Xiaoba Yiyanjia|Manchester United is already bad, but the "toxic" transfer strategy will make them worse

In the view of ESPN author Ryan O 'Hanlon, although Manchester United has signed Mbemo and Cunha for a large sum of money this summer's transfer period, the two transfer deals do not look good. And if Manchester United continues to implement such a transfer policy, they may be even worse in the 25/26 season.

According to recent statistics from Deloitte, Manchester United is the fourth highest-paid football club in the world. According to FBref's estimates, they are also the fourth highest in the world. However, they were only ranked 15th in the Premier League last season.

Of course, this kind of thing happens sometimes. Klopp's Dortmund finished 7th in the 14/15 season. In the same season, Mourinho's Chelsea won the Premier League title, but what about the second year? Mourinho was fired midway through the season and the team ended up in No. 10.

For Manchester United, this is not an accidental bad season, not because the ball always bounces in the wrong direction, nor because the opponent's player suddenly becomes Messi. Based on a mixed data of 70% expected goals and 30% actual goals (this is our best measure of the team's true strength), Manchester United is... the 15th best team in the Premier League. The

24/25 season is not an isolated bad season for Manchester United. Manchester United ranked in the past four Premier League seasons: 6th, 3rd, 8th and 15th. Their goal difference over the past four seasons: 0, 15, -1 and -10. There is only one "outlier" among them - and it was not last season.

So, Manchester United is a really bad team: they're going bad, but they have huge amounts of money.

They are far from winning the championship, but they are able to bid better than any club in the world to sign the best young players in the world. Moreover, compared to other clubs with comparable financial resources, they can provide high salaries and plenty of playing time to any player they sign. With no pressure to win the Premier League or play in the Champions League, they could have focused on laying the foundation for the next great Manchester United team.

Now, they could have done this, but they absolutely don't.

With Ratcliff at the helm and new coach Amorin commanding on the sidelines, this summer proved that nothing really changed. Manchester United is still a mess.

Does Manchester United really want to win the Premier League championship?

A few weeks ago, I (the "I" in the article are all the authors) wrote the following content:

"Two years ago, I analyzed the composition of the starting lineups of each team in the previous five Champions League finals. I found that the average age of these players when they joined their respective clubs was 23.8 years old. More than half of the players signed before their 24th birthday, and more than 80% joined before their 27th birthday. In this year's ESPN FC Top 100 Players' Choice, the average age for players to join the current club is 22.7 years old, and more than 40% joined before their 21st birthday."

The key point is: World-class players usually join their club long before their peak playing age (24 to 28 years old).

Now, this can happen, but it is rare for a player who can be signed at the age of 25 or 27 to eventually become a key figure in the Premier League or Champions League championship team. Stars tend to emerge as younger, so they will be poached early by teams that pay competitive salaries and don’t let core players leave.

Top teams do not often sign players of this age group (25-27 years old), which may not be a coincidence. Peak-age players are more valuable because they have become famous. But when you sign a player of peak age, it means he has played at least one peak season for other clubs before joining you. Moreover, when players aged 25 to 27 are not performing as expected, it is difficult for them to attract interest from other teams because they are often well paid and older.

I elaborate on these because I observed Arsenal's transfer operations. After years of signing only young players, they turned to more experienced players in this transfer window. These operations are risky even for a team that has won the Premier League runner-up for three consecutive seasons and reached the Champions League semi-finals.

But what about a team that has conceded 11 more goals than they scored in the past two years? United signed two players this summer, Mbemo and Cunha, both of whom will turn 26 at the beginning of the new season.

No matter how you view Mbemo and Cunha's abilities as players, it doesn't really matter. Maybe they are indeed the second best players in the Premier League. Maybe they will play around (theoretically) more talented teammates than their old clubs, thus gaining improvement.

Even if this is true, their best season at Manchester United is likely to be the next two years. Should the team ranked 15th last season invest nearly 150 million euros in this time frame?

Why don't Mbemo and Cunha score so many goals at Manchester United?

An easy way to measure a player's value to a team is to look at the number of goals and the expected ball possession value added. The first one you know: how many times a player sends the ball to the goal line, between the posts and under the crossbar. The second is the Stats Perform model, which gives value to every non-shot action a player makes on the ball: each move that snatches, passes, etc. increases the level of his team's chances of scoring.

Through this method, Cunya and Mbemo were the two most valuable players in the league last season:

Mbemo and Cunya were the top players in the Premier League last season

There is no doubt that Cunya and Mbemo helped their teams win a lot of points last season, but this does not mean that they can do this again for the new team next season..

