Grading Manchester United's Previous Transfer Windows

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Ahh another transfer window is upon us and it’s time to hope Manchester United can sign some good players to make the squad better. It’s the hope that kills us. The hope that the new regime can get this right because historically, United have not been very good at this.

Longtime readers of this newsletter know one of my biggest pet peeves is when people try to grade transfer windows right after the window shuts in September. Grading transfers before players have even kicked a ball is asinine. Hell, grading transfer windows at the end of the season is still ridiculous.

It’s ridiculous because the majority of transfers aren’t signed to one year contracts. Most players sign five year contracts and they sign five year contracts because a team assumes those players will help them over the next five years. If you don’t have a great first year that doesn’t mean you’re not going to have a great spell at the club over the life of the contract. Similarly if you have a great first year that doesn’t mean automatically mean you’re a great signing if you don’t perform over the remainder of your contract.

I don’t love attaching transfer windows to specific seasons either. Transfers are supposed to make your team better over the long haul. They’re not really about the immediate upcoming season. Unless you’re signing a bunch of players to one year contracts transfer windows are about building your team for the future.

As Johan Cryuff said, 90 percent of the time the team with the better players wins. If you replace the players you have with better players, you should in theory win more games. If you replace them with worse players, you’ll lose more.

What makes it very hard to judge transfers is it’s very difficult to tie wins and losses directly to one player. In some cases it’s obvious but most of the time it’s not. Therefore we look elsewhere. Not everything can be whittled down to goals and assists because not every signing’s role is to score goals and get assists.

Over time the biggest indicator of good signings has become minutes played. As former Liverpool Head of Research Ian Graham said, “you’re not paying £70 million for a player to sit on the bench.”

You’re signing these players to make your team better. If they can’t get into the team because they’re not better than the incumbent player that’s not a good signing. If they can’t stay in the team because the coach doesn’t believe they’re performing what the role requires of them, that’s no good. If you’re not available to be selected, that counts against you too.

There are exceptions. Some players are specifically bought to be backups. Sometimes you’re not spending a lot of money on a younger player who you’re hoping will become first choice in a few years¹. But for the most part, it really is as simple as minutes played.

As Graham said in his book How to Win The Premier League, “After transferring to a Premier League club you are considered a success if during the next two years you start in 50 percent of their Premier League games.”

That seems very low to me - and Graham agrees - but as he says you’d be surprised to see how few transfers even achieve this modest definition of success. If this is the definition the professionals use, that’s going to be the barometer that we use.

So let’s get to it. We’re ranking each of United’s transfer windows over the past decade. Rather than ranking each one individually, we’re putting them into tiers and those tiers will be based on the simple metric, ‘did the players play enough to be considered a success?’ Subjective measures will only be used to provide commentary.

Note the format: Player - base transfer fee before add ons (percent of Premier League starts in their first two years unless otherwise noted)

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The Best

January 2020

Bruno Fernandes - £47m (94.23%*)

I don’t think we really need to rehash this one. It’s five years later, Bruno is now the club captain, and pretty much the only games he doesn’t start are when the manager is saving him for a bigger match later that week.

Really Really Good

Summer 2019-20

Daniel James - £15m (48.68%), Aaron Wan-Bissaka - £45m (90.79%), Harry Maguire - £80m (94.74%)

Wan-Bissaka and Maguire walked straight into the team and made an instant impact to United’s defense. The team went from conceding 37 open play goals in 2018-19 to 21 and 26 in 2019-20 & 2020-21 respectively.

Dan James had three goals and six assists in his first 19 games. He started 68 percent of the Premier League matches his first season before being phased back into being a squad player - which at a £15m price point was always the intention - where he was still productive in limited minutes. After two years he joined a very short list of players United sold for a profit. That’s exactly what you want from a signing.

There was a time where the meme accounts wanted to paint this as United’s worst transfer window ever. When you factor everything like minutes played, impact on the squad, resale value in, it’s hands down one of the best windows United have had.

Didn’t age well but this was ultimately good

Summer 2017-18

Victor Lindelof - £30.7m (55.26%), Romelu Lukaku - £75m (72.37%), Nemanja Matic - £40m (82.89%*)

Victor Lindelof got off to a rough start at United but actually started more games in his third and fourth seasons when he formed a very strong partnership with Harry Maguire and formed the backbone of a very strong United defense. He played eight seasons for United which is exactly what you want from a £30m signing.

Lukaku got off to a strong start but faded quickly. He only lasted two seasons at United which is not what you want when you spend £75m and sign someone to a five year deal. However managed to recoup £67m of that when they sold him to Inter, which goes in the books as a small profit. It could have been far worse.

Nemanja Matic only signed a three year deal so the expectations were a bit different. You’re looking for immediate impact there and Matic gave that to them in his first year. He ultimately started 71 percent of the matches over the three year deal.

Somewhere in the middle

Summer 2016-17

Eric Bailly - £30m (46.05%), Zlatan Ibrahimovic - “Free” (71.05%*), Henrik Mkhitaryan - £26.3m (34.21%), Paul Pogba - £90m (71.05%)

A lot of added context is needed on this window. I think Zlatan was a very overrated signing. He really didn’t fit the team but his personality insisted the team played through him, harming the production of his teammates. United’s 54 goals that season is the second lowest total of the last 10 years, eclipsed only by this past season. Romelu Lukaku is not inherently better than Zlatan, but there’s a reason his arrival lead to a sharp increase in goals.

They did technically (see below) hit the 50 percent mark with two players and there was success in that first year. United won two trophies. Zlatan was huge in the EFL Cup final. Pogba and Mkhitaryan each scored in the Europa League final with the former being named Player of the Tournament. The team finished second and reached the FA Cup final a year later. On the other hand this was a lot of money to spend for just one player to still be making an impact in the squad after two years.

