Amateur Mistakes | How Not To Run A Football Club

[clarkydaz]

I'm not saying we are well-run but an awful lot of things are easier to say in hindsight.

That being said I would say the following are genuine blunders that everyone identified at the time.

- Moyes being given a 6-year contract. Literally, why? Not even Guardiola or Klopp get that long. I understand we were supposed to 'get behind your manager' but that doesn't need a 6 year deal. It should have been 2 years with an option for a 3rd.

- Fellaini being bought for £4m more than his clause.

- Extensions to Phil Jones and others for asset management.

- Long term extension to Ole this past summer. Even though there was some reasons to be encouraged by last season we had no need to extend Ole for 3 years. If you want to give him a 1 year extension so that he isn't going into the season with an expiring deal then that would make some sense. There was simply no need for a new 3 year deal off the back of our performance.

Sure we gave Nani a new deal to then loan him and pay lots of his wages at sporting. We actually pay astronomical money for players to play for other clubs (Sanchez aswell). Tragic club

 

[tjb]

@Lentwood, for me, most of the problems you have listed (and most of the problems we continue to have come down) to this: Not having a world class Director of Football.

If Manchester United had appointed an experienced, well-respected Director of Football, at any time in the past nine years, we would have avoided a lot of missteps.

A Director of Football is going to have a clear idea of how the team should play, what kind of players to buy to make that idea a reality, what kind of coach will be best placed to make it work.

A lot of the issues we have are the result of swinging wildly from one approach to the other. Van Gaal comes in wants to play 3-5-2, buys a bunch of players to fit it, then changes to 4-3-3 a few games later before ultimately settling on 4-2-3-1. Mourinho comes in, wants to play 4-2-3-1 on the counter attack. Sells all the possession based players Van Gaal recruited and buys counter attacking players. Ole starts off counter attacking, buying really expensive players to fit that, then switches his ideas up and finds there's a bunch of players that can't keep up. With a powerful Director of Football this doesn't happen. The Director of Football will pick the style and formation and make sure the signings and coach suit that.

An experienced Director of Football will also have a better grasp of value in football, what to pay players and what not, where to shop and where not, who to sell and who not.

Instead we've had a succession of people learning on the job and now we've got Murtough, who's also never been a Football Director.

To be honest I don't blame the club for a lot of these things. It's something we might have needed to learn and adapt to rather than something we should have know given the length and success of Fergie.

The biggest problems we had came from the managers, particularly LVG and Jose. We wanted to rebuild and managed to hire two of the most selfish managers in football, who cared more about proving how smart they were and their legacies than pushing the club forward. It's why they were both so short-sighted. LVG's tenure doesn't get exposed enough. How can you spend so much money ( bringing in 6 players who were almost all average btw), sell talented players so that you can fit into a tactic that you barely used prior outside of a 4 week period, only to rip up that tactical plan to sign players who fit another system. That 352 to 433 switch wasted half a season of progress, at a club like ours ( who we were) wasting 6 months was terrible. He's the one who brought in the majority of our deadwood...he clearly wasn't challenged as much by the board than he should have been. Mourinho then came in trying to have superstar signings, yet lacked the patience to control them. He was willing to buy short term fixes to reach goals he never actually achieved, which left us with not much progress in terms of quality by the time he left and a lot of money wasted. These managers took advantage of our willingness to give managers power due to Fergie's success. Which I don't necessarily blame the board for having. Our biggest mistake was in who we hired and the level of control we gave them. That is fixable and the signs have already shown that things are changing. I didn't like Ole's appointment, but he didn't underachieve

 

[RedDevil@84]

Moyes being given a 6-year contract. Literally, why? Not even Guardiola or Klopp get that long. I understand we were supposed to 'get behind your manager' but that doesn't need a 6 year deal. It should have been 2 years with an option for a 3rd.

SAF said so. Though he kind of denies now.
And our rookie team blindly believed SAF was right about Moyes. There was even the "Chosen One" banner.

 

[mctrials23]

I just want to give opinion on the bolded.

The "Wait and see" argument is probably the most prevalent argument for why Ole should never have been fired, and more importantly never extended.

