Omar Berrada pays Man City ultimate compliment with £9.7m Manchester United transfer

Omar Berrada announced his official start as Manchester United's new CEO on Saturday and it hasn't taken long for his fingerprints to appear at his new club.

Manchester City may not be as active as some fans would like in the summer transfer market, but their sales have still ticked along. Aston Villa, Chelsea and Newcastle are the only Premier League clubs to have made more than the £60m picked up by the Blues so far.

Liam Delap, Taylor Harwood-Bellis, Lewis Fiorini and Tommy Doyle have all been sold, with money also coming in from a sell-on clause inserted into the deal that took Douglas Luiz to Aston Villa in 2019. Being able to bank an extra £5m from a deal completed five years ago is one of the reasons why City have built up such an impressive reputation in the transfer market that allows them to keep investing in their squad without breaking spending rules.

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United and City have spent similar amount over the last five, ten, and 15 years but their net spend is not even closer. Since the start of the summer window in 2021 United have spent about £25m more but have a net spend of about £280m more because they have generated a paltry amount in sales.

Part of that is down to United making bad investments, players who have little to no resale value. Donny van de Beek arrived for £40m in 2020 and Girona have signed him this summer for an initial £430,000 (plus nearly £8m in potential add-ons, while a £70m deal for Casemiro did not appear to be good value beyond the first year.

However, City have also done a much better job at selling assets at the right time