If we dont get a director of football in the summer, then I have no hope for this club.
Man Utd set to appoint Director of Football (when hell freezes over)
- Thread starter RedMachine03
- Start date
- Status
We could spend 70m on a centre back every single season and it would do feck all to our financial stability. You know our net spend this season is £50m right? Spending 70m on a defender is standard practice for the club when it comes to expenditure. Its certainly not financially irresponsible and comparing us to Pourtsmouth and Coventry is laughable.
For some reason there is this widespread misconception that the board decided to close off spending when thats likely not the case. There are many reports from reliable journos that the club were willing to spend big on specific players and were not willing to spend big on other players.
Not buying Alderweireld probably had nothing to do with financial stability and everything to do with him being half the price the next season.
You're missing the point. The Portsmouth coventry situation was an exaggeration, but it does apply. Oil clubs may have unlimited funds. We do not. When you accept we don't have unlimited funds, then you also have to accept we do have a budget. Albeit a big budget, there IS a budget.
Understand that coulpled with the fact that the board is in charge of said budget, not Jose, then you can appreciate why we won't just spend whatever quoted. As far as not buying Toby, in my opinion, Jose identifies the targets. Woodward will sanction the move based on 'profile' and cost. For example a CB 20-24 may have a budget of £70m, but a CB 30-33 may only have a of budget of £50. The cost age profile/cost/wage will be budgeted based on how many other players on the books in that position, that position, ect.
Point is you can't just say It' only 70m. Next time it's only 80m time after only 90m. At some point you have to say no, and when that point is, is Woody's. That his job. Jose's job is to get the best out of what he's got.
Get more official partners.
We have an official carrier, tyre partner, wine partner, spirits partner, medical systems partner, outdoor apparel partner, music partner, logistics partner, video game partner, lubricant (oil) partner, digital transformation partner, paint partner, mattress and pillow partner, betting partner, headwear partner, forex partner, time keeping partner, denim partner
apart from kit sponsor and other sponsor.
Also add financial partners in many countries in 10-12 countries in Europe, Middle East and Asia
We have been busy
Fergie kept his players hungry. Especially after we won a major trophy. Mourinho is trying to do the same with Pogba. We need a manager that’s going to demand the best constantly. No slacking even if you’ve just won the word cup. What you talking about squad morale? Of course morale will be low after a loss but not once have I seen the players down tools and not play for him. They are all playing for him. It’s just maybe we’re not as good as the rest and that’s why he’s annoyed because he wants his players to which the board have failed to deliver.
Alternative is to get a new manager with a right clue and right vision -- the right fit for this club.
While the right DOF is for the long run and control over transfers, the manager is still the one who have a direct say and control of the squad.
Would a director of football change much, if the reports are correct in stating that a DoF would be subservient to any manager we have in place?
That's ridiculous. CB's can be fine long after 29 and they are in their prime around that age. Which is the reason why a proven one in his prime will cost a lot. 20-24, they are mostly unproven talents, it makes no sense to pay more just because they're younger. There is a lot more risk there.
There have been countless reports that we are willing to spend big on a centre back. With Koulibaly and Skriniar being named. The Napoli president said that they rejected a £90m bid from a premiere league club, and considering we were the only ones in for a centre back it probably was us.
£90m for 27 year old Koulibaly
£70m for 29 year old Alderweireld (I've not seen any reliable reports on this but ill take it at face value)
What's the difference here? It's just two years of wages difference between the two. Practically the same value.
To be fair, Italian clubs always reject 'huge bids' for their players that don't ever happen
Don’t want to give the money to a league rival I’d imagine.
Yes of course, I agree that there are factors in not wanting Alderweireld. And none of them have anything to do with paying too much for older players. 29 is prime years for a centre back, his valuation will be high. But like you said dealing with Tottenham is a pain in the arse and getting him for much cheaper next season is an attractive option.
Fergie did not do what Mourinho did. He would call out the players as a collective, not out to the media. If he had a problem with an individual player he would do it in house. He would not single out his young players (Martial and Rashford) in the manner he did to essentially say they're rubbish.
In any case, my point was more that if you're going to judge what Woodward did as disrupting squad morale, surely you would also apply that to Mourinho? To do otherwise is just indefensible.
Ermm 5 years of not having to spend £70m on another CB. Like I Don’t think it’s a hard concept to grasp. Take Matic for instance.. by next season he requires replacing.. if we had spent £20m on someone two years younger than funds we could have invested in other parts of the team plus risk of faliure and resale value. It all adds up.
Ed believes that the Sanchez deal is a good deal. Why? Because it increased merchandise sales. We are FAR from the likes of Portsmouth or Coventry.
Yes we have 5 CBs. Are you suggesting that we get rid of the ones we plan to replace BEFORE getting in their replacements? So we get rid of jones, smalling and rojo. That leaves us with two, one of which hasn’t been great since he was injured, the other only recently showing good form. What if we can’t make the deals work and we get stuck with two cbs for the whole season? What if because we only have two cbs the clubs selling to us up their asking because we NEED rather than WANT new CBs?
If you want to build progress, you spend money. And considering Ed said that we had a good financial year that would allow investment in the market it’s kinda weird he didn’t.
We've never had one, we've never needed one, and we don't particularly need one now, but a Director of Operations would come in handy.
I actually remembered - and found - an occassion Fergie did talk directly about two young players, though it was a one-off probably.
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport...-the-killer-blow-admits-ferguson-6103651.html
Bit of a stretch to conclude we're the ones who bid 90m or heck there was even a bid just because the president said so.
