Man Utd set to appoint Director of Football (when hell freezes over)

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Kag said:
It’s fair to say that money is available for a centre half. Just not for Jerome Boateng at £40 million.

Agree on your first point.
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I think that there should have been a strong plan to get a top defender at all costs, be him Godin, Alder, Bonucci, Koulibaly or Skriniar.

Definitely agree that spending 40m on Boateng would have been madness, as would have been spending 70-80m on Maguire.
 
sunama said:
I think we should've got a RW and CB. If Woodard did not approve of Willian, he should've asked Jose for alternatives. Instead, he put his head in the sand, waiting for the transfer window to shut.
In the end we hung onto the deadwood and didn't buy any new starters. Fred is a squad player and Dalot is youngster who is unlikely to get much game time. We need a couple of starters.
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Don't know who was available to buy. Additionally, Lukaku, Sanchez, Martial, Rashford, Mata and Lingard is perfectly fine for 3 positions upfront (remember, Fred was signed to be a starter, not a bench warmer).

I am delighted that he didn't listen to Mourinho about replacing Martial with Willian. We would have got the worse player who also happens to be 8 years older.
 
The plain fact is that Manchester United is no longer just a football club as such, it is the brand name of a multi-billion pound business; hence Woodward and Mourinho will need to learn co-exist!

If Jose keeps recommending a range of players to Ed (say range of 1-5) he cant complain if Woodward buys no.4 or no.5 on the list. If Woodward keeps buying No.4 and No.5 players on Jose's list simply because they cost less, but then they don't perform, he can't worry when shareholders get upset with him for allowing spending to take place on assets which don't work.

Neither Mourinho nor Woodward can ultimately be successful unless they both put the club before their own ego's... trouble is not much sign of that!
 
Revan said:
I think that there should have been a strong plan to get a top defender at all costs, be him Godin, Alder, Bonucci, Koulibaly or Skriniar.

Definitely agree that spending 40m on Boateng would have been madness, as would have been spending 70-80m on Maguire.
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It’s possible that there was. After all, not one of those players (Bonucci aside) moved during the summer. I’d imagine that deals like this, especially with Italian clubs, are difficult to engage.
 
Revan said:
His decision to block the transfers of Martial, Shaw and Pogba at all costs seems a very goo decision, as was the decision to not spend a fortune in Willian.

He should have made money available for a CB though, no doubt there.
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Am sure Woodward and the guys in the boardroom will be feeling smug about this when it was really just common sense. At least they're certainly smarter than the section of the fans that wanted these players sold so that's something they can feel good about
 
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Revan said:
His decision to block the transfers of Martial, Shaw and Pogba at all costs seems a very goo decision, as was the decision to not spend a fortune in Willian.

He should have made money available for a CB though, no doubt there.
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From where are people getting this? Do folks really believe Mourinho wanted to get rid of all 3? Shaw I can believe, half of this place want him sold too but Pogba and Martial?

As far as money for a CB is concerned, that's between him, board and the manager. What I don't agree is with him running his mouth on eve of PL opener saying how Mourinho's target were shit and he vetoed them, that should never be said in public.

Despite a mini-revival for us over the last month I still believe Mourinho is on course for the chop at the end of season. Woodward made his mind up a while ago, he's waiting for an opportunity where he can do it without facing a lot of backlash.
 
Kag said:
It’s fair to say that money is available for a centre half. Just not for Jerome Boateng at £40 million.

Agree on your first point.
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If true about Boateng, then I don't know what the hell Jose was thinking.
You are right, the money is available, but only when it makes financial sense. This means that if we can get a Galactico CB, then his big transfer expense will be off-set by greater income, though bigger sponsorship deals and the likelihood of going further in competitions.

Given that Woodward did not spend and sort of went silent during the transfer window, tells me that he needed to balance the books, so decided to come up with the excuse of "Guv, the transfer targets you gave me were no good". Well, okay, so why did you not offer up alternative names. Had he done this and Jose said, "okay", money would've been spent, which Woodward did not want.

