Club ownership | Senior management team talk

Cassidy said:
Based on how they handled the manager situation over the summer… what else woukld you call it. Do you think that is how a big club should be run?

Now they can obviously go on and redeem themselves but that was truly a shambles.
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Give over, they conducted a thorough review including speaking to possible candidates for the job and came to the conclusion ten Hag would stay. All this ‘shambles’ this and ‘incompetent’ that is embarrassing.
It’s clear the hierarchy has a plan for long term success, even if it encompasses some short term pain so anyone who uses such superlatives is pretty dim sounding.
 
Transfers are decent. New players age and qualities are good. But I guess it doesnt matter how good your car is after a maintenance, if the driver is bad, the improvements to the car arent seen because he keeps crashing
 
neon_badger said:
This is from a few weeks ago, it's pretty grim what they're doing, I spoke to a mate on Friday, he's pretty much last man standing in his department and said its never been so bad (that's approx 20yrs) and that was before the spurs spanking. It's bizarre that they choose to crush a long standing and mostly cost effective workforce to try and rebuild a recently assembled group of very expensive failing players and it contradicts the new stadium centre of the community rejuvenation project that keeps getting promoted by the mega rich/ champagne socialist crew.
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They had 250 more staff than the next highest staffed team, so to save money it was obvious this was going to happen. The parasites ran the club dry and there isnt any money left in the bank. Ratcliffe cant put his hand in his pocket due to FFP, or whatever its called nowadays.
 
Just a question for people in the know. If we do sack Ten Hag and pay him his 17.5 million pounds. Will that put us in trouble with FFP since I think we've lost money for the last three years or so. To me it was a strange decision to extend his contract until we could see a change in the right direction.
 
downunder red said:
Just a question for people in the know. If we do sack Ten Hag and pay him his 17.5 million pounds. Will that put us in trouble with FFP since I think we've lost money for the last three years or so. To me it was a strange decision to extend his contract until we could see a change in the right direction.
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Yes I suspect so. As it stands currently, even without having to pay ETH severance money, we will need to do some serious creative accounting to be able to avoid penalties under the PSR rules.

I am convinced that’s part of the reason why we weren’t so trigger happy. We in fact paid more for a player than his buy out clause so that we can get a favourable payment structure instead.

Our finances are in a precarious situation.
 
Mindhunter said:
Yes I suspect so. As it stands currently, even without having to pay ETH severance money, we will need to do some serious creative accounting to be able to avoid penalties under the PSR rules.

I am convinced that’s part of the reason why we weren’t so trigger happy. We in fact paid more for a player than his buy out clause so that we can get a favourable payment structure instead.

Our finances are in a precarious situation.
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Yeah thanks for that. I read somewhere that we had a third year of losses and we are arguing about that we spent the money on necessary things so we should not get a penalty. Sacking a manager might be enough to take us into serious trouble with FFP.
 
Mindhunter said:
Yes I suspect so. As it stands currently, even without having to pay ETH severance money, we will need to do some serious creative accounting to be able to avoid penalties under the PSR rules.

I am convinced that’s part of the reason why we weren’t so trigger happy. We in fact paid more for a player than his buy out clause so that we can get a favourable payment structure instead.

Our finances are in a precarious situation.
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Urgh stuck with Erik due to PSR is depressing
 
Plant0x84 said:
Give over, they conducted a thorough review including speaking to possible candidates for the job and came to the conclusion ten Hag would stay. All this ‘shambles’ this and ‘incompetent’ that is embarrassing.
It’s clear the hierarchy has a plan for long term success, even if it encompasses some short term pain so anyone who uses such superlatives is pretty dim sounding.
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Yes thats why they offered Tuchel the job and he declined due to the lack of control he would have, because like you said they concluded Ten Hag was the best man for the job. That is also why they didnt actually give Ten Hag a new contract….

If you think they only started the review after the final you are incredibly naive.

I’m sure they do have a plan for long term success. That does not mean, they won’t get criticism when they make bad errors. It also does not mean they get blind faith support with zero critique. They have to earn their status here. The manager situation over the summer was poor. They need to improve going forward because having a plan and being able to execute said plan are not the same thing.
 
Cassidy said:
Based on how they handled the manager situation over the summer… what else woukld you call it. Do you think that is how a big club should be run?