Last edited:
Very good post, not necessarily Jose but whoever is in charge. Going forward the bolded part is something the club and many fans need to understand, in every walk of life people succeed or fail in different workplaces doing the same job, every transfer doesn’t work out perfectly.
So fecking true.
I think they would only be reporting to Ed not Jose/new manager but would and should discuss everything with both of them .
United have gotten too huge for a manager to deal with the nuts and bolts of signing targets and negotiating with the Glazers as well as coaching the team. I agree that a DoF is needed. Even if Jose (or any other mananger for that matter) were capable of doing both, the reality is that he would have no bandwidth to do both jobs as well as if they only had to focus on one.
The context is different, though that's a good find regardless. In Fergie's case he's singling out a single performance and trying to get the media to tamper expectations on Rooney. In Mourinho's case, he said "This is why I don't play them." That's not questioning a performance, but their quality in general.
I think both are contributing factors.
For me it's not even necessarily about going into administration, it's about wage structure.
You do not want to have a squad full of aging players on massive wages who aren't performing. Because that means any time you want to renew one of your actually good players, you'll have to pay them massive wages (they're not going to accept making less than again underperformers) and it will be very difficult to sell off these older players because few clubs will be willing to meet their wage demands.
So to answer that poster above, no, every fan shouldn't want a club to just keep investing, especially not in players that have limited long-term value. Fans should want their club to invest wisely. A lot of the moves Jose supporters complain about us not making would've potentially been disastrous for us. Like sending Martial to Inter and then giving massive wages to Perisic. Or even giving huge wages to an injury prone Aldeweireld.
The word "budget" gets thrown about a lot.
I dont think there is a "transfer budget" in place at United. Since Sir Alex time at the club, where he time and time again said that there were always funds in plays for transfers. There are no concrete evidence in place that the Glazers/Ed has vetoed a transfer only because of the size of the transfer fee in itself.
What we do have is some kind of wage/cost budget though.
In which would be included not just wages or bonuses but also depreciation in value of older players that we paid a large transfer fee for.
In many cases this can be and is a bigger "cost" for the club than the wages itself. Matic is a good example. That was a terrible costly transfer for United. As was the Alexis-transfer though he just formally "cost" £25m.
These two transfers are part of why might be a ltb hampered in the transfer market today, much more than the Glazers/Ed "not backing" Mourinho.
We already have the largest wage bill in the PL and there as someone else stated above its in all of our interests as fans to advocate against spending on old players on big wages.
It would cripple us in the transfer market going forward, which would be a shame when United is the club that can handle the largest wage bill in the PL because of our turnover. And especially since clubs like Spurs and Liverpool will have major problem with this in the next couple of years with the players wages starting to spiral now as well, which is completely to be expected due to the explosion of the transfer market.
We could spend 70m on a centre back every single season and it would do feck all to our financial stability. You know our net spend this season is £50m right? Spending 70m on a defender is standard practice for the club when it comes to expenditure. Its certainly not financially irresponsible and comparing us to Pourtsmouth and Coventry is laughable.
Agreed on this.
I believe that the club look at the re-sale value of the incoming player and also the possible appreciation in his value, over the coming years and how this will effect the resale value.
So, for example, buy Pogba for a WR fee. Sell him 3-4 years on for 50% higher. So, even though a huge amount was spent, profit was made on the asset. The issue here, is the wages. That is something which needs to be included in the calculation.
Now, when you take Toby A - this will most likely be his last big move. So, if we pay £70M for him, as his resale value is so low, it would be a bad deal (for financial reasons, not footballing).
Basically, we are being run as a business. The players are seen as assets, which can be put down on the balance sheet and sold, for profit, if necessary.
Regarding financial stability: if Woodward truly believed that we could buy Mbappe for say £300M, in January and that his resale value in 3 years would be £600M, he'd spend it. It's all about making money. This is not a football club where on-pitch performances matter. It is a business, where the aim is to make the most amount of money. The on-pitch performances only become relevant, if it effects the revenue or ability to buy assets (players), which can make us money. As of now, we can get top 4 and earn virtually the same amount of money as we earn if we win the league. And here in lies the issue - we are now a top 4 club. For us fans, this really does suck.
This is the case at every club. How many clubs buy young talent and instead of keeping those exciting talents, sell them for a lot of money? There are even examples of this happening at Oil Clubs. City were interested in Sanchez, yet they decided to wait for the summer when he was on a free because it made more sense financially.
So are we gonna appoint one or not?
Woodward demoralised Jose.
Jose demoralised his players.
It took about 6 weeks to clear up that mess.
Had Woodward dealt with Jose better, none of this would've happened.
Jose is a seasoned coach who has worked in many difficult environments. I would be massively disappointed if he has let a bust up/disagreement with his boss affect his performance so much.
Plus he's getting paid 20 fecking million a year.
Yes, and has spent more than nearly every other manager in the league. If being told 'no' to a potential new centre back was enough to send him off the rails then he has really lost his mojo.
Woodward appointing a DoF is just like his approach to buying players, all talk and no action.
We're set alright.
If the board are briefing the press against the managers decisions it takes alot more than a seasoned coach to overcome that obstacle.
Yet we expect players to get on with it when Jose digs them out in public.
If he is speaking in the press after he has been told something by the board that he doesnt like to force the issue then he should be able to deal with the repercussions
Exactly, his mouthpieces started the nonsense and the club finished it.
Woodward is our DOF.
Get your heads straight.
Get your heads straight.
39 pages and no DOF this is worse than the Sneijder era
this is worse than the Sneijder eraIs this guy a troll or a WUM? Or is he serious there?
- Status