But anyway, no point bickering about that....that's history and we have to move forward.
 
Doesn't want to sack Jose due to the £10-15m or whatever payout.

There's a lot of things wrong with United at the moment but the buck stops with Woodward. No footballing structure, no transfer plan, no balls to change when things aren't going well. The last 6 years of mediocrity post SAF have been epitomised by him - he's not fit for the job.
 
Woodward deserves the sack for wasting another season. I don't give a shit about the transfer stuff (Mourinho's rubbish anyway with his signings).

I just can't deal with him refusing to pull the trigger on a manager that is clearly done and dusted.
 
I'm happy to criticise Jose. But if you are blaming him for this loss you are deluded.

Look at the quality of the players who started for us today. Some because of injuries and because of a lack of strength in depth. Compare City missing KDB so play Silva and Bernando. We miss Pogba and Sanchez so play Lingard and Fellaini!

We need a big investment to catchup after last season. Woodward let us down and showed we are not trying to compete with City.
 
Yes but almost all of the players Jose wanted and was available was bought. Now this year he talked of a CB. Woodward said if Varane was available he would have paid. We have spent a fortune on mediocre players.
 
He's losing my support because of his ongoing support for the buffoon in charge of the football.
 
Let's be honest here. He has overseen the complete disintegration of the most successful club in English football history and what's more, he's done it in just 6 years.

Looking at City and GK aside they had a better player at every position on the pitch. All signed at the behest of the manager to fit into a cohesive style of football.

We have a handful of randomly assembled expensive marquee signings, surrounded by players either past their peak, inexperienced at the top level, forced into stopgap positions, or plain old not good enough. The signings we make come at a price that suggest they should make an immediate impact, fitting immediately into our style of play yet they cannot even get on the pitch. The manager is responsible for the football, but a squad carrying Rojo, Darmian, Jones, Young, Valencia, Matic, Smalling and the rest of the dead wood is never going to compete against the top sides. This is a squad in need of massive overhaul yet season after season we make a flashy £50m signing with no idea of how to fit them into the squad, whilst we persist with Young at fullback, Smalling at centre back, whoever gets shoved into right wing, and so on. Issues so obvious the fans have been crying out for change for 5 years or more.

Ultimately the buck stops with Woodward. Nothing will change until he is entirely removed from football operations.
 
C3Pique said:
Let's be honest here. He has overseen the complete disintegration of the most successful club in English football history and what's more, he's done it in just 6 years.

Looking at City and GK aside they had a better player at every position on the pitch. All signed at the behest of the manager to fit into a cohesive style of football.

We have a handful of randomly assembled expensive marquee signings, surrounded by players either past their peak, inexperienced at the top level, forced into stopgap positions, or plain old not good enough. The signings we make come at a price that suggest they should make an immediate impact, fitting immediately into our style of play yet they cannot even get on the pitch. The manager is responsible for the football, but a squad carrying Rojo, Darmian, Jones, Young, Valencia, Matic, Smalling and the rest of the dead wood is never going to compete against the top sides. This is a squad in need of massive overhaul yet season after season we make a flashy £50m signing with no idea of how to fit them into the squad, whilst we persist with Young at fullback, Smalling at centre back, whoever gets shoved into right wing, and so on. Issues so obvious the fans have been crying out for change for 5 years or more.

Ultimately the buck stops with Woodward. Nothing will change until he is entirely removed from football operations.
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That is so true. We shouldn't lose sight of the fact that this guy is a bigger moron than the managers he has hired and fired. He is the culprit for letting things linger on till they becomes completely untenable. Before we fire Jose, we need to bring in a couple of football people to manage the overhaul needed to become a top team again. Nothing will change if he fires Jose after we miss out on the top four and then hires the biggest out of contract name available. We need a long term planning and our hiring needs to improve massively for us to succeed. We cannot simply buy our way out of this mess. Proper planning and implementation is required for us to become title challengers again. It's clear as day that Eddy is not the man capable of getting us where we want to on the football side of things. He needs to relieve himself of those duties and hand over the reign to someone more knowledgeable and more capable. We need our own Tixi.
 
