Club Ownership | INEOS responsible for the football side

[decorativeed]

So no, then.

Well another way to look at it is this: yes.

I don't think it's beyond the realms of belief to think that someone who lives in Manchester and has worked at the club knows other people who also worked there. Is it? It's hardly Philip K Dick stuff.

 

[NewGlory]

I think the Antony signing alone is enough to make me want there to be less of a free rein for managers wanting to sign their faves in future. But for the manager to have *no* say on which players we sign, beyond picking from a very limited set menu proposed by some suit, seems like a recipe for disaster.

Very well said. Agree 100%

 

[NewGlory]

Yes but pep and Klopp are obviously good at signing players and picking out talents. ETH unfortunately as shown he isn’t. Why would you not want number 3? I mean how many times have we swapped managers who play completely different styles and then that means forever changing players and signing for different styles. At least this way it means we’ll already have certain players to play the same style no matter who the manager is

Right, but the solution for that is signing managers who want to play the style of football that you want to play, not - telling a manager what style to play. Esp given that style always needs to adapt depending in the opponent, if you want to win anything.

Case in point:
1. Dont sign Mourinho
2. If you do sign somebody like EtH who can clearly play attacking football, just give him proper squad and leave him alone

 

[Castia]

I’m all for budgeting especially after the shambles in recent years but at the same time the squad needs investment. Questions will be asked if the window closes with no improvement in the squad.

 

[saivet]

You can certainly see why the Glazers liked this deal. Investment in the infrastructure whilst also cutting costs in the business. The football structure being revamped is probably just an added benefit for them. I expect Ineos to make the club much more valuable, even if some of their actions may seem a bit ruthless/unpopular in terms of their treatment of staff.

 

[Infra-red]

I’m all for budgeting especially after the shambles in recent years but at the same time the squad needs investment. Questions will be asked if the window closes with no improvement in the squad.

There will be signings, but people should not expect a massive summer of spending - United missed out on the Champions League windfall, are already struggling financially and the key decision makers on the player recruitment side have only just joined or are not yet in post. We will have to wait until next summer, when the new recruitment team have properly got their feet under the table, to be able to judge their competence in the market. We should temper expectations.

 

[FujiVice]

I'd happily take a collection of good signings over what we did in Ten Hag's first summer. Casemiro was a revelation for the first 8 months, granted. But we're talking 150 million on Antony and Casemiro. That simply cant happen again. It makes no sense. A giant gamble record signing and someone who simply cant be long term.

Onana, Dalot, Martinez, Shaw, Mainoo, Garnacho, Bruno, Amad and Hojlund are a fine base for an attractive and successful side. What we need is smart additions to it. I'm the first to moan on here, but this does not seem like the worst thing in the world. You dont bring in people like Berrada Wilcox and Ashworth if you are going down the route of being dumb with the signings.

 

[alexthelion]

United are in a terrible financial position because of all the ridiculous transfer fees we've paid out on players over the last 10 years.

I made a similar point on the ticket price thread. It's always the fans (or in this case office staff) who pay the price for reckless spending. We're potentially going to make a combined loss of 50 million + if we sell Antony and Sancho this summer. That's not the fault of people working in the office.

Not their fault, no, but under Woodward the level of staffing has become bloated. Saw somewhere that United have 300+ more staff than equivalents. It's no surprise if some are culled.

 

[alexthelion]

Where have these reports come from though, and why only since Ratcliffe wants to get rid of everyone? And why are we all fine with that? He came in to sort the football side of things - the part of the business haemorrhaging millions per week from poor transfer business and silly contracts over the past 11 years. Why do the staff earning a fifth of a squad player's weekly wages per year come under his remit?

And i can tell you that in my time working at United, it was very much a skeleton crew. There was always a hiring freeze and actual permanent jobs would very rarely come up. They'd often replace a full time permanent role with two or three people working zero hours contracts and many other departments relied heavily on 6-12 month short term contracted staff.

Job security there was terrible, but then again, anyone that did leave was almost assured a job at City, because they could share the knowledge of how things were run with their rivals who also paid better money.

Personally, I wouldn't have taken a job over at the Etihad, but I know a fair few people who did do - it's full of former United staff there, many of whom did a good job at United, and are United supporters, but who were more appreciated over at City. As an employer we're terrible, but "bloated" or "overstaffed" is never a phrase I'd have used.

 

[DownRiver]

So ETH saying they will basically build a whole new training complex is wrong? Or is this a backstop until they do create a new complex in the meantime.

