I love this way of thinking by Adam Crafton. And why the Glazers and Ineos' message to fans is -- humbug. With knowledge of indisputable facts, it is for example simply not possible to sit down in an interview with Omar Berrada, hear him talk about competing for a title, and go away 'fairs, sounds like they got a plan, exciting'. It is complete humbug. Nothing else. It is like the owner of Everton telling their fan base that United and Liverpool should start to look over their shoulders, because they got a credible plan to become a top 3 club in the PL this or next season. Many will inevitably believe that comparing the relative strength between City and United with the relative strength between United and Everton is an exaggeration -- but it is not, everything considered. In its Q4 report, United forecasts a revenue of £740-760m. What does that mean? Arsenal's revenue in 25/26 was £812m. And revenue is not even United's big problem, it is lack of owner support and financing costs. @TheAthleticFC / @CWeatherspoon_ confirmed yesterday that United's wage bill was £168m behind City's. To match what City pay their player squad -- United must sign 17 new players each earning 200k a week. Leicester won the league with the 3rd lowest wage bill. Of the last 11 titles, 8 have been won by the team with the highest wage bill. The difference between Leicester's wage bill in 15/16 and the then highest wage bill in the PL, Chelsea's, was £159m. In other words, there is a bigger gap between United and City's wage bill now than it was between Leicester and Chelsea's wagebill in 15/16. I have seen this coming miles off, and even 3-4 years ago it started to scare me a lot. The below are the three factors that has made it possible for United to fall miles behind its rivals in a perfect storm -- with barely anyone noticing it: 🔺United has never paid top player wages. The annual reports of all clubs are available at the Companies House. Below is an example from 19/20. City with 477 employees had a total wage bill of £351m. United with 992 employees had a total wage bill of £284m. City's total wage-bill was £67m higher than United's. United had 415 more employees, so the difference on a player wage bill level was surely closer to 100m. In the midst of the Woodward era. Equivalent to 10 players earning 200k a week. The accountants appointed by the Glazers running MUFC leaked absurdly exaggerated player wages to the media, in all likelihood to make it seem like the Glazers supported United more than they did. 🔺The revenue of PL clubs, and consequently the resources it has to buy players and pay wages, are increasing very rapidly. This comes from the PL becoming the super league -- but also from the new Champions League which is insanely profitable for PL clubs. Consequently -- the resources available for rivals to MUFC to pay in wages and transfer fees has increased very significantly. 🔺The owners of our rivals are supporting their teams a lot more today than 5-10 years ago. The difference in income from broadcasting between a Championship club and bottom 5 PL club is about £110m. A big PL club in the CL earns about £100m. From a financial point of view, you could make the argument that the difference between being in the CL or not is as big as the difference between being in the Championship and the Premier League. Guess what -- the owners of rivals of MUFC have recognized this. City is the only one who always got support. But the owners of Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, Tottentham and Aston Villa used to be "cheap" and moderate with the support they provide to their teams. Just like a few teams in the Championship are spending like crazy to get up to the Premier League -- these clubs are spending a ton to get into and establish themselves as regular Champion Leauge teams. This created the following result: United started of at a level that was barely competitive, far from the top, and slashed the investments in the squad. All United rivals were already investing as much as United and in many cases a lot more, and have subsequently increased their investments in the squad very rapidly. The fans of Manchester United needs to be told what the plan is and if there is no plan, we deserve to be made aware of it.