The Glazers' genius guide to Man Utd transfers

Karan Tejwani

19 Aug 2022 15:00 BST
3 min read

Manchester United are approaching the end of another transfer window, and it’s another one dominated by criticism of the Glazer family’s ownership of the club.

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Away from the family taking money out of the club and refusing to invest their own money, the transfer activity has been haphazard in yet another transfer window.

This was seen as an important transfer window too, seeing as they got in a new manager and wanted to start off on the right foot, and yet, here they are, chasing players late and possibly overpaying for a few.

So, what is the Glazer family’s approach to the transfer market, as seen often over the last decade?

Target players

This is the easiest part of the four stages, there’s a group of players the club wish to sign; a list of names coming up through the club’s recruitment team or by the manager himself.

This summer, the top targets reportedly included Frenkie de Jong, Raphinha, Antony, Lisandro Martinez and others, as Ten Hag wanted a team that he thought would suit his style of football.

Previous famous targets included Thiago when he was at Barcelona, Toni Kroos when he was at Bayern Munich, Gareth Bale when he was at Tottenham, Ivan Perisic when he was at Inter and others.

The drawn-out negotiations

This is the part where Manchester United are in constant, long, drawn-out negotiations – it’s happened before and it’s happened again this summer (i.e. De Jong).

This is when the club move at a slow pace, miss out on other targets and leave the team massively underequipped for the upcoming season and affecting their start.

Jose Mourinho’s final transfer window was a good example, as he only got one signing despite requesting a few; Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s 2020 summer window was another, as they made three signings on the final day.

Panic

A consequence of the previous point, this is where Manchester United and the Glazers probably realized they’ve made a bit of a mess, and decide they actually need to sign players to get the team working.

As said earlier, in 2020, they signed four players in the three day of the window; in 2013, they massively overpaid for Marouane Fellaini; this year, they’re giving a very-talented Casemiro a massive deal too.

It invites selling clubs to wait, frustrate United before getting the fee they said initially – Manchester United could be doing the same again later this window (continued below).