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

[Johan07]

So, for example Matt Judge was the one who gave Sanchez 400k, or whatever it was worth, United contract?

The club gave Sanchez that contract.
If one think that it matters; Judge was most certainly the one who negotiated the transfer with Arsenal and Sanchez agent.
But there are no closed quarters between the different people in the club, as many seem to think there is.
I can guarantee you that Mourinho was well aware of what was going on in the negotiations and IMO it was Mourinhos decision to ask the club to execute the deal after terms were agreed.
Knowing very well what effect those terms would have on the wage budget and that his wiggle room next summer would be smaller since the Sanchez deal probably hit or even surpassed our wage ceiling (we surpassed City with that deal).
Its not a coincidence that Mourinho is on record after the Sanchez deal saying that we would not pursue any more offensive players during the summer. He knew then already that he would need to sell someone if he changed his mind. Its not difficult to imagine that this is where the Martial/Willian story came from.
For me its not really important to place blame on people within the club, when its blatantly obvious that Judge, Mourinho and the Head of Scouting are working very tightly together when it comes to these things. Mourinho knows very well what a big contract for Fellaini would do to the possibilities for him to do other things on the market. For example.
I will say this though: we have the team we have today because of Mourinho. Not because of Matt Judge or even less Woodward. There is no club in the top flight in Europe where the manager has such a final say on players as with us. This is a consequence of the Sir Alex years. Its also IMO why Mourinho really wanted the United job.
I think we will and should change the organization when Mourinho leaves, but until then it would be good to call a spade a spade and stop this witchhunt of Woodward when it comes to "footballing matters".

 

[Jim Beam]

The club gave Sanchez that contract.
If one think that it matters; Judge was most certainly the one who negotiated the transfer with Arsenal and Sanchez agent.
But there are no closed quarters between the different people in the club, as many seem to think there is.
I can guarantee you that Mourinho was well aware of what was going on in the negotiations and IMO it was Mourinhos decision to ask the club to execute the deal after terms were agreed.
Knowing very well what effect those terms would have on the wage budget and that his wiggle room next summer would be smaller since the Sanchez deal probably hit or even surpassed our wage ceiling (we surpassed City with that deal).
Its not a coincidence that Mourinho is on record after the Sanchez deal saying that we would not pursue any more offensive players during the summer. He knew then already that he would need to sell someone if he changed his mind. Its not difficult to imagine that this is where the Martial/Willian story came from.
For me its not really important to place blame on people within the club, when its blatantly obvious that Judge, Mourinho and the Head of Scouting are working very tightly together when it comes to these things. Mourinho knows very well what a big contract for Fellaini would do to the possibilities for him to do other things on the market. For example.
I will say this though: we have the team we have today because of Mourinho. Not because of Matt Judge or even less Woodward. There is no club in the top flight in Europe where the manager has such a final say on players as with us. This is a consequence of the Sir Alex years. Its also IMO why Mourinho really wanted the United job.
I think we will and should change the organization when Mourinho leaves, but until then it would be good to call a spade a spade and stop this witchhunt of Woodward when it comes to "footballing matters".

Matt Judge is from a financial background, just like Woodward, so to say he is the one who is fully in charge for transfer/negotiating bussines is still a massive feck up as we need a footballing person there.

But, you are wrong, the man is there to assist and help negotiate transfers. The final say is from Ed or the board, but mostly Ed who is responsible for the numbers.

I think you're right though when you say that Sanchez deal broke many things between the board/Ed and Jose as from that point it is obvious the things got a bit sour between them and he didn't get his usual amount.

I absolutely blame Jose for the dreadful performances, awful atmosphere, our players looking second-rate, but I also have no doubt that spending this much and looking so bad for 6 years there must be more than one person to blame. And this club is absolutely horribly run from a football point of view without any direction or vision whatsoever. For which Ed is massively responsible also.

 

[shamans]

People defending The Glazers and Woodward should be given all the abuse under the sun by United fans.

I'm not interested in opinions.

Some of them literally just learned about Mortgages and are quick to defend Glazers because loans mean nothing, missing the entire point.

 

[Johan07]

Matt Judge is from a financial background, just like Woodward, so to say he is the one who is fully in charge for transfer/negotiating bussines is still a massive feck up as we need a footballing person there.

But, you are wrong, the man is there to assist and help negotiate transfers. The final say is from Ed or the board, but mostly Ed who is responsible for the numbers.

I think you're right though when you say that Sanchez deal broke many things between the board/Ed and Jose as from that point it is obvious the things got a bit sour between them and he didn't get his usual amount.

I absolutely blame Jose for the dreadful performances, awful atmosphere, our players looking second-rate, but I also have no doubt that spending this much and looking so bad for 6 years there must be more than one person to blame. And this club is absolutely horribly run from a football point of view without any direction or vision whatsoever. For which Ed is massively responsible also.

It will always be thus though. Mourinho or not. DoF or not.
Woodward is the CEO, he needs to sign the contracts formally. If you by this want to indicate that it constitutes him meddling in footballing issues, we will never get around that if we dont appoint Sir Alex CEO.
I do think though that Woodward was somewhat involved in the Sanchez transfer, but not by having input on if Sanchez has a good right foot, can play RW or that his legs might have gone.
The Sanchez-transfer is by far the most expensive transfer this club has ever made. I would guess that the agreed terms broke our wage ceiling and that issue had to be put in front of Woodward and/or the Board.
That the Sanchez-transfer was approved is for me at least a major sign that the club is ready to give its manager what he asks for, even if its an anomaly like that. And not gets involved in the footballing side of things.
But I agree that that deal and some of the other more expensive deals like Matic, Lukaku and Fellaini should and must reflect on Mourinho, whoever does the reflecting so to say....

