It's so true people only talk about the players we've missed out on, but we've missed out on good managers too. Pep, Klopp, Poch and Tuchel all would have been good appointments if he knew what he was doing.
Ed Woodward 2019 - Until all Arctic ice melts edition
- Thread starter fallengt
- Start date
It's so true people only talk about the players we've missed out on, but we've missed out on good managers too. Pep, Klopp, Poch and Tuchel all would have been good appointments if he knew what he was doing.
This guy is a fraud.
More aggressive flying banner anyone?
"Enough is enough"
"Enough is enough"
Having worked in the football / sport for a number of years, I can tell you that Woodward is thought of very highly with regards to his commercial acumen, albeit he is working with a very high value “Brand”
From a football perspective however, his reign has been disastrous, it is beyond my comprehension that the board haven’t appointed a director of football.
Whilst he is in control of this side of the business, I’m afraid not much if anything is going to change.
Ultimately of course, as the football side of the business continues to decline, the commercials will also start to suffer........ perhaps the board will then take action.
From a football perspective however, his reign has been disastrous, it is beyond my comprehension that the board haven’t appointed a director of football.
Whilst he is in control of this side of the business, I’m afraid not much if anything is going to change.
Ultimately of course, as the football side of the business continues to decline, the commercials will also start to suffer........ perhaps the board will then take action.
As soon as the Glazers see the writing on the wall, they will sell and for a massive profit. The kind of investment that would be needed to buy the club and pull us out of that hole can only come from the middle east.
That would be brilliant
They haven't sold Tampa yet and there would be no shortage of buyers if they did. I'm afraid we won't see the back of them for a long while yet.
1) Appointed 3 fail managers in a row and looks like going to be 4 very soon.
2) Signed all the expensive and wrong players
3) Renew contract of all the deadwoods in the squad
4) Pay ridiculous high wages to mediocre players.
5) Fail to appoint a DOF or establish any structure in the club
6) No proper contact or knowledge in football. He's shunned by decent managers/players. Nobody in football world take this investment banker seriously. This guy has absolutely zero knowledge in football.
7) Run Man Utd into the ground. From the Giant of English football to laughing stock.
8) Running his mouth on our wealth and get skinned in almost all transfer deals. His negotiation skill is a joke and we almost overpaid massively for all our signings.
9) He is not Man Utd man and doesn't get the club. Man Utd have to play attacking football to entertain the fans. He doesn't understand football or can't differentiate between attacking and defensive football. Hence, we have been playing dull football all the while under him since SAF retired.
10) Absolutely no plan/vision on how to make Man Utd great again.
11) He is putting all the bankers, finance or accounting people running the football club. Look at Barca, RM, Juventus, Bayern, Ajax and etc full of football people running the club.
I really can't see any benefits of Ed being the CEO except on financial side. I agree with Klopp, we are the adult Disneyland.
2) Signed all the expensive and wrong players
3) Renew contract of all the deadwoods in the squad
4) Pay ridiculous high wages to mediocre players.
5) Fail to appoint a DOF or establish any structure in the club
6) No proper contact or knowledge in football. He's shunned by decent managers/players. Nobody in football world take this investment banker seriously. This guy has absolutely zero knowledge in football.
7) Run Man Utd into the ground. From the Giant of English football to laughing stock.
8) Running his mouth on our wealth and get skinned in almost all transfer deals. His negotiation skill is a joke and we almost overpaid massively for all our signings.
9) He is not Man Utd man and doesn't get the club. Man Utd have to play attacking football to entertain the fans. He doesn't understand football or can't differentiate between attacking and defensive football. Hence, we have been playing dull football all the while under him since SAF retired.
10) Absolutely no plan/vision on how to make Man Utd great again.
11) He is putting all the bankers, finance or accounting people running the football club. Look at Barca, RM, Juventus, Bayern, Ajax and etc full of football people running the club.
I really can't see any benefits of Ed being the CEO except on financial side. I agree with Klopp, we are the adult Disneyland.
Do you think he reads the Caf? Would not be fecking surprised.
My opinion is that even his commercial acumen and ability are overstated, not because it is "easy" to get big deals for a club like United. It isn't, but because it is short-sighted like all the decision on the football side of things he makes.
