Man United chief executive David Gill has reiterated the point that Sir Alex Ferguson does have the Cristiano Ronaldo transfer money to spend, the Glazers are at Old Trafford for the long-term and has warned off the Red Knights.
One of the main talking points was bound to be the American owners, speaking at the Soccerex conference in Manchester, Gill said:
“The owners are very long-term owners and have shown that with Tampa Bay Buccaneers, which they bought back in 1994-5. They are not sellers.
“That’s not saying people like these Red Knights can’t come forward and put a plan to them. But the Glazers have given no indication to me that they want to sell and in that case they cannot buy the asset – it’s not for sale.
“The Glazers...are running the club in the right way.”
If running the club the right way is taking money out of it every year and bleeding it dry, then yes, the club is being run the right way.
Speaking about the Red Knights, Gill warned them off and by the sound of it, he doesn’t have a very high opinion of one of them:
“We are aware of Jim O’Neill in that he was on our board before the takeover, Mark Rawlinson was our advisor at Freshfields
“Keith Harris will go anywhere there is publicity around, we know that and we accept that, that’s his modus operandi, but if you look at his track record in football, I don’t think it’s anything to write home about.
“These are credible people and have every right to do what they think is in the interest of the club.
“But that’s not going to take them anywhere if the Glazers don’t want to sell, and they have no wish to sell and from our perspective they are running the club in the right way.”
After Ronaldo was sold for a record breaking £80 million during the summer, a few players have come in but Man United fans were expecting a bit more of the money to be spent. With all the talk about the debt that United are in, many believe that the money isn’t there but according to Gill, that’s not true, the money is still there.
"The money from Ronaldo is sitting there in the bank account, we've been clear on that.
"But Alex has been very clear he isn't going out to chase and overpay for a player just because everyone else thinks we should. He's a Scot, he wants value for money.
"We've spent a lot of money on (Fulham's) Chris Smalling and that's the sort of player we want to bring in - a young player who we feel will develop as a player and hopefully give us service for many, many years to come.
"Alex is very comfortable with it. He wouldn't be shy in saying he wasn't comfortable and we need to buy a player.
"We're a successful team and the way it's moved on since Cristiano left after six very successful years with us demonstrated why he's comfortable with what he's got."
I agree that Sir Alex wants to bring in young talent and doesn’t want to over spend but in the previous summer transfer window he was perfectly happy to spend £30.75m on Dimitar Berbatov. That is over spending, Berbatov is a great player, hasn’t been consistent enough at Old Trafford but he wasn’t worth £30.75m.
