Top players signing for Manchester United often reflects greed not ambition

Manchester United is a massive club with a massive history, but why do so-called ‘ambitious’ players join the club if they know they aren’t likely to win major trophies soon?

“I’m an ambitious player”. We hear this a lot from footballers – normally ones who are looking for big transfers in the near future. Maybe they don’t say those words exactly, but usually, their explanation contains the word ambition, or at the very least ‘trophies’, which normally goes hand-in-hand with the former.

We see big transfers all the time, as there are a number of financial juggernauts in world football that love to throw their money around like a schoolboy at the candy store. One of these clubs is Manchester United, who are among the highest-spenders in world football on a yearly basis.

Yet, I find it absolutely hilarious when a highly sought-after player claims to be ambitious, can pick pretty much any club he likes, and then joins Manchester United.

Sure, the Red Devils have a massive history, a massive stadium, and are one of the biggest clubs in the world. Yet, they aren’t anywhere near good enough to win any significant trophies anytime soon. So why do these so-called ‘ambitious’ players join them? Well, usually it comes down to the money. At the end of the day, many of these players tend to throw away this ‘ambition’ of theirs the minute a club waves a ridiculous amount of money in their face.

This happened with Alexis Sanchez a few years ago. He was one of the best players in the Premier League, and he was sick of Arsenal’s lack of ambition. Sure, that’s completely fair. After all, Robin van Persie and Cesc Fabregas felt the same way and they joined clubs who were in a better position to win significant trophies at the time.

Alexis Sanchez was linked with Manchester City very heavily when he was on the verge of leaving the Gunners, and this was a move that made sense to many. After all, Pep Guardiola’s team was guaranteed to win the Premier League at the time and were considered Champions League contenders too. Alexis moving to the Etihad would have confirmed his desire to be ambitious.

Instead, the Chilean legend foolishly opted to move to Manchester United instead – a move that would decimate his career. The Red Devils waved a whopping Premier League-record £500,000-per-week contract in his face, and Alexis forgot all about the trophies and settled for a big fat cheque instead.

At the time, Manchester United was no better than Arsenal, and they hardly still are. The Gunners fall into a similar boat as the Red Devils at the moment – no truly ambitious player with the world at his feet would choose to join them over other big clubs that are in better positions to win silverware. Those who value money over trophies are a different story though, as Alexis Sanchez showed us.

This doesn’t mean they can’t sign great players of course, both Arsenal and Manchester United have done so in recent years, it just means that the very best players should be steering clear of them if they have their head in the right place.

So it comes as a surprise to me, to see players like Harry Kane, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, and Jadon Sancho linked so heavily to Manchester United. If they are indeed ambitious, as they most likely have said or will say, then they will steer clear of the Red Devils, at least for the time being.