Why Manchester United must start recruiting effectively and not just chase galácticos

Since the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson at the end of the 2012/13 season, Manchester United have struggled on and off the pitch. Poor recruitment in players and managers, as well as overzealous decisions made about wages, has made it harder for the Red Devils to move forward without the man who won unprecedented success.

In the summer following on from Ferguson’s retirement, David Moyes set to work in attempting to bring in players to ease the early pressure on him as the new United boss.

After failing to secure Cesc Fàbregas and Toni Kroos, Moyes turned to Marouane Fellaini, a player who had a £23million release clause earlier in that summer. Because United missed that deadline after wasting time on unattainable targets, they had to pay an extra £4million to Everton who came away from the negotiating table happy as Larry.

That summer of bringing in only one player set the tone for Moyes’ reign as United boss, with the Scotsman being sacked in late April. While Louis van Gaal didn’t make any serious mistakes in trying to recruit players, it was clear that the powers that be wanted star-studded names.

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One of those names happened to be Ángel di María, formerly of Real Madrid. The Argentine was transparently obvious in suggesting he wanted a move to Paris Saint-Germain when being forced out of the Spanish capital, but when the French giants failed to make a move for him due to Financial Fair Play restrictions, United thought it was best they waded in and signed the player.

It is hard to discredit Ed Woodward, the executive vice-chairman of the Red Devils, for trying to make an impact of giant proportions by signing a Champions League winner, but it was clear from the offset that Di María wasn’t vaguely interested in coming to Manchester; there simply had to be more due diligence done with the people around the player to understand the full details before acquiring him for a then-club record fee.

One year later under the Dutchman, United signed former Bayern Munich midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger. Again, on the surface level and unbeknownst to fans, the German World Cup winner looked a shrewd bit of business for a mere £8million. There was a reason why Bayern were open to selling him, and that was because Schweinsteiger’s career was all but over at a top, European super club.

The Red Devils failed to understand the complexities of Schweinsteiger’s injuries and what toll they took on his body. In just under two years for Manchester United, the German managed to feature in just 35 matches before being sent to America.

Manchester United have made it a habit of going after the galácticos of the footballing world, emphasised in transfers made under Moyes and van Gaal, but also in their very open and wildly embarrassing pursuit of Sergio Ramos. The Real Madrid centre back used that interest from the Red Devils to his benefit, as expected, and penned a new contract with Los Blancos, wasting United’s precious time in the transfer market.

Before Sadio Mané joined Liverpool in the summer of 2016, Manchester United were heavily interested in the Senegalese forward and were made aware of his desire to leave the South Coast for pastures new. Instead of signing Mané, which would have been a very astute bit of business as Liverpool would go on to show, Woodward pulled the trigger of Borussia Dortmund’s Henrikh Mkhitaryan.

While the Armenian might not have been a global superstar compared to others the United Board have previously gone for, he made his name in the season before for recording the most amount of assists in Europe.

Real Madrid were in a similar position for many years when they signed superstar after superstar, but still not achieving to the consistency levels that they aspired for, especially in Europe. It wasn’t until the 2016 season where Florentino Pérez, Madrid’s President, flipped the rule book and decided to recruit smartly and effectively, identifying players that suited the philosophy of the club, rather than cherry picking from the name on the back of their shirts.

From doing so, Madrid became the dominant team in Europe thanks to their strength in depth throughout the squad, and also won their first LaLiga trophy in five years. With smart recruitment and investment, it just shows that it can lead you to success without the need for a team full of blockbuster players.

While it remains unlikely that Woodward is going to concede defeat just yet in his approach to handling United’s affairs, the club would be in a much healthier position if they were to sign players in the transfer window that suited the club’s and manager’s philosophy.

Instead, Woodward seems fixated on the idea of winning the Social Media Cup after his recent comments on a Manchester United Investor’s call regarding Alexis Sánchez’s move to the club.

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“It was the biggest United post on Instagram with two million likes and comments, the most shared United Facebook post ever, the most retweeted United post ever, and the hashtag #Alexis7 was the number one trending topic on Twitter worldwide,” Woodward said.

“To put that into context, the announcement posts generated 75 per cent more interactions than the announcement of the sale of the world’s most-expensive player last summer when Neymar moved from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain.”

Manchester United need to put their ego to one side and judge players for what they can bring on the pitch, rather than what they can do for social media numbers and shirt sale numbers.

While, of course, that keeps things ticking over, the main objective should be to win titles and trophies, something United look far off doing when truly challenging their across-town rivals Manchester City.