The Manchester United hierarchy are well aware of the financial situation surrounding the club and despite the massive windfall of money being pumped into the club, a careful approach will be taken in the winter transfer window to sign more players.
United manager Louis Van Gaal wants to strengthen in defensive areas as United have shipped 8 goals in 5 Premier league games and also conceded 4 goals against League one side MK Dons. Van Gaal has so far signed Luke Shaw, Daley Blind and Marcos Rojo in defensive areas and the Dutchman was close to signing Eliaquim Mangala before the former Porto man decided to move to the other half of Manchester.
According to Goal, Louis Van Gaal wants no less than £50m in the January transfer window to spend for the sake of defensive reinforcements. Notable targets include Roma holding midfielder Kevin Strootman, Sporting Lisbon midfielder William Carvalho and Aston Villa defender Ron Vlaar.
If United go ahead and spend the money then their net investment in the two transfer windows will be more than £200m, which will be a world record for most money spent in both the windows combined. However, it’ll be very unlikely that they will spend all the rumored money as the club’s finances will definitely take a hit come next year. The simple reason being the absence of Champions League football and the heavy investment in the summer window without selling players.
The club announced a profit of £23.8m recently and also revealed their record annual revenue of £433.2m to June 30, 2014 (increment of 19 per cent). However, these stats exclude the summer signings. The inclusion of those fees will be in next year’s reports, which at the moment doesn’t look good. This means that Van Gaal and United’s executive vice-chairman will have to spend carefully in the next window to avoid drastic drop in financial profits, if there will be any!
United’s deadline day signing Radamel Falcao will cost them a further £46m for a permanent transfer, so it’s important for them to balance the books. Tom Cleverley was loaned out to Aston Villa and the sale of Nemanja Vidic, Patrice Evra, Rio Ferdinand, Shinji Kagawa and Danny Welbeck has done nothing in terms of balancing the book. The futures of Marouane Fellaini, Rafael Da Silva, Anderson look very dull as they could be sold in January to make room for new signings in the future.