 

[cheeky_backheel]

SAF made some great bargains too. Schmeichel, Sharpe, Johnsen, Kanchelskis, Ole, Blomqvist, Hernandez, Rai Van Del Gouw, Evra, Vidic, Park to add a few. Unlike Mourinho's signings with us SAF's signing were on the majority top notch. He's been far far more successful on the transfer market then Mou had been with us.

Apologies on this but I think you're either a troll or Mou's love child.

There is no need to feign an apology when your actions are in line with your intent

 

[ravi2]

Some of them literally just learned about Mortgages and are quick to defend Glazers because loans mean nothing, missing the entire point.

I feel that anyone who is defending the Glazers, Ed or Jose at this stage do not have the best interests of the club at heart.

 

[shamans]

I feel that anyone who is defending the Glazers, Ed or Jose at this stage do not have the best interests of the club at heart.

Or they just wanna seem different and superior with the "oh we understand business haha you commoners don't know".

 

[Moriarty]

The more important questions are: How much have the Glazers made for United compared to how much they've taken? What is the debt to asset ratio compared to other clubs? What is the clubs financial outlook in the next 5 years?

Nobody asks these questions b/c the answers are very dull and would obviously show that nothing insidious is happening behind the scenes. Journalists just want incite a reaction for clicks, so they will throw out all these huge figures without perspective. It's a travesty and extremely unfair to fans who have no knowledge of the entire picture.

Two other things related to your post:
1) There is nothing wrong with dividend payments. They are triggered when a company is making a profit. It's a very common thing and shows a relatively financially secure company.
2) I wasn't specifically calling you intellectually dishonest. My main issue is with the people putting out some of this slanted garbage trying to deceive the fans (Red Knights come to mind).

I won't dispute the Glazers are in it to make money, but why else would any businessman buy a £800m asset? I hear this point a lot, but it's not a real critique.

I have no idea how much the Glazers have made for United. Do you? Sure, journos like clicks. They like people to read hard copy too; but there are journalists and there are hacks. Conn is one of the former and, as far as I know, his numbers haven't been refuted.

There's nothing wrong with dividend payments, I agree. I get them myself. Not when a company is making a loss though. The Glazers declared an £18 million dividend when we posted a loss. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/may/16/manchester-united-

The RK had an agenda and one which excited people for a while but soon fizzled out. But if the £1 billion pound 'drain' was nothing but RK propaganda, how come it is still cited by reliable journalists and has not been rebutted?

The Glazers didn't buy an £800m asset. You can't do that with £250 million. They borrowed, at interest, to acquire control of a football and community institution, built on the sweat and labour of generations of fans, players, and staff, then shunted the cost of that acquisition onto the very people I just mentioned. Is that comparable to a mortgage in the terms that most laymen understand?

Anyway, we could go on about this, point and counter-point until the cows come home. The United we oldies knew and loved has gone and the club is now just an asset to be exploited for gain. That's what hurts.

 

[Hugh Jass]

Old Woody could be made walk the plank.

 

[Jim Beam]

It will always be thus though. Mourinho or not. DoF or not.
Woodward is the CEO, he needs to sign the contracts formally. If you by this want to indicate that it constitutes him meddling in footballing issues, we will never get around that if we dont appoint Sir Alex CEO.
I do think though that Woodward was somewhat involved in the Sanchez transfer, but not by having input on if Sanchez has a good right foot, can play RW or that his legs might have gone.
The Sanchez-transfer is by far the most expensive transfer this club has ever made. I would guess that the agreed terms broke our wage ceiling and that issue had to be put in front of Woodward and/or the Board.
That the Sanchez-transfer was approved is for me at least a major sign that the club is ready to give its manager what he asks for, even if its an anomaly like that. And not gets involved in the footballing side of things.
But I agree that that deal and some of the other more expensive deals like Matic, Lukaku and Fellaini should and must reflect on Mourinho, whoever does the reflecting so to say....

It will be, but it is quite obvious that the bridge between the manager and the board or CEO has to be a football person and we don't have one for whatever reason.

We don't have only problems with performances. Our wage structure is through the roof and was even before Sanchez joined which is one the reasons we can't sell players. Our transfer dealings and signins have been questionable (Fellaini fiasco, Herrera signing, Falcao deal...). We don't have clear direction in terms of playing style, no long-term plan in any way and we wait too long to get rid of the managers. There is now clear suspicion that the board cares mostly about the money and not the product itself or how we actually look on the pitch. The board is actually leaking stuff to the press as been seen after this window which is also inexcusable.

And again we don't have DoF which limits our menagerial options way more than it should be. Just for example, Allegri, one of the best coaches in Europe never worked without one (as far as I know) and would be much more of a gamble than with a proper structure.
The problems in this club run deeper than just a manager imo. And that's not an excuse for Jose in any way. He failed here without a doubt, especially considering he wanted more autonomy and fully got that in his first 2 years.

But one failure don't exclude the other. We are badly run also.

 

[MackRobinson]

1. Several newspapers, including the Guardian, have reported the £1 billion figure. David Conn, who has been on this story for many years, has never deviated from his figures. Moreover, they have never really been refuted. The RK did try and scare up a takeover for a short while and they have now vanished. The debt has not. If it isn't a billion, then how much?

