United buy Ander & Luke Shaw for £60m+, way to go NUMPTIES!

Wow, I haven't seen a bad bit of business like this in a long time.  Especially not in a single day. Ander Herrera will be 25-years-old by the time Premier League season starts and he's never been called up to play for his country.  Is this the kind of player Man U has stooped too?  Don't get me wrong, he's a good player, but he's no where near worth £30m. Let's see how he stacks up against our midfield:

	Herrera	Sterling	Gerrard	Can	Coutinho	Hendo
age	25*	19	34	20	22	24
app (sub)	31(2)	24(9)	33(1)	24(5)	28(5)	35
mins	2548	2220	2895	2190	2323	3129
goals	5	9	13	3	5	4
assists	5	5	13	3	7	7
chances	53	51	67	16	64	62
npg90	0.18	0.36	0.09	0.12	0.19	0.12
gcp90	0.35	0.57	0.81	0.25	0.47	0.32
ccp90	1.9	2.1	2.1	0.7	2.5	1.8
pass %	80.6	81.7	85.9	77.9	80.6	87.1
bp %	40.6	46.8	30.6	39.6	36.7	41.2
sacc %	27.9	48.9	51.7	31.4	28.7	32.7
shot %	7.4	20	27.1	12	7	8.2
TTI90	15.3	12.1	10.9	13.2	11	9.5

His numbers are most comparable to Coutinho and Henderson. Our Brazilian produces more chances and turns over the ball much less.  Need I remind anyone that we got him for £8.8m? Three times less, three years younger, and more productive.

Henderson is the far superior passer, turns over the ball much less, and is nearly a year younger.  Dalglish was ridiculed for paying around £16m for Henderson, but compared to what Man U gave Atletico Bilbao for Ander, he looks like a genius.

I've had my say about Luke Shaw. If he turns out to be as productive as Kolarov, his price is somewhat justfied, but he's got a lot of work to get there and he's got to stay healthy to do so.  Southampton must be laughing all the way to the bank, £20m was probably too much.

The thing that pisses me off more than anything is that buys like these severrely skew the market value of players.  Brendan Rodgers has made some really bad buys (Borini & Aspas come to mind), but Coutinho and Sturridge help us forget.  I have a feeling Can, who we got for £10.5m, will end up being a great add as well. 

Man U seems to lack the ability to make deals via leverage and just splashes the cash to avoid negotiation.  If a player wants to leave a club and his valuation is surpassed, it's hard for the retaining club to deny such a transaction.  Luke Shaw is not worth £30m, but unfortunately Ricardo Rodriguez is now probably worth £50m because of deals like these.