Are United underdogs for Forest trip?
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This is Talk The Devils, the athletics podcast dedicated to Manchester United. And guess what?

There's a Premier League match just a few days away. We'll preview that game against Nottingham Forest. We'll remind ourselves and you, hopefully, of where Manchester United are at. And Laurie has also been doing a squad assessment of the wages of maybe future moves that Manchester United could be making. So we'll discuss all of that. Laurie is here to do that. Andy and Karl are here as well. This is nice, everyone being back together. We're back in our home setups. It's been a

Crazy couple of weeks in some ways between tours, between interviews with key figures in the Manchester United Academy, specials on the women's team, but we're back to business, the normal business I suppose today. Before we do that though, we have some exciting news. You might know by now, but Talk of the Devils is going on tour once again. We've got five nights coming your way in the autumn. 12th of October, Belfast, Limelight, the night after, Dublin, Vicar Street for the first time, the

14th of October we will be in Cork. We've not been there before but we're looking forward to sampling the Beamish and we'll be at the Opera House. 10th of November in Manchester back at New Century and then the 11th of November in London at a new venue as well, Soho Theatre in Walthamstow. The tickets go on sale this coming Monday the 31st of March at 11am so keep your eyes peeled for that. We'll have lots of details on social media ahead of that launch.

The details will be in the show notes to this as well as soon as the tickets go live. So you can come back and have a look here. Athletic subscribers who follow Manchester United will also receive an email with all the information. So keep your eyes peeled for that over the coming days. It's going to be great, Carl, isn't it? I cannot wait. This is going to be an amazing little tour. You don't sound that enthusiastic, Carl. No. Well, I mean, the last time we went on a show, Andy told me stories about reservoir levels.

Another assorted greatness. I can't wait for what ridiculous thing Andy Mick is going to come out with. I thought we said what happens in the room stays in the room, Carl, there. Hey, what goes on tour stays on tour. I mean, Reservoir Levels was before the show. True, true, true. Andy, would you like to defend yourself? This is me. I can't. This is what I'm am. I'm into maps. I'm into railway stations and I've started checking Reservoir Levels and...

It was my secret and one of my daughters found me doing it and told my wife. So when I was last travelling, my wife started sending me updates going, levels are really good today. She's just ripping the out of me. Cork, where we haven't been together, all of us. Top City, loads of bookshops actually. Big Manchester United area. Brilliant. And the Opera House looks absolutely stunning. So bring it on. And Walthamstow having a thousand capacity venue. I'm into this sort of stuff.

I don't even know where Walthamstow is, so I'm going to have to look that up. London, mate. Thank you. Which is in England. You do. The great E17. I'll tell you the story about the Walthamstow money launderer. Oh, yeah? Who's in E17? So Adam Lawrence was on our last podcast and his accent was very Bermondsey, Carl. Would there be a difference between Walthamstow and Bermondsey in the accent? I would say so. Mr. Lawrence sounds very South London. Okay.

Yeah. Very south. He sounds like he supports Crystal Palace. We didn't ask him that, actually. His kids are Manchester United fans, so that's the important thing. Charlton, mate. He's big Charlton. Well, while I go and have a look at a map to see exactly where all these places are, we'll get into the podcast. Because, like I said before, just four days now. This is exciting. It feels like a new season almost, doesn't it? Just four days. The countdown is on for Manchester United being back in Premier League action against Nottingham Forest. And just a reminder...

were 13th, seven points off the top half, aren't we, Laurie? I thought that was going to be much more positive and then you kind of brought the dose of reality to the situation. I'd forgotten how bad it was, actually. It's Hunt for a top-half finish. I mean, when you're looking at Bournemouth being, you know, 10th, I think, right? And they're seven points ahead of United. Uncapped.

Uncatchable Bournemouth, you mean? Uncatchable Bournemouth that are tearing the Premier League apart. I mean, they've obviously had a bit of a slide, but it does feel... They are tense, yeah. It does feel a bit, you know, in the distance that United could actually still finish top half. But anyway, you know, we know what the priority is, but...

Nottingham Forest on Tuesday night yes city ground a proper football ground brilliant fans are right up for it their team's banging form and we had a little bit of an insight into Anthony Langer didn't we from Colin Little about his you know foot patterns and maybe he can get into him before the game and kind of put him off maybe you know well hopefully I'm not advocating that but why not why aren't you advocating that I

Okay, I'm advocating it. There we go. Times are hard. Laurie being wholesome, wanting Manchester United graduates to shine wherever they are. No player has more assists, apparently, in the Premier League in 2025 than Anthony Alanga, so let's hope he doesn't extend that record. But yeah, some lovely insight, wasn't there, from Colin on the last podcast.

I'm being a little bit negative, Andy. On the positive side, United have beaten in seven, if you don't include penalty shootout defeats, and that's actually the longest run under Ruben Amarin. Our mate Critch has written an article during this international break about some of the changes in tactics and style that Amarin has brought about during that run as well. We're seeing a different Manchester United side

is that encouraging to you that he is adapting? Because that was one of the criticisms that he's too stubborn. To be fair to him, he's always said that he can adapt within that system, even in the lowest points after some of the games. He's like, don't start battering me for using this system because there's many different variations within the system. And,

and we've picked up on some of them in the podcast and Critch's article about the goalkeeper going long. I mean, we saw that very clearly in San Sebastian and the chaos that come from the long balls. The problem was Real Sociedad did exactly the same thing, but Manchester United's goal over there came from that, getting control, Casemiro playing the ball out to Garnaccio and Xerxe being involved in the start and the end of the move.