He needs to be ruthless this summer and make clear out.
First to decide is Jose our future manager or not. Then sell all players who are not good enough. Then buy what manager wants.
 
ErranMorad said:
He needs to relieve himself of those duties and hand over the reign to someone more knowledgeable and more capable. We need our own Tixi.
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Unfortunately, I don't see this ever happening with how much EW seems to love the attention on him. The only people who can make him step down from that role are the Glazers and they're happy as long as Ed gets them their next official kitchen mat sponsor.
 
Fluctuation0161 said:
We miss Pogba and Sanchez so play Lingard and Fellaini!
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It was his choice himself to keep the likes of fellani and buy matic and our fred on the bench and play lingard over and over while destroying mkh at this club before we sold him.

He wants all the flashy players but doesn't want to keep the ball for long periods of the game with zero pressing. How does he convince players to play for him anymore?
 
Woodward should have been told to just mind the commercial business a long time ago. Of course, Mourinho has to go, but this clown has to also be shown the door. Talk about too much power and responsibility in the wrong hands.

Social media followings don't matter if we're not performing on the pitch. He is totally out touch in terms of running a club.

He doesn't have the charisma to consistently pull off big signings (apart from when he's over the odds for Raiola player).

He can't sell a player to save his life.

Please, can we get a decent DoF this Christmas?
 
His defenders were defending him by saying the last summer was due to Mourinho's terrible choices, while I'm sitting here looking forward to next summer with a new manager in charge and Ed still struggling to complete more than 2 deals with the prices other clubs will be asking for.
 
Not only does he hire the wrong managers, but he takes absolutely ages to realise it and do something about it. He's well out of his depth at this point.
 
For all bashing off him because of loss? :lol: , it's not like Ed Woodward decided to start Fellaini, Matic, play Rashford/Lingard there, leaving out Mata, Fred, Sanchez on the bench, Perieria can hardly make it to the bench, stepping up cowardly against City. He's not the reason why United is in mess, he is doing the brilliant job off pitches at United but I can point it to David Gills, are hugely responsible for United's decline, he was lucky that SAF won a lot of trophies that distracted everyone from his work off pitches, didn't complain and had to play the likes of Cleverly, Anderson, Welbeck, Bebe. Gills didn't care about the academy that is needed in of huge investment and lagging behind City and Chelsea who are one of best academy club in England, not making a change or upgrade to the scouting which Moye first complained about it.

If you put Ed Woodward in charge during SAF era, he'd be treated as the god, getting the likes of Hazard, if Klopp overtook us, making more progress, you all would praise him. But the thing is I don't think Ed Woodward is the problem because Jose had the same problem at Chelsea in his third season. So you know, Arsenal, Chelsea, Dortmund who had a change of coaches, they become much better, on other hand Spurs make zero investment despite Spurs hating Levy much because of zero transfers this is Spurs we finished ahead of them last season, make 70m+ investment in squad then but now we're 7 points behind Spurs. So Woodward is to blame for it that we couldn't beat West Ham, Brighton, Wolve, etc?
 
Not his biggest fan but i'm surprised more hasn't been made about Jose's latest comments yesterday, yet again about the lack of recruitment. Jose implied that he's wanted a left back for the past three seasons but was told to get the best out of Shaw. There's clearly some lack of strategy from the board but I think they're hoping that Shaw, Martial, Rashford etc can develop into better players with the right coaching. Jose on the other hand doesn't want to wait.
 
deafepl said:
For all bashing off him because of loss? :lol: , it's not like Ed Woodward decided to start Fellaini, Matic, play Rashford/Lingard there, leaving out Mata, Fred, Sanchez on the bench, Perieria can hardly make it to the bench, stepping up cowardly against City. He's not the reason why United is in mess, he is doing the brilliant job off pitches at United but I can point it to David Gills, are hugely responsible for United's decline, he was lucky that SAF won a lot of trophies that distracted everyone from his work off pitches, didn't complain and had to play the likes of Cleverly, Anderson, Welbeck, Bebe. Gills didn't care about the academy that is needed in of huge investment and lagging behind City and Chelsea who are one of best academy club in England, not making a change or upgrade to the scouting which Moye first complained about it.

