Manchester United: Don't Believe the Hype, They Don't Have £165m To Spend

The MEN is reporting today that we are going to have a summer war chest of £165m to spend, in spite of the Glazers posting losses of over $100m. You what?

Where on earth has this figure come from? Even if we are going to include the full £80m from the Ronaldo sale and not net off any money for Smalling, Bebe or Hernandez, that still represents an investment of another £85m in the squad this summer.

Just think how wild we could get with that amount of money...and now inflated all of the transfer fees we would be paying will become. Alexis Sanchez and Javier Pastore alone could munch up most, if not all, of that budget.

Given Fergie’s refusal to be ripped off, regardless of how much money we have to spend, I think being told we have £165m to spend actually makes us less likely to sign either of those two, rather than more, because Fergie won’t be gouged.

Instead, we can probably look forward to more under-the-radar signings like Hernandez and Smalling.

Of course, it’s going to be even more difficult to pull these off now that Ferguson has enhanced his reputation in the transfer market with last summer’s dealings, because as soon as we’re linked with a youngster from around the world, other clubs are going to be taking note.

One of these could be Angelo Henriquez, some 16-year-old Chilean striker that we’ve unearthed. He’s scoring goals at the U17 South American Championships, so it might be worth a look next time that you see Chile playing on Eurosport. I don’t know the first thing about him.

So, between Fergie’s obsession with value in the market, the inflated transfer fees we’d be paying now that people know how much we’ve got to spend, and the fact that this figure is most likely complete bollocks anyway, I don’t think we’ll be seeing £165m spent on Pastore, Sanchez and Benzema.

Just a hunch, like, but don’t get your hopes up.