First, Mbemo took a free kick and a penalty for Brentford last season - both points that seem unlikely at Manchester United, as Captain B Fee took care of both responsibilities.

And, as I wrote last week, Mbemo and Cunha were the league leaders with the most goals than expected. While fans who are disappointed with players like Nunes and Jackson will think it is a good thing, it is likely to be just random fluctuations.

Although Cunha scored 6.4 more goals than expected last season, he actually scored 2.7 fewer goals than expected in his six previous seasons in Europe. The same is true for Mbemo. He scored 7.5 goals more than expected last season, but scored 3.4 fewer than expected in the first five seasons. You can convince yourself that these two players suddenly become elite finishers—but you shouldn't bet on that.

Mbemo's Premier League goal distribution chart

At first glance, Manchester United seems to have signed players in the fourth and eighth place in the Premier League scorers list. Well, that's the truth--they did. Mbemo scored 20 goals and Cunha scored 15 goals. But if they just accomplished the exact same chance with average efficiency over the past five seasons, Mbemo could end up scoring only about 12 goals, and Cunha could be between 8 and 9 goals. If the penalty is removed, Mbemo may only be between 8 and 9 goals. However, Manchester United's price payment seems to believe that their hot state will continue.

These players can not only score goals, but when you sign those players who suddenly play their peak career season in front of the goal, you really need to calmly analyze how likely this performance is to continue. If you really want to win, this is how to run a football club. Guess what total goals certain European institutions set for the upcoming season? Cunya has 10 goals and Mbemo has 8 goals. What is Manchester United's long-term plan?

There is a view that you cannot build a whole team with only young players. There is also a view that Manchester United was too bad last year and they needed to invest in some reliable players to avoid the possibility of relegation. Another thing is: the atmosphere. Several Premier League veterans with affordable abilities, even just a slight improvement in their performance, will help improve what Luke Xiao recently called "toxic" team culture.

If anything else that happened to Manchester United shows some coherent plan, it may be believed, but it is not.

Based on past on-court performances, Garnacho is the club's most exciting young star. He has contributed 24 goals and assists in the Premier League season before the age of 21, and his career average of non-penalties per 90 minutes is about 0.5 goals and assists per 90 minutes - comparable to Madison, Martinelli and Foden's level last season. Players who have performed this way at such a young age often have quite a successful career.

If we only look at Amad, who just turned 23 last year, his performance was the only highlight of the dark season. He scored eight goals and contributed six assists before his ankle injury in February.

Both players have at least potential to become important contributors to the Champions League level teams, and if they do, they will save the club millions of euros in transfer fees. But their position overlaps with Mbemo and Cunia. Therefore, the choice is either to prevent the two most expensive players from playing on the team or to prevent the most promising young players from getting playing time. Or, in the case of Garnacho, completely exclude one of your most promising young players from the roster.

Garnacho, along with Sancho, Anthony and Maracia, were excluded from Manchester United's pre-season tour list. This was originally intended to make them all leave the team, but by showing to other teams in the football world that these players are completely unpopular, you are cutting off your back. Which club is willing to pay a higher transfer fee when you know you don't want these players? As expected, no club would.

Reports from my colleague Rob Dawson also show that Manchester United is confused about how the transfer negotiations work. Manchester United are dissatisfied with Brentford's continuous price increase for Mbemo, but they ended up... still paying at the other party's asking price? If the asking price is too high, you can never sign it! There are thousands of other professional players in the world.

According to recent reports from Dawson, Manchester United is now looking at two center candidates to fill the vacancy between Cunha and Mbemo: Leipzig's Sesco and Villa's Watkins.

Cesco is an inexperienced 22-year-old player with outstanding physical talent, while Watkins is a reliable 29-year-old Premier League scorer. How could these two people become your target? Not to mention that they are not players of similar types at all, signing Watkins is to optimize the next one or two seasons, while signing Sesco is aimed at 2027 to 2030. As early as March, Ratcliffe himself stated that the club set 2028 as the next realistic year for the Premier League championship. That will be two seasons after the upcoming season ends. However, he admitted that "this may be a little tighter in the time frame. But it is not impossible." Let's be a little more forgiving, assuming he is actually referring to 2029. By then, Mbemo will be 29, Cunya will be 30, and Watkins will be 33.

While Manchester United lip service they want to win the championship in the future, everything they do is telling us they can't wait. No, they want to win now.