The important factor for the signing in the first place is feedback. Feedback from the staff, players and importantly on-pitch result all screamed "Hire". Only the most pessimistic fans were sitting in the "Should have waited" category following the PSG night.

So what was the benefit of giving him a long term contract at that point? There were already signs that he was struggling and when performances are deteriorating the longer you are at the club i.e the peak was literally after you just took the job, how does that suggest you should rush to give the guy a contract.

That's what you tend to do with managerial appointments, you take a chance. Xavi had some good results in a nothing league in Qatar, he's now been given the reins at Barcelona. Everyone are apparently fine with that, but when Ole had results in a nothingleague in Norway, he's unqualified for the position. (No need to throw the Cardiff stay into the mix, its always the response after that comment)

And if Xavi hasn't shown signs that he is going somewhere with this squad and adding value over and above the base level of the players in the squad, how long do you think he will get. Its not just making a bad appointment, its doubling down on it that blows my mind. I can almost see the weird logic behind his first contract but the next one. No, you will never convince me that anything we had seen up to that point makes a sane person think Ole was top class or even remotely good enough for our ambitions.

Its a pretty strong indication that your manager is shit when every rival wants him to get a lifetime contract and everyone else wants him to stay because its just funny. Its a pretty strong indication that your manager is shit when no one else will offer them a top level job after they leave. Do you genuinely believe that Ole will end up at any club that players in the CL or even EL?

As for the contract renewal. This is the most repetetive argument of all "Should have waited until the summer".

Listen. Ole's contract is marginal in the scope of things at the club. He did not even collect the full term pay when he was let go. The financial impact to the club was neglible.

Again, who was complaining because of the money. I couldn't care less about severance packages. Its peanuts vs a bad player signing or whatever else. The issue is just what it says about the club. How anyone with half an eye for football could have watched us over the past 3 years and thought, that team and manager will compete with Liverpool and City of the title is beyond me. Our football was dire A LOT of the time and results flattered us massively at times over the season. We were regularly outplayed by much smaller/weaker/poorer teams and only beat them due to our superior players. How often do City or Liverpool get outplayed. 3, 4 times a season. We were outplayed dozens of times.

I agree that we are lacking a structure but we are also missing quality within that structure. When you have a good structure, you ruthlessly prune anyone who isn't good enough to fit in that structure. You don't leave them there for years in the hope that they will learn on the job unless they are a rough diamond showing clear progress.

 

[Tom Cato]

Its a pretty strong indication that your manager is shit when every rival wants him to get a lifetime contract and everyone else wants him to stay because its just funny. Its a pretty strong indication that your manager is shit when no one else will offer them a top level job after they leave. Do you genuinely believe that Ole will end up at any club that players in the CL or even EL?

If you ask that question at the start of the season you'd get a completely different answer than you would today. Your entire basis is what happened this season, nothing about the previous years when there was genuine contender talk after a strong season prior, and the signing of megastars in Varane and Ronaldo.

Obviously that didnt transpire, but you're judging everything that happened with book in hand as if everyone knew the future.

 

[mctrials23]

If you ask that question at the start of the season you'd get a completely different answer than you would today. Your entire basis is what happened this season, nothing about the previous years when there was genuine contender talk after a strong season prior, and the signing of megastars in Varane and Ronaldo.

Obviously that didnt transpire, but you're judging everything that happened with book in hand as if everyone knew the future.

I can't tell if you are kidding. Did you genuinely watch us over the last 3 years and think at any point that we were close to being good enough to mount a PL challenge or compete for the CL. I didn't think for a moment that we would have a great season this year. I thought we wouldn't struggle for top 4 particularly, simply because we have a top squad compared to almost everyone in the league. I didn't think the fall in results and quality would be quite so meteoric but I had been waiting for our performances to be reflected in results for quite a while.

This is what makes me think I am going crazy at times. The writing has been on the wall for Ole for almost the entire time he has been our manager.

Not improving players
Not implementing any sort of recognisable system that any of the top teams in europe play
Getting outplayed by a horribly large portion of our opponents
Team performing at a level less than the sum of its parts
Poor work rate as a team
Bad at making substitutions
Overly reliant on individual moments over rehearsed passages of play
Having his best performances by far in the few few months after he took over.