The original loan was £660m according to reports, and yes with interest payments the amount can ballon to £1b. But let's put this into perspective, if I take out a 30-year mortgage on a £500k house would any reasonable person say "You saddled your house with a million pounds of debt!"? No. The most important thing is my ability to service that debt (whether through my income or a rapid appreciation in the price of house than allows me to refinance). It's absurd to look at the debt by face value alone.

I'm not debating your sources, just the lack of context applied by those sources.

2. I'm not ignoring increased revenues and valuation. The 'increased revenues' are one reason why thousands of loyal United supporters no longer attend games. Increased ticket prices, the cup scheme, and general monetization of all things United for the benefit of the Glazers is, to me, reprehensible. Yes, the club is worth more and no doubt the Glazers have become immensely rich from this, but the cost for the average supporter has been staggering, and I don't just mean in financial terms. And we are still in debt.

I hate that fans have to pay significantly more to attend matches each year but this is side effect of owning and operating the most popular sports franchise in the world. In an ideal world the fans would own the club, ticket prices would be cheap, and the club would still have the spending power to compete with the likes of City, but that isn't the case. Increased revenues are usually good for the club as a whole, even though I concede it's a terrible situation for the match going fans.

With that said, I don't think this is a Glazer specific issue. I haven't see the numbers but I would assume nearly all PL clubs have had their ticket prices increase by a noticeable amount since 2005.

3. £250 million sounds like a lot but the balance dumped on Manchester United was a lot more. They may not have used United as collateral for the entire amount, but the amount they did use was nothing short of corporate piracy.

I'll get to your other points later, but I've got to finish off a couple of things at work...

It was £660m from what I've seen and the Glazer family was responsible for £265m. That roughly 40% of the total debt. The valuation was £800m IIRC.

 

[Rbrown0806]

If I was the Glazers and had invested £500m in the team post Fergus, I would be getting rid of the Chief Exec and Manager. This needs to happen now to give the new pairing a chance to settle in and assess the players before the Summer transfer window. This season is another write off already.

There is something drastically wrong at the club when none of the players we buy improve at all.

 

[MackRobinson]

The increase in value and turnover at the club is in line with most popular top clubs in the premiership. To wholly attribute that to The Glazers is disingenuous.

Straw man. Never wholly attributed the increase in value to Glazers, only explained why the amount of debt they had to service can't be looked at face value.

Also, to ignore the revenue and value added to the club by SAF by winning title after title on a shoestring transfer budget over the Glazer reign is intellectually dishonest. Not to mention the fact that he enabled The Glazers to reduce the large amount debt due to his ability to work miracles. Glazers should've built on his success rather than bleed him and the club dry.

Red herring. SAF was part of the club and already winning trophies and consistently qualifying for the UCL at the time of the purchase. Most likely that was accounted for.

Also was it not SAF, who said there is no value in the market? Was he forced to say that? Can you point to the years where he had a shoe string budget by his own admission? If so, in comparison to whom? I'm honestly curious where you're getting this from.

No matter what the total debt they have put on the club and cost the club. It should've all been put into playing staff and infrastructure. Maybe it could have stemmed our decline instead of lining Glazer pockets.

No offense, but unless I'm misunderstanding you, this is a naive POV. How many businessmen would buy a £800m company WITHOUT debt AND invest in playing staff and infrastructure? Sounds like you want City's owners.

Also, to ignore the negative impact their decisions have had on the football performances and strategic ineptness of the board at United is ridiculous

Red herring. Their football decisions have been poor but we are talking specifically about their financial decisions.

 

[fezzerUTD]

The club gave Sanchez that contract.
If one think that it matters; Judge was most certainly the one who negotiated the transfer with Arsenal and Sanchez agent.
But there are no closed quarters between the different people in the club, as many seem to think there is.
I can guarantee you that Mourinho was well aware of what was going on in the negotiations and IMO it was Mourinhos decision to ask the club to execute the deal after terms were agreed.
Knowing very well what effect those terms would have on the wage budget and that his wiggle room next summer would be smaller since the Sanchez deal probably hit or even surpassed our wage ceiling (we surpassed City with that deal).
Its not a coincidence that Mourinho is on record after the Sanchez deal saying that we would not pursue any more offensive players during the summer. He knew then already that he would need to sell someone if he changed his mind. Its not difficult to imagine that this is where the Martial/Willian story came from.
For me its not really important to place blame on people within the club, when its blatantly obvious that Judge, Mourinho and the Head of Scouting are working very tightly together when it comes to these things. Mourinho knows very well what a big contract for Fellaini would do to the possibilities for him to do other things on the market. For example.
I will say this though: we have the team we have today because of Mourinho. Not because of Matt Judge or even less Woodward. There is no club in the top flight in Europe where the manager has such a final say on players as with us. This is a consequence of the Sir Alex years. Its also IMO why Mourinho really wanted the United job.
I think we will and should change the organization when Mourinho leaves, but until then it would be good to call a spade a spade and stop this witchhunt of Woodward when it comes to "footballing matters".

Is Matt Judge the same guy that works for Arsenal? https://ng.linkedin.com/in/matt-judge-arsenal-hospitality strange how they have the same name and do similar jobs.
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/matthew-judge-13853822 - this is utd guys page.

 

[steffyr2]

That's why I said in the majority of times.



That's something we'll have to disagree upon. It took us 8 long years to get rid of Anderson and we never managed to adequately replace Scholes and Giggs despite heading at the wrong end of their 30s. Which kind of shows that the current system was already proven inadequate during SAF's time. At the end of SAF's reign we were struggling to bring the top players we needed or more then 4 players at a time + it took us ages to get rid of the deadwood.

