Not at all. Check the DoF thread for numerous pages on that subject.
Ed Woodward - Same medicine for the patient, no new structure?
- Thread starter ROFLUTION
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Not at all. Check the DoF thread for numerous pages on that subject.
Even Fergie never had full control. We lost out on many players that he wanted over the years because they were too expensive (either to sign or their wages). Not really any different than Jose had last season, where it did seem we tried to sign the players he wanted but every single one of them ended up costing far more than they were actually worth.
Very sensitive post. We need to look at our club from the big picture like this, and not like now. Another poster mentioned Woodward's way of reacting.. bit by bit.. to what the fans and times want here and now. This is like looking at our objectices and strategy at an extremely short time period.
The Frankenstein terminology is completely spot on.
Believe what you want. Believing everything that the club wants you to see sounds like your forte.
Perhaps I’ll try baseless conspiracy because ‘I read it on a forum’ in the future.
Yep thats fair enough. It's only like taking info off journos etc.
On another hand when you look at it, when there is so much information to see out there that aims target at Woodward everyone still seems to aim back at the manager, there is Herrera, Shaw that were bought without a manager in place, Pogba another, (Riaola confirmed it took months/years to work on the deal) was coming with or without Jose, the manager probably got asked/told about these players arriving but didn't have much to any say in them coming or not. (Jose just the other day said he was going to go before Pogba)
To me as my opinion nothing to do with what I read on forums, it's no coincidence that when Gill and SAF went it all started crumbling. Giving agents money and power has ruined our club, and thats down to..... Ed Woodward.
I asked yesterday but no one has given an answer
No direct quotes, but all the credible sources comes out at the same time saying it'll be a lot of players out and a lot of players in. Consensus is that he has briefed/leaked this to the press.
Check some of the links in the OP here:
https://www.redcafe.net/threads/sol...rs-could-leave-bbc-telegraph-guardian.446294/
If i remember correctly, exact same stuff were said last year also. And we all know how that ended.
So this year it will be; "I will buy you Neymar but not Sancho".
Tbf, you could almost argue that those three were our best buys during Woodward time.
And Jose was drolling after Pogba for a long time.I don't believe Woodward deals so much with buyings or if there are some rare instances where he does I don't think he would go against our manager wishes. Only really suspicios buying was Falcao who was pretty unnecesary at the time imo. But, both LVG and Jose has such a long list of major feck ups in the market it is better for both of them to be quiet.
On the other hand, in terms of general football plan and direction, I have my doubts Woodward looks past this evening. His head should be questioned just for this season alone, let alone past five.
Not buying players and not sacking Jose in a situation where my dog knew the latter will implode and then waiting to get into position where we have mountain to climb just to get into top 4 to sack him.
Oh, yeah, he did something. Briefed the press we were after Varane's of this world to make club (or him) look good. Pretty impressive stuff, that.
The managers don't feel the heat? 3 Managers have been let go. That is one hot seat.
Guess who is still seating comfy in his seat, despite all the complaints about him? That's the seat you need to crank the heat up on.
This is actually nonsense and, more than that, completely contradicts the rest of your post.
we are going round in circles. I think we can agree on one thing: Woodward is deciding who becomes manager.
Your argument is, that he also delegates most decision making power to the manager, which would make this appointment even more important.
My view:
His first three appointments failed and making any decision about Ole before the end of the season is truly moronic. Thats why he should be less important in this process. Generally speaking, delegating all decision making power about transfers/team development to the manager is a terrible idea. Regardless of who ultimately made the decisions about transfers, those decisions were terrible and the system has to be changed. I think he does have a say in transfer decisions and is not just setting the budget constraints, but thats not really important in my argument.
On a side note: To believe that Mourinho would manage United for a long time was always wishful thinking.
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As long as the club is generating massive profits and team is meeting minimum targets (top four), the Woodward won't be dislodged any time soon. Even if we don't make top four or go on the slide, there's plenty of people lower down the food chain at United who'll be shown the door before Woodward. Like it or not, if anyone's job is secure, it is his.
Im gonna wait to see what his strategy is and how he works with ole before i judge him again.
You say that mate, but why are we at this stage and you're still giving him the benefit of the doubt? If he fails and Ole gets sacked, we then bring in the next manager and Woodward releases his press briefings to make it sound like this time we'll actually do good business, will you be here again saying you want to see how he does?
It just feels to me that our fans are so easily led. We're the least informed when it comes to the inner workings at the club, yet fans want to discount what the previous managers with first hand experience are saying, along with the likes of Neville, Scholes etc, all who have contacts at the club right now.
I keep saying this but our fans need to wake up. We are being shafted and we're the only people in the world that can't see it. Ex players know it, former managers know it, opposition supporters can see it, but we have some that want to pretend everything is fine. I find it baffling.
You mean Red Issue?
Those feckers dont know what the feck is going on in the Club. The Caf had a highly informed poster who was best mates with Eric Steele and even Eric was reluctant to say anything half the time.
