But that wouldn't have happened. We'd have just had the current team minus Van Persie, and possibly with the addition of Lewandowski.
But no-one apart from Me I think was really complaining about van persie per se..... more that the money needed to be spent in other places.
Berbaslug suggested that before RVP he couldn't recall Manchester United engaging in this practice. My list clearly implies that United have done it regularly.
Once again, The examples you are using are so old that some of them are from before I was born, and I'm not exactly in the first flush of youth.
Jordan and McQueen were a key part of a Leeds team set to challenge for honours, so too was Stapleton who, along with Liam Brady was a pivotal member of an excellent Arsenal side who had won the Cup in 1979 and were clearly ready to kick on for a League challenge until the dead-eyed vultures that are Manchester United and Juventus snaffled them away.
erm, leeds finished 9th in 1977-78. Man utd finished 10th. leeds then sold mcQueen and Jordan to man utd, and used the money to make the bank manager happy, and bought some more players. In 1978-79 leeds finished 5th, man utd finished 9th. Financial instability, and poor decision making then saw leeds spiral into the second division.
Arsenal allowed Stapleton's contract to expire, and wouldn't offer him a new one, the fee for him was set by tribunal. Stapleton went on to earn the obscene sum of £600 a week from man utd. Liam Brady multiplied his wages Ten fold by moving to italy. Stapleton increased his wages in 1987 when he moved to Ajax to replace marco van basten, in one of the most inexplicable and ill advised moves in footballing history.
Don't weep for arsenal, or leeds. If they didn't want to sell those players to man utd, they wouldn't have. It's not as though man utd were using their financial muscle to increase wages to unsustainable levels, and to explicitly weaken rival clubs in the way that man city have recently done by signing four players from arsenal, and tapping up wayne rooney. It was a case of one bunch of directors trading players between themselves for multiples of what they would be paid in wages.
And once again This policy has nothing to with man utd being more moral, more that it is economically unjustifiable to sign a star player from a rival top club like that, and you wouldn't see man utd doing it now, other than they have to compete with two clubs for whom money is no object. It is a powerful distorting influence.
yes Van persie was expensive, and is earning more than £9 million a year, but he is one of two players in that category at man utd, and is an important first team player. last season Man city had 8 players in that category. and they only bought van persie because they couldn't get the cheaper, younger, lowerpaid option lewandowski, and needed a new striker before the new season.
Don't Man U step in for players like RvP in order to stop them going to City or Chelsea? The motive is to stop your rivals buying the players who are up for grabs.
no. That sort of behaviour gets in the way of the main purpose of Man utd, which is to make money for their owners. If Those clubs are interested in a player they aren't limited by anything, They can outbid man utd for any player. The reason why city didn't buy van persie was that they already had Aguero, tevez, dzeko, ballotelli, and were trying to get rid of adebayor. These players all earn 9 or 10 million quid a year, which is something that roberto mancini seems to forget when stamping his foot and blaming Brian Marwood.
