Woodward successes:
1) Pogba from Juventus (everyone wanted him)
2) Mikhi from Dortmund (tough club to deal with unless your Bayern)
3) Martial from Monaco (in a few days got it done as far as LVG account goes)
4) Herrera from Bilbao (notoriously difficult club to deal with)
5) Di Maria from Real Madrid (absolute pricks)
Woodword Failures:
1) Fellaini (probably down to dithering Moyes that we got him for more than buyout clause)
2) Fabio Coentrao (you can't let dithering Moyes leave it that late)
3) Kroos, Ronaldo, Bale (these are fantasy targets)
4) Griezmann (Atletico Transfer Ban)
5) Fabregas (should have gotten this one over, probably didn't want to play under Moyes)
6) Pedro (chose Chelsea, can't do much about that)
I don't think Woodward is the issue here. Inter want to bleed us dry for Perisic and Woodward rightly doesn't want to over spend on a winger that only Mourinho will consider useful and the next manager will discard if Mourinho doesn't work out. Chelsea don't want to sell Matic until they can get their midfield sorted (nothing Woodward can do about that). Morata is moving along as far as the report says.
What do you expect Woodward to do with the targets that Mourinho has identified (if we believe the press)?
Of those successes:
- Pogba ended up being signed so late that he wasn’t training with us (or anyone else) until after the season had started. This was despite it the whole thing dragging on all summer. Seems like this irritated Jose as this year he was very keen to point out that he’d already handed over his targets.
- Herrera was supposed to be a Moyes signing but it took Woodward so long to sort it out he ended up arriving after Moyes had left. So was left with a manager who quite possibly didn’t even want him. Not sure how this qualifies as a success from Woodward’s end. If Bilbao are notoriously difficult to deal with, shouldn’t Woodward have known they would be difficult to deal with. I mean, if you know this…and it’s his job to know this, it doesn’t seem unreasonable that he might have factored that in.
- Di Maria seemed to be a luxury signing who was stupidly overpriced, and who LVG also seemed to know little about or what to do with. His signing had nothing to do with any areas of our squad that needed strengthening and he ended up being a massive waste of money.
I’d rather look at it year on year:
Year 1 - We know he paid over Fellaini's buyout clause...you seem keen to blame this on Moyes but transfer negotiations are not the manager's job, they are Woodward's...if he listened to Moyes it is still 100% HIS fault for doing so instead of using some common sense. Spent all summer pretending we were about to sign Fabregas, didn't. Failed to sign a left back despite it being very obvious all summer that the manager wanted one. Failed to sign a midfielder due to spending all summer dithering over Fabregas then trying to force through a transfer for Herrera on deadline day. A massive fecking mess basically. The Fellaini fiasco alone would get you the boot from most jobs.
Year 2 - Still to this day unexplained signings of players who did not address the issues within the squad and who didn't seem to have anything to do with players LVG wanted, which left us with an imbalanced and crippled squad. Rojo signed who Giggs has revealed since was one of the clubs targets under Moyes. Left back and midfielder who should have been signed a year earlier FINALLY brought in. Falcao and already mentioned Di Maria signings…ok he got them done but what purpose did they serve? Debatable whether LVG had much of a say. Blind signed.
Year 3 - Seemed to sign players the manager wanted however this didn't happen until after LVG had a not too cryptic whinge to the media about it taking too long. LVG moaning all summer and then even during the season about needing more speed and creativity and us having targets...no one signed who fit this bill (apart from Martial who was signed after the season had started). Not sure how much of this exactly can be blamed on Woodward since LVG was contradicting himself every other sentence, so who knows what instructions Woodward even had. Some kind of prolonged and disruptive idiocy involving De Gea which dragged out into the season…seemed to be painted as a victory of some kind on here but could easily have been sorted by us just saying he wasn’t for sale.
Year 4 – Surprisingly little fuss or delay in signing of Zlatan, Bailly and Mkhitaryan. Pogba transfer dragged out for longer than ANY transfer I can remember. Eventually signed amidst much moaning from people on here about the fee paid. First year in four you can say with any certainty at all that Woodward was given targets and signed all or a majority of players to fit those targets.
Year 5 – So far, a defender signed. Prolonged faffing around over everything else, in spite of manager being wary enough to make it publicly known that he’d done his bit before the season even ended. Apparently fecking around on holiday in New Zealand and has managed to piss off the manager according to some guy who apparently just writes whatever Mourinho thinks..
To be honest, you can be speculative about what is and isn’t Woodward’s responsibility and other factors…but it’s very difficult to point to occasions where he has done a good enough job that any trust can be placed in him to sign the players the manager wants, in time. Its not an easy job but people seem more than willing to make excuses and blame everyone except Woodward, for what, is quite literally, Woodward’s job.
Most of the excuses don’t add up, like trying to claim “none of us know what Woodward does”…we know enough and this same reasoning doesn’t stop people criticising the manager or players. Or “the next manager might not want x player”…this is a daft argument and also rendered irrelevant by the club paying a world record fee for a player because Mourinho wanted them.
Anyone who knows this story knows exactly why he left and all die hard Juve fans know this very clear but I'm sure you weren't following them at this time and making assumptions of your mind.
So for me, u just can't have it both ways, not with Mourinho. He is very successful specifically because he is allowed to work without restraints, and every time restraints have been placed upon him it has not ended well for either party.