I see green shoots of recovery. I'm really happy that the season is still alive because Real Sociedad were knocked out. People are buzzing off a trip to Lyon. People are talking about Bilbao. And had we gone out of Europe, it would just be so much despondency because you'd only be reflecting on the league table.

So there is some positivity, but then again, look at the league table. And if you can start beating teams like Forest, then I think you'll find a real surge because a large number of Manchester United's points this season have come from taking points off the bottom teams. Beating Southampton home and away, just. Beating Leicester City home and away. Beating Ipswich home, if not away, just.

So if United can go to someone like Forest and avoid defeat, because Forest have been miles better than United this season, then you'll see more encouragement. Just to get into some more of the detail that was in Critch's piece about the change in Onana's approach. So over the course of the Premier League season, only five goalkeepers have actually played more long passes or long balls than Andre Onana. And of that group, only Dean Henderson at Crystal Palace, hello Dean, friend of the club, has a lower completion rate.

And there's actually been a switch on that in the past five matches. So Critch has written on average, there's over 20 passes long from Onana in those games, 29 in total in the Arsenal draw at home, which is a huge contrast to Ameren's early matches in charge where the average was about six a game.

I'll talk about the fact that no one's winning the headers in a moment. I was waiting for you to bring that up. Yeah, it's quite a clear change that, isn't it? And it feels strangely familiar to another Manchester United manager and another Manchester United goalkeeper when their system of play wasn't quite working out. Yes, if you are a Manchester United fan who believes United should never have let De Gea go, I suppose this...

little revelations got you scratching your head why did United go out all this way to get a ball playing goalkeeper only for that goalkeeper to start kicking it long it's fair isn't it the big shift obviously when you're playing through at the back that need for your goalkeeper to be involved in build up isn't there in the same way it can be useful that Anana can use his feet that's still an extra tool to help beat a press of a front team a team playing on the front foot I should say but

But the need for a Niles to hit that sort of chipped ball over the top to a fullback that Ten Hag was looking for from De Gea and others is reduced because now it's a pass out to one of your wide centre-backs who can receive it a little bit quicker.

The good thing is Onana's long kicking is solid. He's not just biffing it to no one. The concerning thing is obviously who's the people receiving that long pass and who's the second wave as well. So what we're finding a lot with Premier League teams is not just can you kick it long and can your number nine hold up the ball, but also if your number nine can't win that first ball, is there a sort of second band who can receive things as well? And I think...

This is also linked to Amarin getting a little bit more out of Casemiro recently. Because Casemiro, we've spoken about this before, despite the fact that he's not 6'2", he's one of the better United players in the air. So it's layers upon layers of gradual improvement from Amarin getting stuff out of this squad. Onana perhaps isn't a...

A goalkeeper completely to Amorin's taste, but he's getting something out of him. Hoyland is perhaps not the target man you want to receive long passes, but he's getting something out of him. Xerxe was not the number nine that he wanted, but he's getting something out of him as the number 10. And it's just putting all these things in place. So a long pass...

that could have been a bit aimless in January looks a little bit tighter now. The one thing this does illustrate, Laurie, is the dysfunction for want of a better expression that United have suffered with in the Premier League this season. So,

The manager, Critch has written, has decided that short build-up is not the right way to go at the moment and that they need to look longer, which obviously is shown in these statistics. Maybe linked to the fact that Lissandro Martinez, who's one of the better progressive passers in the team, is obviously out injured and has missed those matches that we've just been talking about. But basically he's decided that the best way isn't to build up from the back necessarily more often than not. That the best way is to go longer with these balls.

The problem then comes that when these balls are played, Hoyland, 22%, Xerxe, 29%, Garnaccio, 9% are the targets for these long balls. And those percentages are their aerial duels won in the Premier League this season, which are all low, even by their standards. I mean, that's it. And you wouldn't say that any of them are strong in the air, particularly not Garnaccio. I mean, Hoyland and Xerxe even, you wouldn't say that that is their...

main attribute would you at all so it does it's a needs must decision by Amarin isn't it it's what you were alluding to earlier Eric Ten Hag against Liverpool third game of his reign you know De Gea kick it long don't mess about passing it out from the back because we got destroyed by Brentford doing that so and he said it's about survival you know Amarin has repeatedly said that you know brought it on earlier than even we were you know

decided to talk about the kind of relegation form and he was talking about just making sure that he's still in the job basically and I guess not conceding goals

close to goal is a way to do that by just keeping it tighter. And as Kyle's saying, there's obviously tactical reasons for that. So yeah, I thought it was a really fascinating piece by Critch to actually go into the numbers behind it. We've seen it with our own eyes, but to actually be able to provide some of the data to it, I think just adds to that sort of theory. And then let's see in the summer, right? I mean, I know there's been some discussion about Andre Narno's future. I've got no information to that end in that he would be departing or anything like that. But you've got to sort of wonder,

how then will Amarant actually get him functioning to his best abilities when you get a pre-season in him as well? The irony of the De Gea point is absolutely bang on. Eric Steele spotted De Gea's distribution when he first cast eyes on him and he was excellent at that. And I know he was later criticised for distribution,

but that is why he was brought to Manchester United. So why does a goalkeeper like Anana go long? There's different ways of doing it, and actually you can do it at different points in the game. If you're getting tired, then it's a way of beating the press. You hit the ball over, and Manchester United have been doing that. You know that game in San Sebastian? 54% of all the long passes in the entire game were from both goalkeepers. So it was clearly a tactic that was being used. Now, when you hit the ball long...

