So the problem is, as I suspected, we haven't got anyone making good long term footballing decisions. It's a recruitment issue, not an owner issue and someone needs to be held accountable for our decline over the course of the last 7 years. Fingers are pointed at Ed or the Glazers.
Given some of the abuse I've seen directed at the Glazers on here, I honeslty thought it was something deeper.
In reality, a strong DoF is all that's needed - as the current board are unqualified to make footballing decisions.
I welcome your input.
That's a grave misconception from your part. When the Glazers took over the club they put a huge debt on it to be able to fund the purchase, this debt wasn't taken to invest back in the club (as some seem to think, not saying you do) but to fund their purchase.
The initial interest rates were so high that our spending power on the market was crippled. For the initial 8 years of their take-over SAF had a net spend of 13M/year, 'No value in the market' was just a nicer way for SAF to say, I don't have the funds for absolute top players. During this same period clubs like Chelsea, City, Real, Barca outspent us by more than 500M
each, you have to remember that the 500M more was in a market where players like Ronaldo went for under 100M.
The Glazer crippled the clubs spending power for a decade, we replaced players like Ronaldo and Tevez with Valencia and and an ageing Owen but SAFs brilliance masked our decline. By the end of Moyes tenure we had a complete rebuild on our hands, some fans even blamed SAF for keeping his old players and never replacing them, called him a sentimental old man. Truth is he never had the funds to replace them with younger players of equal quality. When the Glazers opened their wallets there was a massive job ahead. Instead of being pro-active, the Glazers waited to give funds until it all went to hell.
The DOF you're talking about should have put in place right after Moyes departure, but Woodward chose to keep his fingers in any dealings and decisions. Making knee-jerk decision after knee-jerk decision that put us where we are now and the Glazers kept him on the job despite this.
In another knee-jerk reaction Woodward gives Ole the job on a permanent basis and decides that Ole (A manager inexperienced at this level) and him himself (A knee-jerking CEO who has failed miserably on the football side) will handle the 3rd or is it 4th? I've lost count, rebuild of one of the biggest clubs in the world.
The Glazers take-over and debt facilitated our decline, Woodward made it worse.