You just can't seperate football from commercial side like he seems to think. We are playing worst football among elite clubs. It is a running joke, but 6 years from Fergie we are still mentioning those 3 famous games against Spurs, Liverpool and City. Everything else, it was pretty much a pain to watch. It is struggle to see some games as a fan, imagine how it is for others.
Young fans won't be attracted to this, we will lose our appeal in the long run and the brand will become weaker. Then it will hit you on the commercial side as well which he likes to brag so much about.
He doesn't care because the numbers are good now. And if he walks now, he is probably set for life.
I think this is the possibly only way we could get rid of them and not be taken over by the slaughter regime. Not because the club is wholly reliant on match day revenue, but the effects of an empty ground would rapidly tarnish any commercial appeal and the press would have more than a field day. It would be relentless.
That has happened already, none of my nephews and nieces are United fans and why would they be with the shit football we have been playing for years. They are now all barca, madrid and PSG fans
Every business needs timely injection of cash to keep it running OR at least to maintain status quo. Glazers may not be football fans but they are businessmen. The assumption here is that they will be happy as long as the club keep achieving the Top 4 status and are largely competitive (and not really win anything). They would keep on under investing in the squad. Another assumption is that they saw Mourinho and Van Gaal as demanding coaches and hence were happy to show them the door. Logically, these assumptions dont makes sense. EPL has become highly competitive with the arrival of new owners at Chelsea and Man City plus Liverpool and Tottenham getting their acts together. Add Arsenal to the mix and we have 6 teams vying for the top 4 position.
Since Fergie left, it has become very apparent that achieving top 4 consistently has become a big ask in itself and will continue to remain as long as the general quality of the squad is not improved. So, to even achieve a Top 4 position, if it would require significant amount of investment, what purpose will it solve for Glazers to not sanction it? If they continue to underinvest and rely on miracles (Businesses dont work like that) eventually, achieving the bare minimum target of a Top 4 will become heavily unpredictable and it will certainly start impacting both the top line and the bottom line in terms of club financials. I read somewhere that the present Addidas deal is also dependent upon United consistently reaching the Champions league.
In few years, the brand value will start to suffer and this would ultimately lead to less revenues, less profits and dwindling share prices. In short, the value of the business will suffer. So to even maintain the value of the business, Glazers will have to invest funds to keep the team competitive.
Another possibility is that Glazers would want to cash instead of investing heavily. If that is indeed the case, then the best time to do that is NOW while the club's enterprise value is still high. If the squad continues to perform poorly, Glazers wont get anything close to the figure which is being bandied around now (2.5- 3 Bn). Glazers may eventually sell but they will atleast try to keep the value of their asset as high as possible to extract the best possible deal for them from the potential suitor.
Since Fergie left, it has become very apparent that achieving top 4 consistently has become a big ask in itself and will continue to remain as long as the general quality of the squad is not improved. So, to even achieve a Top 4 position, if it would require significant amount of investment, what purpose will it solve for Glazers to not sanction it? If they continue to underinvest and rely on miracles (Businesses dont work like that) eventually, achieving the bare minimum target of a Top 4 will become heavily unpredictable and it will certainly start impacting both the top line and the bottom line in terms of club financials. I read somewhere that the present Addidas deal is also dependent upon United consistently reaching the Champions league.
In few years, the brand value will start to suffer and this would ultimately lead to less revenues, less profits and dwindling share prices. In short, the value of the business will suffer. So to even maintain the value of the business, Glazers will have to invest funds to keep the team competitive.
Another possibility is that Glazers would want to cash instead of investing heavily. If that is indeed the case, then the best time to do that is NOW while the club's enterprise value is still high. If the squad continues to perform poorly, Glazers wont get anything close to the figure which is being bandied around now (2.5- 3 Bn). Glazers may eventually sell but they will atleast try to keep the value of their asset as high as possible to extract the best possible deal for them from the potential suitor.
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Funny that as my 10-year old nephew is the same. For all my forcing about United he is just mocking me atm, so I have to kick him out when watching.
Because of the Glazers/Ed we literally have a generation of youth growing up as non-UTD fans and its tragic. Its even more tragic they dont care and nothing will ever truly change until Ed and/or the Glazers go.
