Ed Woodward 2019 - Until all Arctic ice melts edition
- Thread starter fallengt
- Start date
Some perspective on the Glazers and Woodward. Fergies net spend was £20M a season under the Glazers. The Glazer have only broken the £150M barrier once in 14 years. Barcelona are buying players for £130M+, Madrid have spent £280M so far. At a time when 6-7 new players are needed two have been signed. I see some posters defending these charlatans, saying they are good owners/CEO and it makes me laugh even though i feel like crying because of how far we have fallen since Fergie retired. Joke of a club.
3 weeks to go. Clearly he has no intention to buy 3 more players.
Oh don't worry people here would justify how brilliant our window has been.
Zero deadwood out, 2 prospects in.
Woodward. Bloody hell.
Zero deadwood out, 2 prospects in.
Woodward. Bloody hell.
He needs 2 months to sign one player. Biggest disgrace in the history of the club regardless of the outcome of this window. Bad mood today
A lack of protest against him in the stadium let's him get away with it. During the last 7 years, managers changed, players changed but he remained constant. Yet, van Gaal, Jose, Moyes or Pogba were the targets of the media. Our fans has to change it. Maybe it's the Turkish football culture inside me that makes me say it but that stadium should be roaring with protests against this incompetent clueless man.
Here’s a bit more perspective. We have outspent both Madrid and Barca in net terms over the last 6 years. Madrid have barely invented for a few years, whilst selling well. Barca have also made huge sales. The only team in Europe to have a higher net spend than us is City and that’s not by much either. Let’s not let facts get in the way of a good agenda post though.
Ed's useless. People need to stop blaming the managers when the biggest feckup in the club is allowed to mess up at his job while having total job security.
Previous post I wrote in this thread which seems even more fitting now.
The intention was always to have another low-spending summer, Ole is the perfect patsy for such a strategy - low maintenance manager, happy to be there, happy to work with / used to working with no budget to speak of. Fans won't get on his back. If he scrapes top 4, happy days, the owners luck out. If he fails, the owners either spin a narrative of 'its a long rebuilding process' or they fire him and spin the narrative of 'we didn't trust such an inexperienced manager with a big budget - new boss will get a WARCHEST'.
Rinse and repeat.
Rinse and repeat.
Outspent and wasted that money on three different managers that he appointed. The only reason we had that scattergun approach and spending was due to the massive underinvestment in the first place. Let's not get facts in the way of anything to be honest.
Failed to offload any of our players, and the ones we could have, we renewed instead. It's obvious they are not backing Ole this window. Who ever critiques Ole if/when this season goes badly is just stupid. This is their answer after finishing the season in relegation form and 6th, brilliant!
Correction, clown owners.
All of which reflects badly on Ed. Poor signings and poor sales. Barca, Real, even Liverpool get bang for their buck with sales. What did we sell Zaha for, £10m? Evans for like £5m..
Then the whole debacle with giving Mourinho a long contract and then not backing him in the summer..
Ed's a clown. But really our decline started when we sold Ronaldo and only signed Valencia, Obertan and Owen as replacements. We then proceeded to sign feck all till SAF left, needing us to make big purchases to catch up once again. Which we've failed to do due to the merry go around of managers led by Ed.
Unfortunately, the club at the moment is reflective of the owners. And they are terrible. The bad investment/underinvestment stretches over many many windows and we see the evidence on the pitch.
Meanwhile, in the latest summer crisis window, we seemingly don’t want to fix anything other than RB position. I don’t think Ole would agree that he’s been given a platform to improve his team. And with relative transfer fees and our turnover we could have dwarfed our actual outlay this summer.
If we end up having signed just 2 players, then Ed will deserve some criticism. I do believe that we will sign at least one more though.
Considering the state which Arsenal and Chelsea are in, we should be able to cement our place in top four this season if we just make two more signings. Is not that our ambition?
I sincerely hope they are planning to sell, hence the minimal investment after a season that clearly requires backing the manager.
One isn't enough is it? We lost Fellaini and Herrera. Two other players want to leave as well.
This is true.
Ambition of the Glazers, yes, you're right.
Agreed, I do believe we need at least 2 more players provided that Pogba stays.
2 more first team signings (CB and CM) and Pogba staying is the absolute minimum we need to retain a 4th-6th place finish. If we want to exceed that we also need a RW and another CM
Also he is the one signing off disasters. Rooney 5 yr contract, Sanchez 400k, Jose renewal then 20m to sack him, now Rashford £200k a week at 21 and DeGea £350+k a week. But theres no money for signings the team need
City were supposed to be the mercenaries, nope. Players want to play for them and Pep. We are the ones begging players to come for money
|I agree with the part in bold. It seems as if the only negotiating tactic he has is offering stupid money that other teams won't pay. It can come back to bite us because if the player is not a success we are going to find it hard to get a buyer who is willing to match their wages and then we get stuck with players who contribute little and most players are not going to want a wage cut when they move to knew clubs. Sanchez being a prime example mate.
