We're not in as bigger mess as alot of people think. We will probably miss out on top 4, but I'm pretty sure once Woodward gets rid of Mourinho with the Glazer families permission. He will get the DoF to lead the football operations to work with a attack minded coach. There's been too much smoke now regards a DoF that I feel everything will come together once we get rid of Mourinho.
Man Utd set to appoint Director of Football (when hell freezes over)
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If that is the case he needs to get new advisors then.
There are literally no signs of a DoF.
If he doesn't get a dof and continues as is, then it's going to be more or the same and another season down the toilet. He needs to focus on his strengths and start delegating to subject matter experts.
His big mistake was hiring Mourinho against the wishes of Sir Bobby Charlton and many fans who detested his pragmatic style and Narcissistic personality.
There's been a few reports that Woodward will wait until Mourinho is gone before hiring one. Mourinho wants to pick his own man as DoF which has been vetoed by Woodward and rightly so as far as I'm concerned.
That isn't the only mistake he has made. After 3 failed managers and numerous failed transfer windows the common denominator here is him. He needs to take a look at himself and understand his limitations.
You'd have to be desperate to dislike Ed Woodward to think he's not in regular dialogue with SAF, David Gill, Sir Bobby Charlton and even Martin oops is this the ladies toilets Edwards and others who have been around Old Trafford for decades when it comes to footballing matters.
Moyes wasn't really his pick but the other two managers were. LVG was the right choice at the time I thought but with him you need a DoF who will identify the players which he wasn't good at. Mourinho was never really a United manager due to his pragmatism but he won titles in his second season, they said..
I think he knows his limitations to be honest. The job he was thrown into was much more difficult than most would've envisaged. Working with Moyes was a difficult task as we all know. Personally for me Woodward is a better CEO for us than David Gill was. The only difference was that we had SAF winning every year which papered over the cracks whilst Gill towed the Glazer line.
There's Bryan Robson also still around and many other former pro's who I'm sure Woodward has confided in.
Yeah, the same SAF and Sir Bobby who were against the appointment of Jose.
I don't dislike Ed. I just can't understand why we aren't ruthless in the market, why we aren't ruthless with the manager whose team is under performing on a weekly basis, why we still have Phil Jones at the club.
The club needs to be proactive enough which is not the case atm.
Yeah, there are dozens of former players doing hospitality on match-days at Old Trafford who wouldn't be backwards in coming forwards when it came to giving Ed advice, whether he wanted it or not.
I think SAF mellowed on the thought of Jose being at Old Trafford eventually, but don't think Sir Bobby ever will
Will be really sad if this happen. I believe we are in such a bad position that currently a Director of Football is going to be one of the most important appointments in our history.
I'm hearing David Moyes is odds on favourite to get the role, with LvG an outside bet
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Sincerely hope you are right on this one mate. Although I think that Woody has been granted so much power to help him expand his ego. Now he has got as much control control as he has I cant see him relinquishing it without a struggle and I really hope not but I think he is going to bring in as yes man to use as a scapegoat to pass the buck on to should the appointment not work out as well as it should. Thus absolving himself of any blame whilst still pulling all the strings in the background. Greaseball
Hey I blame the guy for hiring LVG and Mourinho, not to mention that extension he gifted Mourinho, but how is that bold part on him?
mate. Why not bring him both back and have five year plan to start playing dross football again as the end result
I read the other day that David Moyes thinks he would have done better if he he had been given enough time.Think what can be concluded from the bold part. Is that a lot of the crap we now find ourselves in is his fault as he has final say on transfers due to his 'vast depth of football knowledge', when he should have given control of it to someone who knows a bit a bit more about the football side than him.
Yeah but he's buying players on manager orders though, he's not picking the targets. I suppose he can be blamed thorough proxy (that being the manager he appointed) but it's dull considering manager is the one telling him to get those players.
I agree he is buying players on managers orders but ultimately he has the power to say if I player a manager wants is the right fit, age profile etc and ultimate control on whether we should sign him which. An example if this is true that he didnt want to sign any centrebacks as he thought there were none available who were better than what we had (please correct me if I am wrong mate) I think should be in the hand of a good Director of Football.
I understand the point you're making but as examples show prior to this summer he was doing all he can to fulfill manager's wishes. Most of Mourinho's signings being really, really underwhelming and half of them being just short term, high risk fixes (which didn't pay off BTW), basically not being a smart buys is what caused him to take a more cautious approach. Splashing crazy money on ageing players is not a smart way to go about considering those same players will be in need of replacing in couple of years. Matić and Sanchez being prime examples.
