The "Manchester United are bad at selling" myth

Manchester United struggle to move players on. So does everyone else

On July 1st, 2024 Dan Ashworth officially became the new Sporting Director of Manchester United. Within two days The Athletic released an article detailing how United’s entire recruitment structure has worked and what Ashworth intends to accomplish.

There was one particular part of this article pertaining to United needing to generate cash through player sales that raised my eyebrows a bit.

It was these two lines in particular though that really stood out.

But United have historically struggled to sell well for a simple reason, according to some people with knowledge of the club’s approach: they never had to think about it.

Others argue that United’s perceived wealth is again a factor. Potential suitors for their unwanted players do not make competitive offers in the belief United do not need the money.

These articles tend to come out every so often and are usually filled with unnamed sources who are typically making excuses as they attempt to deflect blame and save their own jobs. This is something that’s been even more prevalent over the past year given the takeover by INEOS and the news that 250 jobs are going to be cut.

Having said that, it’s deeply concerning if there are people inside the club that genuinely believe this. The reason United struggle at selling isn’t complicated. If the people inside the club can’t see it that’s a major concern.

A few paragraphs later a reference is made to both Chelsea and Manchester City, who are both considered the gold standard when it comes to selling. City have more wealth than any other club in England while Chelsea have always had billionaire sugar daddies. How can you genuinely argue that clubs don’t make competitive offers to United because they don’t need the money when City and Chelsea don’t seem to have any problems gathering large fees for their players?

Manchester United don’t generate money through sales because their academy model is to produce first team players for Manchester United. That’s it. It’s not a complicated answer and could easily be given to the reporters writing this story.

That model is a stark contrast to that of City and Chelsea who snatch up young talent from all over the continent hoping to flip them for a profit.

What has dragged United into the spotlight so often over the past few years has been the amount of deadwood in the squad. Players that need to be moved on so the club can raise funds to spend on players who could improve the team. Only year after year United fail to find suitors for them. Players like Phil Jones, Anthony Martial, Donny van de Beek, and now Scott McTominay, Harry Maguire, or Victor Lindelof depending on your opinion of them.

Every summer fans want players like this moved on. When the transfer window shuts and they’re still collecting wages from United, everyone bemoans United’s lack of ability to sell.

But guess what. This isn’t a problem exclusive to United. All the other clubs struggle to sell these players too!

Since the 2018-19 season Manchester United have brought in £205.66 million in transfer fees from selling players. That is a pretty paltry figure compared to the £646.41m and £642.25m Chelsea and City respectively brought in over the same six year period not including loan fees.¹

However, a closer look at where this money all comes from tells a bit of a different story.

Chelsea

We have to remember that for most of the last six years Chelsea were owned by Roman Abramovich. Over the last two years and change it’s been Clearlake Capital Group fronted by Todd Boehly, who has not been shy about spending money and offloading players. Nevertheless let’s break it down this way.

Chelsea had a fantastic reputation for selling during the Roman Abromovich era. If anything, it was going to be a question whether that would continue under Boehly. Over the last six years, £358.51m of their fees (55.46%) came in the Abramovich era.

During the last four years of the Abramovich era, 12 first team players left the club, fetching £231.4 million in fees. That represents 64.5 percent of the fees Chelsea collected during this time. It’s also just £19.29m per player.

Take a look at the list of players who left the club for Chelsea from the 2018-19 season through the end of 2021-22.

There’s a couple things to notice. First of all, £134.5 million of the fees - 58.12 percent of the total - come from just two sales, Eden Hazard and Thibault Courtois to Real Madrid.

It’s crucial to point out, these transfers are not “moving on the deadweight.” Chelsea did not want to sell either player. Both wanted to move (read: make the step up) to Real Madrid. That gave Chelsea the leverage forcing Real Madrid to pay up in order to get their guys.

Hazard’s case is even weirder because he was 28 years old and everyone knew this was a bad idea². We knew it then, and we very much know it now. Chelsea were lucky this offer presented itself and were very smart to take the money, but had that offer not come, it’s not like they were shopping Hazard around.

The rest of that list skews very old. The average age of players to depart the club is 30.1. When you take out Hazard and Courtois the average fee Chelsea received came to just £9.69m per player. All of that is being propped up by the sales of Tammy Abraham and Kurt Zouma - who just so happen to be the only two players on the list under the age of 28!

Over the same period, just over 35 percent of Chelsea’s fees came from academy players. God only knows how many academy players left Chelsea over those four seasons but 22 of them commanded fees.