I could go on but you get the point. I have been saying that Ole isn't good enough for a long time. Plenty of our fans have too. They just get shouted down by people who think that as long as you win a game, the manner of the win doesn't have any relevance to the past or future and is no reflection on the state of the team or manager. People have been analysing and pointing out our massive issues with the above list for quite a while. This isn't some crazy situation that no one predicted.

 

[afatzp]

I think on this topic we can add one:

Don't wait until last year of players' contracts to negotiate extension

Because of above mistakes, we were in huge disadvantage on the negotiation table and be bargained to give De Gea / Martial the fat overpaid contracts, Herrera lost on free agent , Pogba / Lingard to be leaving on free agent.

Quite common practice is , we at least should start negotiation 2 years before contract expiration. If 1 year contract left and still no deal agreed, then we should move on to explore buyers to recoup some funds and look for replacement.

Those players who drag the renewal till last year are either 1) would like to leave on free agent and surely offered big sign-in bonus , or 2) leverage the situation to bargain with the club for fatter contracts that they don't deserve. In any case, you know they are money mercenary instead of truly like to stay in the club. Even eventually they signed, the salary structure would have been broken and soured the dressing room and their pay expectation. You'd better get rid .
In the most recent case, AC Milan surely did the right thing not extending Donnarumma or Kessie , while the club better sold them earlier though.

 

[sparx99]

SAF said so. Though he kind of denies now.
And our rookie team blindly believed SAF was right about Moyes. There was even the "Chosen One" banner.

Oh I know! It just seems crazier as time goes on.

 

[Fluctuation0161]

I almost feel like our fanbase would rather the club not try, rather than try and fail.

The reason we gave the likes of Rashford, Sancho and Martial that kind of money was because the club didn't intend on selling them. I'd say where we fail is, once we back a horse financially we don't fully commit to it. Any manager coming into the club should be made aware the roles/positions of the following X players are non-negotiable. The coach has to fit his system around them, because we've invested too much into them.

No, the point is fans don't want amateur moves by the club.

Changing from LVG to Jose, having pmly just invested in lots of possession based players, is prime example of a schoolboy mistake.

Try, but try with some knowledge and experience, not with a fecking investment banker who doesn't have a clue.

 

[Iker Quesadillas]

I'm not a Manchester United fan so I'm not invested in this stuff. But as an outside observer, I'll say this:

Firing a manager who isn't doing an obviously poor job is a very risky move. Based on what I've seen, I don't think Ole was doing an obviously poor job, and I don't think it was obvious that he should have been fired.

 

[Foxbatt]

Now I see Zakaria is going to Juventus for 5 million.

 

[tenpoless]

Number 1 mistake : Dealing with Raiola at all.

 

[Red Rash]

The club has a big decision to make regarding Greenwood, let's see how they handle it.

Surely it has to be immediate suspension pending an investigation and then terminating his contract if found guilty?

This should be a situation where the club can't make the wrong decision but let's hope they don't do anything stupid here.

 

[AndyMUFC86]

After seeing the news this morning about Anthony Martial's loan move to Seville, and being reminded of his gigantic weekly salary in the process, I began thinking about mistakes that an 'amateur' would make if they were put in-charge of running a top football club.

I'm not really referring to things like 'buying player X' or 'appointing manager Y' (although you can have those if it's part of a broader point), but I am more interested in mistakes that may SEEM like good ideas to an amateur...but actually a seasoned, savvy Director of Football or CEO would avoid.

I can think of a few examples, go-ahead and contribute your own

Huge Salaries to 'Hot Prospects'

On the face of it, seems like a good idea. Tie your top talent down to long-term contracts by offering them above market rate salaries. Secures your assets and helps the manager plan.

However, as we have seen, it could be argued that this leads to players losing that extra little bit of motivation they need to become a real top player. We have given Sancho £350K per week at 21, Rashford was on 200K per week at 21, and Martial was on £250K.

It also means that players become near-impossible to sell, if it doesn't work out. Martial is a regular in the French squad and in a World where Chris Wood is worth £25m, we should be looking at double that for a player of his undoubted ability. However, because we pay such ludicrous wages, we price-out any 'second-tier' clubs who would love to have a player like Martial (by 'second-tier' I mean those clubs just below the top clubs, not 2nd Division!)