Ha! Some fans are copping on, at last.
Maybe he means to sign them by 2021
I just saw a stat that AM just brought in 10 players and shifted out 10 (albeit Greisman being bought out based on his release clause.)
Are we working on a shoestring budget/team in Mayfair?
Are we working on a shoestring budget/team in Mayfair?
It really is baffling. The Madrid clubs and Juventus have really gone for it this window. You'd think we would have the financial power to bring in at least 5 and get as many out. We saw the same bullshit last summer, heads need to roll.
Really annoying to see them sell Ole short when Mourinho and Van Gaal got big budgets to work with in their first seasons.
Think you're right about Hazard, I checked more exensively and found that our total net spend during those 8 years after the take-over was around 150M, which averages around 19M / season in transfers. At first I thought well, players were cheaper then but I checked City and Chelsea spending during the same period and found out that both spent over 550M in the same amount of time, Liverpool spent 250M, We simply didn't have the funds to compete for the best players. And I wont even look at what Barca and Madrid spent, pretty sure it's way more than us.
The Glazer take-over put us in a weak position in the transfer market for too long, now when we do have a bit more cash the players cost a lot and our squad requires an extensive rebuild because of those 8 years.
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Maybe the best thing is to keep missing out on top 4 in the short term if the glazers/woody wont spend the money. Eventually something will give. Sponsors will be offering less money. We certainly wont get the Chevrolet and Adidas deals again. They will then either sell up or have to spend big.
They need to bench-mark the Mayfair's team's performance too just like the players.
That's a Russian roulette.
Can the financial geniuses that constantly tell us how good Woodward in his role. Why is it that he refuses generally to agree to the last £10 million needed to finalise the transfer when he is happy to dole out that amount per annum to sign bludgers that remain on the books.
This negotiation tactic has stuffed our recruitment several times, he may be good at some aspects but that sort of unwillingness to meet the market is one of the reasons he is regarded as not doing what the football side of the club needs to progress. It just seems poor financial decisions not to conclude these transfers for amounts which in the scheme of the clubs finances are minimal, is it more about continuing to show what hard negotiators he and Judge are, if so FAIL !!
This negotiation tactic has stuffed our recruitment several times, he may be good at some aspects but that sort of unwillingness to meet the market is one of the reasons he is regarded as not doing what the football side of the club needs to progress. It just seems poor financial decisions not to conclude these transfers for amounts which in the scheme of the clubs finances are minimal, is it more about continuing to show what hard negotiators he and Judge are, if so FAIL !!
Is Woodward lack of football knowledge and inability in the transfer market still a topic of debate. We've been saying the same thing for the past 4 years: https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/calamitous-ed-woodward-must-take-6290317
Both Ed and the Glazer family have clearly demonstrated their ambition this summer, which is to compete for top 4 and not to challenge for titles. We finished 6th last season 30 points behind and our answer to make up that deficit is to sign so far a RB. This should have been the summer when we ripped that squad to pieces and rebuild. I fully expected a summer rebuild similar to what Real have done instead it's pitiful.
Even Ole is starting to annoy me. Talks about replacing players who would leave. where is the replacement for Herrera? Instead let's morph McTomminay and Perriera into one player and hope they can do the job.
Even Ole is starting to annoy me. Talks about replacing players who would leave. where is the replacement for Herrera? Instead let's morph McTomminay and Perriera into one player and hope they can do the job.
I think it's a bit unfair to lay the blame for this with Ole. He clearly thought he would be getting a Herrera replacement. Now having realised the Board are too tightfisted/useless, he's forced to make do with what we've got. He's hardly the type to come out and bash the Board publicly for being inept, but I'm sure that privately he has to be pretty upset with this situation. I genuinely believe that he wanted to get rid of the deadwood around and probably thought the board would back him with this, but it's taken his first transfer window in charge to realise that this is how the current Manchester United operates.
He was asked directly two days ago about Lukaku if he leaves what will happen. He said every player who leaves will be replaced. He doesnt have to say that then if it is not the case.
So adamant about defending Eddy and the Glazer's you are now blaming Sir Alex and Gill when it's been 6 years since they left.
If folks are going to slate his first transfer window in 2013, its only fair to take on board the situation he was walking into. He inherited an ageing team that Fr Time had got the best of. The entire spine of the team needed replacing and he had to work alongside a dithering fool like Moyes who decided to waste the entire summer chasing unrealistic targets like Cesc.