You might have a target man to hold it up. But Manchester United and other teams, Roma have been doing this, doesn't actually matter if you don't win the first ball. If you get the second ball, as long as you come out of that chaos area or unstructured play, that's what the coaches call it, which is what United did when someone like Casemiro gets on the ball with the experience, with the body strength, with the ability to hit at the pass, with the outside of his foot,

then it can still benefit Manchester United that's what Amarin likes to do get the ball wide and to be fair Eric Ten Hag his whole tactics at the game in Porto in December was get the ball out to Marcus Rashford and create a one-on-one this is what Spurs do Spurs' defence is terrible but get the ball out overload on the wings that's what they're good at and they're bad at a lot of things

So this is a variation in the way that Manchester United are playing. But if you're getting tired, if you're in an away game, if the pressure's coming right on you, go long. If you've got a good chance of winning it. And Xerxe in Hoyland, they can win it. And Casemiro can play the ball out of danger.

It's a bit of a throwback, isn't it? We were discussing this with Colin Little again to reference him, but he was saying that when he was coming through in his day, it was basically get the ball forward, then play, and it was 4-4-2, and obviously coaching has developed now, and he was talking about the changes that that then means for him in terms of if you've got the ball, you can control it more, but clearly United aren't in a position it feels like at the moment where they know that they can control the ball in that

kind of way so let's kind of revert to the old school a little bit yeah and it feeds into what ribbon hammering has been saying about the confidence being low amongst the group it removes some of the risk of playing out from the back if your confidence is low and

He's even obviously, we've talked about it several times on the podcast, spoken about the anxiousness that he feels in Old Trafford with the players and the fans when Onana has the ball at his feet. So it's also a way of removing that. I remember the Arsenal game, watching him waving, saying, no, get it long, get it long, get it long. Interestingly, Carl, in that list that I mentioned before of the top five goalkeepers, I

above Andre Onana is Matt Sells. So I wonder how much of a neckache the midfielders might have in this game on Tuesday night at the city ground. Just craning their heads, just going up, goes over me, goes over me. I think this Forest game is going to be very interesting because Notting Forest are a fantastic counter-attacking team right now. They got a slap on the wrist, got into hot water for their dealings in the transfer window.

but they seem to have been ahead of the curve in what modern Premier League teams or Premier League teams at this point in time need, which is you need a very, very strong spine, you need two or three counter-attacking tools, and you need a number nine who can score. You can get a lot out of a little. I think Chris Wood's vastly performing his XG right now. It's that sort of fun hot streak that you really wish one of your United strikers was going through. But...

There are questions as to what can Nottingham Forest do if you play them as if they are a big team. And I think Amarant's got pretty good at approaching the bigger teams. His results against City, his results against Liverpool. If he approaches this game, Forest away, in the same way that he might approach a game at Anfield...

United might do better than if they approach it as a game where they need to play on the front foot, which sounds absolutely ridiculous at the start of the season, but you now have to treat Notting Forest as a team that's likely to finish in the Champions League. They've got to treat each other like big teams, aren't they, basically? They've got to try to. Yeah, it might be the battle of the counter-attacking football. I'll be interested to see where Onana starts aiming some of these long kicks. Why, you think it's going to be different? Patrick Dawg was coming back from suspension, so there might be a left-sided...

to some of these kicks to try and get it towards him a little bit more. I think that might help. Yeah, it's interesting that actually on the data, a lot of it did go left. Anyway, a high proportion of Onana's balls went out to the left rather than the right. That's obviously in Critchie's article as well. Go and have a look if you want to know more about that.

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Andy, United's record against Forest was amazing until the last two matches. They've won the last two, including that 3-2 win at Old Trafford in December, which was a disaster for United at the time. Do you have hope that it could be different this time around? Are we going to see a development in the way that United face Forest on Tuesday? I do have hope because I think there's an acceptance that the status of both the teams have changed. Forest have always come to Manchester United as underdogs, so...

That game played in the monsoon at the start of December when Forrest was, oh no, we should be beating Forrest. But you go to the city ground and you're like, actually, there's 17 points clear of Manchester United in the league. 17 points clear. I can't even believe I'm saying that. Similar wage bill though. As the Jim Ratcliffe said. Forrest finished 17th last year in the league. And even then, there were seven points behind Brentford.

So they have had a huge turnaround and little details like that actually give me hope for the future of Manchester United. People say it's a five-year plan or whatever. It can turn pretty quickly and you've got to assume that technically Manchester United's players are better than Nottingham Forest's players are.

But then we can argue for and against that. They have been really good this season, but they've also been inconsistent. So after that win at Old Trafford, that clearly boosted, and they won six off the back of that. And they put seven past, was it Brighton? Yep. The week before, they got beat 5-0 by Bournemouth. So many of the bad statistics about Manchester United go back to that 89-90 season. Back then, Forest were really good. Forest were 4-0 up against United in May 1990 at half-time. What? Yeah.

In one league match, and it was the end of season, nothing was happening, Manchester United's minds were on the cup final. But now, they're six points clear in Manchester City. That was a huge game when they beat City 1-0 a few weeks ago. I'm pretty hopeful. If you go back to last season, that Forest defeat was probably the lowest point. That's when it really kicked off. That was over Christmas, wasn't it? 30th of December. The news came through about the Indy and Eos deal.