The difference between now and then is that SAF was special enough to paper the cracks something Mou is not. At least not

What I meant is that if sir Alex wanted them gone, they were gone. He didn't want Scholes or Giggs gone, so they stayed.
I also think he was eating the seed corn at the end, so there's not a stable of players to bring forward like there used to be.

 

[Moriarty]

The original loan was £660m according to reports, and yes with interest payments the amount can ballon to £1b. But let's put this into perspective, if I take out a 30-year mortgage on a £500k house would any reasonable person say "You saddled your house with a million pounds of debt!"? No. The most important thing is my ability to service that debt (whether through my income or a rapid appreciation in the price of house than allows me to refinance). It's absurd to look at the debt by face value alone.

Oh come on. You can do better than that. I've bought the odd house in my time. You put a down payment down, put up some earnest money, and Bob's your uncle. You don't move in and compel the seller to pay the interest on your loan. The Glazers are servicing their debt with United's money.

 

[MackRobinson]

Oh come on. You can do better than that. I've bought the odd house in my time. You put a down payment down, put up some earnest money, and Bob's your uncle. You don't move in and compel the seller to pay the interest on your loan. The Glazers are servicing their debt with United's money.

1) The original shareholders aren't paying interest on the loans, so I don't understand this point.
2) What do you mean by "with United's money"? They own the club. The previous shareholders SOLD their shares of the club to the Glazers. It's technically their money.
3) The Glazers more or less put a down payment down. £660m - £275m = £385m (I was mistaken by the amount of the sale price they were responsible for earlier).

So in reality the Glazers secured £385m in financing against their own assets in addition to a £275m against the clubs assets. So they had a considerable amount of skin in the game. (I'm actually curious to know how they paid for their £385m share)

As aside, I think you have good reason not to trust these corporate financiers and dislike the way the club was purchased. I get it and you are entitled to be upset, but currently the Glazers do not have the club on the brink of financial ruin. The Glazers took a gamble (I think is the part fans have an issue with) that ultimately paid off handsomely. The secondary repercussions are/were awful (no succession plan for SAF, higher ticket prices, poor transfer business, etc) but I don't think it's fair or relevant to beat them over the head with the leveraged buyout stick. It's been 13 years and United's financial situation is much different.

 

[Moriarty]

1) The original shareholders aren't paying interest on the loans, so I don't understand this point.

The shareholders. For heaven's sake man, do you think they are the only ones that matter? The club, our club, was used as the collateral. Everything we'd supported and paid into all those years. That was the collateral. The supporters had a stake in the club, it's fortunes and misfortunes. You can't put a price on that but they managed it with the connivance of other greedy men. Manchester United was never about just money. It is now though and even Fergie, whose hubris helped bring this about, says so.

Anyway, you will never convince me by using hard and cold businessmen's logic that this is a good thing. Businessmen who see everything in terms of the bottom line couldn't possible understand what it means to support a club through thick and thin, home and away. Peter Kenyon tried to ally himself with the supporters but that was soon exposed for the lie it was. They only see fans as a revenue source to be exploited. I've said all I'm going to say about this. If you are a true United supporter and feel some passion for the club and its history, you'll get what I'm saying. Busby didn't build the club on his own. He had Jimmy Murphy, a grand bunch of players, and the fans and, to him, we were all part and parcel of the same. The Glazers and Martin Edwards aren't worthy to be mentioned in the same breath.

 

[devilish]

There is no need to feign an apology when your actions are in line with your intent

No apologies then. I fail to understand how you can make silly comparisions between the most successful manager in United's history with someone whose currently sitting 7th in the EPL table. SAF was far far more successful on the transfer market then Mou is with us. Surely you can see that.

 

[Class of 63]

Toby at 30 would have been too young. SAF .would have waited till he was 35yr old and got him on a free.

SAF bought Anderson for €30m when Porto paid €7m for him a season earlier. He also bought Berbatov for £31m when spurs had bought him for £11m prior.

Some of you try to rewrite history and paint SAF like some infallible transfer god, when the man, like every other manager, had his fair share of record fees and transfer failures.

Not rewriting history at all, just paid a bit more attention than some when said history was made.

Porto had Anderson signed on a pre-contract when he was 16 and then signed him officially from Gremio whilst he was still 17 so i'm not sure what point you're trying to make there because we wouldn't have been able to sign him till he was 18 even if we'd wanted too, and on Berbatov, yeah Spurs got him relatively cheaply, and we were aware of him, but why with Ronaldo, Tevez and Rooney flying would we try and sign him because given the choice of sitting on the bench at United, or being a starter at Spurs he'd have almost certainly chosen them over us anyway.

Larry White, one of the very best of his generation was only ever a stopgap as we didn't have the funds that Summer to sign to sign SAF's preferred choice to replace Jaap Stam, no bitching to the press about not being backed, he felt he needed somebody albeit short-term, and went and got him, it was all done in less than 24 hours.

Now if the Manager after Mourinho, or quite possibly the one after Mourinho's replacement wants Toby A when he's 35 i'd seriously recommend he was sanctioned because Toby A isn't and never has been the best Belgium centre-back of their current crop, never mind one of the very best of his generation.

ps. I'd suggest you do some research on the age of the players SAF bought for record fees.
pps. Yes there were failures, over 26 years there were bound to be, but of those bought for significant money very very few failures, plenty of punts that didn't work, a few rough diamonds that couldn't be polished, but.....