If you put Ed Woodward in charge during SAF era, he'd be treated as the god, getting the likes of Hazard, if Klopp overtook us, making more progress, you all would praise him. But the thing is I don't think Ed Woodward is the problem because Jose had the same problem at Chelsea in his third season. So you know, Arsenal, Chelsea, Dortmund who had a change of coaches, they become much better, on other hand Spurs make zero investment despite Spurs hating Levy much because of zero transfers this is Spurs we finished ahead of them last season, make 70m+ investment in squad then but now we're 7 points behind Spurs. So Woodward is to blame for it that we couldn't beat West Ham, Brighton, Wolve, etc?
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The state of this post... You are actually blaming David Gill for our decline. :lol::lol::lol:
 
We’ve been crap since he started making the decisions. That’s a fact. The owners have invested a lot compared to most other teams. We just get a crap return on our investment due to dodgy decision making at the very top. I wouldn’t be sad to see him sacked to be honest. Getting Klopp would have been the most shrewd bit of business we could have done but he even managed to mess that up.
 
BlueHaze said:
The state of this post... You are actually blaming David Gill for our decline. :lol::lol::lol:
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Perhaps but I was pointing out having CEO doesn't define the performance, they don't tell the team to park the bus or play attacking football but things people need to realize it's coach issue, everything would be different if he had Klopp or Pep at helm playing beautiful football or in charge during the SAF, leaving it for Gill to take over which could be much worse, we probably won't get Pogba, Martial, etc, he is not big fan of big names signing and expensive. Ed Woodward is not really enemy, on off pitches, he's top. Only I dislike Ed Woodward is because of managerial choice and giving powers to them, doesn't matter if we follow that United tradition policy but they need to be dropped, this is not 1990s anymore.
 
If we go on the next season without a DOF and a structure in place, i can guarantee that even his next managerial appointment will be a failure. Man has zero football knowledge. Stick to singing up noodle sponsors you tool.
 
Giving out Rooney a 300+k/wk new contract, when even me a casual football fan could tell he’s finished, could be forgiven as Ed’s new to the job.

Fast forward 4 years, he’s still done the same with giving out insane wages on shite to average players (thus make it harder to ship them out) is just insane.
 
Fluctuation0161 said:
I'm happy to criticise Jose. But if you are blaming him for this loss you are deluded.

Look at the quality of the players who started for us today. Some because of injuries and because of a lack of strength in depth. Compare City missing KDB so play Silva and Bernando. We miss Pogba and Sanchez so play Lingard and Fellaini!

We need a big investment to catchup after last season. Woodward let us down and showed we are not trying to compete with City.
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Guardiola played both Silvas out of position as CMF, whilst Mourinho had Fred (Guardiola's target) on the beach so he can play Fellaini, and it was actually his choice to leave Sanchez (surprise, surprise another Guardola target) on the bench so he can play Lingard.

You're trying to make this whole situation look like Mourinho's the victim here and he's forced to play those players, whilst the reality is, playing them was his choice .
 
The fact that Mourinho's fate will likely be decided by top four finish says everything that is wrong with this club.
 
What I don't get is why people trust him to pick a good DOF?

Honestly, it could quite easily be his worst decision and could set us back years. The problem is we're creating yet another position where we have somebody that will take no blame. It will always be the manager. DOF is somebody that you need in position for a few years at least to transform things and implement their ideas. It would take a long time for the axe to fall on this person if they weren't up to scratch.

Anyway, I can't see Woodward ever relinquishing control of football matters. It would still be him calling the shots. Brian McClair seems to think that Woodward has always wanted to be a DOF.
 
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