But that was like, this is not acceptable because Forrest was so bad last season. They've come really good this season. They've spent a lot of money. I mean, a Langer 13 and a half million, that's a good signing. Chris Wood, as Carl said, he's in a really, really sweet spot.

I would say it's 50-50. Just when you said about 17 points ahead, Andy, I just suddenly thought, do you know what? They're actually not that different in terms of big chances created. So I just had a quick look. United have created 53 big chances in the Premier League this season. Nottingham Forest have created 50. So they're actually outperforming them in that regard. It's just that Forest are taking them. Yeah, Chris Wood's overplayed.

performing his XG massively like Carl said before for people who like that metric the one positive aspect in terms of Chris Wood for Manchester United is that he could be missing the game

So Nuno's already ruled him out of their FA Cup tie against Brighton this weekend. He injured his hip playing for New Zealand during the break. So that would be a boost, Andy, wouldn't it, if they were missing him? He's started 28 out of 29 league matches so far this season, but a huge reason why they've done as well as they've done. It'd be a huge boost because he's the main centre forward. A player Manchester United have needed all season is a...

a goal scoring number nine and Laurie's point about chances created is really relevant we've all been frustrated watching Rasmus Hoyland miss chances watching other players miss chances Chris Wood

who was, you know, he was never seen as being a player at the top end of the Premier League when he was at Burnley. Where's he from? He's from New Zealand. He's not Brazilian, but he has been a huge success for them. And Nuno Espirito Santo, he's done really, really well there. He's managed to stay in the job more than two weeks, unlike the previous 622 Nottingham Forest managers. So in the midst of chaos,

Some calm has broke out and back to Laurie's point, it is a proper football club. It's a lovely ground to go to. Mad that United didn't go there for 20 years and now we keep drawing them in the cup and going there all the time. Nottingham's a top city as well. And bringing it on, I think 16 days since Leicester, which is next to Nottingham, but when was the last time we had a 16-day break apart from a World Cup, apart from COVID? I cannot remember one. You're going back decades, I think, for, you know...

when winters used to postpone games for two or three weeks. And it comes a day after the FA Youth Cup semi-final. Go to that one as well, if you can. So yeah, it feels like, as you said right at the start, a new season starting again. A bit of optimism. The mood's lighter because Manchester United results have been good.

But a win at Forest really would lift the mood. You mentioned the FA Youth Cup semi-final against Aston Villa on Monday at Villa Park. We, of course, previewed that on the last podcast. And a big thank you for the hugely positive reaction that we've had to the Academy podcast that we recorded on Wednesday. It was great to see that so many of you enjoyed listening. We were granted brilliant access, to be fair, by the club. So a huge thank you to them. We went down to Carrington, spoke to the under-18s,

coach Adam Lawrence, his assistant Colin Little and also academy director Nick Cox. It's a source I think of real pride for Manchester United. It's such an important part of the club's identity and I think that was a very revealing set of conversations as to the state of play in the academy at the moment. So if you've not had a listen to that, go back and have a listen and once again, good luck to the team on Monday.

Part of that team, Laurie, actually had an interesting international break because one of the revelations or two of the revelations from the chats were that

that they're actually getting players back late from internationals to prepare for this game, which feels more first team than under-18s. But also the fact that the coaches do struggle with the Fletcher twins a little bit, but you've found the key point of differentiation between these two. Well, yeah, just check if they've got any tattoos that signify their national allegiance, because this is brilliant, this. I mean, I think it's a...

record broken people are saying or the first time in international history that you've got two twins representing different international sides both captaining their countries in that moment so Jack captain England under 18s and Tyler captain Scotland under 18s in their international matches and I'm just looking at how they did Scotland drew 1-1 with Sweden and suffered a 4-1 defeat to Poland and England drew 2-2 against Czech Republic and

also 2-2 against France and they beat Portugal 1-0. That's a busy old sort of set of fixtures, isn't it? Yeah, obviously they're going to have to maybe take that into account in terms of how much they play, but I'm sure all the players will just want to, you know, if they're in that level, part of the conversation was the guy saying this is actually as good as it might not as ever get, but you

Even Nicky Buck, for example, still reflects so fondly on his FA Youth Cup win and says maybe that was his proudest medal because he did it with his mates. And it was all that kind of environment of we're together in this. And so, you know, it's a rare thing to experience that. So I kind of feel like other players, if they fit, they'll be, you know, chomping at the bit to try and play in this game. But yeah, I just loved...

that you know sort of it's a reality of football right twins they look they look very similar but I agree you know if you don't get them right they should absolutely be angry about that and they are different players I mean different people yeah different people Jack you can tell on the picture he's kind of more advanced and some of the passes that he makes I think are really inventive and you know he scored a fantastic goal at the Emirates and then Tyler's a little bit deeper sort of picking those passes you know through the lines from a more sort of you know

build-up play kind of possession-based situation. So yeah, I just think it's really interesting. And Darren Fletcher's role in it all, I think, is vital. I think that kind of shone through from what the guys were saying in terms of, you know, he's obviously at the games all the time. He's got that link, the heritage, you know, from coming through the academy himself and winning the trophies that he won at United. And yeah, he doesn't have to put any pressure on them to be playing every week because they are good enough. So...

that's a happy solution. I said it many times on this podcast when he first came back, but my opinion of Darren Fletcher is really high. I spent four hours doing an interview with him for my book last year. He's really bright. He's really sensible. He's a complete football nerd and he downplays everything, but I just hear good things about him. And as for his two sons, you know, we touched on footballers from Wythenshawe, which even became a national thing last year. Well,