 

[Class of 63]

You're fecking clueless if you think Woodward is doing a good job.

Happy to be fecking clueless then.

Kind regards

 

[Class of 63]

People defending The Glazers and Woodward should be given all the abuse under the sun by United fans.

I'm not interested in opinions.

Some of them literally just learned about Mortgages and are quick to defend Glazers because loans mean nothing, missing the entire point.

I feel that anyone who is defending the Glazers or Ed or Jose at this stage do not have the best interests of the club at heart.

And there's me thinking it was a forum, my mistake

 

[Footyislife]

I'll be the first one to say we need a proper director of football, as Ed is skilled at running a business, but you need that football vision to make better decisions so you don't end up hiring 3 managers who don't fit your philosophy or brand. Though not sure why everyone is scapegoating Ed. Let's take a look at some of the positives accomplished since he's done since taking on:

1. He's done an excellent job on the commercial side, basically negating the anchor that our debt had on our ability to spend money & get who we want.

2. Our ability to recruit world class players & young talent - Di Maria, Pogba, Sanchez these are all world class players who you regularly see the likes Real Madrid/Barcelona chase. Furthermore we are able to beat other clubs to highly desirable young talents like Martial, Shaw, Bailly, Pereira, Depay, TFM.

3. Youth setup - Despite all the PR City gets, we have the best pipeline of talent that actually sees the pitch. Rashford, Lingard, Pereira, TFM, Gomes, Fletcher, Adnan, Paddy, Scott, Axel, Joel, Blackett, Keane, Jonestone etc. We've invested recently in the setup, made excellent hires with Butt, Mckenna.

4. Not selling our talented players despite managers grumbling. Case & point the likes of Martial, Shaw, Pogba, Smalling. This alone atones for poor decisions by his board in hiring managers. Talent is key.

Like any board, i doubt he is the guy alone who decides to bring in these managers who don't fit us. Moyes was the SAF groupie board choice. LVG was the compromise that we needed someone who could rebuild the squad & Mou was the desperate play that would be the safest option to return us to CL football (which is the most critical thing to the long term success) of the club.

Now i think the verdict on Ed will depend on his ability to navigate firing Mourinho & who he brings in. If he is keeping Mourinho because he's afraid to be in the wrong/take a decision, then i agree he's failing in an important area of his job. If it is because we don't have a better replacement option atm & Mou's contract has harsh severance clauses which lessen if he misses CL, then i'm okay with his decision making.

 

[Vadim]

A DoF is the most important appointment we will make in the near future and I honestly believe it will happen end of this season.

Just hang in there Utd fans, it will get better.

 

[red thru&thru]

Who we getting?

 

[Web of Bissaka]

It will always be thus though. Mourinho or not. DoF or not.
Woodward is the CEO, he needs to sign the contracts formally. If you by this want to indicate that it constitutes him meddling in footballing issues, we will never get around that if we dont appoint Sir Alex CEO.
I do think though that Woodward was somewhat involved in the Sanchez transfer, but not by having input on if Sanchez has a good right foot, can play RW or that his legs might have gone.
The Sanchez-transfer is by far the most expensive transfer this club has ever made. I would guess that the agreed terms broke our wage ceiling and that issue had to be put in front of Woodward and/or the Board.
That the Sanchez-transfer was approved is for me at least a major sign that the club is ready to give its manager what he asks for, even if its an anomaly like that. And not gets involved in the footballing side of things.
But I agree that that deal and some of the other more expensive deals like Matic, Lukaku and Fellaini should and must reflect on Mourinho, whoever does the reflecting so to say....

What I gather from your six recent posts is basically you're arguing we should only blame Mourinho? not Ed or Judge? or maybe just Judge a bit, but the most blame should only go to Mourinho, none at Ed.

That's how it sounds like anyway, Ed should not be blamed i.e. he have no responsibility in this football mess.
(When there is a problem, anyone who have any power to do something about it have responsibility, and failure to do so deserve to be blamed.)

Also, your main justification for that is Ed doesn't have any involvement in the "football matters", as he hired Judge to handle those.
In addition to Judge seems to be a yes man to Mourinho's demands.

If all or any of those above are not what you're pointing out, then please clarify.
If not and if it's right, then.. ambitious defending of Ed Woodward there you've been doing -- Johan07 the Defender of Ed.

Spoiler

Do you honestly thinks Ed have no involvement at all in the "football matters"?
Obviously United is a big business organization, and he is surely will have plenty of 'assistants' hired/appointed as heads and their members in different divisions below him to help him. Long story short, Judge is the one that are mainly responsible with the transfer/negotiation/contracts aspects of the football matters.

Seriously, do you really think Ed will turn his eye away, removing his hands entirely on those transfer/negotiation/contracts?

No, no, I got nothing to do with this shit.
Whatever money you need Judge, spend it all for this football manager of ours.
​

Especially the transfer aspects, the whole thing will have impacts on the financials and some other aspects of the business.
Ed won't ignore this. He'll likely monitor, asked for reports and intervene if needed, also to give 'permission' the green light for huge transfers. He's not going to just throw big money on any player would he, just the 'special' ones eg. Di Maria and Pogba. Huge contracts are also depends eg. Rooney, Pogba and especially Sanchez.

---

Club doesn't back Mourinho narrative
While we are in agreement the club and by extension Ed and Judge plus the rest of their co-workers have backed Mou well, I would argue not totally, I mean why should the club back this manager with no limits? this Emou who are behaving like this club is his Football Manager (FM, the game).