Quotes from EtH: https://tribuna.com/amp/en/news/man...troy-carrington-and-build-a-new-training-gro/

 

[DownRiver]

I think you need to read this thread

We do not have issues with PSR this summer we had issues last summer 21/22 does not count against PSR for the coming season. Not to mention Ineos are free to inject cash into the club in order to record a profit for the season/help with transfers, if they do not (considering the importance of this summer) they are not much better than the Glazers

There is a difference between having the ability to do something and actually doing it. The money could also be used for a training ground and a new stadium too.

 

[alexthelion]

I mean all we have seen from them is talk. We want to do things x, y, z. Yes they have made structural changes but nothing has changed.

Look at the way Ten Hag has been handled, whether you want him to stay or sacked, its pure disrespect, which is how it was under the Glazers.

Do you think we will get more value signings? quicker deals? Look how long its taking to decide on the manager, over 6 months.

Glazers based managerial based on game by game which was why Ole, Jose and the like were facing the sack after every few bad results, the same has been with Ten Hag.

Maybe it's because the new management structure isn't in place yet?

 

[alexthelion]

Are all our office personnel on minimum wage? I doubt that.
Are they all absolutely necessary? I doubt that too.
Furthermore I have seen absolutely no blame attributed to the rank and file employees for anything, only that we are a bloated and over staffed organisation. No problem with INEOS thinning out and improving efficiency.

Exactly.

 

[alexthelion]

Quite right, apologies.

What I meant to say is that I've never seen any one poster post so many posts cheering on staff losing their jobs. Presumably because they think that if Eleanor in the museum, John in Sponsor Servicing or Dave in the club shop are gotten rid of, we'll somehow start playing better next season.

 

[idek2346]

So ETH saying they will basically build a whole new training complex is wrong? Or is this a backstop until they do create a new complex in the meantime.

Quotes from EtH: https://tribuna.com/amp/en/news/man...troy-carrington-and-build-a-new-training-gro/

In the long-run, they will build new. The new measures are to bring it up to par in the interim.

 

[DJ_21]

Right, but the solution for that is signing managers who want to play the style of football that you want to play, not - telling a manager what style to play. Esp given that style always needs to adapt depending in the opponent, if you want to win anything.

Case in point:
1. Dont sign Mourinho
2. If you do sign somebody like EtH who can clearly play attacking football, just give him proper squad and leave him alone

Managers should be able to adapt their style anyway. They should be flexible. Liverpool have a set playing style now since Klopp which is why they chose Slot who apparently has the closest style to Klopp. The idea of asking a manager what position he wants and then the transfer team going finding players that fit in with the style of play and then letting the manager choose which one is what should happen if we want to be successful.

 

[Yakuza_devils]

Is there any leaks/indication when the end of season review going to be completed and we can start planning for next season?

 

[Marcelinho87]

I find it incredibly difficult to believe INEOS are running to papers spilling the beans on their grand plans regarding the office culture and need to cull at United… United are such an easy target and fans get riled up over nothing.

I am also shocked/amused at the amount of people here who lap it up.

This is all media driven bollocks as per because United = clicks.

 

[Nevilles.Wear.Prada]

Realistically we are up against a trully depleted liverpool, 115 charges and a resurgent Arsenal. All the management has to do is not to feck it up and we can get top 3 every season and even push for the title within next few years.

 

[doubleohseven]

Are all our office personnel on minimum wage? I doubt that.
Are they all absolutely necessary? I doubt that too.
Furthermore I have seen absolutely no blame attributed to the rank and file employees for anything, only that we are a bloated and over staffed organisation. No problem with INEOS thinning out and improving efficiency.

No problem, either, unless Ineos themselves get the chop for poor performance.

Ratcliffe included.

Something tells me that won't happen, though.

 

[Pickle85]

Well another way to look at it is this: yes.

I don't think it's beyond the realms of belief to think that someone who lives in Manchester and has worked at the club knows other people who also worked there. Is it? It's hardly Philip K Dick stuff.

There's nothing else that I can find online or on twitter that refers to this happening, which seems very odd. I don't mean to be skeptical, but I'll take the word of some bloke on a forum with a pinch of salt.

 

[decorativeed]

Very insightful, thanks for your contribution.

 

[decorativeed]

There's nothing else that I can find online or on twitter that refers to this happening, which seems very odd. I don't mean to be skeptical, but I'll take the word of some bloke on a forum with a pinch of salt.

No, I get that. But there's someone else on here with the same experience.

I also don't think there was anything wrong with any club furloughing staff. Bigger, more wealthy companies did, but football clubs were shamed into not doing. I know my friends and family that worked at United during covid would have preferred to have been furloughed in retrospect, because of the way remote working was managed. It was incredibly stressful, with some managers forcing staff on site at the height of the pandemic in order to assist with meaningless tasks so that they could keep an eye on them.

