Jose has bought attackers and defenders since arriving at United. Do we have a decent attack or defence? What has actually improved under Jose? last season is looking more and more like a fluke and the stats of (least shots on goal, most faced in top 6) looked unsustainable as De Gea may run out of steam. Based on his previous, I have zero confidence in any of his signings.
Man Utd set to appoint Director of Football (when hell freezes over)
- Thread starter RedMachine03
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First of all I'm not a Glazer lover, but I cant believe that the Glazers or their financial advisers in the USA havent figured out that if we are not winning trophies regularly then the wheels will eventually drop off the gravy train that is Utd. They have had unparralled success from Woody bringing money in, so naturally they let him run the lot, even though he was a novice at the football side.
He/They bought in Moyes on Fergies? say so and it was obvious he was out his depth, but they didnt know at the beginning as they gave him a 6 year contract, hoping for some sort of continuation. Moyes then scrapped everything Fergie built up in his backroom staff. I firmly believe he would have got top 4 if he had kept Phelan Mulensteen etc, and let them do their thing, but he thought he was better than he was. Transfer wise we tried to get the likes of Thiago Croos and Fabregas etc but they didnt want to come to play for Moyes.
After that debarcle they then went for the most experienced manager available; Van Gaal. They learned their lesson and gave him a 3 year contract. They gave him everyone he wanted to sign and after 2 years this was going tits up as well. The FA cup wasnt a big enough trophy to keep his job.
They then had a chance to sign another top experienced manager. A certainty for winning the league again and backed Mourinho for the first 2 years, even giving a one year extention but unfortunately it wasnt going to work here. Dont know what happened after Dalot and Fred, but Woody drew the line at more old players. Maybe Sanchez not performing and the resigning of Fellaini put him off any more. Now how we have performed since, Pogba wars etc would usually end in the sack and I think thats what Mourinhos after now. The fact they have said (according to press depends which paper you read) they are reluctant to sack him, hoping he can turn it round. How long he gets is another story.
Woody may be out his depth but you cant say he hasnt backed the manager until the warning signs start going off
He/They bought in Moyes on Fergies? say so and it was obvious he was out his depth, but they didnt know at the beginning as they gave him a 6 year contract, hoping for some sort of continuation. Moyes then scrapped everything Fergie built up in his backroom staff. I firmly believe he would have got top 4 if he had kept Phelan Mulensteen etc, and let them do their thing, but he thought he was better than he was. Transfer wise we tried to get the likes of Thiago Croos and Fabregas etc but they didnt want to come to play for Moyes.
After that debarcle they then went for the most experienced manager available; Van Gaal. They learned their lesson and gave him a 3 year contract. They gave him everyone he wanted to sign and after 2 years this was going tits up as well. The FA cup wasnt a big enough trophy to keep his job.
They then had a chance to sign another top experienced manager. A certainty for winning the league again and backed Mourinho for the first 2 years, even giving a one year extention but unfortunately it wasnt going to work here. Dont know what happened after Dalot and Fred, but Woody drew the line at more old players. Maybe Sanchez not performing and the resigning of Fellaini put him off any more. Now how we have performed since, Pogba wars etc would usually end in the sack and I think thats what Mourinhos after now. The fact they have said (according to press depends which paper you read) they are reluctant to sack him, hoping he can turn it round. How long he gets is another story.
Woody may be out his depth but you cant say he hasnt backed the manager until the warning signs start going off
Woody will only be in danger of losing his job if United's sponsors jump ship because United are no longer associated with success. Imagine Chevrolet becoming City's shirt sponsors (I know some would be happy with this) for instance.
You should really say you don’t have confidence in any of Ed’s signings.
Agree with lots of what you say. Two points however.
Spurs have a strong side, but not a deep side. They needed reinforcements same as Pool did. So agree they did not have holes in the starting XI but they needed players imho.
As for Jose I agree he doesn't develop players well, never been his strong suit. But as he is our manager Woodward needs to back him or cut him. Hamstringing you manager never works out well in the end as I see it...