Well, they will have both been born in Wyvinshaw as well. So if they make it, Wyvinshaw Hospital, although I suspect their upbringing isn't quite street because they are the children of Darren Fletcher, but strictly speaking, if you want to get into geography, they will have been raised within the three miles of Wyvinshaw. So I'd love it if they can both make it. They've got a brilliant mentor in the father, both grown up.

in the Wythenshawe sort of area. And if they can make it at Manchester United, that'd be fantastic. And it's even sweeter because we've got them from City. Right. Well, during this international break, Laurie has spent it trying to find out the finer details of the contract situation in Manchester United's squad and see what clues it gives us in terms of the direction of travel for the summer transfer window.

and beyond. How on earth did you find out what everyone gets paid, Laurie? Well, hopefully it's accurate to the best of my abilities. Hopefully? Yeah, I'm pretty confident in the, you know, you're never going to get exact figures because even within the players' own contracts, there's different performance-related bonuses to get. And then obviously there's the Champions League Cup, which for most players is 25%, but you can negotiate if you've got good agents who

who would maybe say... Some interesting conversations in the Manchester United dressing room if they've seen this article. I'd be fascinated. Do players surely talk about this kind of thing a little bit anyway, right? Of course they do. Exactly. Ian's shaking his head. They've got to talk about this. It's a very famous story between Benzema and Ronaldo when they're talking about their paychecks at Real Madrid that I can't repeat here, but maybe at the live show I'll tell you something.

And if the players don't, the people around them do to get into the Reds. Oh, yeah. Money, money, money. Yeah, the article though, I mean, I'd encourage people to go and read it. Lots of interesting detail on some of the numbers involved. I'm not going to give them all because we'll be here all day. But in the article, there's a graphic. You've lined up Manchester United starting XI. The backups, they've probably got two or three versions, including players who are out on loan and...

some of the younger players in the squad as well. But it did show Eriksen, Lindelof, Heaton, Evans out of contract. And Lindelof and Eriksen have been speaking about this on international duty. It feels unlikely that they're going to beat United next season, doesn't it? Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, and that was what the graph was sort of trying to show, I suppose, you know, where the areas that United...

will need to strengthen. Obviously, they've got priorities in terms of the first team picture and getting more goals in the team or getting more control in midfield, but also just actually replacing the bodies that are going to be leaving and then also future-proofing it. So you're looking at the number of years left on a few other people, two or even three, if it's two plus one. You're looking at that kind of situation thinking, OK, we need to address it. But the hook for it all really was Jim Ratcliffe saying that four out of the top eight earners

were not in the team and basically then also extrapolating that to say, well, actually United's wage structure for the current players available to Amarant, so you include like Ahmad and Joro and various other people that are out injured or on loan, is equivalent to Nottingham Forest, as we said earlier, and Everton. I think Forest is probably a bad example because they're third in the Premier League. So you're sort of thinking, well, that shouldn't prohibit you then. And I would still, I would like to know the exact details of that, but he's basically saying it feels like

because he sort of later on said 250 million as a wage packet for players which is actually 115 less than what is reported in the account which obviously takes in management and executives and all staff so that's quite a hefty you know portion of money a

according to Ratcliffe, that is then given out to those kind of people. But yeah, so I think 120, something like that million, he's saying, is on the sidelines or out on loan. And he was touching on Sancho and how United are paying half his wages. So the piece was trying to explore all that and then just see basically how, if United will be able to, as they're sort of trying to propose,

be more restrained on new signings, contract renewals because they feel like they've got into difficult positions with the likes of Casemiro paying a lot of money for people that are then not actually... I mean, Casemiro wasn't one of the four players that he named in terms of the top eight that aren't playing but actually he's not played all that much this season so it's a lot of money to be committing to somebody that isn't a starter every week and doing absolutely the...

you know, the prime push for United going forward. Clearly, Bruno Fernandes is the guy that's absolutely maxing out his value, it feels to me, even though he is paid very well. But the other aspect to it all was the fact that, you know, United actually, in terms of wage to revenue ratio, they're third bottom

in the Premier League. So only Arsenal and Spurs have got a kind of better ratio in terms of wages to income. So United are at about 55%, which is, you know, I mean, you look at Nottingham Forest, for example, this is 22-23 season, but they're 94% of their income is going on wages, which is crazy. It's not sustainable. So, you know, United have kind of been...

within their means to this point but clearly there's certain contracts that have been handed out that you could maybe have a look at in hindsight and go okay could that have been handled differently? Yeah Andy those contracts let's name them Mason Mount Luke Shaw Marcus Rashford

just to name three actually, there's probably more. Laurie obviously goes through them all in the article, but he explains Mason Mount was to beat off interest from other clubs. At the time, he'd had some injury problems at Chelsea, but certainly nothing like the consistent injuries

that he's had at Manchester United. Luke Shaw, in that moment, was probably the top performing left-back in the league, arguably. And actually played a lot of football at that point for United. It looked like he'd moved past some of his injury problems, which have now resurfaced. The third most outfield player, Luke Shaw, at that moment, in terms of minutes that he played. At that moment, yeah.