I feel sorry for him in some ways because some of the key decisions have seemed good at the time - Sir Alex vouched for Moyes, many were pleased with Van Gaal upon appointment, people felt Mourinho was the winner we needed etc., we celebrated when Ole was made permanent etc. As for signings, I remember feeling excitement (and noticing it shared on this forum) about the likes of Di Maria, Schweinsteiger, Schneiderlin, Pogba, Bailly, Falcao, Fred, Sanchez and others. With the leaks about Mourinho last Summer, many of us would've probably done the same thing as Woodward reportedly did in vetoing Maguire for 60m plus, Alderweireld for 60m plus, Perisic for 50m plus, selling Martial on the cheap etc. Hindsight is a wonderful thing; it's just absolutely crazy that so many of our players have gone to shit.
Not saying he hasn't made major mistakes but so much has gone wrong unexpectedly, at least in my judgement. The lack of a coherent strategy has been disappointing but we've come out of an uber successful era of the manager overseeing everything. If the Director of Football role had been mooted in Fergie's era, most fans would've been against the prospect. I's hard to know in terms of signings what have been manager directed and which have been from the board. We've certainly spent money though. We haven't been cheapskates. It's unfortunate because we've wasted huge sums.
Woodward needs to get in a fantastic football mind to run things strategically and not one of the old boys network who are still plugged into 1999 football rather than 2019 football. We need this rapidly and to get our structure and identity correct.
Not saying he hasn't made major mistakes but so much has gone wrong unexpectedly, at least in my judgement. The lack of a coherent strategy has been disappointing but we've come out of an uber successful era of the manager overseeing everything. If the Director of Football role had been mooted in Fergie's era, most fans would've been against the prospect. I's hard to know in terms of signings what have been manager directed and which have been from the board. We've certainly spent money though. We haven't been cheapskates. It's unfortunate because we've wasted huge sums.
Woodward needs to get in a fantastic football mind to run things strategically and not one of the old boys network who are still plugged into 1999 football rather than 2019 football. We need this rapidly and to get our structure and identity correct.
The biggest clown in football. I absolutely despise the man.
He's been the wellspring of our failures post Ferguson imo. Lurches from one catastrophic mistake to another. He's somehow managed to create a narrative that success off the pitch isn't reliant on success on it. We'll be reaping the consequences of this guy's failure for decades if the support base collapses due to lack of new young blood.
Man knows how to make money. Put him in that role. A commercial/business only role. Build a technical football structure, and keep him away from it.
But we're running out of time for that to be in place by summer, so I don't see anything like that happening anytime soon.
But we're running out of time for that to be in place by summer, so I don't see anything like that happening anytime soon.
Yet despite all this the Glazers are keeping him in charge.
Ultimately the Glazers are the root of our problems and nothing will change until they are gone. It's time the fans forced them out for the good of the club.
This football side of the business must be an annoying distraction to the glazers
Problem is Ed Woodward makes to big decisions. And I bet he enjoys playing around on the football side, who wouldn't? And of course there's nobody above him who knows what they're doing to tell him he's crap at it.
I don't see us winning either the PL or the CL for the next decade if he is in charge, even with a DoF.
We'll try to fix our problems, and he'll end up making it worse year after year. No way we're catching up with the dynasty that Pep will leave behind at City, or Klopp at Liverpool.
We'll try to fix our problems, and he'll end up making it worse year after year. No way we're catching up with the dynasty that Pep will leave behind at City, or Klopp at Liverpool.
Yup.
I think I said a while back that the post Fergie period will be darkly remembered as "The Woodward Years."
Every time I see his face on the screen during our matches, which is sadly just about every match these days, I care a little bit less about the club.
Hopefully he'll be gone and we can start rebuilding for better days before the road back to the top is too long and winding. The fact that Liverpool have managed to stay somewhat relevant is, surrealistically, one thing that gives me a bit of hope. It won't be while this clown is around, though, that's for sure.
I think he’s probably good at the business, non football parts of the job. We just need a DoF to take charge of the football bits and leave Ed to what he’s good at.
They will need to be forced out via bad press from fan discontent - a prolonged display of strong fan discontent and they'll sell quickly in my opinion.
I would be fairly sure that every top Utd social media is monitored by Woodward employees - perhaps with some degree of engagement from them (active accounts etc).
Already happening - my own son, 6 years old (a young 6) has quite happily chosen City as his fecking favourite team, and his peers are the same with Barca, Madrid, PSG, City etc.