I mean hiring managers who have such differing philosophy that it is difficult to take the club forward. Do you have any idea on what are we trying to pursue as a club as far as our on-field playing style is concerned?
This is why we need to step up and stop supporting the club, stop buying tickets and stop giving them profits if you want change.
Otherwise they will just keep blaming the manager placating you with manager changes that does feck all while we spiral down to become Liverpool of the 90s
You can replace Ed Woodward with Karen "Ok next question please" and the only thing that'd change is the amount sponsorship deals.
If We don't appoint a DoF or whatever it is called with to help him then I'm afraid next year will be similar to the past few years.
If We don't appoint a DoF or whatever it is called with to help him then I'm afraid next year will be similar to the past few years.
That’s fair, but the suggestion I am seeing in here is that instead of delegating this to a manager, he should delegate it to a DoF instead. I’m unsure how, in and of itself, that solves everything. Unless the DoF is amazing of course. But then, hopefully the manager is too. My main point is whoever is delegated to, Ed will not be making the ‘football decisions’ he has been accused of getting so wrong. Director or Manager is inconsequential. Results and transfers could still go just as wrong.
No I don’t really. I think Woodward has just hired football managers and allowed them to introduce the style that they are comfortable with, so long as it wins. If it doesn’t, they are out.
Excellent post and I wish that a lot of one-liner posters would actually try to read some of the more intelligent posts in here.
It is kind of interesting why the focus always is turned to Woodward in threads like this.
Anyone with some insight in the club knows that Woodward has distanced himself more and more from the footballing side of things since the appointment of Moyes. This will probably come full circle when a DoF/technical director is appointed.
As Rozay argues the "footballing decisions" is not a stick to beat Woodward with and it has not been for quite a while if ever.
What you can argue is that he has made wrong decisions in the appointment of managers. Which is fair in a way. At the same time retrospective analysis is simple. Both appointments of LvG and Mourinho were hailed on the Caf. Even Moyes. Anyone remember the "Chosen One" banner?
We as a club have a history of putting all of the footballing decisions in the hands of the manager though. You just have to read anyone of the great mans books to see what type of leadership of a football club he advocates. All power to the manager.
Its also the tradition that lured Mourinho to the club.
What Mourinho faced was not what he had imagined I suppose, it was a club in transition that was expanding its scouting system, delegating executive decisions to people like Matt Judge negotiating contracts
Basically it was a club that was and is reforming itself into a much more modern setup. This is most likely down to Woodward and the more progressive elements in the club. There still are people at the club, especially at the advisory board that opposes this reformation which is not a secret either.
We are a club with a lot of tradition and it does not reform easily.
What happened with Mourinho is a many ways a sign of the reformation going on at the club.
The tabloids always had it being Mourinho against Woodward. He was not "backed in the market", etc. What actually did happen was that Mourinho clashed with the new structure being built at the club. He did not accept or get along with Jim Lawlor´s scouting network that the club spent quite a lot of money to rebuild,. He did not get along with the clubs youth setup either. All of this would lead to his demise. And of course he would never have had accepted a DoF. If not for Mourinho I am pretty sure we would have a technical director in place by now.
Because I belive that is what is going to happen. We will appoint a technical or sporting director that will be focused on negotiations of contracts and also have responsibility over the scouting network and youth setup. I am not ruling out that the club will just promote Matt Judge. Which of course would lead to mayhem on the Caf since he is a financial guy to begin with and not a "football man" whatever that is.
Its semantics this, but I dont believe that the club is ready for or is going to appoint a pure DoF in the sense that people at the Caf seems to want. And as Rozay put it, however we solve this situation its not going to change Woodwards status at all. Its a question of managing the responsibilities between the Dof/TD and the manager.
A lot of power over the footballing decisions will remain with the manager IMO. And maybe it should.
Sir Alex would definately say so.
Makes incorrect accusation then proceeds to ramble on nonsense about the incorrect accusation.You mean Red Issue?
Those feckers dont know what the feck is going on in the Club. The Caf had a highly informed poster who was best mates with Eric Steele and even Eric was reluctant to say anything half the time.
Makes incorrect accusation then proceeds to ramble on nonsense about the incorrect accusation.
Mate I honestly couldnt give a feck so get back in your box
We did have a manager when we signed Shaw and Herrera, as Van Gaal was appointed a month before. Obviously he was busy with the Netherlands and the groundwork on the two players was done before, but he gave the green light to sign them.
Van Gaal may also have been in on the Pogba deal, if the club was working on it for a while. Anyhow, do you honestly believe he would have been bought if Jose said no?
Also, on what basis has it been concluded that ‘no manager = Woodward signed them’? Few fans probably have much of a clue of how exactly it all goes down. Quite possibly, we do have individuals working in this magical DoF-like capacity. We have scouts who watch players regardless of the manager and recommend them. I imagine staff had done extensive homework on Shaw + Herrera and asked Van Gaal if he wanted to go ahead, to which he said yes.