Marcus Rashford, one of the most informed forwards in Europe at the time that he signed his new deal. The revisionism says that maybe they were errors, but obviously there's clear reasons why they were given out at the time. And this presents...

some of the issues and you can see why it's criticised, but you can also see why it was done in the first place. I think when you say in the moment, that is the key to it. I don't recall protests when Marcus Rashford was given a huge new contract, for example. The opposite. Because at the time, they're playing very, very well. The problem has been injuries, which no player wants themselves, or spectacular loss of form.

When Casemiro signed, that was celebrated. So another word you use, revisionism. It's quite right. Manchester United have just not been getting the rub of the green with luck, with injuries. The line about Mason Mount when he signed, you know, we were told that and didn't really have reason to doubt it. We were told that Liverpool had come in for him. Now, when Hoyland was signed...

I stood it up that PSG and Tottenham had both come in for him with much better offers. When Sancho was signed, we were all buzzing because we hadn't paid £110 million. So there's been so much revisionism around it. We all know Johnny Evans is a top earner in world football. He's deserved it for what he did last season. Rightly so. Messi shouldn't earn more than Johnny Evans. That is a fact. I go to court off the back of that. Another point about the wages. I feel a bit uncomfortable about this.

Jim Ratcliffe's, we're going to cut costs, cut costs, cut costs so that we can give football players even more. And a little bit of me feels if working class people are losing their jobs, which they are, and I understand the reasons for that, just to give players even more. I've just thought about that a few times in the last six months. Is this good for society? Is this good for humanity? But we've all signed up to this and there's plenty of people going, pay them what they ask for. I can remember saying,

being in PE a long, long time ago and my teacher going, these Man United players, two grand a week they get and some of them can't even trap a ball. So I don't want to sound like the old man shouting at clouds and I can't even say they should be balanced because the days have long, long gone. But I do feel uneasy about it. United traditionally have had control of the wages because the revenues have been so big.

Martin Edwards, he came out in a cold sweat when Alex Ferguson said, I want to sign Juan Sebastian Varane at his wages. But at the time, which is in the moment, there was a feeling Man United finally need to start shopping at the top people's store and bringing in a player who's considered world-class at the peak of his powers, not someone who's on the way down, not someone who's coming on the way up. And United signed Varane, it didn't quite work out. So hindsight again, in the moment, revisionism there.

But United have fared particularly badly in this area. I can't wait to go to the top people's store. What kind of brands have they got there? What shoes do they have to wear to go to top people's store? Ones that you wore at Wembley last year. Don't tell me you brought them for a shoe fair. Kyle, you were nodding along with that. I mean, it also presents the conundrum that United are facing with Kobi Meenu, potentially Alejandro Garnaccio, as well as to where to position these players. Because in terms of what they're contributing, well, certainly in Garnaccio's

situation this season with appearances, maybe not in end product, which we could open another can of worms on that. Obviously, Mane has suffered with injury this season as well. But you look at these two who are on modest wages in comparison to some of their teammates. These are players who in the last 12 months have scored in cup finals. These are players who have made the breakthrough at international level and they're going to want wages that reflect that. Manchester United have now got the challenge of where do they fit

on this continuum of wages, this spectrum of wages? It's really tricky. And I really like the fact that Laurie points out the wage-to-turnover ratio and how relatively healthy that is. That is helped by the fact that Manchester United are one of the biggest football clubs in the world, so that turnover should be healthy. I think if you want to go full Harry hindsight, as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer used to say, one of the big issues for United in recent years can be traced back to Alexis Sanchez.

So, Alexis Sanchez comes in under Jose Mourinho, asked to be essentially one of the highest paid players in the Premier League, but his ability to perform wasn't great. And this led to a domino effect of very big contracts being handed out since. So David De Gea was paid $1,000.

Well, he was the world's most expensive goalkeeper after that because he went to negotiations saying, well, if Sanchez is on that money, can I have that money? Well, I've been player of the year the last 10 years. So, yeah, reflect that. The Sanchez contract situation also had an interesting effect on Ander Herrera's contract negotiation that may have led to him departing. So, Sanchez being on that money led to a number of United players going, hang on, I've been working this hard for however long. Can I get closer to this money? And I think...

things have begun to settle recently and if you have if your top earner or if close to your top earner is Bruno Fernandes that means your negotiation players are going to go I want Bruno Fernandes money or at least now Manchester United can go hang on Bruno Fernandes ran and ran and ran and ran for the last four or five years and scored and assisted and captained that Bruno Fernandes level if you want Bruno Fernandes level money this is why even

even if there is a season where Fernandes cannot continue his output, that contract is less of an issue because it just helps settle everyone else.

The Manu situation in particular is of interest to me because certain figures are being thrown around that don't quite add up to me. But if you're Manu's people, are you going to make the argument that you want money close to Christian Eriksen for the idea of, well, Eriksen hasn't played X amount of games. I've come into the team or Manu's come into the team and played in Eriksen style positions. Can he be played Eriksen's money? And that would be...

It's an interesting argument and you'd hope Man United can go, we'll get you to Eriksen's money later on. And the Garnaccio situation is also interesting because, like you say, this is a player who's played a phenomenal amount of football in the last 18 months, is currently having more shots than any other United forward.

