In wake of United's shocking 4-0 defeat at the hands of Brentford, I am inspired to look back at the last decade and see where United went wrong.

Next year marks a decade since SAF departed Manchester United in 2013. Five managers and billion dollars in transfer fees later, the team has devolved into expensive dumpster fire.  Ownership and management seem aimless and incohesive as to the direction of the club. Lets take a look at the managers, transfers, and placement from the previous decade. There is a lot of calamity to sort through so Ill keep it brief as possible. 

Ill also include the BTC price and calculate how much they could have made if they didn't waste money on shitty players. Im using https://whatifyouboughtbitcoin.com/ and submitting September of the year in question because that is roughly when the transfer window closes. Example 2013-2014= buying at whatever the price was in Sep 2013 and selling at whatever the price is on August 17, 2022 aka today. I also only included their top arrivals. God bless America they bought a lot of people and it was too much.

*Yes I know that buying this much BTC would drive the price up and none of this is 1000% accurate, but it is fun and staggering.

2013-14 David Moyes finished 7th and spent 84m, won nothing

Despite Moyes consistently finishing top 10 with average clubs, he has only ever won one piece of silverware in his career. The Community shield with his lone season at United. To be fair, he was handed a waning squad and got Fellaini instead of Kroos or Fabregas. Moyes drowned in the giant shoes he had to fill from Sir Alex. Whoever took over was destined to fail in my opinion. Hot take, if Moyes hadn't already been at United, they would want him as manager in 2023.

Louis van Gaal 2014-2016 finished 4th and 5th and won the FA Cup in 2015-16 spent 307.2m

2014-15 finished 4th spent 193m, won nothing

2015-2016 finished 6th, won the FA Cup and spent 171.6m

On paper, these maneuvers seemed like a winner. Louis van Gaal had just guided the Dutch to the WC finals and was looking like the proper heir to SAF. United even opened the purse and shelled out some serious cash for some nice players (at the time). I remember they were good on FIFA these  years, but shit in real life. Depay, Schneiderlin, and Di Maria were incredibly expensive busts and struggled to even get selected at times. Depay had 7 goals and Di Maria had 4 in their time at United. Sweinsteiger and Valdes were well past their prime. A sad end to some legendary careers. Argentine pair Romero and Rojo were never quite good enough, but they were free squad depth. Columbian forward Falcao was once one of the finest #9s on planet earth. Seriously, his highlight tape impressive, but at United he only managed 4 goals in 26 league appearances while being on 265K per week. Blind and Herrera always seemed like solid players to me, their best years were before and after their time at United, but they weren't terrible in my opinion. Martial and Shaw are actually still employed by the Red Devils. Martial was/is one of those players that never quite put it together. He is wildly inconsistent, but does look almost world class for like 15 minutes every 10th match. Luke Shaw took his time , but eventually fulfilled his promise. Oh, I forgot about Darmien! I bet the van Gaal did as well, pretty uneventful time at the club.

Jose Mourinho 2016-2018 finished 6th and 2nd Won EFL Cup, Community Shield, and Europa League spent 430.75m

2016-2017 Finished 6th , spent 203m

2017-2018 finished 2nd,Spent 218m, won nothing

A lot of these signing and results surprised me in retrospect for some reason. I remember it being initially exciting and then turning bleak the longer the Mourinho tenure endured. Looking back, these were some of the best years of the last decade for Manchester United. The 2016-17 season is the last time united won any silverware. A poor man's treble of Community Shield, EFL Cup , and Europa league. They signed the special one and broke the world transfer fee for the prodigal son Pogba to come home and redeem himself. It was all very sexy and promising at the time. Pogba has been brilliant at times, but struggles to show his consistency he had with Juve and France. As time wore on Pogba has not improved and he has returned to Juve this summer.  Mkhitarian was brought in and then promptly swapped for Alexis Sanchez +30 mil from rivals Arsenal. Sanchez was on 500k a week and he was as terrible for United as he was unstoppable at Arsenal. They loaned Sanchez to Inter Milan shortly after his failed time at United. United are supposedly still paying half his wages. Everyone's favorite giant Swedish legend Zlatan! He had a good run scoring 17 goals in his first season, then he tore his ACL and moved to LA Galaxy in the MLS. Ivorian Eric Baily never filled the hole at CB, he is still at United? but rarely features. Nemanja Matic came over from Chelsea, he was solid for United, but he was one of the best CDM in the league for Chelsea. United broke the bank for Lukaku from Everton. He enjoyed a good first season with 27 goals. He struggled in the second season and then everyone made fun of how hefty he was. United offloaded him to Inter were he flourished under Conte. Victor Lindelof price tag surprised me (40mil ?!) and he struggled initially at the club. But he has since settled down and looks serviceable as of writing this. Fred cost 61.2m?!!! I was today years old when I learned that. At that price , he has been underwhelming. He is quick and sharp, but not World-class. Diogo Dalot was in and out of the team then loaned to AC Milan. Lee Grant and Matej Kovar are backup gks that no one has ever heard of. Mourinho sure did moan about not getting any support for someone spending tons of money. He was honestly a dickhead the last 6 months at United. Alas,  the last trophy that United won was the Europa league under his watch. Edit: Mourinho just won the inaugural Europa conference league last week. The less special one….