Now they can obviously go on and redeem themselves but that was truly a shambles.
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No. But it's also true that they faced unprecedented circumstances as well. We literally built the entire football structure from scratch. Most people involved in the interviews had just joined the club while (I think) the likes of ashworth weren't even in the building yet

We were expecting a technical director to take decisions on the next manager only for his boss (ie ashworth) to have to live with the consequences of it. That's way above his pay grade. No wonder why we kicked the can for next year
 
downunder red said:
Yeah thanks for that. I read somewhere that we had a third year of losses and we are arguing about that we spent the money on necessary things so we should not get a penalty. Sacking a manager might be enough to take us into serious trouble with FFP.
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Exactly. The Athletic had a detailed article on it. Our losses are way over the limits that PSR rules prescribe. Experts reckon that we are right on the edge after taking into account the types of losses that can be removed from the analysis. Also Jim Ratcliff’s cash infusion has helped offset some of that but the situation is dicey.

I believe that was the reason why we didn’t offer ETH a new contract but decided to trigger the 1-year extension instead. If the board are forced to sack ETH, it can spell trouble for us.
 
downunder red said:
Just a question for people in the know. If we do sack Ten Hag and pay him his 17.5 million pounds. Will that put us in trouble with FFP since I think we've lost money for the last three years or so. To me it was a strange decision to extend his contract until we could see a change in the right direction.
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The cheap option was keeping Ten Hag and we saw how tight things were in the summer window so you'd expect so. We also lose £10m from the Adidas contract next year with no CL. Our finances are dire.
 
devilish said:
No. But it's also true that they faced unprecedented circumstances as well. We literally built the entire football structure from scratch. Most people involved in the interviews had just joined the club while (I think) the likes of ashworth weren't even in the building yet

We were expecting a technical director to take decisions on the next manager only for his boss (ie ashworth) to have to live with the consequences of it. That's way above his pay grade. No wonder why we kicked the can for next year
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Its true we faced difficult circumstances. However we let it get out we were evaluating managers, got turned down by one then backtracked. No matter what the circumstances it was poor and significantly weakened the managers position anyway.

Lets hope they learn from it, because United is a different beast as soon as media smell weakness they go for the kill as they have found out.

You also have to ask the question why they could not secure their target who didn’t even have a job.

I really hope they hire a manager who is going to progress our play as a priority. We have heard talk becoming a possession team and dominating games and playing an attractive brand of football. They need to hire a manager who has a track record of this which rules out someone like Ruud.

I do think they have done some good things, the squad progressed in a positive direction but talent and age wise this summer.
 
Plant0x84 said:
Give over, they conducted a thorough review including speaking to possible candidates for the job and came to the conclusion ten Hag would stay. All this ‘shambles’ this and ‘incompetent’ that is embarrassing.
It’s clear the hierarchy has a plan for long term success, even if it encompasses some short term pain so anyone who uses such superlatives is pretty dim sounding.
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This is fecking nonsensical and fans like you are the main reason why the club is in the gutter because you let people get away without being held accountable.

Success at United isn't defined by being in the top 4, top 4 should be a given or heads start to roll and a manager who has us finishing 8th should be sacked before he even finishes 8th. That's how clubs at the level we used to, and should aspire to, operate at are run. Holding people to account for performances.

When we fail to hold people accountable then performances like Sunday become the norm.
 
Nobby style said:
I think the hard corporate way would've been either firing the never-convincing embarrassing Ten Hag, like most pundits and punters wanted, or at least not give him a contract extension til 2027. More like, give him the original "hard corporate" way of the 2025 deal and see if things aren't miraculously sorted, or at least a tiny bit hopeful, then if not, bye bye. But know it looks like they'll be on the hook of paying him out til 2027, and be stuck with his players he brought in. The penny pinching he's done with the staff will be all the more ridiculous when it comes to the Ten Hag sacking payoffs, or as the podcast geezer mentioned, a few minutes of Anthony's pay package would be a lot more than their penny pinching bollocks with the staff.

This does not reek of "pretty reasonable" strategic decisions. Big dorky Jim and his Ineos team aren't not doing much with their money and hard corporate strategies and decision making with a mediocre French side club. Who woulda thunk this foray into the big leagues may just be a disaster for a historical club the size of Manchester United in the Premier? Anyone else think this guy might be way out of his league?
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You're viewing it from the lens of one decision, which is obviously a very important one, but one which we know the rationale for. Also, he didn't get a contract extension til 2027 - a clause was automatically triggered on the same contract giving him an extra year, until 2026. Once you've decided to keep him, you obviously can't have him there on a contract that expires at the end of the season. That would be unreasonable and was a logical decision to make, once they'd decided he wasn't leaving.

