Graeme Souness, a legend of Liverpool and Scotland, believes that letting people with no football expertise run the game makes Man Utd buy and sell players poorly.
Man Utd has spent more than 1.2 billion USD to buy players under the Glazer owners. But not every star who comes to Old Trafford can shine.
The situation has become more serious in recent years, when most of the blockbuster contracts such as Paul Pogba, Romelu Lukaku, Anthony Martia, Angel di Maria, Memphis Depay, Henrikh Mkhitaryan or Alexis Sanchez… were disappointing and disappointing. decreased in value.
Recently, Britain’s richest billionaire Jim Ratcliffe spent 1.7 billion USD to buy 25% of Man Utd shares on the condition of taking control of the football segment. According to Souness, player recruitment is an urgent issue that Ratcliffe needs to rectify immediately after being given power at Man Utd. The former Liverpool midfielder believes that Man Utd is currently an average group of players and far from the level they need to reach.
“For that reason, there is an issue that Ratcliffe needs to change immediately – Man Utd’s transfer,” Souness commented on the Daily Mail. “This is the most important aspect if you want things to go right at a football club. Man Utd, since Alex Ferguson and David Gill left in 2013, have not done that. They have spent more than 1.2 billion USD during that time”.
Data on Transfermarkt shows that, in Man Utd’s current squad, the biggest drop in price is Harry Maguire – who was bought in 2019 for 97 million USD but is now worth 21 million USD. Jadon Sancho cost Man Utd 88 million USD two years ago, but is now only valued at 34 million USD.
Other cases include Antony, whose price nearly halved from 104 million USD to 53 million in just one year. However, the Brazilian striker is only 23 years old, so Man Utd still hopes he will increase his price again in the future. On the contrary, in the case of Casemiro, whose value decreased from 73 million USD to 42 million, it is difficult to regain its original value because he is 31 years old. Man Utd also has almost no chance of recouping the money spent on Aaron Wan-Bissaka or Donny van de Beek.
“There will be no more gameplay revolutions,” Souness said. “A progressive team always lies in owning good players. Man Utd, with people without football expertise running the club, has done too many things wrong in the past decade. If you put a Man player Any Utd going to the transfer market now, will they be able to recoup the money they spent on him? I think not.”