16 Jan 2014 17:35:08
This is something of a rhetorical question but which of you would not swap our situation with that of City, Chelsea, PSG or Monaco, where the owners are prepared to pump hundreds of millions into the club, rather than squeeze it out in financing costs? Or a Real Madrid, Barcelona, or a non-debt burdened Bayern Munich?

As critical as we may be of those who are trying to buy success, I find it hard to believe there's more than a handful of United supporters who wouldn't be delighted to sell their souls to some moneybags investor with a few billion burning a hole in his pocket, to be in a situation where we could simply buy the best.

1.) 16 Jan 2014
Peashooter to be honest I wouldn't mind a moneybags owner as long as they cleared the debt and ran the club on its profits to stay within ffp. The only issue is when they spend so much that the club alone cannot finance the expenditure should the owner leave. There are obviously two teams in the PL that probably wouldn't be where they are now without considerable owner investment(which is obviously perfectly acceptable and been the norm, albeit at lower investment levels). That said city and Chelsea owners have built both clubs up to a level that I believe more or less are acceptable for ffp.

2.) 16 Jan 2014
I do wish we were more willing to spend, but the beauty of our club is that we do it differently and the proper way. We try not to waste money, but when we are sure of a player we should invest more.

3.) 16 Jan 2014
Tries not to waste money, buys felaini for 28 million when he had a buy out clause of 24 million.

4.) 16 Jan 2014
I'd love a billionaire owner provided they were prepared to wait for their teams to gel. The situation at City has been embarrassing at times - in that they've spent silly money on players who simply weren't good enough to achieve their goals before selling them / letting them go at massive losses. I appreciate that they needed to build up their team to a level that would allow them the chance to attract the very best - but there is a limit.

De Jong, Robinho, Tevez, Santa Cruz, Kolo Toure, Adebayor, Balotelli and Jo cost them £175m. They were sold for a total of £55.5m (not to mention the money they're still paying out for Adebayor and the stupid amount spent on the wages of the aforementioned players during their time at the club). No matter which way you look at it - that's a joke. I'd NEVER want to see our club become like that!

5.) 16 Jan 2014
I'm all for us getting owners who care about the team. Because that's why we love united. Not for the million sponsorship deals they're signing.
If we are talking about wasted money, let's not forget we've had our own disasters, nani, young, Anderson, tosic, obertan, bebe, bellion, buttner. And the jury is still out on fellaini.
We want to see the best here and that costs money.
The difference is if we do get bought by a rich man/woman, then united will actually give them return on their investment as we are one of the biggest sports brands around, unlike city, Chelsea, PSG etc.

6.) 17 Jan 2014
Point taken NM - but as of the moment all of the players you mention are still at the club with the exception of Bellion (Maximum of £2m loss as the amount we sold for seems to be undisclosed everywhere I can think to look), Obertan (bought and sold for £3m) and Tosic (who I believe we made a £1-2m profit on).

We'll lose about £20m when Nani and Ando leave, another £10m on Young and no more than £6m on Buttner and Bebe. That's £36-37m lost over a longer period. A lot more than City's £125m. We could let DDG, Rooney, Fellaini and Kagawa leave on free transfers tomorrow and still have lost less on transfers.

You forget that we've also made decent profits from players who didn't work out in the past (£6m each on Rossi and Pique and a cool £12m for Obi Mikel).