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Manchester United have endured a frustrating transfer window as they struggle to further boost their squad so they can make amends for their worst season in 51 years. While rivals Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City have pulled off several eye-catching signings each, United had, through the first six weeks of the window, only brought in Matheus Cunha after paying the Brazilian’s £62.5 million ($85m) release clause to prise him from Wolves.
The Red Devils’ next target was Bryan Mbeumo, but landing the Cameroon forward, who scored 20 الدوري الإنجليزي الممتاز goals last season for Brentford, proved much more difficult. Despite the fact that Mbeumo had only one year left on his contract with the Bees, United had two bids, of £55m and £62.5m, rejected before finally agreeing a deal that could see them pay as much as £71m ($96m) for the soon-to-be 26-year-old.
United’s pursuit of Mbeumo and the rising fee has led to the mention of the dreaded ‘United tax’, a term that former chief executive Ed Woodward reportedly came up with in conversations with colleagues in which he lamented how the Red Devils always had to pay more for targets than their competitors. Woodward’s successor, John Murtough, also believed the club was often forced to pay over the odds for players.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe has talked a lot about United’s need to do smarter business in the transfer market as he tries to improve the club’s financial situation, as has new chief executive Omar Berrada, who had a reputation for being a shrewd operator when running Manchester City’s transfer dealings. But the club’s latest struggles to sign players without being able to pay buy-out clauses has only added more weight to the idea of the United tax.
بالجم runs through the most obvious examples of United over-paying for transfer targets in the 12 years since Sir Alex Ferguson left the club…
Manchester United have endured a frustrating transfer window as they struggle to further boost their squad so they can make amends for their worst season in 51 years. While rivals Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City have pulled off several eye-catching signings each, United had, through the first six weeks of the window, only brought in Matheus Cunha after paying the Brazilian’s £62.5 million ($85m) release clause to prise him from Wolves.
The Red Devils’ next target was Bryan Mbeumo, but landing the Cameroon forward, who scored 20 Premier League goals last season for Brentford, proved much more difficult. Despite the fact that Mbeumo had only one year left on his contract with the Bees, United had two bids, of £55m and £62.5m, rejected before finally agreeing a deal that could see them pay as much as £71m ($96m) for the soon-to-be 26-year-old.
United’s pursuit of Mbeumo and the rising fee has led to the mention of the dreaded ‘United tax’, a term that former chief executive Ed Woodward reportedly came up with in conversations with colleagues in which he lamented how the Red Devils always had to pay more for targets than their competitors. Woodward’s successor, John Murtough, also believed the club was often forced to pay over the odds for players.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe has talked a lot about United’s need to do smarter business in the transfer market as he tries to improve the club’s financial situation, as has new chief executive Omar Berrada, who had a reputation for being a shrewd operator when running Manchester City’s transfer dealings. But the club’s latest struggles to sign players without being able to pay buy-out clauses has only added more weight to the idea of the United tax.
بالجم runs through the most obvious examples of United over-paying for transfer targets in the 12 years since Sir Alex Ferguson left the club…
Jose Mourinho was keen to make Harry Maguire a United player after he rose to fame at the 2018 World Cup, but the manager told the club not to pay more than £50m for him. Leicester City were, however, asking for a minimum of £60m, so the deal was a non-starter.
Despite that, after Mourinho had been replaced by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, United made another enquiry about Maguire the following summer after they learned that Manchester City had entered the race. The two rival clubs bidding for the same player strengthened the Foxes’ negotiating position and the price kept on rising and rising, all the way to £80m.
That put City off, but United remained interested and got the deal done in August 2019, making Maguire the most expensive defender in the world. While Maguire is still at Old Trafford six years on and has fought his way back from several dark periods, he still has never come close to justifying the huge amount of money United invested in him.
Casemiro was, on one level, an exciting signing for United given the winning pedigree he developed at Real Madrid, but the Spanish aristocrats made sure they made as much money as they could when they entered negotiations with the Red Devils in August 2022.
United had lost their first two games of the season against Brighton and Brentford, putting new boss Erik ten Hag under huge pressure immediately. Madrid could sense United’s desperation and charged them £60m plus £10m in add-ons for a player who had turned 30 six months earlier. Casemiro’s representatives also earned a windfall as the Brazilian was quickly made United’s second-highest earner after Cristiano Ronaldo, signing a four-year contract worth a reported £350,000 per week.
Ratcliffe was apparently outraged when he learned of the scale of the transaction soon after purchasing his stake in the club, and who could blame him? Casemiro had an excellent debut season but floundered in his next two campaigns as he struggled to cope with the Premier League’s intensity. His colossal salary has made him very hard to shift, even on loan, and he looks set to see out his contract in full.