If you’re going to mention those players, then mention Thiago, who was apparently also scouted (presumably by someone other than Woodward), but Moyes vetoed his signing when offered.
The way Man United has been run by Woodward and Glazer family since Sir Alex left, sometimes I find it hard to believe we are owned and Run by astute American business family with experience of sports teams ownership and man city is owned by Arab despots who only know oil business. Even more so when we have regularly outspend them in transfers.
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Because one team is owned to make money for the owners, and the other is owned to sportwash their Country.
One team has used a considerable amount of their own generated funds to pay of debt. The other team has had a considerable amount of funds put into their club to make them better.
One team used a lot of money in the beginning of their new ownership, failed, then appointed the leaders of the most successful team in the world atm, the other team lost their manager of 25+ years and all his staff and has been governed by accountants for the last 5 years.
Not that this is an excuse, as we have used enough £££ in the transfermarket over the last 5 seasons that we should be in a better posision/situation than we are currently in.
That's it, isn't it. He has no vision as to how our club should play on the field. He should be CFO or something, definitely not CEO.
I’m not sure his job is to ‘have a vision as to how our club should play on the field’. That sounds like a ‘football decision’ to me, and I’m still not sure whether people want Ed to be making those or not.
Surely the football people he has hired from the managers to scouts to academy staff are supposed to have a vision as to how we are to play on the field? If he hires a DoF, that would be one more football employee who should help shape how we play on the field. If after that we still don’t play ‘free-flowing football’, I’m not sure we can start questioning Ed Woodward, Matt Judge or Richard Arnold. We CAN question them if performances suffer for too long and they don’t replace the football people in charge. But as we have seen, they have done that.
They've done that multiple times and the problems persist. Indicating that our issues go deeper than football management.
I’ve said before, I’m not even sure the inquest needs to be as surgical as it’s made out, but that’s just me personally. We haven’t won the league for 6 years. That’s not some ‘sack the board’ scenario per se. It doesn’t need to be a result of some criminal unprofessionalism. Things haven’t worked. But they COULD have. In my opinion, we could have just as easily hired Mourinho, bought in Pogba, Zlatan, Mkhitaryan and whoever else we bought, and won the league. It’s worked for him at Chelsea. It isn’t always a matter of ‘our problems go deeper than x or y’. We’ve finished second last season, and we’re second for pretty much the entire season too, not like we moved into second when it was all over. However, we came up against the best PL season ever from City.
For the record, I’m not happy. I want us to win the league. Every year. It’s very hard to do these days, and I think a lot of players struggle with the pressure of playing for us at the moment. In any case, I’ve said it over and over in this thread, I just don’t think it’s down to Woodward that we’ve not won league titles. It’s easy to just say ‘he’s appointed the wrong managers’, but I cannot think of which manager he could have realistically appointed in the last 6 years that would have won us a league title. I’m not sure, without the benefit of hindsight, how many better players we could have signed either. Nobody was outraged when we didn’t sign Salah. Most of the caf made fun of it and said he wasn’t all that. He probably wouldn’t have been if he came here. Not Sure if it’s Woody’s fault. I’ve come to the point where I’m just riding it out now. I don’t think any signings will magically fix us, I don’t think any manager will magically fix us. It’s just not our turn right now. We won the league with little challenge for two decades and now everyone is demanding answers when we don’t win one for a few years. I don’t think there is an obvious one. We will probably stumble across it if anything.
the caf is savage these daysBut he wasn't hired a DoF yet. He has hired managers who will stay true to their style of play. What was Ed asking them during their interviews if he did not know what he was getting from them on the field. Your posts come across as simply absolving him from blame and saying he should not be looked at to improve the footballing side of the club. I agree that he shouldn't be but unfortunately he is.
I'm almost convinced some of the posters on here must be on Woodwards payroll for PR or something. They're defending him based on imaginary scenarios like 'maybe we have people in the DoF type roles already' or 'we could heave won the league with the signings we've made', when we can all see they weren't enough.
Anyway, I doubt anybody can be convinced he's doing a great job or deserves no blame given the mountain of evidence that points to him being a big part of the issues.
Anyway, I doubt anybody can be convinced he's doing a great job or deserves no blame given the mountain of evidence that points to him being a big part of the issues.
Brilliant. Put the blame away from people who make decision and throw it at the ones who don't actually have the power.
Even if that is true, why the feck those involved don't changed it because they have power.
Newsflash. You can have DoF and remain true to what you think United is all about. Giving more power to the manager who wants to be here and is doing a good job. That's the greatest thing about plan and vision. It could be anything. You just need to have one.
Involve janitor as well while we at it.
The Glazers are nothing more than rent seekers. They are in the disintegrating shopping mall business and have massive debts there. NFL teams make money no matter how awful the team.
No, don’t be fecking stupid.