 

[romufc]

Maybe it's because the new management structure isn't in place yet?

Its funny people say this, but then if he gets sacked, is it the old regime sacking him or what?

 

[Garethw]

Is there any leaks/indication when the end of season review going to be completed and we can start planning for next season?

It’s funny how other teams end of season reviews ended the day after the season finished with immediate managerial sackings etc.

This is really not looking good on Ineos at all.

I personally don’t believe a word of this. I think the review was completed weeks ago.

I think the decision was to sack him and they are now concerned about fan reaction to that decision.

It all reeks of indecision and is not a good look for Sir Jim.

 

[Cassidy]

Pellistri could well be sold for more than we paid for him, that's the point of buying youth players and Maguire was the wrong profile of player in part because of his age. He was never going to get better than he was when he join, and he was only just good enough then.

If we buy Maguire at the time Leicester did, say for double the money as there's a United tax and an extra 50% on top of his wages, that's £25m and £130k a week. Now that doesn't make Maguire a brilliant signing, but by god it would feel a lot better and we'd have had buyers when we wanted to sell.

If we bought Maguire when Leicester did he still would not have been good enough and 130k is too high a wage for a player at his level (which is why we struggle to sell Van De Beek and McTominay)

Pellestri does’t even attract loan interest from good sides.

Why don’t you address all the players under 26 that we have failed to shift ala Maguire the common deniminator is not age as the data quite obviously points out

Infact we are about to sell Casemiro this summer (at first try) and we could have sold Varane last summer if we wanted.

 

[Tom Van Persie]

 

[Cassidy]

There is a difference between having the ability to do something and actually doing it. The money could also be used for a training ground and a new stadium too.

Well obviously there is a difference. The post points out there we don’t have a PSR issue this summer and 21/22 season covid loss is not included in the next calculation

Also the owners are free to inject whatever money is required for the projects they need e.g training ground and new stadium. That is their job to invest and improve the club

 

[Pickle85]

Pellistri could well be sold for more than we paid for him, that's the point of buying youth players and Maguire was the wrong profile of player in part because of his age. He was never going to get better than he was when he join, and he was only just good enough then.

If we buy Maguire at the time Leicester did, say for double the money as there's a United tax and an extra 50% on top of his wages, that's £25m and £130k a week. Now that doesn't make Maguire a brilliant signing, but by god it would feel a lot better and we'd have had buyers when we wanted to sell.

I get this logic to a point, but how much more would we need to sell Pellistri for to make it worthwhile having shelled out on his wages for three years or whatever, coupled with run of the mill inflation? It's not as easy as saying 'we bought player X for 10 million and sold him four years later for 14 million, so it was a good deal', particular if the player in question has barely made an impact on the first team.

 

[noodlehair]

Are all our office personnel on minimum wage? I doubt that.
Are they all absolutely necessary? I doubt that too.
Furthermore I have seen absolutely no blame attributed to the rank and file employees for anything, only that we are a bloated and over staffed organisation. No problem with INEOS thinning out and improving efficiency.

Hate to bring basic logic into this but if the aim is to improve improve efficiency then indiscriminately inviting every single staff member to leave is an extremely silly way to do it.

This is the exact same shite a lot of public sector set ups will do when going through a re-structure and the only benefit/purpose is to save a bit of money. It seldom results in any improvement in efficiency (usually the complete opposite) because it leaves no control over what personnel and skillsets you lose/keep, and generally you wont lose anyone who is a bit pointless, because they are the least likely to be nearing retirement and/or the least likely to have anywhere else they know they can go. They just happen to also be the least likely to be paid more than their colleagues.

Its a money saving move from a billionaire with a track record of treating lower ranking employees poorly/resenting having to pay them to work for him, and there's really no point trying to dress it up as anything more clever than that.

 

[romufc]

I get this logic to a point, but how much more would we need to sell Pellistri for to make it worthwhile having shelled out on his wages for three years or whatever, coupled with run of the mill inflation? It's not as easy as saying 'we bought player X for 10 million and sold him four years later for 14 million, so it was a good deal', particular if the player in question has barely made an impact on the first team.

We will be lucky to get 5m for Pellestri.

 

[McGrathsipan]

It’s funny how other teams end of season reviews ended the day after the season finished with immediate managerial sackings etc.

This is really not looking good on Ineos at all.

I personally don’t believe a word of this. I think the review was completed weeks ago.

I think the decision was to sack him and they are now concerned about fan reaction to that decision.

It all reeks of indecision and is not a good look for Sir Jim.

