david3103]

id like to see the same table but for wages.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/premier-league/9514149/Graphic-Premier-League-transfer-and-wage-spending-from-the-200001-season-to-201112.html

deep in two small online comps so no time to do much commentary

glgl, sn for a rail?

Too late - 3rd in a €1 rb on DTD for not much
and 15th in $3 rb on 888 for a bit more

[The Baron]

Transfer spend league table for the past 5 years

http://transferleague.co.uk/league-tables/transfer-league-table-last-five-seasons.html

It's ordered by net spend (which is how you get Stoke spending more)

Man Utd are 7th on net spend, but even on gross spend a fleeting glance means I think they'd still only be 6th

On the whole I agree with David's view on this Utd earn, Utd spend - fair dos really. But this link is cobblers. Minus a world record sale Utd are third on net spend. And the last 5 years is irrelevant if you have 30m players bought more than 5 years ago still playing for you. Even moreso as their transfer fee + transfer price inflation would actually make them even more expensive if bought in the last 5 years.

[The Baron]

id like to see the same table but for wages.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/premier-league/9514149/Graphic-Premier-League-transfer-and-wage-spending-from-the-200001-season-to-201112.html

deep in two small online comps so no time to do much commentary

Be interested to hear your thoughts here. Surely a directly correlation between spend & success? I know that wasn't your argument (you earn it, why shouldn't you spend it?) but I think this does support the theory that you spend to win.

[david3103]

@Baron not sure why the league table is necessarily cobblers. Excluding Ronaldo's sale is only appropriate if you then exclude the other 'exceptionals' like £50mm for Torres coming in to Liverpool, and do you then exclude that purchase from Chelsea's spend?

Net spend is what it is, pick a different time period if you want to include Rooney, Ferdinand, Veron etc

The 'buy success' argument, of course if you throw money at the game you can buy success. Chelsea and City have shown that recently, Blackburn showed it in an earlier time as did Leeds. But look what happened to Blackburn and Leeds....

United's current policy of consistently investing in both organic and non-organic improvement seems to me to be the model for other clubs to follow.

[77dave]

@Baron not sure why the league table is necessarily cobblers. Excluding Ronaldo's sale is only appropriate if you then exclude the other 'exceptionals' like £50mm for Torres coming in to Liverpool, and do you then exclude that purchase from Chelsea's spend?

Net spend is what it is, pick a different time period if you want to include Rooney, Ferdinand, Veron etc

The 'buy success' argument, of course if you throw money at the game you can buy success. Chelsea and City have shown that recently, Blackburn showed it in an earlier time as did Leeds. But look what happened to Blackburn and Leeds....

United's current policy of consistently investing in both organic and non-organic improvement seems to me to be the model for other clubs to follow.

can you say your happy with what has come through the utd academy in the last 10 years?

[George2Loose]

Yeh pretty funny that Liverpool fans constantly defend their net spend with torres yet united should exclude the sale of ronaldo

[77dave]

Yeh pretty funny that Liverpool fans constantly defend their net spend with torres yet united should exclude the sale of ronaldo

The way i remember the 2 transfers, Liverpool immediately reinvested (be it badly) the Torres money. Where as the Ronaldo money went into the Glazers pockets.

[david3103]

Yeh pretty funny that Liverpool fans constantly defend their net spend with torres yet united should exclude the sale of ronaldo

The way i remember the 2 transfers, Liverpool immediately reinvested (be it badly) the Torres money. Where as the Ronaldo money went into the Glazers pockets.

You'd have been better advised to use it to build a bigger ground...

[77dave]

Yeh pretty funny that Liverpool fans constantly defend their net spend with torres yet united should exclude the sale of ronaldo

The way i remember the 2 transfers, Liverpool immediately reinvested (be it badly) the Torres money. Where as the Ronaldo money went into the Glazers pockets.