I have no confidence in his managers signings but I fail to understand when it has become fashion to not accept that managers choose the signings? Ed isn't Roman or Perez. Lukaku, Matic are classic Jose signings. Lindelöf was spoken about by Jose. Pogba hailed as the "perfect CM" Zlatan (another ex Jose player). Alexis is another obvious Jose 29 year old signing. What a coincidence if these were all Ed's "dream players". I am pretty sure if Ed had his way he'd sign Verane, Kante, De Bruyne, Mbappe, Griezmann etc.
1) They have bought Keita and Fabinho. The fact that Klopp doesn't want to introduce Fabinho now is his choice, but you can't say they didn't invest in midfield. They recognized they have a problem in it and got 2 top players in one summer in it. Chelsea also had a problem in midfield last season with Bakaoko and he got replaced with Kovacic and Jorginho. Just because you don't rate Giroud doesn't mean they're not happy with it, like people talking about Firmino while Klopp rates him highly. They have weak points they buy to strengthen it. Not to mention when Courtois was sold for 35m they have no problem in getting a young not much known keeper for a whole 72m. They didn't say: "Oh he's overexpensive, he doesn't deserve all that money" etc like we're doing with the likes of Maguire and Tobby for example.
Not sure why you're mentioning Arsenal though, thought we're talking about clubs who want to win.
2 ) How said that we didn't try to offload them ? We tried to offload Darmian and Rojo out in summer but refused to sell Darmian for less than 20m and Rojo deal to Everton fall apart because he didn't accept a pay cut. Both are things to blame Ed for, as I don't think managers put the required bid for a player to be sold and it was Ed who gave insane wage salaries to average players ever since LVG days, thus struggling to offload them as they refuse pay cuts. Maybe don't give stupid wages to average players from start then ?
3 ) No he's not. The other 2 clubs competing for the title have went on insane spending the last 2 summers. People keep talking about the 400m spent by us but City spent 300m alone on their defense and GK without talking about their offensive signings. Pep didn't have to put with the terrible, slow and aged defense and fullbacks he inherited and they were fully replaced in summer. Klopp didn't go to compete on league with Klaven, Lovren and Karius. They bought VVD for 75, they enforced the midfield with Keita and Fabinho for nearly 100m, and they got Alisson for 67m. You can talk about Coutinho sale but they have already exceeded the money they got for him.
Also not all of Klopp or Pep signings were hits when they first came to say that they earned it. Klopp's first summer was a big failure, only Mane was a good buy and the rest failed, and his first full season he barely secured top 4 and was about to miss on it for Arsenal in the last few matches. Pep's first summer wasn't much of a success at this time. Gundogan was injured ( and still inconsistent currently ), Stones was laughed at thanks to his price tag, Nolito and Bravo flopped badly and Jesus has ended on the bench and is on the dawn not on the up. Pretty much only Sane was considered a successful hit from this window, and later on Stones improved. Pep also had an overall terrible season, not even mounting a title challenge, out of both cups and out of 16th round CL by Monaco.
Now both Liverpool and City boards didn't go to them and tell them "Feck off you bricks, improve first before we splash the cash, and your targets are shite as well". Reason ? Because the board is spending to improve the team now and afterwards not just for the eyes of the current manager like we seem to think. The CB we vetoed to buy this summer because of the high wages, we'll be forced to do it with the upcoming manager so we're just delaying the inevitable. Could have done it in a summer we didn't spend much rather delaying the inevitable for a summer we may to spend a lot depending on what the next manager will want, but we lack any long term vision.
You can miss luxury players here and there it's not a problem. City missing on Sanchez and Jorginho won't affect them a little bit and they already gave Pep Mahrez for 60m as a replacement. Missing on key players you're in massive need for is the problem. When they were struggling in fullbacks position they didn't miss on players, they splashed 130m on fullbacks in one summer. Other thing is talking about this makes it feels like they vetoed Pep's choices like what we did with Mourinho which is untrue. All City reporters at this time reported that Pep had a meeting with Txiki and board and they all agreed on getting off from Sanchez deal. For Jorginho deal the player was the one who chose Chelsea. Board was willing to spend and had previous agreement. Both are completely different from what we did in summer when we said "feck it it's too expensive for value, we better put the money in our pocket".
