Buying success?

[Gary James]

If anyone goes on about City's extravagant spending, particularly this weekend, it might be worth reminding them of a fact I'm including in one of my pieces in Saturday's programme. The 'Blue Pages' (programmes from the past) piece will focus on the last Maine Road derby. I include within that piece:

Opposition: United’s expensive squad included Ruud Van Nistelrooy (reported as costing £19m), Rio Ferdinand (£30m according to manutd.com) and Juan Sebastian Veron (£28.1m in 2001, according to the Guardian), plus Fabien Barthez whose transfer had been the British record for a goalkeeper.

Okay, so some of those fees may not be as great as today, but this was 8 years ago. As we've said before City didn't start the spending. All we're doing is playing 'catch-up'.

 

[Blue Smarties]

The Veron one always makes me laugh.

 

[tonea2003]

since jimmy hill in 60's got rid of the minnimum wage,
i would say the biggest payers of transfers and wages have generally won most things give or take the odd blip, especially in the last 20 years this has been the case.
its nothing new, they are just jealous its now our turn to have a go

 

[BLOOMUEN]

After 30 years of buying failure, yes please, let's buy some success. I have no problem with this!

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

Does anyone really think that you can get a Rolls-Royce for the price of a Lada? All the teams who have occupied the top four places on a regular basis since the EPL came into being, have spent bucket loads of cash. They have added to the quality of their teams on an on-going basis. Chelsea had massive injections of cash, hence the RentBoy label. The top and bottom of the debate centres round whether or not MANUre fans think that what they have done for years, can be fairly applied to other teams. Their musings give me the impression that they think big spending should be restricted to clubs with 'history' - a history of spending it when they had it. Now they have none, it's all rather unfair for teams to be sloshing the dosh!

Roll on the transfer window and the good Sheikh's dirhams!

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Over the last 6 seasons, 6 teams have spent more than £10m a season (net).

City, Chelsea, Spurs, Liverpool, Villa & Sunderland. Does anyone think that the last four of those have "bought success"?

 

[Why Always Ste]

Jealousy, they don't like it when someone else does the same thing as they've been doing for many years.

if you won the lottery you wouldn't stay in your 2bed house, drive the skoda and eat crap food all the time (yes i know some on here would)
The least you'd do is employ some foreigners to do your gardening for you.

it's called keeping up with the jones's, and right now as i peak out of my window i see the bailiff's outside my neighbours house.

I might just nip across for a brew and debate whether or not to offer a good price on their window cleaner Wayne.

 

[BLOOMUEN]

Over the last 6 seasons, 6 teams have spent more than £10m a season (net).

City, Chelsea, Spurs, Liverpool, Villa & Sunderland. Does anyone think that the last four of those have "bought success"?

It is an interesting statistic but what do you think it tells us, PB?

'Not trying to be facetious, I was just a little unclear what your point was:


That it is the journey to success that costs the most, and that Rags, Dippers and to a lesser extent Gooners have really been maintaining, rather than establishing, success?

Or that throwing £10million per season at it doesn't even make a ripple?

 

[Didsbury Dave]

If anyone goes on about City's extravagant spending, particularly this weekend, it might be worth reminding them of a fact I'm including in one of my pieces in Saturday's programme. The 'Blue Pages' (programmes from the past) piece will focus on the last Maine Road derby. I include within that piece:

Opposition: United’s expensive squad included Ruud Van Nistelrooy (reported as costing £19m), Rio Ferdinand (£30m according to manutd.com) and Juan Sebastian Veron (£28.1m in 2001, according to the Guardian), plus Fabien Barthez whose transfer had been the British record for a goalkeeper.

Okay, so some of those fees may not be as great as today, but this was 8 years ago. As we've said before City didn't start the spending. All we're doing is playing 'catch-up'.

In the 89 Maine Road Derby they but out a hugely expensive team at the time. The cost of their players then was the talk of football. I seem to remember their first team that day had cost £13m which was a fortune at the time.

 

[Gary James]

In the 89 Maine Road Derby they but out a hugely expensive team at the time. The cost of their players then was the talk of football. I seem to remember their first team that day had cost £13m which was a fortune at the time.

Spot on. If I remember right just one of their players (Pallister?) cost more than our 11 who started the game. I'd have to check but I'm pretty certain it was right, or a similar amount at least.

The point of my OP was to say "Don't let anyone throw the 'buying' line at us" - the example from 8 years ago shows (particularly with Veron & Ferdinand's transfers) that we're only spending now amounts that they were spending almost a decade ago.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

In the 89 Maine Road Derby they but out a hugely expensive team at the time. The cost of their players then was the talk of football. I seem to remember their first team that day had cost £13m which was a fortune at the time.

Spot on. If I remember right just one of their players (Pallister?) cost more than our 11 who started the game. I'd have to check but I'm pretty certain it was right, or a similar amount at least.

The point of my OP was to say "Don't let anyone throw the 'buying' line at us" - the example from 8 years ago shows (particularly with Veron & Ferdinand's transfers) that we're only spending now amounts that they were spending almost a decade ago.

Yep, you're right about Pallister I'm pretty sure.