Do you not allow for a change of mind?
Ten Hag is popular and he won a trophy.
That counts for something.

It could be more counter productive to sack him now. They could give him 6 more months months. See how it goes. There isn't a queue of World Class managers is there?
If there was he'd probably be gone.

 

[Dion]

If we bought Maguire when Leicester did he still would not have been good enough and 130k is too high a wage for a player at his level (which is why we struggle to sell Van De Beek and McTominay)

Pellestri does’t even attract loan interest from good sides.

If we signed Maguire when Leicester did then he becomes a Lindelof level flop, not a Pogba one. That's £60m in transfer fees saved and almost £30m in wages. That's £90m over 5 years back into the pot.

Pellistri doesn't need to attract good sides, he cost less than £7m and he's on nothing wages. Him failing doesn't even register on the balance sheet.

Why don’t you address all the players under 26 that we have failed to shift ala Maguire the common deniminator is not age as the data quite obviously points out

Infact we are about to sell Casemiro this summer (at first try) and we could have sold Varane last summer if we wanted.

Yes, lets address this. Over the last 10 years these are the players we've moved on/allowed to leave

Herrera - £29m allowed contract to expire
Rojo - £16m - allowed contract to expire, plus a few loan fees
Blind - bought for £14, sold for £14m
Di Maria - bought for £60m, sold for £44m
Martial - bought for £38.5m +£10m in realised addons, kept for 9 years
Scheiderlin - bought for £25m, sold for £20m +£4m
Depay - bought for £25m, sold for £17m + £5m
Darmian - bought for £12.5m, sold for £2m, plus multiple loan fees
Schweinsteiger - bought for £7m, released
Pogba - bought for £90m, released
Mkhitaryan - bought for £30m, traded for Alexis Sanchez
Bailly - bought for £30m, released
Lukaku - bought for £75m + £15m, sold for £75m
Sanchez - £35m plus Mkhitaryan, released
Fred - bought for £47m, sold for £9m
James - bought for £15m, sold for £25m
Telles - bought for £15m, sold for £4m
Ronaldo - signed for £15m, released
Varane - signed for £40m, released

And that's without factoring in wages, which are obviously much, much higher in the older group, nor games played for the club.

And I'm not sure you should be relying on the Saudi's to save our transfer business.

Our buying has been a mess, but without fail our over-25 signings have been colossal wastes of money.

 

[Dion]

I get this logic to a point, but how much more would we need to sell Pellistri for to make it worthwhile having shelled out on his wages for three years or whatever, coupled with run of the mill inflation? It's not as easy as saying 'we bought player X for 10 million and sold him four years later for 14 million, so it was a good deal', particular if the player in question has barely made an impact on the first team.

It doesn't need to be a profit, you very rarely make profits on players. It's about using the budget sustainably.

If we sell Pellistri for £5m we've lost £2m in transfer fee and paid 2 and a half years of wages at £20k a week (been on loan for 18 months or so), or another £2.5m. That's about a million a year we've spent in the time he's been here on a gamble on a young player who didn't come off... that's nothing, right? Do it purely from a numbers game (and taking the argument to a ridiculous logical place), if you have a budget of £100m a season and you take 100 punts of players like Pellistri, vs 3 punts on someone like Ronaldo who cost us £36m per season, there's a much greatest chance you're going to have success on the low price option with multiple chances rather than throwing all your eggs in fewer baskets. Obviously that's an extreme, not real world example, but it illustrates the point.

 

[Pickle85]

It doesn't need to be a profit, you very rarely make profits on players. It's about using the budget sustainably.

If we sell Pellistri for £5m we've lost £2m in transfer fee and paid 2 and a half years of wages at £20k a week (been on loan for 18 months or so), or another £2.5m. That's about a million a year we've spent in the time he's been here on a gamble on a young player who didn't come off... that's nothing, right? Do it purely from a numbers game (and taking the argument to a ridiculous logical place), if you have a budget of £100m a season and you take 100 punts of players like Pellistri, vs 3 punts on someone like Ronaldo who cost us £36m per season, there's a much greatest chance you're going to have success on the low price option with multiple chances rather than throwing all your eggs in fewer baskets. Obviously that's an extreme, not real world example, but it illustrates the point.

I take the point about spreading risk. Problem comes when we haven't been brilliant at identifying cheaper successes either! All in all we just need to up our player identification game.

 

[Lyng]

Do you not allow for a change of mind?
Ten Hag is popular and he won a trophy.
That counts for something.

It could be more counter productive to sack him now. They could give him 6 more months months. See how it goes. There isn't a queue of World Class managers is there?
If there was he'd probably be gone.

