United spent £5.7m per point post-ferguson and how many titles? None

Highlights shocking waste of money at Old Trafford deliver the best value, with Everton among the worst

hanalysis

hspurs

Manchester United spent £5.7million on player transfers and wages for every point gained in the seven years after Sir Alex Ferguson stood down as manager.

That is one of the most startling revelations made by comprehensive analysis of Premier League and Championship club finances from 2010-20, which has been shared exclusively with Telegraph Sport.

Sports economist Stefan Szymanski, the co-author of Soccernomics, and Kieran Maguire, a lecturer on football finance at the University of Liverpool, analysed outlay on player wages and net transfer spending.

In the seven years after Ferguson left in 2013, each point cost £5.67million yet they failed to win a title. The next biggest spend per point was by Manchester City (£4.56million), but they won three titles.

Tottenham Hotspur delivered the best value of any leading Premier League club. They spent £1.41billion over the 10 years, earning 699 points – £1billion less than Arsenal, who gained just a single extra point.

Everton performed far worse than clubs spending a similar or lesser amount. They spent £1.368billion, £38million less than Tottenham, yet collected only 552 points, 147 fewer than Spurs.

The key findings

United struggle is a failure of personnel, not investment

An illustration of United’s travails is comparing their performance with City’s during the Ferguson years, and immediately after. From 201013, United spent £234million less than City – yet won 20 more points, including the title in 2011 and 2013. In the last seven years of the decade, United spent £48million more than their neighbours, and yet City won 84 more points.

Complaints about a lack of investment by the Glazers are common: the family have taken an estimated £1.1billion from the club during their 17-year ownership. Yet United were still the second-biggest spenders during the decade, below City.

From 2013-20, United were the heaviest spenders in the league, but accrued only the fifth-most points. It suggests that for all the scrutiny on the Glazers, the club’s struggles owe at least as much to poor recruitment and coaching. Between Ferguson’s departure and 2020, United spent a net £886million on transfers.

A string of flops have included Angel Di Maria (£67million), Morgan Schneiderlin (£31 million), Anthony Martial (£54million) and Paul Pogba (£94 million).

Spending on wages beats that on transfers

Spending on wages correlates much more strongly with success than spending on transfers.

Essentially, when clubs pay a transfer fee, they are speculating on how good a player will be. But when paying wages, while clubs might initially pay less than their true worth, the player will quickly renegotiate their contract if they think they are underpaid. Yet, while it is rare for a player to be underpaid for long, if the wrong players are signed on long contracts, clubs can be stuck paying for assets they do not want.

United are one example of this, but so, too, are Everton.

From 2014-20, Everton spent a net £366million, the fourth-highest in the Premier League. Recruits including Cenk Tosun (£27.5million), Alex Iwobi (£27million), Moise

Kean (£25million) and Yannick Bolasie (£26million) have struggled. Liverpool attest to what is possible through shrewd transfers. From 2014-20 their net transfer spending was a relatively modest £335 million – only the sixth-highest.

As well as signing players such as Mohamed Salah (£38million), Sadio Mane (£37million), Andrew Robertson (£8 million) and Joel Matip (free) for far less than their true value, Liverpool sold players at opportune moments: Mamadou Sakho for £25million, Dominic Solanke for £19million and – most spectacularly – Philippe Coutinho for £121million.

Spurs are big-club blueprint

Over the 2010s, no team near the top of English football managed their resources as well as Tottenham.

Their success can largely be attributed to two factors. The first is savvy recruitment. In the two years after Gareth Bale was sold for £91million, Spurs signed Christian Eriksen (£13million), Ben Davies (£11million), Dele Alli (£6million), Eric Dier (£4.5million), Toby Alderweireld (£14million), Kieran Trippier (£4million) and Son Heung-min (£27million). This was the nucleus of the squad who secured four consecutive top-four finishes from 2016-19.

The second driver of Spurs’ success seems to be recognising the need to keep leading players. In the summer of 2018, they made no signings, but were still laying the foundations of future success by extending the contracts of Son and Harry Kane. In 2019, the two led Spurs to the Champions League final.

Over the decade, Spurs spent a total of £1.406billion on salaries and net transfer spending, while the rest of the “big six” all spent at least £1billion more. And yet Spurs finished in the top four five times, and never came lower than sixth.