£60m for Mason Mount, £85m for Antony, £80m for Harry Maguire and the David de Gea contract shambles - Man Utd must be one of world football's worst transfer negotiators

Last summer, Manchester City made more money from transfers than Manchester United have over the last decade. Let that sink in for a moment. City banked £143 million ($183m) from the sales of Raheem Sterling, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Gabriel Jesus among others, allowing them to turn a profit despite signing Erling Haaland and Kalvin Phillips for a combined £95m ($121m).

On the other side of Manchester, United made a grand total of £11m ($14m), most of which came from the sale of Andreas Pereira to Fulham. In the same summer, they splashed out £208m ($266m), spending £85m ($109m) alone on Antony.

Pereira ended the season with 10 goal contributions and was one of Fulham's most influential players in an impressive first season back in the top flight. Antony, meanwhile, contributed to just six goals for United in the Premier League, scoring just once between November and May and not providing an assist until April. He ended the season with as many assists in the Premier League for United as in the Eredivisie for Ajax.

It might seem opportunistic to compare the prices of two players of different ages, positions and career paths, but, given how they performed last season, it seems fair to conclude that United undersold Pereira and vastly overpaid for Antony.

While every club makes mistakes in the transfer market and deals can only be judged with the benefit of hindsight, United have been made to look like very bad negotiators in the transfer market, when it comes to both buying and selling players. There is little sign of an improvement in how they do deals either, having recently agreed to pay up to £60m ($51m) for Mason Mount despite him being in the last year of his contract with Chelsea, while they look like woeful operators having withdrawn their offer of a new contract for David de Gea after the Spaniard had agreed to the terms, leading to him departing the club in farcical circumstances.

And so as United look to do deals with Inter for Andre Onana, Atalanta for Rasmus Hojlund and other players in a bid to boost Erik ten Hag's squad for the coming season, the clubs on the other side of the negotiating table know that they can take the Red Devils for a ride.