That doesn't mean Mourinho is blameless, or it's the full board blame. The truth is it's in between them both. Mourinho has full share of problems and mistakes he created and done, but as for Ed his overall run of the football side was a total mess, and it's coming at a time the rivals are having no problem overspending even the players they're buying are well less worth their price. They adapted to the current. We're not.
Also no one is simply saying that getting Tobby would have made us title contender as some claim. We're talking about our transfer strategy in general. Do you have any doubt the next manager won't ask for Lindelof to be sold and replaced by a better CB who will end up costing +70-80m ? Is our only problem in the situation is that it's Mourinho out of everyone who asked for a CB, but it'll completely fine when the upcoming manager inevitably do it ? If that's the case why didn't we just sack Mourinho in summer and brought on another manager who we're willing to give these players ? How will you know that the next manager will have a good vision in the players he'll ask for anyway ?
The board buys for the team not for the manager. Managers don't last longer than 3-4 years while the players last more. You buy players that will benefit the current manager and the upcoming one, not vetoing a manager's choice while you very much know that we have a problem in defense and the next manager will ask for a similar transfer anyway. Not just on defense in general but any other position. Mourinho made a terrible mistake on signing Lindelof, ok, so what ? Should we wait for a new manager to clean the deadwood of the previous one just like what we did with LVG ? I find the other clubs around us cleaning their deadwood and replacing them whoever signed them from the start, being the current manager or not it doesn't matter. He flopped, he got replaced, end of story!
If we have a long term vision and a direction for the club which we get managers to follow we would have never been in that mess.
The argument
Your argument about Klopp falls apart when you realise that THIS IS THE FIRST SEASON UNDER KLOPP that Liverpool have negative transfer spend. Every season they have had to balance the books where as Jose has been able to hoard. This 140million net spend of Klopp this season was given to Jose from day one with Pogba, Miki and Bailly. He then gets Lukaku, big money on Matic AND Fred. Don't forget Sanchez (highest paid in the league). So that's 70 million on CB, 75 + million on striker, 180 million on CM's 20 millon on FB. this is on top of 37 million Martial, De Gea and 30 million Shaw (who were already there). How much more does this geezer need to waste?
You also need to realize that Liverpool had won nothing the previous 2 years under Klopp and finished 8th, 4th and 4th while his transfers business in the last 2 years have been hit and miss with most of them miss (Only Salah and Mane stands out from his first 2 summers transfers ) but the board decides if they want to challenge they really have to splash the cash and on their weak points not just randomly. They didn't tell him at one point he has to improve his results before giving him the money.
Mourinho had won 2 trophies in his first year and finished second in his second year. The only logical upcoming step for United was to improve the team more to close the gap with City and challenge for the title, not to veto the transfers and tell him to get more of the players first. This is a lame excuse considering 1) to get more is to win the league from the team who spent more than us and 2 ) City and Pool splashed the cash at one point for their managers despite their first full seasons and first summer were mostly underwhelming, more than Mourinho's first 2 seasons here actually, so if you think Mourinho didn't earn the right to spend then neither Klopp nor Pep earned it at their clubs. Why give Pep 200m in his second summer when his first summer and season were terrible by all standards ?
You also didn't give any particular reason why if they decided Mourinho isn't getting enough of his players and his targets are shite they didn't simply sack him and brought in another manager in summer they're willing to trust. What were they expecting lol ? The end result is they left a manager they don't trust with a group of players he doesn't trust and they themselves have problems with him, a straight recipe to the disaster which we're witnessing now. You can't simply say that the board didn't write this season off before it even starts.
Liverpool spent big because they sold Coutinho and their new stand was finished. Why don’t people get this?
Klopp was backed this season but before that his net spend was minimal. Net spend may not apply to City and Chelsea but it certainly does to the rest of the league.
I mentioned it during my earlier post and they have exceeded the Coutinho money already. He was sold for 140. Since then they signed VVD for 75, Alisson for 67, Fabinho for 43, not to mention the 50m paid for Keita. They're not going to spend from Coutinho money for ever aren't they ?