Besides we had Perišić and Willian coming out saying they had the offers but didn't want to join. We had Boateng saying the same, we had confirmation Toby was priced at £75 million and Leicester was refusing to negotiate on Maguire until after the WC.
Agree on the point of not paying silly money for aging players, as you said in eg 2-3 years we are going to have to replace them anyway and build again, would rather longer term thinnking than short term success. In a way I can understand that he doesn't trust Jose spending big money some of his signings have underachieved. I think we should adopt a strategy of buying young players with immense potaential or relatively experienced players in the 25ish range who are still hungry and not use as one last big pay day. I think the Sanchez signing stung a lot and that will make us more cautious in the future. What doesn't help us is that people we know we have a lot of cash and are in desperate need of players and regardless of age still add the dreaded United tax on top.
One worrying thing which I read which may or may mot be true is that Boateng didn't want to come here specifically because of Jose which is cause for alarm. Hope this is a one off and not the mindset of other possible signings.
Don't really get what he means or what past clubs he managed that were similar to this. He won titles 3 times at Chelsea who are quite a controlling club. When were Chelsea or real in his image, when he took over from other managers, some who were fired in quick succession?
Yeah I agree.
Think Mbappe said something similar along the lines the of him not really being all that interested in moving to UTD due to the style of football.
All he goes on about is needing to buy new players
Think it is more about the board and our structure. And most likely it has some truth in it, although he shouldn't bring these and similar things on a daily basis. Or at all and just focus on his job.
He's talking about the need to put a proper football infrastructure in place wrt scouting, identifying and negotiating for players, rather than just chucking money at anyone and everyone.
It's a thinly-veiled dig at Woodward and the way he has organised the football side of operations at the club.
Oh look he's deflecting blame away from himself yet again. He's a predictable twat who will continue make excuses and blame everyone else for his failings.
All true, but that doesn't mean he's wrong.
He's going down and won't last the season, but if he takes that chinless twat Woodward down with him, it wouldn't be the worst thing.
If I remember correctly I think Jose said he needed 3 full summer windows to sign the players to mould his own team. Clearly something didn't go to plan?
Mate, apart from the Sanchez signing, most of our business has been exactly what you're describing:
Pogba - massively talented yet still fairly young when signed, we knew he still had to develop
Bailly - early 20s, massively inexperienced
Lindeloff - same as Bailly
Lukaku - 24 when signed (I think), still has learning to do
Fred - 25, still has learning to do
Dalot - 19, massively talented and inexperienced
Then there are the players we already have such as Martial, Rashford, Shaw, and Lingard who are in the same mould. This team has tonnes of learning to do. While that theory of yours sounds like a great idea, it's very evident that fans aren't quite willing to be patient for all of these players to click.
What we need is immediate improvement and results. If that means signing a number of 28 year olds who will lift the team, then so be it. We look to sign young talents every season or 2 anyway, and that never stops no matter how successful we are on the field.
I agree with some of what you say but was Bailly regarded as having massive potential when he came here?, I heard we were willing to pay £10m more than any other team and I'm glad we did, I want to keep him as I think he is going to become very good.
Don't want to sound pedantic but Lindelof was 22 and still has time on his side to. Pogba seems as if he no longer has the hunger. he is too concerned with his image than fulfilling his immense potential, as he is 26 in March I think he should get a bit of consistency in his game.
Regarding Lukaku I think we could have done better but there wasn't much better available at the time. I do fully understand that a lot of fans want instant success rather than build for the future mate and I respect that opinion as some of them are probably starting to get sick of watching this crap every week.
We as a club should be challenging for the top honours.
Anyone think maybe Jose is doing bits in other areas which is keeping him from getting the chop? Akin to Fergie when he started out...?
Clutching at straws maybe.
Clutching at straws maybe.
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Simply by the results of his decisions.
People do not but if there are people with football back ground assisting him with football decisions it would be nice to find out to see who they are and what football expertise they have if these football people actually exist. As football is a murky area we don't know who could be advising who about what.
I do agree with some of what Jose has said but I'm not shocked he doesn't see his role in it.
We need a reorientation about what we want this football club to be.
We need a reorientation about what we want this football club to be.
There's people assisting him and giving him advice, how anyone thinks otherwise isn't thinking rationally due to our current malaise I would say. We have many ex reds and SAF still around and i'm sure they must give Woodward plenty of feedback on our current predicament. Then you have cnuts like Duncan Castles who is Mourinho's propaganda agent who spreads negativity surrounding our CEO and Paul Pogba to make Mourinho look like the victim which the gullible feed on.
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