Player Trading
There are two things shown on the graph below. The blue column shows how much the club has spent on bringing in new players each year. This could be viewed as a measure of how much the board has backed the manager. The second claret column shows the net amount spent each year. So any money generated by the sale of players is taken off the outgoings.
The 2003 and 2004 sales brought in a pile of cash, the 2007 and 2008 figures show huge outgoings. The 2008 figures may well have Carlos Tevez included both as an incoming and an outgoing, otherwise the numbers don't seem to add up.
In a note at the end of the 2008 results the club explain that they recognise that the investment in players is unsustainable. To help fix this they sold £31m worth of players, bringing in £18m to replace them. This has meant "a number of high earning but underperforming players have been replaced by players on lower wages but with greater potential". This will be Zamora, Ferdinand, McCartney, Etherington and Bellamy out, and Behrmai, Tristan, Nsereko in. That some of those leaving had only just joined seems to show a strategy being made up as it goes along.