So they have bought two players for £100m? That’s hardly breaking the bank these days considering their spending over the last 4 years.
Bringing Liverpool into this argument is one you can never win. He’s playing with Robertson, Gomez and TAA as regulars in defence. Milner and Henderson in midfield. He’s getting far more out of his resources than our manager. It doesn’t matter which way you try to spin Woodward not backing the manager whilst that said manager has spent more than Klopp.
Why are you bringing him playing with Milner and Henderson while he's having Fabinho on the bench lol ? It's his choice to not play him but he can easily field a trio of Milner, Fabinho and Keita, and this midfield isn't average per se. VVD alone costs what Bailly and Lindelof cost together and he has a 67m GK after throwing Karius out ( and Karius was also one of his signings also, surprise that Liverpool didn't tell him to get more of him instead of overspending for another GK ).
By all account Liverpool had changed their policy since last summer and are starting to splash the cash. Otherwise Klopp wouldn't have been challenging for the league this season. He plays better football than Mourinho, we all know that but he has finished 4th last 2 seasons and in both seasons he was closer to being out of top 4 than of being in title challenging. They're only starting to look like contenders now thanks to their spending on defense, midfield and GK.
This.
He’d already spent 60 mill on 2 defenders and a year later he wanted to spend the same amount on Harry Maguire or on a centre back that looked likely to be available on a free next summer .
I am sure that Zlatan and Matic are Jose signings but not the others. They may or may not be. Where have you been recently? It’s been discussed how Ed is really deciding who he deems appropriate to buy.
He should go because of the simple fact that the top level decision making of the club has been a shambles.
Van Gaal was hired, got a 3 year contract and Ryan Giggs was touted as his successor. Van Gaal was even quoted as having bought Anthony Martial for Giggs. Great. We had a plan. That all went up the smoke when Ed got the jitters and decided to get rid of Van Gaal after being pressured by LVG not making top four and having Utd play boring football.
So Ed plumped for Jose. A proven winner who was expected to be backed simply due to his record. 2nd season, we finished second, but come summer, Jose's target signings were not signed. Ed didn't back his manager up. The same manager he hired and was expected to stand by.
Ed Woodward's proven himself to be wishy washy. He doesn't have the conviction to follow through on his own plans. He's been the common factor in our recent failures. People should be turning their screws on him as much as they've done on Jose Mourinho, in my opinion.
Van Gaal was hired, got a 3 year contract and Ryan Giggs was touted as his successor. Van Gaal was even quoted as having bought Anthony Martial for Giggs. Great. We had a plan. That all went up the smoke when Ed got the jitters and decided to get rid of Van Gaal after being pressured by LVG not making top four and having Utd play boring football.
So Ed plumped for Jose. A proven winner who was expected to be backed simply due to his record. 2nd season, we finished second, but come summer, Jose's target signings were not signed. Ed didn't back his manager up. The same manager he hired and was expected to stand by.
Ed Woodward's proven himself to be wishy washy. He doesn't have the conviction to follow through on his own plans. He's been the common factor in our recent failures. People should be turning their screws on him as much as they've done on Jose Mourinho, in my opinion.
Ed won’t be fired as long as he does a good job on running the business. The results on the pitch will have to affect the overall business before he would even be considered for firing by our board and owners. Seeing how the overall business side of things continue to grow inspite of less than stellar performance on the pitch, he will continue to keep his role.
Interesting that capellos word that mourinho wanted koukibaly and skrimiar is deemed worthy of much discussion but we’ve had two months of pummelling mourinho for being after alderweireld and Maguire. The former are two players of the right profile and potential and players a club of our stature and resources should be able to acquire. Woodward can con some all he wants with his varane rubbish but I seriously wonder how many of our signings were even first choice. He’s a failure
I keep asking myself this question
If you swapped Mourinho for Klopp or sari mid-season would performances and quality of football be any better?
In my mind it’s a resounding yes
If you swapped Mourinho for Klopp or sari mid-season would performances and quality of football be any better?