Those 22 players averaged just 1.95 senior appearances (almost all of them from Fikayo Tomori two years before he was sold) and an average age of 20.8. This list is also strongly propped up by the sales of Tomori and Marc Guehl but it’s a good illustration of what Chelsea are looking to do through the academy.

Things have changed a bit during the Boehly era. Over the last two seasons only two academy players have fetched fees for the club³ while 20 first team players have left. 12 of those first team players collected fees totaling £270.9m. Here’s the list:

This is… pretty damn impressive. It’s also too soon to know if this was extremely lucky or not.

Chelsea managed to get bailed out of Kalidou Koulibaly and Edouard Mendy during the summer where Saudi Arabia was giving out bailouts. They brought in £120m by selling Kai Havertz and Mason Mount to Premier League clubs - very strong fees considering they had no leverage when it came to Mason Mount.

If you take a look at all the names on this list it gives you a better clue as to what’s really happening. Once again, look at the ages next to those big fees. Havertz and Mount are both 24. It’s not unreasonable for a Premier League club to think a change of scenery may kickstart these guys careers’. Since their moving from one top six club to another, wages aren’t going to be a stumbling block and the move is possible.

£25.3m for Timo Werner is pretty good considering how bad he was, but at 26 that seems like a reasonable price for someone to take a flier on. £17.1m for 24 year old Christian Pulisic who was very good when he actually played seems low.

But it’s the other names on the list that let you know that Chelsea don’t really have some magic power. Players like Ross Barkley, Tiemoue Bakayoko, Michy Batshuayi, and Baba Rahman are suddenly popping up.

If you only look at the players Chelsea sell you’d think things are great, but then you’re not looking at the whole picture. To do that, look at the list of players Chelsea loan out. Year after year young players along with the likes of Danny Drinkwater, Victor Moses, Alvaro Morata , Malang Sarr, and now Romelu Lukaku are shipped out on loan because Chelsea can’t find a permanent home for them. They don’t end up leaving until their contracts run out.

Baba Rahman’s left Chelsea in 2023 but made his last appearance for the club during the 2015-16 season! Romelu Lukaku hasn’t played for Chelsea since 2022. He’s still a Chelsea player that they are struggling to sell.

This is the same deadwood that United have and it happens for the same reason. Big club signs promising player away from a smaller club. They lure them in with big wages, then when things don’t work out, there’s no other team - that can afford those wages - who are interested in them.

If you’re not careful about who you sign the odds of making a bad signing are much higher, which will leave you with an unmovable player. That bring us to…

Manchester City

City are a bit of a different story as they don’t really have deadwood per say. That comes from being very selective about who they sign and because at City anyone is liable to just not play all that much - especially new signings.

Over the last six years City have had 21 first team players leave the club (this includes Cole Palmer). 13 of them brought back fees totaling £406.6m - a nice £31.2 million per player. £359m of this total has come in the last three seasons.

Looking at the list of players to depart the club, it isn’t exactly hard to see where the money is coming from. Barring the two players who got the Saudi Arabia bailout, the players City are selling for big money are right in the prime of their careers.

City are very meticulous about who they sign. They target very young players so even if they don’t reach their potential but are merely good, they still have high resale value. Like Chelsea, they’ve also benefitted from circumstances.

Gabriel Jesus was signed as a 19 year old. He never became a full time starter but still racked up 0.53 npG per 90 and 0.6 NPxG per 90 over 103 Premier League 90s. When he, along with Oleksandr Zinchenko, left he still had value. That both were going to another top six club meant wages wouldn’t be a stumbling block. That Arsenal were managed by one of their former assistant coaches was probably what created the opportunity for them.

Leroy Sane was signed when he was 20 years old. He had a solid but unspectacular debut season before compiling back to back season with 10 league goals along with 15 and 10 assists respectively. And then suddenly Pep Guardiola decided he was reshaping his team and there wasn’t a place for a player who was only one year removed from winning the PFA Young Player of the Year.

Could you imagine Manchester United signing a 20 year old, having him turn into a star who wins the Young Player of the Year award and then turning around and selling him? The fans would revolt. Of course a player like that commands a big fee.

City are good at selling because they know when to sell. I can’t see Manchester United ever selling a 27 year old winger coming off a 13 goal 5 assist campaign, but when Chelsea bizarrely offered a lot of money for Raheem Sterling, City jumped at that opportunity⁴. Meanwhile United are out there signing 28, 29, and 30 year olds and then acting shocked that they move them on.

Take out those players in their prime years and City don’t have much to show. In January they sent Kalvin Phillips out on loan and he’s not going to be easy to move on.