All your conclusions are through the prism of one decision, I was asking @Fortitude about the more general point he was making. And everything Ineos has done, which was generally considered to be moves in the right direction a couple of months ago, is now considered to be sheer incompetence and just plain shit because we've lost a few games - even though everyone is aware it's a long term thing and any results of the new footballing structure are not going to be immediate. There is an impatience inherent to the football fan, and the lack of capacity to have any sense of perspective, that is rather fascinating.
 
Skills said:
Its grim to be honest. Regardless of how incompetent the Glazers were, but at least the normal staff were genuinely looked after under them. We were one of the few clubs not to jump on the furlough scheme ASAP - and that then pressured other clubs into backing down.

We'd be first in-line now under this regime for that sort of thing.
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Whilst it appears that several clubs ( Spurs, Liverpool and Bournemouth included ) initially announced they were going to take advantage of the furlough scheme only two others Newcastle and Norwich did actually take money. In effect 15 didn’t even it seems sign up to the scheme. I am far from sure it was those other 15 that pressured other clubs it was more to do with the backlash from the press & supporters .

SJR may not be American but he didn’t make his money without always paying attention to the bottom line that may or may not ultimately work out but from the outside looking in it did seem that Utd had become too complacent almost expecting that the trophies to a degree but the £s would still continue to pour in post SAF.

Whilst there is absolute no doubt that Utd are still attractive to sponsors and of course have a huge fan base unless their is a family/ geographical or emotional link to a club the new supporters that are out there want to be attached with trophies sadly but inevitably that brings City into the equation.

Time will tell if INEOS have the answers but from everything I read they like Clearlake at ours found significant under-performance not just on field but as importantly in off field areas because at the end of the day those off field teams have to deliver value for money.

We , Chelsea, have been ridiculed by many because of the churn at both playing and managerial level but in football particularly at PL level rarely can a manager or a coach be given real time the need to deliver is immediate oh by the way I am not saying we are close to the finished article or indeed there won’t be more changes but there does seem to be an impasse at Utd
 
AneRu said:
This is fecking nonsensical and fans like you are the main reason why the club is in the gutter because you let people get away without being held accountable.
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There was me thinking it was our American leech owners and their incompetent staff but no, apparently it’s all my fault. Sorry about that lads! ;)

6 months of Wilcox
3 months of Ashworth and Berrada
7 games played, players coming back after euros/copa with very little rest in between

And we haven’t even won the league yet.
Yeah right, we should definitely be judging these guys already, entirely reasonable. Jog on Mr Angry. :rolleyes:
 
Rooney in Paris said:
You're viewing it from the lens of one decision, which is obviously a very important one, but one which we know the rationale for. Also, he didn't get a contract extension til 2027 - a clause was automatically triggered on the same contract giving him an extra year, until 2026. Once you've decided to keep him, you obviously can't have him there on a contract that expires at the end of the season. That would be unreasonable and was a logical decision to make, once they'd decided he wasn't leaving.

All your conclusions are through the prism of one decision, I was asking @Fortitude about the more general point he was making. And everything Ineos has done, which was generally considered to be moves in the right direction a couple of months ago, is now considered to be sheer incompetence and just plain shit because we've lost a few games - even though everyone is aware it's a long term thing and any results of the new footballing structure are not going to be immediate. There is an impatience inherent to the football fan, and the lack of capacity to have any sense of perspective, that is rather fascinating.
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Problem with this is that many (including myself) who didn’t think those were the correct decisions at the time were happy to remain silent because due process requires them to be given time, as, perhaps, they are 5d chess specialists who are seeing things from angles we cannot, and yet we find ourselves in freefall, not because of a few games, rather as the culmination of an appalling start to the season and the point where concerns that were there and growing now need to be voiced before yet another season gets written off.

Even if this was the path to go down, this is the time to show contingency and aptitude with whatever about turn that is taken. There isn’t a giant club we’d like to state that we’re peered with that would conduct themselves in this manner.
 
Cassidy said:
Yes thats why they offered Tuchel the job and he declined due to the lack of control he would have, because like you said they concluded Ten Hag was the best man for the job. That is also why they didnt actually give Ten Hag a new contract….

If you think they only started the review after the final you are incredibly naive.

I’m sure they do have a plan for long term success. That does not mean, they won’t get criticism when they make bad errors. It also does not mean they get blind faith support with zero critique. They have to earn their status here. The manager situation over the summer was poor. They need to improve going forward because having a plan and being able to execute said plan are not the same thing.
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Tuchel wasn’t offered the job, they had discussions and couldn’t agree.
 
