- On Saturday, Erik ten Hag and his Manchester United team suffered their third defeat of the season.
- During the summer, the club brought in four new players and spent more than 180 million dollars doing so.
- The coach of the Dutch national team has said that clubs have “inflated” their asking costs for their services.
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Erik ten Hag has been critical of the transfer market / Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/GettyImages
Erik ten Hag, the manager of Manchester United, has expressed his frustration with other clubs for “inflating” the price of players on the transfer market when Old Trafford is interested in acquiring them.
United paid just over £180 million for four new players, including different add-ons, and also recruited Jonny Evans for free. This brings the total amount spent to just over £180 million. On the pitch, where Ten Hag’s team has played three of their first five Premier League games, however, such investments have not yet resulted in an improvement in the team’s performance so far.
Ten Hag brushed off the comparison between the amount of money spent by Manchester United over the summer and the amount spent by Brighton, which left Old Trafford on Saturday with a commanding 3-1 victory.
“I think all of the teams are spending a lot of money,” he remarked.
This is undoubtedly the case for a large number of clubs, including Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Arsenal, Newcastle, and even West Ham. Although Brighton did spend more than £80 million, the club really made a profit of nearly £100 million in transfer fees because to players they had previously purchased inexpensively but then resold for a much higher price. After that, it was brought to Ten Hag’s attention that the Seagulls team that played on Saturday had been assembled for less than £20 million.
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Brighton won 3-1 at Old Trafford on Saturday / Michael Regan/GettyImages
The CEO of United provided a statement, in which he expressed what appears to be a reasonable point of contention.
“I believe that Brighton, too, has spent money, just like everyone else is doing. According to Ten Hag, “when Man United is coming, it causes the price to go up; this is also the truth.”
Over the course of the past few years, it has become common practice to speculate that selling clubs may seek for a higher price when United is involved. There was a time when Borussia Dortmund’s asking price for Jadon Sancho was well above £100 million, and Leicester’s asking price for Harry Maguire in 2019 was initially set at £100 million as well.
United was having difficulty negotiating a move for Benjamin Pavard with Bayern Munich because of the asking price as recently as this summer. According to a report from 90min from the previous month, Bayern’s demands had increased from £30 million to £34.5 million since the beginning of negotiations with the player. In the end, Bayern came to an agreement with Inter to sell the Frenchman for a price of £28 million, which was lower than what they initially quoted United.