Your point is entirely valid, but we haven't made a loss in accounting terms, in any event. We bought Edin as he was approaching his theoretical peak and sold him as he was coming to its end. The two prices are entirely consistent with that cycle. His 'book value' will have been written down over that period, partly as a process of amortisation and also to reflect his advancing age. Nearly all players, especially strikers, decline in value from 24 to 29. Any journalist who fails to account for that is being intellectual dishonest or doesn't grasp the concept because he is stupid.
De Maria, on the other hand, was bought and sold by united within his prime. Arguably his two peak theoretical years in terms of his transfer value. On that basis, united's 'loss' is significantly greater. It is also greater in actual terms too. This is brought into even sharper focus when you consider that De Maria is the most expensive English signing EVER. When you consider that, his hugely inconsistent season, the fact he went AWOL and forced a move and the huge loss that united sustained on someone who a year ago was hailed as world class, the lack of invective and critique in relation to this should be astonishing, but it's not. It's predictable and tiresome. If we'd signed him and sold him in that way the narrative would be entirely different. This is manifest. You only have to look to David James' preposterous and lazy comments on our spending to see what the prevailing script is.
Quite simply, to criticise City offers the path of least resistance, which is a road the idle and the pathologically thick are always happy to travel.
