AT a time when you almost need a mathematics degree to understand football finances, here’s another confusing conundrum:
Which total will Manchester United reach first – 20 (YWAT) or 21?
Understanding will come when it’s explained that YWAT means ‘years without a title’. The 21 more obviously relates to the number of titles the Red Devils will be on when they next become English Premier League champions.
Note that I wrote ‘when’. It is only a matter of time. Probably.
Yet although most Manchester United supporters might have expostulated ‘Y’what?’ a decade ago if you’d suggested that they might go 20 years without another title, the club is heading in that direction.
This season will bring the drought to 12 years and it would be an extremely brave and highly optimistic person to predict that they’ll end that wait in 2026.
It’s been sensibly stated that manager Ruben Amorim would need at least three transfer windows in order to re-build the team and make it at least competitive at the top level. Even then they might still fall short of being champions.
However, the first of those windows has opened and closed with very little help being brought in for the new boss, only 20-year-old left-back Patrick Dorgu from Lecce, and 18-year-old defender Ayden Heaven snapped up from Arsenal.
What’s more, for a side that struggles to score sufficient goals, and deployed a homegrown midfielder as a ‘false nine’ on Sunday in preference to two fairly expensive forwards, United’s attacking options have weakened.
Still, Marcus Rashford leaving Old Trafford is probably best for all concerned, as painful as that departure is for both club and player.
Forcing him out left a sour taste, though, and effectively labelling him damaged goods was another example of the strange decision-making among the club’s power-brokers.
Who was going to come in with a big money bid for a player you obviously didn’t want any more and whom you have portrayed as a poor trainer and a bad influence?
At least the club did back Amorim firmly on this.
The Rashford decision sends out the strong message that Amorim is calling the shots, that no one is indispensable, not even someone who’s been at the club for his entire career so far.
Getting Aston Villa to pay the majority of Rashford’s considerable salary was surely also a factor in the Old Trafford decision-makers supporting his exit. They’ve also off-loaded the over-priced, over-paid, under-performing Antony on loan to Real Betis.
Part-owner Jim Ratcliffe, who’s in charge of football operations, has already demonstrated his ruthless attitude towards cost-cutting at lower levels of Manchester United.
It may be hard to comprehend that such a wealthy outfit – the fourth richest in the world according to the Deloitte Football Money League - has to pinch pennies, but that’s a consequence of the awful over-spending over the past decade.
Manchester United’s purchasing power is limited now, and may be for a few years more, even if they do receive considerable governmental funding for the required rebuilding of their stadium.
Compare and contrast that relative lack of transfer funds with their neighbours Manchester City. Struggling this season with a few injuries and loss of form, Pep Guardiola has been able to spend almost £185m in this transfer window on five players, albeit one has been loaned back immediately.
City could spend almost as much as the rest of the Premier League put together this January because, although they spent almost E260m last season on transfers, they brought in slightly more from transfers out in that campaign and last summer.
So whoever wins the league this season, leaders Liverpool or Arsenal, will know that City will be serious contenders again, barring an unexpected points deduction if they happen to be found guilty of financial breaches from the previous decade.
Manchester United will not be title rivals; Chelsea are more likely to provide a challenge.
However, although the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules (PSR) may be tying Manchester United’s hands at the moment, they should help them in the long run.
They remain, after all, Britain’s biggest club, with reliable sources of major income even when the team on the pitch is poor.
The challenge is to flex those financial muscles effectively. Manchester United always has a certain appeal to players, but in recent years too much of that draw has been paying big wages which are not commensurate with the talent produced on the pitch in return.
Their aim should be to attract ambitious players prepared to accept contracts with significant performance-related incentives.
Top four should be the target for Manchester United next season, but what they really want are the major trophies, the Premier and Champions Leagues.
You don’t need to win the former to win the latter, but you do need to qualify, and that will be a stiff challenge for United, unless they win the Europa League. Without that, the absence of European football could aid them in the Premier League next season, but you’d still fancy Arsenal, Liverpool, and Manchester City to fill three of the top four slots, with Chelsea, Newcastle United, and possibly Aston Villa pushing hard for the fourth.
Amorim needs to show that he can improve his team by coaching players, not just buying them.
He has that ability, but he will need time as well as money, and all the while rivals will not be standing still. Heck, even Liverpool might spend some significant funds.
There’s the core of a good team, involving Andre Onana, Diogo Dalot, Leny Yoro, Lisandro Martinez, Manuel Ugarte, Kobbie Mainoo, Bruno Fernandes, Amad Diallo, Alejandro Garnacho, and new signing Dorgu. Whether Luke Shaw and Mason Mount can ever sustain fitness long enough to challenge for first team roles remains to be seen.
Even with the 31-year-old Harry Maguire as the ‘stopper’ centre-back that’s a side with an average age of around 24.5, including two teenagers in Yoro and Mainoo.
Obviously Amorim’s preferred formation with three centre-backs will require a continued period of adjustment, whether it’s a 3-4-3 or a 3-4-1-2. The latter might best suit the creative talents of Bruno Fernandes but will require better forwards ahead of him.
Attackers Rasmus Hojlund (22) and Joshua Zirkzee (23) are young yet, and can surely do better in a more settled side, but it’s hard to make a case for lining out with both of them.
The quandary in deploying a front three, with just one central striker, is where to fit in Fernandes: fielding him deeper means leaving out one of Mainoo or Ugarte; playing him in an advanced role ahead of a midfield two demands a huge amount from one of the wing-backs.
There’s a long, hard United road ahead of Ruben Amorim.
