Who.

rlThat's this United, right?rl Not rlthis Unitedrl. Or rlthis onerl.

???

The Man United debt was created by the new owners borrowing a shedload of money to buy the club, through the new holding company. This saddled the new group with a crazy, and probably unsupportable, amount of debt. Crazy crazy gearing. I thought it was pretty disgraceful at the time.

Nothing to do with the operating financial or onfield performance of the club. This was the equivilent of a "private equity" buy of a cash-generating business, turning it into a business burdened with huge debt at only limited financial risk to the new owners. A scandal IMO.

Are Man United not succesful on the pitch and don't the play in front of 73k sell out crowds. Boy I 'd hate for us to follow that plan.

I agree that the Glazers should never have been allowed to take such a gamble with one of the country's greatest sporting institutions. And perhaps it was a poor choice of angle to take. Of greater relevance is that United attained their position initially through the Busby Babes, and regained it with a spine drawn from their youth team.

If we had 80k there every week then we could be thinking about splashing for the equivalents of Rooney and Ferdinand. As it is, the Arsenal model is not a bad one to follow (they only come top four every year and they only made the CL semis last season), regardless as to whether it is in fact Hood's particular line of thinking.

The reason I brought up the Glazer issue is that I suspect Wenger sees them at United, the Yanks at Liverpool and Abramovich at Chelsea and thinks "If we can just weather the storm..."

Comparisons with soccer can be misleading because soccer doesnt have a salary cap. Marquee signings on marquee wages generally dont work in SL because they use up too much cap space. How successful were Wigan in Trent Barret's days ?

Steve Mac ain't no Arsene Wenger.... unfortunately

Yes, Man Utd are in massive debt. But this was done by the Glaziers with the intent of producing massive profits. Even with the debts from the takeover Man Utd are still one of the richest clubs in world football.

I don't either.

Although I would prefer that our investments (youth players) are kept rather than sold on once they hit the first team.

It is a wonderful thing to have a succeeful youth policy how to make it succede is another. I read an article by a football writer, and he had checked through the list of football youth cup winners over a ten year period and only two had met the big time.
Certainly the Bulls have had their share of disappointments with youth talent, and we never appear to be able to develop a good half back.

I'm no fan of Deacon, but many people argue in favour of his quality, seen as though we produced him they would argue that we can produce quality HB's. I am a fan of Leon Pryce though, and as he is the England HB it's very clear than we can produce quality HB's.

So that's two, Saints have produced Tommy Martyn, Leeds have produced McGuire and Burrow, and Wigan have produced Long, and none have produced since.

These young bucks in SL that are being talked up are still unproven, and you never know, we might have our own young buck in a few seasons.

We've had as much success as producing HB's as all other top teams, just that we let the best one slip our net.

Tommy started at the roughyeds

Sadly Price wanted to play half back, but the club coach at the time wouldn't play him in that position. I suppose Oldham could say they brought Deacon on in his formative years.

I am baffled as to what the case of Manchester United, one of the ultimate big businesses in sport, and how they run their youth, player recruitment etc. remotely has to do with the Bulls. Might as well compare us with an opium factory in Afghanistan, fpr all the similarity in the cases.

Then I stand corrected, and Saints have a round zero mark when it comes to producing half backs.