Fortitude said:
Problem with this is that many (including myself) who didn’t think those were the correct decisions at the time were happy to remain silent because due process requires them to be given time, as, perhaps, they are 5d chess specialists who are seeing things from angles we cannot, and yet we find ourselves in freefall, not because of a few games, rather as the culmination of an appalling start to the season and the point where concerns that were there and growing now need to be voiced before yet another season gets written off.

Even if this was the path to go down, this is the time to show contingency and aptitude with whatever about turn that is taken. There isn’t a giant club we’d like to state that we’re peered with that would conduct themselves in this manner.
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Oh that's absolutely fine (and I was curious to know what you disagreed about in terms of the strategic decisions they've made, but you just pointed me to other posters' walls of text I'm not going to read!), and I understand why the current situation would feel like that. I however disagree that it's "many" people, the feeling I have from the Caf, and from reading and listening to various sources, is that in general their approach so far (which, in fairness, for the important positions they've named were pretty straightforward - the minutiae of how they've gone about that, I'd understand some reservations) was pretty much appreciated by the fanbase.

There is also the fact that, without being 5d chess specialists, they have gotten some things right and some things wrong, and that's ok. What I'm saying is that just because they're not dismissing Ten Hag (which does seem like the logical decision right now) doesn't mean all the other decisions they've made are wrong and won't have a positive effect on the club in the long term.
 
Plant0x84 said:
6 months of Wilcox
3 months of Ashworth and Berrada
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That is part of the problem. INEOS started planning the (partial) takeover more than a year ago (around a year ago I think we saw real reports about it?). So they had a lot of time to prepare/tap up their potential leadership team for United to enter the club quickly after sealing the deal. But they didn't have their team ready, they just had a bunch of "interim people" who were not able or willing to call the shots. The timing of the Wilcox appointment was at the end of the timeframe I considered reasonable for INEOS. But he wasn't the last, he was the first to start working. That was imho the first blunder INEOS made and it effectively wasted a season.
 
I don't think that a manager starting a season with only 12 months left in his contract is unreasonable or even a bad idea, especially when there are question marks over his head. The only two decent argument that people have are that the manager or the playing staff may consciously underperform but for the club this is actually valuable, you don't want players or managers that have that kind of attitude, if a challenging context exposes them then you gained valuable information.
 
stefan92 said:
That is part of the problem. INEOS started planning the (partial) takeover more than a year ago (around a year ago I think we saw real reports about it?). So they had a lot of time to prepare/tap up their potential leadership team for United to enter the club quickly after sealing the deal. But they didn't have their team ready, they just had a bunch of "interim people" who were not able or willing to call the shots. The timing of the Wilcox appointment was at the end of the timeframe I considered reasonable for INEOS. But he wasn't the last, he was the first to start working. That was imho the first blunder INEOS made and it effectively wasted a season.
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I think you have to give allowance for the way Newcastle and Southampton reacted to our approach for their key staff. I don’t think INEOS were ready for that delay. I also believe this season was written off long ago which is why sir Jim was briefing about this being a 2/3 year project when he came in back in February.
 
JPRouve said:
I don't think that a manager starting a season with only 12 months left in his contract is unreasonable or even a bad idea, especially when there are question marks over his head.
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I agree here. I couldn’t understand the fire him or give him a new contract angle at the time. We could easily have waited until Xmas or later to resolve this and see how the season develops.
 
Plant0x84 said:
I think you have to give allowance for the way Newcastle and Southampton reacted to our approach for their key staff.
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I don't think so. Clubs not wanting to let their successful staff go? Shock horror, unheard of scenario. If their reaction wasn't expected, it's either arrogance or naivety, but either way looks bad.
Plant0x84 said:
I don’t think INEOS were ready for that delay.
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I do think this is true. And that's exactly why I think INEOS fecked up. They should have made sure that their candidates are available in due time. And if not, look for alternatives. It's not like Ashworth is the only experienced DoF or Berrada the only possible CEO in the football world. If they can't join in time look around for someone of similar quality who can. Neither of them proved to be a miracle worker before, it's not as if they feel like the unique choice for their position that there is no alternative for.
Plant0x84 said:
I also believe this season was written off long ago which is why sir Jim was briefing about this being a 2/3 year project when he came in back in February.
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If that's true it's also damning.
 