Are you telling me it wouldn't of been in the clubs best interests if Gill had stayed another year to assist Ed with the transition?
Any club losing a manager of Ferguson's talents was obviously going to falter a bit, so if he (Gill) had the clubs best interests at heart he would of stayed. Instead he still takes money from the club from a Board role and provides little.
Instead of making s*it up like the quote above maybe address the issues in an intelligent manner.
No what you did was complain about both outcomes so basically you are unhappy regardless of whatever happens.
We've often out spent Real as I've pointed out, we've spent more than them in 3 of the last 5 windows I believe it is. Memory is a bit off on this but pretty sure that is the case.
We've signed some immensely talented players, problem is that they don't fit a system often and the manager can't get the best from said player.
That isn't a problem of the board, they've done their part in providing financial support and completing the deal for the manager to get the player.
Pretty sure we signed Mikhataryan for Jose? How he turned out is not on the board, its down to the manager and player himself. He was replaced by Sanchez whom he wanted to take away from City for mind boggling numbers, one of the first questions Jose was after signing Sanchez was what position he would play, would it be RW? He avoided answering.
Modric and Eriksen were pre Woodward. Modric wasn't signed due to Ferguson not wanting a transfer saga with Levy.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/sir-alex-fergusons-secret-attempt-12772848
https://www.sportsjoe.ie/football/manchester-united-luka-modric-133632
It's as much down to the managers as it is anyone that key areas are not addressed.
I mean, has Ole not picked up on the fact that right back needed addressing and we have? We needed pace, but more importantly work rate in our attack and we signed James.
Key areas addressed by the manager.
Going for Maguire for £80m when he could get Alderweireld for £25m
The clause for £25m is only for non premier league clubs and only valid for the final 2 weeks of the transfer window I've read.
Hence...No club has gone near him yet.
Some perspective, using net spend is absolutely pointless mate.
There is far, far more that goes on in a transfer than most casual supporters consider. I'll give you an example of some factors that show net spend is utterly pointless.
- Agent fees - sadly a huge part of the game now, Raiola for example commands massive fees, Jose's agent Mendes made mind boggling sums from us recently. To give you an idea, all those signing's Liverpool made last year they broke PL records for agent fees alone. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/apr/04/liverpool-paid-43m-agents-spurs-113m-profit-record
- VAT - Selling club will include VAT on the transfer fee when reporting it to paint a picture of receiving a fair price for out going player, whilst the buying club usually reports it exc. VAT. The fee itself is of course agreed but what is reported is often different, you'll see this on practically every transfer.
- Premier League - They make a sum off of every transfer as well so this too gets added to the transfer.
- Add ons & installments - Almost every transfer is paid off via installments. Add on's are becoming more and more public due to how difficult and costly transfers are these days so again it portrays the buying / selling clubs in a good light.
- Signing on fee - A given now and it is anything up to 10% of the transfer fee usually and again it is paid annually in installments on the date of agreement.
- Wages - Most of us are fully aware of wages, but funnily also often ignored by many supporters like you who decided net spend is a valid argument. We've the leagues biggest wage bill mate, £350m approx. Which is £30m more than City. It rose by 46% during Jose's tenure at the club but all you read is that he wasn't supported.
- Image Rights - Finally this is a huge part of most deals now also as many clubs use the players image to further line their own coffers. Pogba's recent trip to New York for example the club benefited from financially and in turn it aides paying our hefty wage bill and mind boggling squad rebuild which is touching 1billion in 6 years.
The spine of that team lasted up to 09, 10 and its at that point we should of been seriously rebuilding. But a number of factors meant we didn't and our demise began.
Ferguson was stubborn in his old age and refused to deal with many, many agents whilst our rivals welcomed them and signed top players. There could well have been a tightening of the purse strings around that time as well as the club cleared much of the PIK loans that hung over the club. It isn't all of one thing or the other, its a number of factors.
Liverpool have one of footballs best net spends in recent years (approx last 5 years). But why is that? There's two key factors and one of them you are glaringly ignoring.
Liverpool lost their best player annually for at least 3-4 seasons. They lost Suarez to Barca, then Sterling left under bad circumstances to a Rival and arguably City's best player last season which you could argue was vital in costing them their first title in 3 decades.
They spent big on Benteke for one manager (Rodgers) who was sacked a few months later) only for Klopp to sell him almost instantly. They then lost Coutinho also to Barca.
Basically we hold onto all of our top players pretty much, the exceptions in the last decade being Ronaldo to Real and ADM to PSG.
The other part to Liverpool having great net spend is clever scouting.
Far too much in the numbers to just say net spend makes the club a joke.
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Yeah because my opinion differs from yours this SO CLEARLY has to be true.
Or you know, I just replied to comments that replied to mine...