The reason I remember the £13m is that at the following home game, the bloke behind me in the Main Stand said to his mate at kick off:

"Pitch looks nice today John". John replied "Well it should do, it had £13 million's worth of shit on it last week"

I've never forgotten it.

 

[Gary James]

Spot on. If I remember right just one of their players (Pallister?) cost more than our 11 who started the game. I'd have to check but I'm pretty certain it was right, or a similar amount at least.

The point of my OP was to say "Don't let anyone throw the 'buying' line at us" - the example from 8 years ago shows (particularly with Veron & Ferdinand's transfers) that we're only spending now amounts that they were spending almost a decade ago.

Yep, you're right about Pallister I'm pretty sure.

The reason I remember the £13m is that at the following home game, the bloke behind me in the Main Stand said to his mate at kick off:

"Pitch looks nice today John". John replied "Well it should do, it had £13 million's worth of shit on it last week"

I've never forgotten it.

Great line! Actually I forgot to include our sub Jason Beckford, so Pallister must have cost more than our 12 players. Of those 12 Bishop cost £750k, and the only others who cost anything were Gayle, Oldfield, Morley, Fleming and Cooper (or was he a free?). The others were homegrown, but those that had been bought altogether must have cost less than the c.£2.5m Pallister cost.

Of course we were missing our own influential players - Allen (at £1m our most expensive player and first £1m signing since Francis in 1982), McNab, and Dibble.

 

[hello]

Perphaps the biggest hypocrites of all about the buying success line are liverpool, Shankly and Paisely between signed well over 70 players costing over 6.5m between them which would equate to about 160m in terms of relative worth, not even allowing for the stupid money in football since sky.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Over the last 6 seasons, 6 teams have spent more than £10m a season (net).

City, Chelsea, Spurs, Liverpool, Villa & Sunderland. Does anyone think that the last four of those have "bought success"?

It is an interesting statistic but what do you think it tells us, PB?

'Not trying to be facetious, I was just a little unclear what your point was:


That it is the journey to success that costs the most, and that Rags, Dippers and to a lesser extent Gooners have really been maintaining, rather than establishing, success?

Or that throwing £10million per season at it doesn't even make a ripple?

I was trying to say that simply throwing money at players doesn't guarantee success. It's how well you use it that makes the difference, both in terms of who you buy and how you put the team together.

 

[Braggster]

It is an interesting statistic but what do you think it tells us, PB?

'Not trying to be facetious, I was just a little unclear what your point was:


That it is the journey to success that costs the most, and that Rags, Dippers and to a lesser extent Gooners have really been maintaining, rather than establishing, success?

Or that throwing £10million per season at it doesn't even make a ripple?

I was trying to say that simply throwing money at players doesn't guarantee success. It's how well you use it that makes the difference, both in terms of who you buy and how you put the team together.

All the statistical research that's been done has pointed to spending on wages making a big difference - it is highly correlative with league position - whereas transfer spending is much less so. To get a fairer picture you would have to take into account wagebills which would see the rags, chavs and arse outspending everyone else.

 

[Vienna_70]

I remember reading years ago (must have been early 80s) that most teams success over the last few years had been more or less corelated to success.

But one team had vastly over-achieved, compare to transfer fees spent, and one had vastly under-achieved.

The former was Forest.

The latter?

Yep - City!

 

[Didsbury Dave]

I remember reading years ago (must have been early 80s) that most teams success over the last few years had been more or less corelated to success.

But one team had vastly over-achieved, compare to transfer fees spent, and one had vastly under-achieved.

The former was Forest.

The latter?

Yep - City!

I remember that statistic. i wasn't even surprised at the time.

 

[jacko74]

All the rags success in recent years has simply been bought... how else do they account for the little matter of being £700 million in debt.

 

[blumoonrisen]

In the 89 Maine Road Derby they but out a hugely expensive team at the time. The cost of their players then was the talk of football. I seem to remember their first team that day had cost £13m which was a fortune at the time.

I remember some headlines at the time : City 5 Fergie's wallet 1

 

[M18CTID]

Spot on. If I remember right just one of their players (Pallister?) cost more than our 11 who started the game. I'd have to check but I'm pretty certain it was right, or a similar amount at least.

The point of my OP was to say "Don't let anyone throw the 'buying' line at us" - the example from 8 years ago shows (particularly with Veron & Ferdinand's transfers) that we're only spending now amounts that they were spending almost a decade ago.

Yep, you're right about Pallister I'm pretty sure.

The reason I remember the £13m is that at the following home game, the bloke behind me in the Main Stand said to his mate at kick off:

"Pitch looks nice today John". John replied "Well it should do, it had £13 million's worth of shit on it last week"

I've never forgotten it.

While it might not sound a lot of money in football terms now to some people, £13 million back in the pre-Sky, pre-commercialised days of 1989 was a hell of a lot of cash especially when you consider that at the same time United was almost sold to Michael Knighton for £20 million.

The thing that makes me laugh about some of their fans is that they try to peddle the myth that United have only ever spent self-generated cash. This is simply not true - while it may have been the case since the early 1990's, Ferguson's £13 million spending spree in 1988 and 1989 far outweighed what the club was generating, and as a result it plunged them millions of pounds into debt. I'd urge anyone that gets the self-generated line thrown at them to cite the late 1980's as an example of why they're talking rubbish. That will get them squirming.