*Zlatan technically only signed a one year contract that could trigger a one year extension if he played enough. He didn’t play enough to trigger the second year, meaning he had to sign an entirely new contract with new contract bonuses to return for his second season.

Technically based on the parameters this was good - but this was not good

Summer 2021-22

Jadon Sancho - £77m (53.95%), Raphael Varane - £34m (55.26%*), Cristiano Ronaldo £15m (40.79%), Tom Heaton - Free (GK)

The rules are the rules so technically this one was fairly successful with two players starting over 50 percent of the matches but we’re gonna need some color here.

Two of these guys were signed on shorter contracts so this was a very win-now transfer window and we know that United did not win now - or really win at all.

Nevertheless, you argue all you want about the individual quality of each player but the bottom line is three years later none of them were still members of the squad - some of which was by design. There’s no way to sugarcoat it, that’s a horrendous transfer window for squad planning.

Technically failures - but didn’t spend a lot of money

Summer 2018-19

Diogo Dalot - £19m (17.11%), Fred - £47m (47.37%), Lee Grant - £1.5m (GK)

Fred managed to become a useful player in the middle/back of his tenure while it took Dalot four years to start 50 percent of league matches. He arguably wasn’t signed to play immediately but a year later United signed a player just one year older who played all the time.

It was an underwhelming window due to United actually being financially responsible and not spending money they didn’t have but still, meh.

Summer 2020-21

Donny van de Beek - £35m (5.26%), Alex Telles £13.6m (34.21%), Edison Cavani - “Free” (34.21%*), Facundo Pellistri - £9m (0%*), Amad Diallo - £37.1m (3.64%*)

It took a few years but the jewel of this window is that it delivered Amad.

The rest of the window. Meh. It’s a great example of how transfer windows aren’t so much about year one but about the future. None of these guys cracked the starting XI with any consistency in 20-21 but it didn’t hurt the club. United won eight more points that season and reached the Europa League final.

Where it hurt was over the next few years when none of these players became strong contributors to the squad.

*Cavani signed on a one plus one year deal
*Amad was signed but didn’t arrive until January. He was supposed to be an academy signing but needed to be classed as a first team signing for Brexit reasons

It’s still too early to judge, but it ain’t looking great

Summer 2024-25

Joshua Zirkzee - £36.5m (36.84% - needs 24 starts next season), Leny Yoro - £52.18m (31.58% needs 26 next season), Noussair Mazraoui - £12.8m (89.47%), Matthijs de Ligt - £38.5m (65.79%), Manuel Ugarte - £42.1m (57.89%)

The saving grace of this window is that it’s the one that brought us Leny Yoro, who very well looks like a future star.

Take Yoro out and the average age of the rest of the signings is 24.25 - that skews towards a win-now window which makes sense considering United had a third-year coach last summer. That’s how you have to view the window. These guys were supposed to bolster the team immediately and they very much did not.

Joshua Zirkzee was signed to be a backup so if he hit the 50 percent mark that would mean something else went wrong. He did his job adequately. Matthijs de Ligt and Noussair Mazraoui represent everything that’s wrong with United’s recruitment strategy. Aside from being former Erik Ten Hag players, Bayern Munich set out to improve their team last summer and decided, improving their squad means getting rid of these guys. That’s not who United should be going after.

Manuel Ugarte stumbled into a great situation, with his former coach coming in midway through the season and installing a system he’s not only familiar with but had success in. Yet in United’s biggest game of the season Ugarte didn’t play a single minute.

Most of these guys hit the benchmark for starts this season but it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out next year.

Bad - just really bad

Summer 2022-23

Tyrell Malacia - £13m (21.05%), Christian Eriksen - “Free” (48.68%), Lisandro Martinez - £49m (42.11%), Casemiro - £60m (63.16%), Antony - £82m (50%)

This was very close to going in the worst tier if not for a minor remontada from Casemiro this season to be a saving grace.

United dropped £204 million on an extremely win-now window. What they got was a return to the points haul they had two years earlier and a League Cup². They did win the FA Cup a year later but only one of these players featured in that final.

Within two years they were actively looking to replace every one of these players. That’s a horrible use of £204 million - and we didn’t even mention spending £82m on Antony*.

*The original draft of this post forgot to mention that United borrowed against future transfer window budgets to sign Casemiro and Antony. Horrific cash management and a move that is still hurting United today.

Summer 2023-24

Mason Mount - £55m (17.11%), Andre Onana - £43.8m (GK), Rasmus Hojlund - £64.26m (63.16%), Altay Bayindir - £4.3m (GK), Sofyan Amrabaat - £10m loan (30.3%*), Jonny Evans - Free (39.47%)

Amrabaat was supposed to be a pivotal loan signing to really bolster the midfield yet he only managed to play 36 percent of the minutes that he was available for! Only one player has started over 50 percent of the Premier League matches and two years later United are actively shopping him around and trying to sell him.

For £163 million this seems like as bad as it can get, yet United have managed to do worse.

Still holds the crown as the worst transfer United have made

January 2018

Alexis Sanchez - “Swap” (42%)

It’s not just that Sanchez didn’t play enough. It’s not just that Sanchez was terrible when he did play.

It’s the long term damage Sanchez did to United.

His wages were so hefty they torpedoed the club’s wage structure and created resentment within the dressing room. Far more important were players immediately using Sanchez’s wages to boost their own deals. Some were successful and some left the club because of it. It’s a problem that still hasn’t been fixed today.

That’s some insane long term damage.

1. Tyrell Malacia turned out to be ass but I would still make that low-risk high reward transfer - and similar transfers - over and over again

2. and the £100,000 you win in prize money