In January 2023 28 year old Joao Cancelo fell out with Pep. As City are so good at selling they promptly sold him to Bayern Munich. Cancelo was loaned to Bayern and City did well to get a £64m option to buy put in there except Bayern decided not to buy him. Cancelo spent last season on loan at Barcelona and is still the property of Manchester City.

It’s not easy to sell players at the end or past their prime. It’s not easy to sell players that aren’t playing regularly as you’re essentially announcing this player isn’t that good.

In the past decade when United have sold a player between the ages of 23-27 who was in the first team the year before they’ve had pretty good success, it’s just not a long list:
2014: Shinji Kagawa - 25 (£6.5m)
2015: Danny Welbeck - 23 (£16m)
2016: Angel Di Maria - 27 (£44.3m)
2017: Morgan Schneiderlin - 27 (£24m)
2019: Romelu Lukaku - 26 (£74m)
2021: Dan James - 23 (£25m)

The focus has always been on the fact that United didn’t get their money back for most of these players but it’s really not a terrible list considering United weren’t coming from a position of strength on any of these deals. Getting £24m for Schneiderlin is really something considering that was a January move during a season where he’d played all of 14 Premier League minutes.

United’s issue is they just don’t sell many players in this age range. United nabbing £13m and €15m for 30 year olds Fred and Chris Smalling is right in line with the fees Chelsea and City have brought in for players of similar age.

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Academy

You bring this up to a United fan and you’re likely hear a complaint about how this isn’t the point. United can’t command a fee for players who are full internationals, but City get money for players you’ve never even heard of.

City’s academy has been an assembly line for producing revenue. From 2018 through January 2024 City have received fees for 30 academy players. Twelve of those fees have been in excess of £10m!

How does this happen?

Reputation plays a big part. City threw a lot of money into their academy and now grab the best local talent in the area. Other clubs know that.

City’s first team is also really good. So good that academy players simply can’t get into the team. In the Guardiola era only one academy player has established himself in the first team and he just won the PFA Player of the Year award. In other words, unless you’ve got Player of the Year level talent, you’re not getting into the first team, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t really good talent there.

When you look at the list and see players like Jack Harrison - who has emerged as a very solid Premier League player - or Douglas Luiz who had a very solid stint with Aston Villa before being sold for €50m. Romeo Lavia went to Southampton for one year and was sold for five times the price they bought him for. Further back Jadon Sancho moved for £8m and was sold for £73m. Then of course there’s Cole Palmer, someone who nearly cracked the first team, left, and immediately won Young Player of the Year.

Most of the players coming out of City’s academy won’t have that kind of success but when you have a list like that every club can look at a player and say “maybe he’s the next one.” That in itself allows City to extract more money out of the deal.

The same principle applies to Chelsea. When your academy, errr “loan army” produces names like Nathan Ake, Kevin de Bruyne, or Mohammed Salah, clubs are more likely to take a chance on someone you’ve never heard of coming out of that system.

That’s a stark contrast to Manchester United whose academy’s aim is to produce first team players. Clubs know the best players in the United academy go into the United first team. Thus if United’s first team isn’t that good and an academy player still can’t get into the team, how good is he?

That’s how you end up only fetching £9m for James Garner. He was impressive in the Championship but clubs were looking at the fact that he still wasn’t getting into an extremely weak United midfield⁵. A year later when United had a much better attacking unit they were able to get £15m for Anthony Elanga even though his game was a known commodity at that point.

When it comes to selling players, Manchester United are right in line with their peers. It’s just not easy to sell players on big wages when other big clubs don’t want them. Big clubs tend to not want players who can’t get into the team at other big clubs.

United’s issue when it comes to selling is they just don’t have players in that prime selling age. That stems from making really poor signings and simply not developing players into that age range.⁶

1. These numbers are sourced from Wikipedia. Additionally this does not include this summers transfer window unless noted.

2. He was only the second outfield player Real Madrid had signed over the age of 24 in the last five years (the other was a homegrown player with a buy-back clause). They’ve only signed three others since, including Mbappe.

3. Billy Gilmour and Ethan Empadu - who have brought in a nice £17m

4. I’m not convinced that City offering £25m for 29 year old Matteo Kovacic a year later wasn’t some sort of thank you

5. Can say the same about Willy Kambwala who couldn’t fully break into a United defense that couldn’t stop conceding goals

6. You might be waiting to point out that United are struggling to get £40m for 24 year old Jadon Sancho who is right in that age range. To that I’d say, wages - only the big teams can afford him and they don’t seem to want him and also maybe United should have done a better PR job than letting newspapers run freely with all the stories about how he’s late and unprofessional. That’s not exactly going to make clubs want to sign him. Somehow only BVB ended up doing PR for him.