Five reasons why Manchester United have fired blanks so far in the transfer window

Manchester City Chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak

The Monetary Muscle men lie elsewhere

Manchester United are not bankrolled, like Real Madrid or Barcelona, or for that matter owned by middle-Eastern or Russian billionaires.

Paris Saint Germain, Monaco and Manchester City are the new muscle men in town whose Euros can dictate where a player lands up. Even Chelsea under Roman Abramovich have been forced to take a backseat with a few of their targets lapped up by these clubs too.

The Ligue 1 has dominated much of the transfer business in the last two years with big money deals for Thiago Silva, Lucas Moura, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Radamel Falcao, Joao Moutinho and Edinson Cavani. If you had told the average French football fan three years ago that they would have three of the top five strikers in world football plying their trade in the French league, they wouldn’t believe you.

United still have the funds to make perhaps, the one big signing each season, like they did with Robin Van Persie last year. The total spending was in the range of £40 million last year with the added acquisition of Shinji Kagawa. One can safely take that amount to be the figure that United would play ball with when it comes to transfers.

Anything higher, like the Ronaldo deal, would involve a lot of hand-wringing from their various sponsors and associates.