You'd have been better advised to use it to build a bigger ground...

lots of things we could of done that would of been better than Carroll for £35m

[The Baron]

@Baron not sure why the league table is necessarily cobblers. Excluding Ronaldo's sale is only appropriate if you then exclude the other 'exceptionals' like £50mm for Torres coming in to Liverpool, and do you then exclude that purchase from Chelsea's spend?

Net spend is what it is, pick a different time period if you want to include Rooney, Ferdinand, Veron etc

The 'buy success' argument, of course if you throw money at the game you can buy success. Chelsea and City have shown that recently, Blackburn showed it in an earlier time as did Leeds. But look what happened to Blackburn and Leeds....

United's current policy of consistently investing in both organic and non-organic improvement seems to me to be the model for other clubs to follow.

Our spend is terrible whatever. So taking away the Torres sale is irrelevant on the whole. The situation with Utd and Ronaldo is not the same. It puts a totally different report on your spend.

To your second line.... This is my point exactly. You can't simply pick a point in time and look at net spend as you suggest. If Utd's net spend in say, 2008 was zero would that negate the £100 million they spent in 2007 and therefore prove you can win by spending nothing within that period? It's a ridiculous argument. You can't pick a 5 year period (when a world record sale happened) and say "oh our spending isn't so bad". It just doesn't add up.

The second link posted on here is much more telling. Spending = success, however you earn it.

[George2Loose]

The fact is, united have been hugely succesful for arguably the longest period in English football. To try and put this down to spending is naive at best and jealousy at its worst. We are successful because of many factors mainly having the best footballing manager in a generation.

[77dave]

@Baron not sure why the league table is necessarily cobblers. Excluding Ronaldo's sale is only appropriate if you then exclude the other 'exceptionals' like £50mm for Torres coming in to Liverpool, and do you then exclude that purchase from Chelsea's spend?

Net spend is what it is, pick a different time period if you want to include Rooney, Ferdinand, Veron etc

The 'buy success' argument, of course if you throw money at the game you can buy success. Chelsea and City have shown that recently, Blackburn showed it in an earlier time as did Leeds. But look what happened to Blackburn and Leeds....

United's current policy of consistently investing in both organic and non-organic improvement seems to me to be the model for other clubs to follow.

can you say your happy with what has come through the utd academy in the last 10 years?

[david3103]

@Baron not sure why the league table is necessarily cobblers. Excluding Ronaldo's sale is only appropriate if you then exclude the other 'exceptionals' like £50mm for Torres coming in to Liverpool, and do you then exclude that purchase from Chelsea's spend?

Net spend is what it is, pick a different time period if you want to include Rooney, Ferdinand, Veron etc

The 'buy success' argument, of course if you throw money at the game you can buy success. Chelsea and City have shown that recently, Blackburn showed it in an earlier time as did Leeds. But look what happened to Blackburn and Leeds....

United's current policy of consistently investing in both organic and non-organic improvement seems to me to be the model for other clubs to follow.

can you say your happy with what has come through the utd academy in the last 10 years?

I could be happier, we've had a few that should have made it, but lost their way. But Evans, Cleverley, Wellbeck isn't too bad a showing.

[The Baron]

The fact is, united have been hugely succesful for arguably the longest period in English football. To try and put this down to spending is naive at best and jealousy at its worst. We are successful because of many factors mainly having the best footballing manager in a generation.

No one has put it down to spending by itself so your comment doesn't really make any sense to be honest, it seems you are getting defensive for no real reason. This isn't a Liverpool Vs Man Utd debate as much as you're trying to turn it into one.

The fact is there's a direct correlation between success and spending (although not the other way around as some clubs have proved you can spend and not win a lot). In other words, great manager or not, it is unlikely you, or any team for that matter, would win much without spending a lot of money.

The only exception I can think of in the modern era is Arsenal but I think it's fair to say that is very unlikely to happen again to any club with the current rules.

[George2Loose]

Ok I'll bite and turn it into united vs Liverpool. Other exceptions can think of is Liverpool who have spent by the truckload and still lie mid table