Ole Gunnar Solkjaer (2018-2021) finished 6th, 3rd, 2nd , and helped them get 7th in his final season before the sack. Won nothing, spent 603.5m 

2018-2019 finish 6th, spent 90.97m, won nothing

2019-2020 finished 3rd, spent 258.28m, won nothing

2020-2021 finished 2nd, Spent 82.83m, won nothing

2021-2022 finished 7th, spent 154m, won nothing

Out with the grumpy knackered Jose and in with lovable throwback legend Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Must be said they really demonstrated financial support and saint like patience for their beloved Ole. Dropped 80million on slab head Maguire and made the guy captain, no pressure. Maguire has played a lot and demonstrated that he is utter shite. His price tag and the fact he is captain of this circus make him pretty unlikeable and easy to blame. Wan-Bissaka (great star wars name) has been decent. Sometimes leaves things to be desired going forward, but all in all, a good signing. Donny Van de Beek helped Ajax reach the champions league semis. So United bought the Dutch international and sat him on the bench. Guy only started 4 times in his inaugural season. Daniel James had a surprisingly strong start , but then faded down the stretch and got shipped to Leeds. Bruno Fernandes has probably been the best bit of United business since Sir Alex left. He has 36 goals in 87 appearances for the red devils and  has been the talismanic figure the past few seasons. Alex Telles seems a good signing. He deputizes for Luke Shaw's hurt ass and does a great job for 15m.  

The 2021 transfer summer was a blockbuster. On paper, they might have had one of the best transfer seasons ever. Promising youngster Jadon Sancho joined for a hefty fee. The Jury is still out on him, but he did seem to be settling and getting better as the season went on. Raphael Varane ,the 4 times champions league and world cup winner, joined for a great price. Before he came, I thought he was one of the best CBs in world football. Guy had won everything and barely took a wrong step in his time at Madrid. To be fair he has suffered with injuries and only featured 22 times for United. He'll probably improve, but seems to be struggling with life in the Premier League atm. Anthony Elanga has been quite the bright spot. He always has a pep in his step and works hard for the team. He constantly gets picked ahead of some big players like Rashford as well. Ohhh yeah, United also signed this guy named Ronaldo. One of the football greats returned to the mighty red devils to cover them in glory and lead them to the promise land. Ronaldo has been on some GOAT behavior his one season back with 24 goals in 40 appearances. United failed to win a single league match that Ronaldo did not feature in. Poor guy looked like he was going to cry at time struggling through this poor season. Ronaldo seemed to be immune to whatever football cancer is going on at United right now. His future will be interesting. 

*It should be noted that Ralph Rangnick took over for Solkjaer in hopes he would have some Tuchel like renaissance effect on the struggling club. He and United fucking sucked during his tenure winning 11 of his 28 matches. He was supposed to stay on as an advisor to whoever the new manager would be. That loser is now gone.* 

Erik ten Hag (2022-?) Finished? Spent 79m (So Far)

*had to set it for July

Erik ten Hag aka ETH has become the 5th permanent manager since SAF. The former Ajax manager enjoyed great success with the Dutch side winning 3 straight Eredivisie titles and reaching the semis of Champions league in 2018. He has a ton of work to do. He must unload the dead wood and make some savvy signing. He also need to identify which players to retain and make the right choice with the Ronaldo situation. With all the competition from other top EPL sides, it is hard to see United winning anything in the coming year. They have about 13 days left to do business and have been linked with every former ETH player, de Jong, Pulisic, Casemeiro, Jaoa Felix, Rabiot, and it must be so easy to be a football rumor journo right now. 

TLDR: United are fucking rubbish, if they would have bought BTC over the last decade they would have 25,539,301,249.38

twenty-five billion, five hundred thirty-nine million, three hundred one thousand, two hundred forty-nine

It is crazy Elon Musk could still buy them. Ayo @elonmusk if you read this , gimme a retweet.

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