For context, Mo Salah is currently on £220K and Sadio Mane is on £110K

Renewing Contracts to Secure Value of our 'Assets'

Again, seems logical. Footballers are worth money, and in theory, you don't want them leaving on a free. Therefore, it makes perfect sense to renew their contracts and protect them as a saleable asset, right? This is certainly how an accountant would think, if they were running the club (cough...Ed)

Well again, not really no, not if you have absolutely no interest in giving them any reasonable game-time and are paying them above market rate salaries (again). The trouble is, when you renew players like Jones and Lingard just so that you can potentially get a fee at some point in the future, all your really doing is hurting their career (and their market value in the process) and the likelihood is, you'll struggle to shift them if they're not playing regularly because no middle-tier club is going to pay £35m and £150K p/w in wages for a player who averages about 5 starts a season.

Far better to simply renew contracts on merit only. If a player doesn't deserve a new contract, well then that tells you they should be sold! Little bit of foresight and squad-planning would go a long way!

Signing Players Who Were Reluctant to Join

Surely if top players are available, you turn on the charm offensive and throw the kitchen sink at them to get them to OT?

Well...goes without saying really, and I am mainly referring to Angel di Maria here. If you're having to beg a player to sign, that should tell you everything you need to know.

Giving Moyes 8-Months

When Moyes was sacked, we sat 7th in the table and Champions League qualification was mathematically impossible. SAF had won the league with this team the year previous and Moyes looked clueless as to how to get a performance out of the side, surely he had to go?

Well, I am not here to debate whether Moyes was the right man, but what I am saying is that we certainly didn't give Moyes the support or the time he needed to have any chance of making a success of the job. Once we had decided that Moyes was the right man, the club should have been smart enough to realise that choppy waters were likely ahead and it was going to take some time to get things right, particularly since we saw a quick exodus of our (former) top players after SAF left. SAF himself recognised this, and made a point of warning us several times in his farewell speech. I think he knew full-well what was coming.

Of course, as fans, many of us decried the poor results and thought it quite right that Moyes was sacked, but with hindsight, what did we realistically expect? Whoever took the job should have been GUARANTEED 24-months minimum. I am sure that however it would have eventually worked out, we would be in a better position than we ended up in.

Rushing to give Solskjaer the Job Permanently

United had just beaten PSG in the Round of 16 and were on our best run of results post-SAF. The players seemed to be loving their football, the fans were in good spirits and ex-players proclaimed that United we're "back!". Surely they had to give Ole the job permanently?

In fairness, this one was touch-and-go, and I think many of us, myself included, would have made the same mistake. But did we really need to give Ole a long-term deal after that PSG game? He wasn't ever going to hold us to ransom or go and join another club, why didn't we just wait until the end of the season and evaluate then? Again, we might still have made the same decision, and I still believe we're better for having appointed Ole....but I understand many fans don't...so should we have just waited? We certainly had no reason to jump-in with both feet, but we kinda did!

Sacking LvG for Jose Mourinho

LvG hadn't pulled up any trees, had just one-year left on his contract and suddenly, one of the top managers in world football is available, surely it's a no-brainer?

Well, again, I'm not here to comment on whether LvG was a good United manager, or Jose Mourinho was a good United manager...but what I would say is that switching from one to the other in the manner that we did was crazy. As many have pointed out, their two styles could hardly be more polarised. LvG liked very technical footballers, players who could play in multiple position and who were comfortable in possession. Jose liked players with elite physical attributes who had no qualms about getting the ball forward as quickly as possible into a big CF and playing on the counter.

Whether you think we were right to sack LvG or not, the fact that we made this transition without giving any thought to the squad we had just assembled under his stewardship was VERY amateur in my opinion.

So....any more for any more?

You’ve nailed it there pal. If I had the energy to type it out I’d of been almost word for word with you on the majority of your points. Well done!

 

[HailtotheKing]

I think most of our fans would like us to just make sensible decisions.

