You can’t seriously argue that Manchester United have not given Jose Mourinho enough of a war chest to do battle in the summer transfer market. What you can argue though, is Old Trafford not giving him all that they could, and that could end up being the reason Mourinho may end up walking away one day and head to Paris Saint-Germain; where there are no spending limits in place.
In two summer transfer windows, Mourinho has spent £285 million on seven players, and in the process become the first manager to eclipse over £1 billion spent on new players over the course of his career.
Last summer, United broke the all time transfer fee record with #Pogback, returning Paul Pogba to Old Trafford. PSG more than doubled that this past summer of course in the Neymar acquisition. This year saw Forbes ranking United as the richest club in the world again, so they are essentially printing money over at the Theatre of Dreams.
A new study, commissioned by the CIES Football Observatory, estimates the transfer market values of team rosters and ranks them, with United coming in fifth.
So while United have splashed the cash, they have done so inefficiently and unintelligently. Mourinho may believe that throwing more money at the problem will fix it, and he may have a point, but that’s probably not going to be the actual solution.
New @CIES_Football Weekly Post on estimated transfer value per club: @ManCity ahead of @SpursOfficial, more at https://t.co/PJ5kI94YyJ pic.twitter.com/25N1Kh8Yfr
— CIES Football Obs (@CIES_Football) November 6, 2017
United are simply just not maximizing return on investment right now, and it remains to be seen if more spending will change that. There are reports indicating United will have to first sell of fringe players in January, if they are to even acquire roster reinforcements next window. Old Trafford has become a summer buying only club in recent years, so it’s doubtful they’ll really make any big additions in the first month of 2018.
What we do know for sure is that Mourinho and United continues to struggle against the big six, especially so on the road.
This United team was expected to compete for a title, and it appears the side branded as “noisy neighbors” by Sir Alex Ferguson are going to run away with that prize this year.
While Manchester City have spent big money as well, they are definitely doing so more efficiently than United, as the CIES study found the blue side of Manchester to have the most valuable roster in the world. Mourinho took this job in the exact same offseason as Pep Guardiola took his gig.
It’s very clear who is making real progress at a much more rapid clip.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and the Tribune corporation blogging community Chicago Now.
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