In my mind it’s a resounding yes
Paying attention in the summer, it would have been obvious we were after Skrimiar and also obvious he didn't want to leave Inter. Not sure about Koukibaly, I'm guessing the transfer fee is what has kept him at Napoli (United not the only ones interested)
Its interesting that Klopp wanted VVD and Liverpool were not able to get it done, but he got on with his job and waited.
Its also interesting that Jose has been chasing Varane for years it seems, but apparently now its only Woodward that wants him
Yeah but Klopp was talked out of the United job by Woodward
"Disney Land for adults". This just tells you how this tool thinks and operates.
Yeah but the point I’m making is that a progressive coach would make strides with what we have rather than just collecting random playersYeah but Klopp was talked out of the United job by Woodward
"Disney Land for adults". This just tells you how this tool thinks and operates.
I know but this is the Ed Woodward thread, and he tried to sell the club to a football man by describing it as Disney Land. That's far more relevant to this thread. We could have had Klopp if it wasn't for Woodward.
Or maybe Klopp as the Liverpool manager is throwing dirt at a rival club and the fans are lapping it up.
And more than a billion has been taken out instead of being invested into the club . That in it self should be enough reason to question the Glazers motive .
My point being that 13 years on under investment has not caused the current playing problems. We could have let Lvg and jose spend millions more and we’d still be where we are because poor transfer decisions have been made with the hundreds of millions that they have spent. What I do blame the glazers for is having ed in charge of football matters. That’s just really poor succession planning
I fully agree with you on that as that is all down to bad management and investments. But the point stands that under Fergie we were under funded and that left the squad for the next manager week and old. After that it´s all been chaotic at best, LVG just threw money around with no plan in sight what so ever.
Yeah but Klopp was talked out of the United job by Woodward
"Disney Land for adults". This just tells you how this tool thinks and operates.
That's the only argument we need against Woodward and that's also the only fair argument.
I'm inclined to believe him. He'd have no reason to make it up. It hardly sent shockwaves through the media either, was a bit of a throwaway comment that most seem to have forgotten.
You could argue that fergie still left a strong squad but even if he had brought in a load of players LVG would have fooked them out anyway. The likes of Rafael could have played for a few more years.
Yes I fully agree with you on that, he would have bought anything, anywhere, anyways.
I think a lot of the blame he gets is over the top.
But if he seriously lets Mourinho stick this out all season and we end up finishing 6th or 7th - he can fcuk off himself. That's at least two wasted seasons in that scenario (this one and Moyes), if we exclude the Van Gaal second as he did win a trophy in the end.
But if he seriously lets Mourinho stick this out all season and we end up finishing 6th or 7th - he can fcuk off himself. That's at least two wasted seasons in that scenario (this one and Moyes), if we exclude the Van Gaal second as he did win a trophy in the end.
Our fans didnt want Klopp at the time, we were laughing when Liverpool appointed him, now he's done a good job Woodie is a fool for not appointing him 
Our fans didnt want Klopp at the time, we were laughing when Liverpool appointed him, now he's done a good job Woodie is a fool for not appointing him
Really? I thought most wanted him or pep
As far as I remember it people were annoyed Liverpool got him, but seeing as things weren't all that rosey for Liverpool for a good while under him the mood shifted and people were happy we didn't appoint him, and now it seems people are back to wishing we had him again.
Our fans didnt want Klopp at the time, we were laughing when Liverpool appointed him, now he's done a good job Woodie is a fool for not appointing him
United fans wanted Klopp, unfortunately he ruled himself out and then he joined Liverpool when we had LVG.
Our fans didnt want Klopp at the time, we were laughing when Liverpool appointed him, now he's done a good job Woodie is a fool for not appointing him
I think quite a few fans wanted Klopp he was the hipster favourite.
He's done well but he's also been given the funds he needed to build the team. If Mou had the same backing, he'd be fine. We might still not be playing attacking football, but we'd be in a much better plan than we are now.
You realize that Klopp spent less than Mourinho and sold a key player to fund that?
Sssshhhhhhh its Woody's fault, hans't backed the manager...
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