Club have plenty of money
So we should use all the money
​

Other than the rest of the examples, plenty, where our 3 managers have been backed fully, the not getting another defender part recent summer is perhaps the first step in the club finally grew a balls to say no to this baby manager's whining.
+Given him 2 fresh new young CBs,
+comply and agreed with his request to keep and extend 2 defenders in the book; Jones and Rojo,
+acknowledging that we also have a young CB promoted from the youth; Tuanzebe, two if we also include TFM.
Then, this manager moan and ask for another expensive fresh new CB with selections that are just not worth the huge valued money their club is demanding: Alderweireld and Maguire, no way the club is throwing 'superstar' transfer fee for an ageing CB nor an over-hype-as-usual-english younger CB. The defence last season is fine with the lot that we have, so in Ed and his assistants pov, is this emou manager planning to waste more money and continue to waste more players in the book.

After this, they don't mind Sanchez because he is a top superstar type of player and in addition, we get to remove another waste asset; Mkhi.

The Fellaini contract is also a balance of backing the manager while not losing the negotiation battle.

Basically that narrative is shit.
Club back manager well, just not with no limits.

---

Power of responsibilities
~ Ed, he's the one that holds the power and the one that hired/elected Judge and Mourinho to their roles as we know it.
More importantly, he also have the power and responsibility to sack them especially that uncompetitive manager.
Results matter, and it seems Judge is not competitive enough in doing his job to be the dominant player in transfer/negotiation stuffs, wasting too much money, and conceding easily to the manager's demands and agents/other clubs demands.

Did he take a good responsibility in his handling of Mourinho and Judge?
No, at least not enough.
He still let Mourinho run his machine-gun mouth easily and assert to Judge to comply with his manager demands.
He also doesn't help Judge enough with let's say a dominant personnel who knows more about football, or rather his trust in him is misplaced, I mean clearly Judge is not good enough and his handling of the football matters is average at best.

This is like...

A Dad hired a Butler to attend to everything his Son needs.
Son, who is an adult, told the Butler to get him a gun.
Butler asks nothing.
Butler is just doing his job, gets the Son a gun, while also telling the Dad.
Dad did nothing.
Son shoots the gun everywhere, putting people at risks.
Buter did nothing.
Dad did nothing.
Son continues to shoots the gun.
Bang bang bang!
Dad still do nothing, and he should not be blamed for this....​

So why is Ed should be exempt from any blames?
Nothing. He and his staffs, Judge and the shit football manager should all be responsible and gets the deserved blame for not doing their job.

---

Football Brain and United
Long story short, all 3 main players at the head of the club atm clearly have no brains nor vision to implement the United's football identity. Clearly Mourinho have no idea with his shit football and shit uncontrollable antics/manners, while Ed and Judge have no idea at all in making the decisions affecting the football. Eg. the contract and wage bill for instance have effects on the whole squad, as does the huge effects of manager to the squad.

Doesn't matter if they all have plenty of people below them that give them good football advises, at the end of the day i.e. the whole process they're the ones that have the major say in the football decision. It's also possible they filled their advisers with yes men, and it's also possible their advisers are shit, know shit about United's football. I mean if even the current results (our sad position at the table, negative GD, terrible football and mouthy manager) is still not good enough to sack Mou, then they're really idiots in regards to the football matters.

No doubt Ed and his team excelled in the commercial aspect.

Doesn't matter if Ed nor Judge doesn't know much about football, hire someone else who is competitive, dominant and good knowledge of United's football to handle the football matters and especially to check our manager. Idc if they've been long before considering a DOF, not implementing it is still within Ed's responsibility, and considering the shit show the club have become, a big joke, because of mainly the shit trio managers combo contributions, Moyes-LVG-Mou, which again is his job as CEO to know and his PR personnel should inform him by now, he should do something about it already.

TLDR/
a. Ed are still involve in the football matters.
b. Ed and Judge are doing terrible jobs in the football matters.
c. Mourinho is doing a terrible job.
d. Mourinho is still the manager and letting his wild behaviors be are also Ed's responsibility.
e. Ed, Judge and Mourinho have responsibilities as to why this club is a laughingstock.
f. Blame all of them -- Ed, Judge and Mourinho.
g. We're missing a United Football Brain person at the club, who is a strong character and should be given power to handle the football matters.

 

[Adisa]

I too believe we will hire one. The Glazers are not idiots. The club is sick and they can see it.

 

[Ban]

Ed will take a long term manager if the club has any long term strategy whatsoever.
Given that it seems we don't have that all hell go for someone like Zidane.

 

[elmo]

He is doing an excellent job on one hand on the commercial side of things of which he is very good. He is fecking up on the footballing side and he needs to hire someone who can do a good job and knows football so the manager cannot get away by hoodwinking Ed.

The club itself literally sells itself for the commercial side . You could replace him with any competent marketing guy and there wouldn't be any difference. All of the big deals he has done were all because the money in football has been increasing and it's why every club in Europe has been getting bigger deals all around.

 

[ZenMaster Coltrane]

People vastly overrate and overstate the competence of the people at the highest rungs of money and power. It's one thing to design a model that anticipates the crash of 2008 before anyone else (leading them to subsequently reap huge rewards from huge bets made against the US real estate market et. al)...it's quite another to sign a brand for some training ground sponsorship. Calling Ed Woodward a 'fantastic business man' based on his sponsorship dealings is idiocy. Guy would probably be underwhelming on Shark Tank.