Plant0x84 said:
I agree here. I couldn’t understand the fire him or give him a new contract angle at the time. We could easily have waited until Xmas or later to resolve this and see how the season develops.
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That's the timeline that I also had in mind. If he shows enough, you trigger the clause(if still possible) in December-January or you begin serious extension talks. But doing what they did was in my opinion bad from the POV of FFP if it doesn't work and also bad when it comes to optics, it basically suggests that at United you can fail at your job and the club will hand you an extra dozen of millions.
 
JPRouve said:
I don't think that a manager starting a season with only 12 months left in his contract is unreasonable or even a bad idea, especially when there are question marks over his head.
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Yet we've now made the mistake twice in giving Ole a new contract and extending ETH's contract, instead of letting them go into their final 12 months and see how things materialise.
 
Fortitude said:
You don't seem to see the irony in your own post. INEOS are supposed to come in and show us that they do know what they're doing; being decisive, not making mistakes or leaving us with much doubt that they are this specialist unit that trust can be placed in. There should be no murmurings or discontent about them so soon, and yet we're in October looking at them seemingly tying themselves in knots, having given the manager an extension that the press are stating will cost the club £17.5m instead of the £10m severance it would've been in the summer. That's not to mention loading the squad with Ten Hag players over the summer, which is a policy they were supposed to be guiding the club away from. On top of that, every game a manager who is in freefall has is another game that shortens the ongoing season in terms of our ability to challenge for anything, in turn costing us more money come the close of the season.

Your laughing smiley seems to be heavily misplaced as all of the above is of their devising. If that strikes you as an outfit in total control, more power to you.
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I think it’s the fact people are questioning their credentials is what is making me laugh. If it’s still this bad at the end of the season then fine but the expectation that they will just immediately change our fortunes is ridiculous, you were only ever going to be disappointed if that was your expectation.
 
stefan92 said:
I don't think so. Clubs not wanting to let their successful staff go? Shock horror, unheard of scenario. If their reaction wasn't expected, it's either arrogance or naivety, but either way looks bad.

I do think this is true. And that's exactly why I think INEOS fecked up. They should have made sure that their candidates are available in due time. And if not, look for alternatives. It's not like Ashworth is the only experienced DoF or Berrada the only possible CEO in the football world. If they can't join in time look around for someone of similar quality who can. Neither of them proved to be a miracle worker before, it's not as if they feel like the unique choice for their position that there is no alternative for.

If that's true it's also damning.
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I don’t buy the ‘Ashworth wasn’t available so get an alternative’ line.
Yes there are other DOF’s around, but if you want him and you think you can get him then you don’t compromise the project with someone else. Ultimately being a little patient paid off because they appointed both their targets and at a vastly reduced rate too.
 
M Bison said:
I think it’s the fact people are questioning their credentials is what is making me laugh. If it’s still this bad at the end of the season then fine but the expectation that they will just immediately change our fortunes is ridiculous, you were only ever going to be disappointed if that was your expectation.
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Totally agree.
 
Plant0x84 said:
Ultimately being a little patient paid off because they appointed both their targets and at a vastly reduced rate too.
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And on this point we disagree again. Because I think the late arrival is the reason for the manager drama in the summer and therefore the reason for the terrible start into this season. Reducing the payoff for Ashworth is wasted money when you then have to pay EtH off with the same money due to the idiotic contract extension.

And that's not even starting to calculate the (probable) loss of money due to bad performances this season.
 
stefan92 said:
And on this point we disagree again. Because I think the late arrival is the reason for the manager drama in the summer and therefore the reason for the terrible start into this season. Reducing the payoff for Ashworth is wasted money when you then have to pay EtH off with the same money due to the idiotic contract extension.

And that's not even starting to calculate the (probable) loss of money due to bad performances this season.
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I disagree with this.

£20m to £3m is a big difference to pay for a sporting director.

Secondly, ETH pay of was £20m in the summer too, it was well reported, so really we are not going to pay more and the pay off will be to sack him but he wont be able to take another job for 2 years without compensation anyway.
 
I will have a problem if they decide to keep Ten Hag past the international break only to fire him shortly after.

The international break is a good opportunity bring in someone new in, the new guy can use the week to get up to speed with the team and all the adjustments necessary.

After the international break the games are coming thick and fast, there won’t be time for the new guy to bed in and implement his style.

So it’s either management pull the trigger now or see out the season, because what more evidence do they need that they don’t already have that this isn’t working.
 
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