“A FERRARI driver careering towards a pile-up,” said one transfer market specialist of Ed Woodward as the summer window drew to a close. “Adidas made the fuel for him. You look at him and you just know it’s impossible he won’t crash.”
The red joyride has certainly been spectacular. Having already burnt through more than two years of cash from Adidas’s upcoming “Technical Sponsor” deal on transfer fees, Manchester United’s executive vice-chairman skidded into a deadline-day chequered flag with one last populist signing.
Adding Radamel Falcao to an already overloaded forward line cost United a £7.9m loan fee with a further £43.6m to come if the deal is made permanent for next season. United also take on the salary of a player who was on nearly £8m a year at AS Monaco — after tax.
While Woodward could argue that he has left himself the get-out of jettisoning Falcao should the Colombian fail to score as freely in the Premier League as he has done elsewhere, the deal is on a similar scale to United’s potential £130m commitment to Angel Di Maria. It is a level of largesse never seen in England , and is perhaps surpassed globally only by Real Madrid’s summer of 2009 when Kaka, and Cristiano Ronaldo arrived for record fees.
Woodward has talked about spending on this scale since replacing David Gill as the Glazer family’s senior executive and chief contract negotiator. He tried hard to bring Ronaldo back to Old Trafford a year ago, and may yet manage that feat. Tottenham preferred his bid for Gareth Bale to Madrid’s in the same window, but Woodward had neglected to make sure the player was on board first.
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Woodward has provided Louis van Gaal with one specialist centre-back, through the messy and expensive purchase of Marco Rojo, when his new manager was publicly declaring “we need defenders”. Plural.
Assuming Van Gaal sticks with the 3-5-2 formation that has yet to deliver a competitive victory, that leaves him with just four experienced central defenders for three slots, a specialist right-back who his predecessor wanted to sell, and a grossly expensive left-back whose fitness the Dutchman has already questioned. As for United’s two grand buys of the previous season, £27.5m Marouane Fellaini would have been moved on if he had not been injured, and £37.1m Juan Mata appears in danger of reprising his elite benchwarmer role.
Compare and contrast with Chelsea. Jose Mourinho has convinced Roman Abramovich to exchange the Barca-lite imbalance of the squad he inherited one season ago for a group whose only obvious weakness lies in its starting centre-backs. Diego Costa, Didier Drogba and Loic Remy instead of Demba Ba, Samuel Eto’o and Fernando Torres. Cesc Fabregas in midfield alongside January acquisition Nemanja Matic. Champions League finalists Thibaut Courtois and Filipe Luis added to the defence. And all done for a net transfer fee spend of around £8.5m.
That expenditure is lower than not just Mourinho’s title rivals but also West Ham, QPR, Crystal Palace, West Brom, Leicester City and Sunderland. Or, to put it another way, less than half what United sent Sporting’s way for Rojo.
As much as Mourinho’s rebuild has been aided by Chelsea’s scouting network, his spend was curtailed by Financial Fair Play. Uefa’s balance-the-books monitoring also limited Manchester CityUnited’s . While Tixki Begiristain finally managed to extract Fernando and Eliaquim Mangala from FC Porto, the latter came at full release-clause cost of nearly £40m.
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Elsewhere, Arsene Wenger drew the ire of some Arsenal supporters by flying to Rome on deadline day to take part in the Pope’s interreligous match for peace, then part- funding United’s capture of Falcao by signing Danny Welbeck. It did not help that Arsenal’s own efforts to recruit Falcao and Sporting midfielder William Carvalho both came to nought.
Across London, Daniel Levy returned to type with a window in which Tottenham’s net spend on transfer fees was recorded at less than £6.5m, the sixth lowest in the division.
Aware of the troubles Tottenham brought upon themselves by not allowing Andre Villas-Boas to direct the reinvestment of the Gareth Bale bounty last summer, Liverpool handed Brendan Rodgers control of the £64.1m grossed on Luis Suarez, and more. Liverpool’s net spend under Rodgers is now close to £120m in a little over two years, an unprecedented figure for an Anfield manager — more than Manuel Pellegrini’s outlay on fees at City, Carlo Ancelotti’s at Chelsea and Arsene Wenger’s in 18 years at Arsenal. Rodgers must demonstrate that his own transfer-market driving has improved.