 

[Johan07]

What I gather from your six recent posts is basically you're arguing we should only blame Mourinho? not Ed or Judge? or maybe just Judge a bit, but the most blame should only go to Mourinho, none at Ed.

That's how it sounds like anyway, Ed should not be blamed i.e. he have no responsibility in this football mess.
(When there is a problem, anyone who have any power to do something about it have responsibility, and failure to do so deserve to be blamed.)

Also, your main justification for that is Ed doesn't have any involvement in the "football matters", as he hired Judge to handle those.
In addition to Judge seems to be a yes man to Mourinho's demands.

If all or any of those above are not what you're pointing out, then please clarify.
If not and if it's right, then.. ambitious defending of Ed Woodward there you've been doing -- Johan07 the Defender of Ed.

Spoiler

Do you honestly thinks Ed have no involvement at all in the "football matters"?
Obviously United is a big business organization, and he is surely will have plenty of 'assistants' hired/appointed as heads and their members in different divisions below him to help him. Long story short, Judge is the one that are mainly responsible with the transfer/negotiation/contracts aspects of the football matters.

Seriously, do you really think Ed will turn his eye away, removing his hands entirely on those transfer/negotiation/contracts?

No, no, I got nothing to do with this shit.
Whatever money you need Judge, spend it all for this football manager of ours.
​

Especially the transfer aspects, the whole thing will have impacts on the financials and some other aspects of the business.
Ed won't ignore this. He'll likely monitor, asked for reports and intervene if needed, also to give 'permission' the green light for huge transfers. He's not going to just throw big money on any player would he, just the 'special' ones eg. Di Maria and Pogba. Huge contracts are also depends eg. Rooney, Pogba and especially Sanchez.

---

Club doesn't back Mourinho narrative
While we are in agreement the club and by extension Ed and Judge plus the rest of their co-workers have backed Mou well, I would argue not totally, I mean why should the club back this manager with no limits? this Emou who are behaving like this club is his Football Manager (FM, the game).

Club have plenty of money
So we should use all the money
​

Other than the rest of the examples, plenty, where our 3 managers have been backed fully, the not getting another defender part recent summer is perhaps the first step in the club finally grew a balls to say no to this baby manager's whining.
+Given him 2 fresh new young CBs,
+comply and agreed with his request to keep and extend 2 defenders in the book; Jones and Rojo,
+acknowledging that we also have a young CB promoted from the youth; Tuanzebe, two if we also include TFM.
Then, this manager moan and ask for another expensive fresh new CB with selections that are just not worth the huge valued money their club is demanding: Alderweireld and Maguire, no way the club is throwing 'superstar' transfer fee for an ageing CB nor an over-hype-as-usual-english younger CB. The defence last season is fine with the lot that we have, so in Ed and his assistants pov, is this emou manager planning to waste more money and continue to waste more players in the book.

After this, they don't mind Sanchez because he is a top superstar type of player and in addition, we get to remove another waste asset; Mkhi.

The Fellaini contract is also a balance of backing the manager while not losing the negotiation battle.

Basically that narrative is shit.
Club back manager well, just not with no limits.

---

Power of responsibilities
~ Ed, he's the one that holds the power and the one that hired/elected Judge and Mourinho to their roles as we know it.
More importantly, he also have the power and responsibility to sack them especially that uncompetitive manager.
Results matter, and it seems Judge is not competitive enough in doing his job to be the dominant player in transfer/negotiation stuffs, wasting too much money, and conceding easily to the manager's demands and agents/other clubs demands.

Did he take a good responsibility in his handling of Mourinho and Judge?
No, at least not enough.
He still let Mourinho run his machine-gun mouth easily and assert to Judge to comply with his manager demands.
He also doesn't help Judge enough with let's say a dominant personnel who knows more about football, or rather his trust in him is misplaced, I mean clearly Judge is not good enough and his handling of the football matters is average at best.

This is like...

A Dad hired a Butler to attend to everything his Son needs.
Son, who is an adult, told the Butler to get him a gun.
Butler asks nothing.
Butler is just doing his job, gets the Son a gun, while also telling the Dad.
Dad did nothing.
Son shoots the gun everywhere, putting people at risks.
Buter did nothing.
Dad did nothing.
Son continues to shoots the gun.
Bang bang bang!
Dad still do nothing, and he should not be blamed for this....​

So why is Ed should be exempt from any blames?
Nothing. He and his staffs, Judge and the shit football manager should all be responsible and gets the deserved blame for not doing their job.

---

Football Brain and United
Long story short, all 3 main players at the head of the club atm clearly have no brains nor vision to implement the United's football identity. Clearly Mourinho have no idea with his shit football and shit uncontrollable antics/manners, while Ed and Judge have no idea at all in making the decisions affecting the football. Eg. the contract and wage bill for instance have effects on the whole squad, as does the huge effects of manager to the squad.

Doesn't matter if they all have plenty of people below them that give them good football advises, at the end of the day i.e. the whole process they're the ones that have the major say in the football decision. It's also possible they filled their advisers with yes men, and it's also possible their advisers are shit, know shit about United's football. I mean if even the current results (our sad position at the table, negative GD, terrible football and mouthy manager) is still not good enough to sack Mou, then they're really idiots in regards to the football matters.

No doubt Ed and his team excelled in the commercial aspect.

Doesn't matter if Ed nor Judge doesn't know much about football, hire someone else who is competitive, dominant and good knowledge of United's football to handle the football matters and especially to check our manager. Idc if they've been long before considering a DOF, not implementing it is still within Ed's responsibility, and considering the shit show the club have become, a big joke, because of mainly the shit trio managers combo contributions, Moyes-LVG-Mou, which again is his job as CEO to know and his PR personnel should inform him by now, he should do something about it already.