And if you're one of Garnaccio's team, you can maybe make that argument that he's integral to your attack and he'd like to be paid that much. But also, if you're United, the counter-argument you need to make is, well, okay, he's taken a lot of shots. He's not scoring that many goals. And we do need to sort some things out before we start paying like you're the person taking the amount of shots. So it's an interesting form of brinksmanship between player-player representatives and Manchester United. I think the contract negotiations have been getting better or they're getting a little bit more

if only because...

of the real high earners who perhaps haven't performed in the top level aren't necessarily at United right now. So the argument now comes, you're not getting past Bruno's level of money and you have to earn Bruno's level of money. I think the Mainu and Garnaccio ones are really fascinating for this reason. I mean, they signed their contracts when Mainu was 17, you know, Garnaccio was 18, I think. Had he played in the first team, Mainu, when he signed his deal? The current deal? Yeah, yeah. He'd made sort of three appearances when he'd signed that deal. But obviously it was before his big breakthrough. And so the...

There was inbuilt pay rises. And so when you look at it, he's actually a really good contract for a 17-year-old at that point. I think we're sort of looking... He'd made three appearances. £25,000 a week. Because I'm thinking... Doing well. Goodison Park's the B of the bank for Cobby Maynew, isn't it, basically? That's a reference point. But it was before that. So I think that's why there's been this discussion about what should that be looked at. And that's why United are...

you know I would love them both to sign and then go on from here and do fantastic stuff but I think from a United footballing point of view they're thinking well if we do have to really give them top dollar here to keep them is there an argument then to actually say well if we're not 100% sure on them to then look at what the options are in terms of a sale and

And I do think, to Karl's point, the Fernandes one is a perfect example because he joined from Sporting and he wasn't paid loads at Sporting so it was a good increase that he got anyway. But it was something like £100,000 when he first joined. Then he started performing absolutely fantastically and United kind of quickly came to a sort of renewal of that. It was a couple of years in but it was still fresh. He still had four years left on his deal at that point.

so it was a kind of we appreciate what you've done you deserve more there you go and then his latest contract that he signed last year wasn't about money it was more about commitment in terms of him wanting to hear from them what they wanted and him sort of saying yeah I'll go through with it so United want to do that with future signings so Patrick Dorgue being a case in point is only on about £40,000 a week even though they've signed him for he's gone straight into the first team I'm sure that they would have been pushing for more people

when he was joining but United can say listen we will reward you if you do perform for us After one of the defeats this season I asked a very good sports director what are Manchester United doing wrong and he said

over rewarding young players who've done absolutely nothing in terms of what they've won it's better to let them go so that is a counter argument to this he said Manchester United and this is someone who's worked at top clubs completely overpay young players give them huge contracts before they've won league titles

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the one thing about that though carl these young players we have positioned them as what's coming next for manchester united pieces to build the new puzzle around uh darren in melbourne had a question for us about exactly that actually dogu menu ahmad obi heaven yoro have all featured at stages this season with other youngsters waiting in the wings as well do you think

that these are the building blocks of a rebuilt team who are being phased in step by step or is this still a bit of brickmanship by Ruben Amorim before he gets what he actually wants I think it's half and half even players like Mainu and Garnaccio yeah they can absolutely be integral pieces of the next good Manchester United team however they've probably both played too many games for Manchester United right now

Manu's played a lot of games in central midfield because Eriksen and Mount have had injury problems and not performed at a level that you'd want a Manchester United player to perform. Garnaccio has played an astonishing amount of football, both on the left and on the right, because the £86m striker didn't pull up any trees when he first arrived, who was also on pretty big wages. If you're Garnaccio, I'd be pointing to Anthony going, can I have his wages please?

He might want more than Anthony's wages, to be fair. They are actually quite restrained with Anthony. I'd say quite in the spectrum of United. The ones at United are paying now for him to be on loan at Betis or the one he was getting when he was still at United. But it's more than Garnaccio and I'm sure there's probably someone in Garnaccio's camp going, hang on, no, I've scored in the FA Cup final, I've been playing all these minutes because that lad hasn't been doing his job. Can I have that money? So...

It's yes and no. There are definitely players who you can see will have a big role to play in the next four to five years. I'd love to poke my head through the time machine and see what Mainu looks like at 24 years of age. Has he got a switch? What other cool tricks has he got? I'd love to see how many more bicycle kick attempts Garnaccio has at 25, 26.

Yeah. A lot. I can guarantee you that. Be like the Rune of Chips, won't it? Be like a once every five or six game attempt, I imagine. But also you do need to top it up with other players. There's an interview Jim Radcliffe did with the Times, I want to say last summer, where he said it's going to take maybe two or three windows, but you've got to do it incrementally and then try and top it up with an Mbappe-style signing. Yeah.

Carrington's going to be really important. These young players are going to be really important. Let's not blow too much smoke up with these players at the moment. But yeah, there's some nice bits in there. Yeah. A couple of players that we should talk about actually before we finish off are in that four out of eight bracket.

jayden sancho you mentioned him before lori we had a question from graham about him just how much are united paying towards sancho's wages at chelsea if chelsea do use the five million opt-out clause how much would united actually get after deducting their share of the wages seems a very odd clause to have included in the agreement unless the opt-out option was significantly more than five million and who will have drawn up this agreement at united i mean that they're

quite difficult questions some of them to answer but it's put me on the spot though hasn't it yeah but fundamentally how does this shape up for United really well so I mean Ratcliffe said himself that United are paying half his wages so okay maybe he's speaking figuratively but you know let's take him at face value but

We think that Sancho's on something like 250 grand a week, so it's a hefty sum of money per week that United would be contributing to that. But their thought on it, as they did this with Brissett Dortmund last year, was that they'd be paying for a player that really wasn't going to feature, certainly wasn't a part of the plan. So,

you're kind of losing that money anyway. So give him to Chelsea. Obviously, the idea is that there's an obligation to buy, but now it has emerged. I think David Ornstein, along with our Chelsea writers, wrote that it's five million in terms of United getting that kind of money if Chelsea do back out of it. And that is more than what United would have paid him in wages during this period that he's been on Chelsea, I would imagine, isn't it? Yeah, well, it's kind of irrelevant, isn't it, though? Because it's just...

