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

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He did fine. I trust financial people over resident Cafe "experts." If he didn't want to pay over for players as good as what we currently have or be held for crazy agent fees; then good on us. It will only allow us to bargain from a position of strength next time. If we always pay what people want with no restraint, then what stops teams from quoting crazy prices.

People here are so short sided. Go read through the Alex Sandro thread for an example. When we were linked people were saying how he wasn't convinced and Shaw "Should be given a proper chance." Now that Shaw has had a crap pre-season and everyone is asking why we didn't sign a left back. We as fans cannot continue to demand it both ways, ie. Get top Marquee signings at a young age (24-27 by Cafe Standards) and still try to promote youth from the academy. Looks at city's heralded academy, players are leaving left and right because there is no path into the first team.

The biggest issue from last years team who finished 2nd in points was a proper partner for Pogba. We wanted Fred, and got Fred. People forget that we have a very strong team and we will be fine this year.
 
Woodward is a joke. If he had an issue with Mourinho's targets that's more than fair, but in his role it's up to him to suggest and provide suitable alternatives. Rather than try to force moves that he was never willing to make, he should be able to suggest suitable alternatives, then again that's why a DoF would be useful.......
 
Revan said:
That's narrative. And actually someone wrote in the Glazers thread that Pogba was bought with Ronaldo's money, which was ridiculous eventhough it was on a thread full of ridiculous posts when facts don't matter.
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Ha, fair enough
 
#07 said:
Lots of very detailed pieces in the media tonight trying to explain why United didn't do more in the transfer market. Clearly someone at the club has been on the phone to their favourite journalists...

...Yeah cos what the media tells us will convince everyone that actually there's no defenders better than what we have, no full backs better than what we have and no wide right's better than what we have.
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Link?
 
Ed's sent the briefing out by the looks of the last 5 tweets from journos covering our failure to land a CB, none of them were better than what we have or too old for the money and we want players for the long term not the quick fix, we'd pay £100M for Varane without blinking apparently, which is easy to say given he was never for sale.
 
el3mel said:
Actually found it quite hilarious the briefing is saying what we were targeting were short term fixes no better than what we have.

Since when our board are football experts ? As far as I'm concerned, they're all businessmen whose only experience is in generating money.
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Woodward clearly fancies himself as Florentino Perez. He may as well make himself Director of Football if he's going to be picking the targets. I laughed out loud when I read Danny Taylor saying the club didn't feel Alderweireld was better than the defenders we had. Utterly hilarious! :lol:
 
JPRouve said:
And I don't think that we even started the improvement let alone hit a cap. To me we are as raw as it gets, I recognize the imbalance in the roster but I really believe that we have a starting eleven, it's the one that I "fixed" earlier, for me that's our starting point.
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It's personal opinion matter so I can't say it's wrong. I will point out problem. Shaw hasn't shown anything in recent time that can top Young let alone to be a starter for long period. We all know Martial and Alexis would better drift centrally as they're better closer to goal, which means Shaw is burdened to cover a whole flank. First it's a fitness test then ability to work independently especially in delivery service for the other players. Asking Martial or Alexis to stay wide is pretty much undo half of their best contribution. I have high hope for Dalot but let's not get carry away and expect flawless footballer.

Bailly and Smalling partnership is one of the worse. Rojones. Bailly and Jones for all their flaw is more compatible. Bailly and Smalling for quite few times look like they're on different wave length. Both Bailly and Smalling prefer the right CB position. Passing out of the back under pressure is still a problem.

Midfield look good, but sometimes it may require some wacky set up like Matuidi doing a hybrid winger and central midfielder for it to work. Again it touches on our team balance with no players being that interested in playing winger (Mbappe's role for post Australia run of games).

It's a hope for improvement, than expectation. We have a general idea of how some of our players' style. It's not like they would change once those set of players were on the pitch together.
 