TLDR/
a. Ed are still involve in the football matters.
b. Ed and Judge are doing terrible jobs in the football matters.
c. Mourinho is doing a terrible job.
d. Mourinho is still the manager and letting his wild behaviors be are also Ed's responsibility.
e. Ed, Judge and Mourinho have responsibilities as to why this club is a laughingstock.
f. Blame all of them -- Ed, Judge and Mourinho.
g. We're missing a United Football Brain person at the club, who is a strong character and should be given power to handle the football matters.

Tbh I didnt have the energy to read everything under the spoiler, and I dont really get the relevance from what I did read.
Anyways, I am not a Woodward- or Glazer-supporter. More of a realist I hope.
What I have done in this thread is to challenge the narrative that Woodward has been getting involved in football matters the last couple of years; with that I mean having direct input on which players should be signed or not. There is no evidence for this at all.
I am pretty convinced that Mourinho has been able to sign/sell whatever player he has wanted the last couple of years; as long as he stayed within the wage budget: the largest in the PL.
What happened last summer was that we grew out of our wage bill with the Sanchez transfer and with the De Gea-prolongation coming up among others; and Mourinho was restricted in the market because of that.
This has very little to do with Woodward, the club and if they have been willing to back Mourinho or not. Or even less with Woodward blocking the purchase of this or that player, which is the narrative that is so tiresome. But Mourinho needs to stay within budget, its just how it is and how it should be. If he wants to expand the wage budget without getting rid of players its very likely that he and Judge needs to ask the Board and Woodward for more money, arguing their case why the largest wage budget in the PL is not already enough. I suspect that is what happened in the Sanchez-case.
When it comes to Woodwards performance as CEO there are many things you can and should him accountable for. Recruiting of managers is one thing. Not changing the organization from the despotic manager-rule that kinda has been in place since Sir Alex and dont forget: has been just so very much on the great man´s own advice.
These are things you can discuss regarding Woodward. There are positives as well, for example that he himself stepped away from the practical involvement in transfer negotiations.
My original post was in response to the returning suggestion that Woodward involves himself in the footballing side of things, the ABU-medias way of painting this as a civil war within United and try to approportionate blame here or there. Its not that simple.

 

[Djemba-Djemba]

People defending The Glazers and Woodward should be given all the abuse under the sun by United fans.

I'm not interested in opinions.

100% correct.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

People defending The Glazers and Woodward should be given all the abuse under the sun by United fans.

I'm not interested in opinions.

What about people defending Mourinho?

 

[CA1]

What about people defending Mourinho?

The manager/coach is always up for debate. They come and in do what they can but I never like to see any manager get loads of abuse. Behind every bad manager there is a bad board and owners. And the board and owners are much harder to get rid of or be held accountable.

I'd like to think people have looked at Mourinho now and thought maybe the abuse they gave Van Gaal was too much or Moyes before.

They all failed because of the structure around them IMO.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

The manager/coach is always up for debate. They come and in do what they can but I never like to see any manager get loads of abuse. Behind every bad manager there is a bad board and owners. And the board and owners are much harder to get rid of or be held accountable.

I'd like to think people have looked at Mourinho now and thought maybe the abuse they gave Van Gaal was too much or Moyes before.

They all failed because of the structure around them IMO.

So it’s ok to debate whether or not the manager is competent but we should abuse anyone who disagrees with your opinion about Woodward’s competence?

Seems fair...

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Am I the only one who remembers how convinced all the Arsenal fans were that their board/owners were a cancer at the club and they were doomed without a massive overhaul at the top?

Turns out that hiring a manager who gets the team playing well and winning football matches completely changed that narrative. Go figure

 

[Raees]

Am I the only one who remembers how convinced all the Arsenal fans were that their board/owners were a cancer at the club and they were doomed without a massive overhaul at the top?

Turns out that hiring a manager who gets the team playing well and winning matches completely changed that narrative. Go figure

Exactly. Especially at clubs like ours where a hell of a lot of freedom is given to the manager - and in our case huge amount of funds - zero excuses for not being able to stamp your mark on a side and all it takes is the right appointment for it to turn around rather quickly.

 

[RooneyLegend]

The manager/coach is always up for debate. They come and in do what they can but I never like to see any manager get loads of abuse. Behind every bad manager there is a bad board and owners. And the board and owners are much harder to get rid of or be held accountable.

I'd like to think people have looked at Mourinho now and thought maybe the abuse they gave Van Gaal was too much or Moyes before.

They all failed because of the structure around them IMO.

The same structure that's given them 700million to spend?

 

[roonster09]

Am I the only one who remembers how convinced all the Arsenal fans were that their board/owners were a cancer at the club and they were doomed without a massive overhaul at the top?

Turns out that hiring a manager who gets the team playing well and winning football matches completely changed that narrative. Go figure

Same with Liverpool fans too, they were annoyed that they aren't spending big and money ball is not working, with Klopp it's all fine now. Good coach changes everything.

 

[JPRouve]

Am I the only one who remembers how convinced all the Arsenal fans were that their board/owners were a cancer at the club and they were doomed without a massive overhaul at the top?

Turns out that hiring a manager who gets the team playing well and winning football matches completely changed that narrative. Go figure

To be fair they divided Wenger's former duties when they hired a DOF. That's the issue with our board and owners, they are not making the necessary changes. Liverpool are a better example of a manager changing everything within the same structure.