Premiership Preview for the 2007/08 Season - Manchester United
13th Jun 2007, 17:41
Forbes magazine’s annual rich list of football clubs published in March of this year showed that ten of the top twenty-five most valuable football clubs in the world play in the Premiership. Their relative positions in that elite group correlate closely with success on the field, underlining the close relationship between spending power and success, the prevailing philosophy of ‘speculate to accumulate’ seems to hold true. The frenetic horse-trading of the summer months is the most important phase in the process of Premiership clubs reorganising and strengthening their squads, providing ante-post players with vital clues to next season’s competition.
United Spending Spree Sends Strong Statement of Intent
With the original Chelsea blueprint for Premiership success consigned to the rubbish bin, existing and prospective owners will be looking at the Glazers immediate success at Manchester United as the way to win a title. No-one other than the PR department at Old Trafford would attribute the Red Devils’ success solely to their new owners. The key point is that they didn’t provide a blank cheque to Fergie, who clearly used last summer’s available funds wisely in signing Michael Carrick for what seemed at the time expensive at £18.6m, and the £7m paid for Serbian, Nemanja Vidic, which now seems like a bargain.
This time around the Glazers have provided Ferguson with a bigger budget which he has been quick off the mark in using to reinforce his squad for a successful title defence, sending out a clear statement of intent. Ferguson’s Portuguese assistant, Carlos Queiroz – credited with the discovery of a ‘Golden Generation’ of Portuguese footballers in the 90’s - looks to have played a crucial role in signing two players in Cristiano Ronaldo’s mould from under the noses of Europe’s biggest clubs. 21 year old winger Nani from Ronaldo’s former club, Sporting Lisbon and 19 year old Brazilian midfielder, Anderson, favourably compared with Ronaldinho, both having played for Gremio in Brazil. The pair cost about £30m which is expensive for relatively inexperienced players. Despite his wealth of experience, Fergie has shown transfer fallibility with the likes of Kleberson and Djemba-Djemba so a watching brief is advised. If however, the new signings do quickly come up to scratch, aligned with Rooney and Ronaldo, they could offer United a potentially world beating attacking line-up for many years to come.
Fergie’s other major piece of business looks like being a much safer bet. Owen Hargreaves was one of the only England squad members to emerge from the World Cup with credit. As an England regular he should adapt quickly to the Premiership, while already possessing considerable Champions League experience. Hargreaves could finally prove the long-term successor to Roy Keane. Though Michael Carrick wears the Irishman’s no.16 shirt, Hargreaves has more of the spoiling qualities of Keane, but the pair can easily play in harmony. The only piece missing from the United jigsaw is a top quality striker, but Ferguson isn’t alone in chasing that elusive component.
The Premiership has become the lowest scoring league in Europe. In the 1994-5 season, six strikers scored 20 goals or more, while last season Didier Drogba was the only player to fall into that bracket. As this trend looks set to continue and more money pours into the Premiership, possessing a proven goal-scorer is becoming a critical component for any side with title pretensions. United’s top-scorer last season was Ronaldo who doesn’t even play in a central attacking role yet managed 17 goals, helped by a hatful of penalties. United’s strength is that goals were spread right across their team, producing 83 in 38 games, 19 more than Chelsea in second place. If United do find an out-and-out striker, this could be bad news for the rest of the Premiership!