The current state of Manchester United, from an analytic point of view.

1. Manchester United
The afterlife of the reds and the ghost of Sir Alex Ferguson
An analysis of the current state of Manchester united by George Kakavas

2. Why is Manchester United keep failing
after Sir Alex left?
▪ The failure to follow the other premier league club's evolvement
▪ Focusing on the recipes of the past
▪ Spending money without proper guidance
▪ Lack of people with actual knowledge in vital positions

3. In the following graph we can observer that the other
competitors of the premier league, spend less than
Manchester United on salaries.
Total Salaries Highest paid player Age
Σειρά 1 142,944,000 20,800,000 30
Σειρά 2 198,275,000 26,520,000 37
Σειρά 3 134,518,000 11,440,000 30
142,944,000
20,800,000
30
198,275,000
26,520,000
37
134,518,000
11,440,000
30
0
50000000
100000000
150000000
200000000
250000000
Salaries 20/21

4. It can be very clear from the bar chart on the previous
slide, that Manchester United is overpaying their players,
with no results and to fair not too much logic behind the
payments.
▪ Juan Mata 8million pounds/year
(5 appearances)
▪ Edison Cavani 13million
pounds/year ( coming from the bench
and 35 years of age)
▪ David De Gea 19,5 million
pounds/year while
Alisson Becker makes 7,8 and
Ederson Moraes 8,3 ( Is David De Gea
better than the keepers of the two
competitors of the premier?)
▪ Mohamed Salah, arguably one of the
best players on the planet this season
is getting paid 10,4 million pounds.
Trophies
After Sir
Alex
Managers
After Sir
Alex
Spendings
After Sir
Alex
5 7
Approximately
1billion pounds

5. It is quite clear that the reds have lost their path trying to repeat the
history written by the best Manager in the club’s history. However, the
football is changing and evolving into a more analytic era than an one
man show.
FC Liverpool and Manchester City, do not owe their last years success
to only Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola. Actually, most of the work is
done by the great teams of analysts they have working for them and
making their lives much easier.

6. But what does United need to do, to
return to the success story?
What they should do
▪ Hire technical an analytical
staff with a modern view
▪ Hire staff that can understand
the data provided by the
analytics team and do the
proper moves
▪ Focus on the development of
young players from the inside
What they shouldn’t
▪ Try to find the ideal manager to
imitate Sir Alex Ferguson
▪ Getting back to the club every
legend of the club without them
having the proper knowledge for
the position they are taking
▪ Overpay players in order to
compete with the top premier
clubs, instead of trying to identify
the real problem

7. History is History
What SirAlex did for the club will be remembered for ages to come, the truth though
is that what he built back then cannot be repeated. Even if we see Pep’s Barcelona,
Real Madrid of 4 Champions Leagues in 5 years, and many other examples the success
will eventually come to an end.
Manchester United the club and the fans, need to evolve to the new era of football,
where the staff behind the scenes play a more vital role than only one ‘guide’ on the
pitch.
Teams in Europe and not only the UK such as Ajax, Atalanta, Leipzig invest so much
resources to gather as much data as possible, and they are great examples by building
competitive teams every 2-3 years without spending the enormous amounts of MUFC.

8. Is Darren Fletcher a good Technical Director
for Manchester United?
▪ All, in all having the right people in
the right positions is what every club
wants.
▪ A club with the brand and dynamic of
MUFC could have a much better and
detailed guidance with a Michael
Edwards on the wheel, who I
personally believe would never be on
board to pay 34million pounds a year
for Cristiano Ronaldo and Edison
Cavani combined.
▪ Food for thought…Sadio Mane,
Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino
and Diogo Jota are all together
earning 29,660,000 million pounds
the rest…went to Luiz Diaz.
All stats and salaries are according to sportrac.com