For fans this line of thinking is fine. For a football club changing your mind after one game is not. It's the Glazer way.

@romufc and I disagree on Ten Hags quality but I firmly agree with him that the handling of his job by Ineos has been utterly disrespectful.

 

[Cassidy]

If we signed Maguire when Leicester did then he becomes a Lindelof level flop, not a Pogba one. That's £60m in transfer fees saved and almost £30m in wages. That's £90m over 5 years back into the pot.

Pellistri doesn't need to attract good sides, he cost less than £7m and he's on nothing wages. Him failing doesn't even register on the balance sheet.


Yes, lets address this. Over the last 10 years these are the players we've moved on/allowed to leave

Herrera - £29m allowed contract to expire
Rojo - £16m - allowed contract to expire, plus a few loan fees
Blind - bought for £14, sold for £14m
Di Maria - bought for £60m, sold for £44m
Martial - bought for £38.5m +£10m in realised addons, kept for 9 years
Scheiderlin - bought for £25m, sold for £20m +£4m
Depay - bought for £25m, sold for £17m + £5m
Darmian - bought for £12.5m, sold for £2m, plus multiple loan fees
Schweinsteiger - bought for £7m, released
Pogba - bought for £90m, released
Mkhitaryan - bought for £30m, traded for Alexis Sanchez
Bailly - bought for £30m, released
Lukaku - bought for £75m + £15m, sold for £75m
Sanchez - £35m plus Mkhitaryan, released
Fred - bought for £47m, sold for £9m
James - bought for £15m, sold for £25m
Telles - bought for £15m, sold for £4m
Ronaldo - signed for £15m, released
Varane - signed for £40m, released

And that's without factoring in wages, which are obviously much, much higher in the older group, nor games played for the club.

And I'm not sure you should be relying on the Saudi's to save our transfer business.

Our buying has been a mess, but without fail our over-25 signings have been colossal wastes of money.

Your list contains many players signed over 26. But here under 26 some of the biggest sunk costs many of whom we struggled to sell due to stupid wages wages not linked to age.

Under 26

Pogba (high wages and fee)
Martial (could not sell due to silly wages)
Bailly
Fred (struggled to sell due to wages)
Sancho (silly wages)
Antony (silly wages)
Herrera ( don’t believe we wanted to sell so thats ok - but poor planning to allow to leave for free)
Lukaku (we sold quickly, we did a good job here)
Darmian (we struggled to sell due to wages had to resort to loans where we paid alot of the wages)
James (did well here bought for cheap)
Rojo ( struggled to sell due to high wages)
Lindelof (snuggled to move on due to wages)

26 and over

Di Maria (we sold quickly and did well)
Varane (we chose not to sell)
Bastian (stupid signing but didn’t cost alot)
Sanchez (insane wages nothing to do with his age)
Ronaldo (insane wages again nothing to do with his age and more to do with his status)
Telles (silly wages so we had to loan then eventually sell)
Maguire (silly wages and fee)
Casemiro (we’ll likely sell this summer)

The common denominator here is that we struggle to sell player where the wages we offer and fee we paid is out of line with the market. That is whether the player was signed at age < 26 or not.

Wages have to account for where we may have to shift the player to if we want to sell. Players at United historically did not have to earn their high wage which has been a big issue. The age factor is a red herring in my opinion we have just as many if not more sunk costs in players we signed under 25. Lets not even talk about the academy players we stuggled to shift due to again silly wages (Pereira, Lingard etc)

 

[tomaldinho1]

Is there any leaks/indication when the end of season review going to be completed and we can start planning for next season?

Is it even happening? Might as well trust ETH in that their end of year review already happened (he has not reason to lie) and now they're just working as normal on stuff they already have planned. It was only Sky insisting a review was happening (which now seems like it was to drive clicks purely off contrasting with what ETh said).

It's another piece of crap journalism designed to be open ended enough that they can claim to be right whatever happens. If ETH is sacked, "the review is now over", if nothing happens/we get no noise at all, they just say nothing and if someone asks them about the review, they just say "it concluded with them sticking with ETH"

 

[romufc]

For fans this line of thinking is fine. For a football club changing your mind after one game is not. It's the Glazer way.

@romufc and I disagree on Ten Hags quality but I firmly agree with him that the handling of his job by Ineos has been utterly disrespectful.

Agreed. You cannot decide to sack someone before a final then him win it and then think oh wait... we might need to do a review here.

If you base it just on this season on performances and results he should be sacked. The question for me is who is capable of taking over? I dont see anyone.

 

[Adamsk7]

Our buying and selling has been crap period. That’s what I hope Ineos changes. Has nothing to do with age.