None of the OP decisions were ones that were necessary or wise either at the time or in hindsight. The only one that was a good call was sacking Moyes. Nothing about the guy suggested he was up to the job. Good manager at a certain level but that level is where he is now. Giving him a 6 year contract was the first mistake and a quite obvious one.

We seem to make decisions based on best case outcomes. "If everything goes perfectly this is a good decision". Its not even like most of the decisions had any tangible benefits either.

Giving players huge salaries too young almost never ends well, doesn't motivate them and usually backfires.

Giving a manager a 6 year contract when he has never shown any signs of playing the style of football you want and who has never managed an elite level club.

Giving a manager with a massively questionable managerial record a long term contract before the end of the season when he would have 0 suitors boggles my mind. Extending that contract when he had shown nothing in 2+ years of managing us is mind blowing. He literally wasn't even getting par from out squad and our performances were all over the place to put it nicely.

Its like the club thinks its better than everyone else. They behave like a legacy brand that has become too comfortable in its position and couldn't foresee that anyone could knock them off their perch. I mean, how could we be poorly run when we are so wealthy and successful and if we are wealthy and successful then clearly we have top people making the decisions.

In all honestly I can't think of too many good decisions the club has made in the past 8 years. Very very few good value signings. The best things to come out of the club are youth players. Fernandes was a great buy and thats about it.

Spot on. What’s incredible is how people kept their jobs after such obvious mistakes. Repeated mistakes at that. Mistakes that cost the business millions. Goes just shows how completely disconnected the Glazers are. Zero interest so long as the money is rolling in.

Also, I think we are the laziest club in the league. Decisions like giving Ole a contract just because the fans wanted it, proves it. As you said, they appear to look at best case scenarios. But are those best case scenarios or simply decisions designed for least work and least involvement? Like let’s give him the contract cause then we don’t need to think about other options or talk to anyone. That seems to be the theme with everything we do. Other clubs are proactive. They don’t just react to events, they’re already talking to players and managers, making pre contract agreements, sounding out alternatives, looking at the future. But that football stuff seems to get in the way of selling stuff and signing noodle sponsorships. We are an absolute joke. I thought getting Rangnick in and Murnaugh was a sign of change. But it seems like they vetoed Ralf. Which leads me to question if the whole thing was a smokescreen anyway.

 

[Tarrou]

the obvious one for me is putting Woodward in charge and keeping him there for so long

just think about how ridiculous it is that we had a former accountant trying to convince the likes of Klopp to join us

 

[HailtotheKing]

the obvious one for me is putting Woodward in charge and keeping him there for so long

just think about how ridiculous it is that we had a former accountant trying to convince the likes of Klopp to join us

Yup that would be the no 1. Literally everything stems from that. You could also add to that, letting David Gill leave at the same time as Fergie. Suddenly you have a guy who knows nothing in charge of the biggest club in England. And a 6 year contract to Moyes was the result. Plus Fellaini for more than they originally accepted. No one can blame him for following Fergie in Moyes but who has ever been given a 6 year contract in football? Never mind an absolute rookie at that level. Bonkers.

Our second biggest mistake was not realizing our mistakes and firing the people responsible. How Judge is still there and Woodward lasted so long is just unfathomable. After repeating the same mistake again and again.

 

[Foxbatt]

Now City has signed Alvarez for 14 million. It's good to trim the squad but we have a lot of lower standard of players.
The biggest mistake is Woodward and the next is him listening to ex United players.

 

[VidaRed]

In a hypothetical scenario if the glazers had tasked woodard to do a shit job post saf could he have done any worse than what he achieved ?

 

[tenpoless]

The fact that Glazers offered Ralf a consultancy position even before making him an intertim shows that they have pretty much given up. It was their "You know football club? know what do to? do it and help us, we dont know".

 

[r0663664]

Ed doesn't know how to run a football club. We are just paying too much to sign or renew a player. Our salary should be in line with our rivals, why should we be paying premium where players sit on the bench collecting their wages. Players should get huge bonuses for us winning the League, FA Cup, League and Champion league. Players' salary should also tie to no. of start to the squad. If you are a XI player then you should start at least 30 games. If you are a squad players then at least 8 games. If you play more as you have improved then you get additional bonus. All contracts and salary must to tie to performance. We need hungry players!