Darren R L Gordon

During 2019-2020 we signed kids like Amad Diallo (18m excl add-ons), Garnacho 400k), Pellestri (6m) Kambwala (3.5m), Hannibal (4.5m), Charlie McNeil (600k), Omari Forson (80k), Jurado (400k), Alvaro Fernandez (free). All in all, we paid under 40m for these kids. Today, Garnacho alone is probably worth at least £60m, if we put him on the market. Pellestri would fetch at least 15-20m. Sevilla got a €20m option on Hannibal. Benfica got a 9m option on Alvaro Fernandez. This means that our <40m investment in 19-20 today is worth at least 109m. Kambwala is still with the men’s team and has looked mint when playing. Forson is very talented. Garnacho could easily be a 100m player in 1-2 years. Even if we cap the value on these kids at 120m — it is a 300% return on our investment. It is harder to sign U18 players now, but still possible, if you loan them out. Diallo and Pellestri were 18 when we signed them. Chelsea still sign a ton of promising kids from all over the world, when they turn 18, or before that and loan them out. This is the only time we invested money in youth under the Glazers. At all other times, the budget made available hasn’t been enough for the men’s teams needs. I wonder how many times scouts has sat at Carrington with lists of kids that we would have bought, had any funds been available? We loan money at between 2-7% interest the last decade. Could we have loaned say 25m per season and invested in youths, made say a 100% profit to count VERY modestly, and then made a huuuuge profit when paying back the 25m loan? Lol, of course, it would have been the easiest thing in the world. We are a very very attractive club. We have a really good academy program. At any point, there have been a lot of room for youth to get into the spotlight with the men’s team. Problem is just that the kids we have had, haven’t been all that talented, looking at guys like Tuanzebe, Chong and co. It is not kids we paid 6-8m for. 👉This is #Glazernomics in a nutshell. It have made no business sense for MUFC to not invest in younger players, it’s just bad business. Some will say that we wasted the money instead on worthless signings for the men’s team. But that isn’t really true either — which manager have ever gotten the players he needed? Sure there have been bad signings, but I don’t know, all teams will make those. We made more than our share of course, but part of that is also that we just have been woefully behind our top rivals and the constant let downs haven’t made us an easy team to play against. 👉I think that it is — very — important to acknowledge and emphasize that you need resources and flexibility to run a successful elite football club. Listen to the pundits, Neville and co, what Ineos is expected to do right now can be summarized as (a) bringing in successful recruitment people and (b) not overpay for players. Just don’t trust the current scouts with anything. Sell some players so that we can afford to buy some. Fix OT. Period, that is it. It is painfully insufficient. I am not saying that Ineos will be that stupid — but expectations and the public opinion matter in this perspective. 👉But what can Ineos do, we don’t have any FFP space and the owner can’t help? This isn’t correct. We loan about a billion and the cost of money is at least 5% today. An owner can give interest free loans to their clubs, that would save us 50m. Cash limits us more than FFP. Ineos can sponsor us, that improves FFP.