It's how he's handled the situation after those key decisions though -
Van Gaal was a solid appointment - if you then employ a modern possession manager to take over his squad (Pochettino, Tuchel etc). Instead, he keeps LvG for too long, then sacks him the day after a trophy win, and then employs a manager who plays the opposite football...
Mourinho - should've been let go after 2nd season. Instead he gives him a new contract, then doesn't back him, then sacks him 4 months into the season...
Solskjaer - appoints a nice, friendly, mood lifting interim to guide us into the season's end - instead, gives him the biggest rebuilding job in British football after the old manager gone bounce has happened.
Gives him said contract after 2 straight defeats.
Woodward is an utter clown. He has been the joy of oppo fans, they love him, they long for him to stay, they love his decisions, including the most recent one.
He needs to go - ASAP.
What you are saying is: fans can make a difference. Let’s organise here; let’s get all those who share your view in one space, with something to sign up to.
The green and gold campaign already failed. They're going nowhere.
The G & G campaign was friggin embarrassing.
It was better than nothing, should have been the start of a proper campaign against the Glazers. If it's a shit show in the transfer window, don't be surprised if something proper kicks off this time.
His biggest weakness is he is a tabloid CEO.. very reactive. Like giving Ole a contract before the end of the season because the media was praising Ole and saying if he doesn't get the job now it'll be a travesty
He lacks football knowledge and when you let the media influence you as a CEO you are finished. David Gill made so many unpopular decisions in the media.. he didn't court the attention or praise the same way Woodward does because he lacks football knowledge.
Manchester United needs and deserves much better. We need a CEO/director of football with a long-term plan and vision for the club.. to react ahead not react AFTER something happens.
He lacks football knowledge and when you let the media influence you as a CEO you are finished. David Gill made so many unpopular decisions in the media.. he didn't court the attention or praise the same way Woodward does because he lacks football knowledge.
Manchester United needs and deserves much better. We need a CEO/director of football with a long-term plan and vision for the club.. to react ahead not react AFTER something happens.
Exactly! Considering the biggest complaint is it's all business and no football, a lot of what he does sure doesn't make business sense. It's like he has no business acumen whatsoever. In recent times he's extended Mourinho's contract then had to pay him off. He's bought Sanchez in at huge wages that destabilized the whole team and resulted in everyone wanting a pay rise. And now he's hired Ole just after we started to dip and just before seeing how he coped for the first time in Europe. None of this made business sense. Clown is unfair on clowns. He's utterly clueless. Please god don't let him feck up the Director of Football position. That is our only hope.
He doesn’t seem to see what is plainly obvious - that if we keep supplying a rubbish product, revenues will drop sharply at some point.
It’s ready been pointed out in this thread that we are struggling to connect with the next generation of fans.
If you are a 10/11 year old now, your only memories of United are going to be a club lurching from crisis to crisis playing dull football. Change is needed. Football has to be the priority.
It’s ready been pointed out in this thread that we are struggling to connect with the next generation of fans.
If you are a 10/11 year old now, your only memories of United are going to be a club lurching from crisis to crisis playing dull football. Change is needed. Football has to be the priority.
Didn't Liverpool fans make a fuss about their previous owners?
Has Ed giving the Glazer spawn their dividends? Has Ed delivered value to shareholders?
If yes, then Ed has done a good job for the people employing him.
Ed does not run a football club, Ed runs a business designed to create returns to shareholders and the board.
It's our own damn fault for allowing the club to be sold in the way it was.
If yes, then Ed has done a good job for the people employing him.
Ed does not run a football club, Ed runs a business designed to create returns to shareholders and the board.
It's our own damn fault for allowing the club to be sold in the way it was.
It can’t last unless the football improves, we can’t live off the club name forever. Ed is going to find his beloved commercial sponsors turn away or offer us much less favourable deals if we continue to play this garbage football and it will spiral down from there. I fear for the future of the club.
I don't think this has been posted before: https://www.independent.co.uk/sport...woodward-transfer-window-latest-a8881806.html
It's well worth enduring the Independent's horrible online layout (ad between each para). It's worrying and depressing; the problem seems to be that far from not "understanding" or caring about football, Ed gets far too swept up in the emotion of it all. What we need is a dispassionate cnut in charge.
It's well worth enduring the Independent's horrible online layout (ad between each para). It's worrying and depressing; the problem seems to be that far from not "understanding" or caring about football, Ed gets far too swept up in the emotion of it all. What we need is a dispassionate cnut in charge.