United have spent £1.275bn on transfers since Fergie. Maybe money isn't the answer

The demise of Erik Ten Hag as Manchester United's manager highlights that spending alone is never the answer in football. ETH spent £556m and United are still in chaos.

Manchester United’s best permanent manager since the departure of Sir Alex Ferguson in 2013, both in terms of trophy success and win percentage, was José Mourinho (58.3% win percentage, helping to win the Europa League and EFL Cup), followed by Erik Ten Hag (54.7%, helping to win an EFL Cup and an FA Cup).

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had the next best win percentage (54%) but won nothing in three years.

David Moyes had a slightly better win percentage (53%) than Louis van Gaal (52.4%) but won nothing major against LVG’s one FA Cup.

It’s been a long and frustrating 13 years and counting for United and their fans since Fergie retired. But having crunched some numbers since ETH was sacked on Monday, it’s safe to say that United’s ills are not down to lack on investment in the squad.

It’s down to bad spending. Theory: United are so rich, relative to most other clubs, because they are so popular and generate so much legitimate revenue, that spending, on big and / or trendy players, is the most obvious route to success. But (theory continues), what they actually need is a coach who doesn’t value spending over philosophy.

United have spent £1.275 BILLION on new players, gross, since Ferguson left, and there is an argument that being so rich, and able to back their managers so lavishly, hasn’t helped them, given the amount of turkeys they have signed.

I’ll get into the details shortly but Ten Hag has spent £185m per season on transfers on average - £555.6m in transfers and loan fees for players coming in - since arriving in 2022 from Ajax.

Moyes spent £59.2m in his ill-fated spell that lasted less than a season.

Van Gaal, Mourinho and Solskjaer spent roughly the same amount per season (on average) in their reigns, or £130m each per season on average, of gross spend on transfers.

At the time of writing (late on Tuesday 29 October) it looks very much like Rúben Amorim of Sporting Lisbon will be United’s next manager. He has yet to decide his future, he says.

Among many others who have been mentioned in the betting markets are Ruud Van Nistelrooy, Gareth Southgate, Xavi, Thomas Frank, Graham Potter, Kieran McKenna, Zinedine Zidane and Michael Carrick.

But let’s look at the transfer records of the permanent managers since Fergie, in reverse order since Fergie. First, Ten Hag’s spending.

The list above is the definition of a mixed bag, with buys such as Leny Yoro (rapidly injured after his £52m move from Lille), Rasmus Højlund (£64m up front to Atalanta) and Mason Mount (£55m from Chelsea) all still “wait and see” players, while the £82m for Anthony from Ajax increasingly looks like a splurge too far simply because United were rich enough to splurge.

Who, if anyone, in the old and new Old Trafford set-ups was / is acting as a filter for deals? Who was / is doing the due diligence? Who is / was in charge of a cohesive long-term plan? It’s not an original observation, but since Ferguson went, along with David Gill at the same time, the football side of United has been chaotic by their own Fergie-era standards.

And so to Solskjaer’s buys.

Harry Maguire: tick. Bruno Fernandes: tick. But so many others: head in the hands. I could elaborate but really don’t need to.

And here are Mourinho’s United buys.

That’s another list with more expensive misses than hits. And so to LVG and before him David Moyes. (The first being another list with more expensive misses than hits).

It goes without saying that any new United coach will likely want to assess his squad and perhaps starting buying (and selling) from January onwards.

Thirteen years of buying players at an average rate of £100m per year gross spending hasn’t worked.

Imagine a United where a manager were able to buy one or two key players per year to refresh his squad (not six or eight or 10) but was asked, medium to long term, to go back to promoting home-growns.

Imagine a United where they could reach a Champions League final in year X (say 2011), and then, two years later, still have a spine of a team that is broadly similar, and evolving but not chaotically so every window, resulting in a squad that can win the 2012-13 Premier League title, United’s last.

Ferguson was unique, the toughest act to follow. He was one of the rarest beasts who genuinely made a difference.

This isn’t the time or place but maybe later we can get into the fact that most managers at most clubs, most of the time, only make a marginal difference to team performance, if any, over and above what another other manager could do.

For United’s sake and for their fans’ sake, Ten Hag’s successor will be a man of vision, ahead of being a man being told he will have money to spend.

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