Project Description
The goal of this project is to breakdown and create visual representations (via Tableau) of the transfer business that Manchester United F.C have carried out in the Premier League era (1992 - 2020). The dataset used in this project has been obtained from (https://github.com/ewenme/transfers) and contains player movement information (loans, transfers, retirements, academy to first team promotions, player releases etc) on all teams that have played in the Premier Leagues. The key objectives of this analysis are as follows :
- Breakdown the no of transfers (loans vs fee based transfers vs free transfers);
- Demographics of players involved in transfers;
- Identify the clubs MUFC has dealt with;
- Create a visual mapping of the transfers (Use Tableau to convert data from a tabular form to one where user has more intractability options)
- Transfer fee aggregate information;
Data Sources and Description
- premier-league - CSV file obtained from data source containing all transfer information of the premier league (secondary data source - obtained from https://github.com/ewenme/transfers)
- Mufc_transfers_2023 - CSV file containing latest manchester united transfers that was not present in original dataset at time of download (obtained from https://www.transfermarkt.co.in/manchester-united/transfers/verein/985)
- Manutd Player Database - CSV file containing nationality info of manchester united players (obtained from https://www.worldfootball.net/)
- Club_info - CSV file contating nationality, geolocation data of clubs involved in tranfer with manchester untited (data manually generated using Google Maps)
Summary of findings
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 Transfers
- Overall, the club has completed 272 Loan Transfers (261 Outgoings & 11 Incoming)(Player returns and departures after end of loan spells not included), 230 Permanent Transfers (117 Outgoings and 113 Incoming) and 115 Free Transfers (100 Outgoing and 15 Incoming).
- The club tends to loan out players a lot more than loaning them in. This corresponds to the club's policy of sending youth players out on loan for development(The median age of an outgoing loan player from the club in 20 years).
- More transfer business is done is summer window (425) compared to winter window(198).
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Player Nationality and Age
- Players featuring in the club's transfer business hail from 47 different countries.
- English players (32 Incoming & 240 Outgoings) top the list in terms of both incoming and outgoing transfers. Among Non-English Nations, the club has brought in players the most number of times from France (13) , Netherlands (11) and Brazil (7). Players from Scotland (24), Northern Ireland (19) and Republic of Ireland feature among the top Non-English Nations in regards to outgoing transfers (Count is not limited to unique players. Same players transferred to multiple different clubs ( ex. multiple loans) is also taken into consideration).
- The oldest player for whom the club paid a fee for is Cristiano Ronaldo (Aged 36) from Juventus for a fee of 15 Million Euros in 2021. The youngest player for whom the club paid a fee for is Kalam Mooniaruck (Aged 15) from Norwich for an undisclosed sum in 1999.
- The oldest player for whom the club has received a fee for is Bryan Robson (Aged 40) who joined Middlesbrough F.C for an undisclosed sum in 1994.
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Clubs that MUFC have done Transfer Business with
- The club has done transfer business with 200 clubs in total.
- The club have brought in the most number of players from Aston Villa - England (5), As Monaco - France, Sporting CP -Portugal, Ajax - Netherlands, PSV Eindhoven - Netherlands with 4 transfers each (count included loans, free transfers and permanent transfers)
- The club have transferred out the most number of players to Royal Antwerp - Belgium (22), Preston North End F.C - England (14) & Sunderland A.F.C - England (14). Royal Antwerp features prominently in this list as a result of a 1998 agreement with MUFC to act as a feeder club for the development of young MUFC players looking for more game time. Manchester United have also had a good relationship with Preston North End F.C with several youngsters joining the side in their developmental phase.
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Fee Aggregate Analysis
- The club has spent ~ 2.36 Billion Euros in Player Acquisitions (Permanent Transfers and Loan Fees) since the inception of the Premier League in 1992.
- The club has made ~ 830 Million Euros in Player Sales (Permanent Transfers and Loan Fees) since 1992.
- The net spend of the club stands at ~ 1.53 Billion Euros as of 2022.
- Overall (Premier League 1992 - 2022), the club spends an average of ~ 20 Million Euros to acquire a player and makes an average revenue of ~ 7 Mil on a player sale.
Tableau Dashboard
The transfers are represented in the form of a hub and spoke diagram, with the end and start points of the spoke representing the Geo-location of the two clubs involved in the transfer. Multiple filter options have been implemented to help the user quickly get to the information they want.