Chelsea are taking the money that United would have had to pay anyway off them. So that's kind of one thing. And then the five million is kind of just a fee for not going through with the obligation, which to be fair, I still would think that Sancho would have to agree personal terms with Chelsea. So I could be wrong there. He might have already done so, but I think that's still a question mark. So if he doesn't agree personal terms, then Chelsea can't sign him, can they? Because the player's still got authority in this matter as well.

then you get to a point of, well, he's actually got a plus one on his deal. So do United trigger the plus one to kind of retain the transfer value, which is what Edward Wood did all the time. He even gave new contracts out to retain the transfer value. We love the plus one.

But that would obviously cost United like 10 million in wages probably for the year. Is that risk worth it if you have to keep a player that you don't ultimately want? So yeah, it's a really fascinating one, the whole Jadon Sancho situation. But yeah, I think he's one of the top eight earners, as Ratcliffe said. Another one, obviously, Andy, on this is Marcus Rashford. So we haven't really spoken about him much since he made the loan move to Aston Villa. The coverage of Rashford's start at Villa has been phenomenal.

almost wholly positive really even his performances for England during the break have been praised it's weird for me so he hasn't scored in his first nine games for Aston Villa Marcus Rashford

if you include those two England games, that's 11 matches since he made the move where he's not scored. That's actually, in terms of club form, his longest run without a goal since 2021-22. We're talking three years he hasn't gone this long without a goal for his club. If he was doing this at United, would he be viewed as positively as he is being viewed? And he's not at United. There's a different scrutiny. Villa fans are

are partly delighted that they can attract players who are as good as Marcus Rashford because Villa have had a very bumpy ride in the last decade and they're doing very well now. I think technically Marcus Rashford is in the absolute top level. That has never been in doubt. What has been in doubt has been his consistency, the fact that his goals come in seasons when he has a brilliant season and

And then the following season, for whatever reason, and one of the reasons he said to me was he'd never had a full pre-season, then his form drops right off.

My old geography teacher's a Villa fan. He's certainly enjoying him. He messaged me the other day. He said, I'd love him to stay, but we'll never be able to afford to keep him. He seems to be proving a point at Aston Villa. And I think he's just getting carried away with the whole thing of Aston Villa are about to play Paris Saint-Germain in a Champions League game as well. I can understand why they're getting carried away. And I can as well. They've got a brilliant manager, which I've always maintained, even when people had a real downer on Unai Emery.

Marcus Rashford's one of the best paid players in the Premier League.

If Villa can't afford him, then he comes back to Manchester United. But my understanding has been that relations between him and Ruben Amarin are anything but harmonious. And I would be surprised for him to come back to Manchester United. But stranger things have happened. I've been there pre-season in America when, whoa, what's Alexis Sanchez doing here? Because a contract is a contract. I want Marcus Rashford to do well at Villa. One for him.

Two, because he's a Manchester lad. Three, because it helps Manchester United because his value would go up as well. Yeah, we want the positive coverage to continue in that sense. Can we talk about the fact that Andy's been texting his old geography teacher? Oh, he's a top man. Mr. Ty, I love him to bits. Messaging him reservoir levels, isn't he? He understands your fascination with that, doesn't he? There's loads of United stuff we can talk about there, but I just wanted to bring that one up there. Yeah.

You're totally right about how the coverage of Marcus Rashford and Aston Villa's shirt is different to that of him and Manchester United's shirt. We can also go back to Ante and Lange who we brought up earlier. Lange went six games this season without contributing a goal or assist and then when he scored again the

The conversation became, should Manchester United have let Alanga go? Yeah, yeah. I've just written a piece on Rasmus Hoylen that's on The Athletic right now, talking about one of the reasons why he went 21 games without scoring a goal. Yeah. Marcus Rashford's gone 11 games without scoring a goal, but he has got some assists. And yet those assists are the major topic of conversation right now of him in the village. Thomas Tuchel mentioned how he didn't think Rashford had a great game against Albania. And yet the conversation is more about how he just looks more like himself.

We talk about the Man United shirt weighing heavy. It's also just that level of scrutiny in that you can go three, four games without having a great game in a non-United shirt and it doesn't get brought up. But you do that in a Man United shirt and welcome to Talk of the Devil, son. We're going to talk about you for 20 minutes.

Absolutely. But we are going to leave it there, actually, on Talk of the Devils. That's it for this episode. Remember those live dates. I said them at the start of the show, but just to repeat, 12th of October in Belfast, 13th of October in Dublin, 14th of October in Cork, 10th of November in Manchester, and 11th of November in London. Tickets are on sale on Monday at 11am, so keep your eyes peeled to social media for all the details on that. There'll be no podcast on Monday. This is technically Monday's pod to preview Forest. We'll be back

after the game at the city ground with a review episode on Wednesday, also building up to the Manchester Derby as well. If you want to have your say, get in touch, devilspod at theathletic.com. But thank you, Carl. Thank you, Laurie. Thank you, Andy. And thanks for listening. See you on the next one. Take care. Bye-bye. The Athletic FC Podcast Network.

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