Long before he had even declared his interest in buying a stake in United, Ratcliffe was giving eye-catching interviews criticising the way the club had been run. In one sit-down with The Times he took aim at the club’s wastefulness in the transfer market and was happy to name names as he declared: “They have been the dumb money, which you see with players like Fred.”
Fred was another player who City were also interested in, but they turned away from a potential deal due his soaring price, which rose all the way to £47m. Mourinho, by contrast, greenlit the deal, and the Brazilian embarked on a long and disappointing five-year stay at Old Trafford. He became something of a running joke, particularly for the underwhelming midfield partnership he formed with Scott McTominay.
After an impressive start in which he scored in each of his first three games, Antony’s dire form for United saw him become the butt of many, many jokes. And all with the same punchline: this guy cost the club £85m! The Brazilian felt over-priced from the moment he arrived as United’s second-most expensive signing after Paul Pogba. He had done well at Ajax, but his numbers were hardly world beating and the consensus was that the Dutch giants had produced a masterstroke in selling him for such a high fee.
Ajax’s then-CEO, former United ‘keeper Edwin van der Sar, was very happy to admit as much, telling The Athletic: “We would have liked to keep him here one year longer. There was not a dire need to sell him, we had money in the bank. But the fee got so high. We challenged United to go as far as possible.”
Mbeumo is not the only player on a soon-to-expire contract who United have targeted and ended up paying far more than they intended to. Back in the summer of 2023, Mason Mount had interest from Liverpool and Arsenal, but the Red Devils were keen to sign a player who Ten Hag had first set eyes on five years earlier when Ajax faced Vitesse and who the Dutchman praised as “multi-functional”. But the deal, worth an initial £55m rising to a potential £60m, completely baffled United fans.
Mount had just come off the back of a hugely disappointing, injury-disrupted season and his best position, No. 10, was already occupied at Old Trafford by Bruno Fernandes. Supporters were right to question the move, too, as Mount has started only 13 Premier League games while scoring only two goals in two seasons for United thanks, in part, to a series of injury problems.
When he was surprisingly given the nod to start over Alejandro Garnacho in the 2025 Europa League final, he made barely impact before making way for the Argentine. Garnacho, meanwhile, was so perplexed at being dropped in favour of Mount that he talked his way out of the club.
‘Who?’ was the first question United fans asked when news emerged that the club were about to sign Anthony Martial on deadline day in 2015. The second was ‘How much?!’ Martial was only 19 and had scored a creditable although not exactly jaw-dropping 12 goals in Ligue 1 for Monaco the previous season. And yet United agreed to pay a potential £57m for the man dubbed the next Thierry Henry.
United paid £36m up front to Monaco but three clauses, worth £7.2m each, were inserted into the deal which would elevate the fee further. As it turned out, Martial’s disappointing form meant he only triggered one of those, for scoring 25 Premier League goals, while failing to meet the other thresholds of making 25 appearances for France or winning the Ballon d’Or. But even a total of £43m was still too much for a player who, by the end of his career with United, was a spent force who was incapable of staying fit.
Cesc Fabregas and Gareth Bale were the players David Moyes wanted to sign the most in the summer of 2013 ahead of his first season in charge at Old Trafford. In the end, the only new arrival was a familiar face in Marouane Fellaini.
The Belgian midfielder, who Moyes had coached for five years at Everton, was not just an underwhelming signing given the calibre of players United had been targeting; he was also needlessly expensive. United could have signed Fellaini by paying his £23.5m release clause by the end of July, but they dawdled and waited right until deadline day, when they were feeling desperate after failing to sign Ander Herrera and Sami Khedira. Everton thus demanded £27.5m and United stumped up the fee.
Fellaini started fewer than half of United’s games before Moyes was sacked, although he eventually showed his worth to the club when he became Mourinho’s secret weapon.
Harry Kane was the striker that Ten Hag wanted to sign in the summer of 2023m but United turned away from the deal as the £100m fee demanded by Tottenham was deemed too much for a player who had just turned 30. They instead saw more value in signing a young striker on the rise and thus turned to Rasmus Hojlund. However, they still ended up forking out a massive amount of money for a player who had nothing like the proven track record of Kane.
The Dane had scored nine goals in his only season at Atalanta, but United ultimately decided to gamble on his potential rather than go for a safe bet like Kane or Victor Osimhen. The gamble, needless to say, has not paid off. Hojlund arrived with a back injury and then did not score a Premier League goal for his first three months in the side. He ended his debut season with a creditable 10 league goalsm but his second campaign was dismal, as he netted only four times in the league while enduring a drought that spanned 21 matches. United are already looking to replace him.