#07 said:
Woodward clearly fancies himself as Florentino Perez. He may as well make himself Director of Football if he's going to be picking the targets. I laughed out loud when I read Danny Taylor saying the club didn't feel Alderweireld was better than the defenders we had. Utterly hilarious! :lol:
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Perez seems to have a much better eye for talent than Woodward
 
Devil may care said:
Ed's sent the briefing out by the looks of the last 5 tweets from journos covering our failure to land a CB, none of them were better than what we have or too old for the money and we want players for the long term not the quick fix, we'd pay £100M for Varane without blinking apparently, which is easy to say given he was never for sale.
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Its like Wenger saying he could've signed Ronaldo, Ibra, Yaya etc its laughable.
 
el3mel said:
We all know feck all about what's happening in the club, but putting assumptions based on quotes, journalists and what we actually see. If your point is we shouldn't talk unless we know exactly what's happening inside, there's no point of this forum then, close it instead.
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Yeah, I get that but you’re stating that the magement and club/board are blind to these weaknesses as fact. Offer it as an opinion rather than an actual.
 
#07 said:
Woodward clearly fancies himself as Florentino Perez. He may as well make himself Director of Football if he's going to be picking the targets. I laughed out loud when I read Danny Taylor saying the club didn't feel Alderweireld was better than the defenders we had. Utterly hilarious! :lol:
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Yes, Jones and Rojo are better than Tobby. Didn't you know ? :lol:
 
Coops73 said:
Yeah, I get that but you’re stating that the magement and club/board are blind to these weaknesses as fact. Offer it as an opinion rather than an actual.
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I didn't. You said you don't know how I knew we were targeting these positions, and my replay with that if we were actually blind to not see these weaknesses, that will be even a bigger problem, not a less one. You probably didn't read well, did you ?
 
spiriticon said:
Dalot can absolutely come in this season if he's good enough. Might even take Valencia's spot by the end of the year. Age is no issue if you're good.

Shaw being crap doesn't make our investment in him disappear though. It's still £30 million worth of full back there that Ed has previously bought. He doesn't just disappear into thin air because the fans deem them crap.
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Dalot is currently with a knee injury.

What we know for sure is that he has no pre-season, has no experience at the highest level, no game time since months, played grand total of 6 games at Porto, and not sure if he even understands the language yet.

Shaw being crap and injured actually does make that investment disappear in thin air. Sometimes you have to write off a bad asset. Can someone imagine he's starting his 5th season at the club and has probably started 50-60 games at the club?

I'm sure it was hard to accept Hargreaves as a write off at the time, but sometimes you have to get the dying horse behind the barn and shoot it.
 
#07 said:
Its like Wenger saying he could've signed Ronaldo, Ibra, Yaya etc its laughable.
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I do think we'd have paid big money for a Dembele or Pulisic or indeed Varane, and I do think most of the CB's we were linked with were not clear enough upgrades on what we have for the money being charged, but Alderweireld is definitely better than what we have and would add some leadership back there to marshall the likes of Bailly and Lindelof, likewise not buying Sandro and trying to force Shaw on Mourinho is moronic as it just means another season of Ashley Young at LB.
 
Revan said:
They did well in UCL, to be fair. We also weren't that bad in cups, we actually won FA Cup. And we were leading 2-1 in the final game, which had finished so, would have put City on Europa (instead of us).

City underperformed with that squad. To be fair, so did us considering that LVG was sacked and we wanted him out in Jan. Both teams played much worse than they should have.

Obviously City had a better team than us but their team was hardly world class, and our team was hardly shit. They were comparable with theirs being a bit better.
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We bottled our chances all season and pretty much a theme under LVG, so it's not just an one off where we can say what if. So where we finished that season is closer to where that team is capped at, compare to City. When we use if, then we can say if City didn't do the announcement they may comfortably finish top 4 even doing a 3 horses race and finished 4th :wenger: In a sense City dropped of the cliff because they had ability to get to higher ground. LVG United on the other hands is acrophobia.

I agree with your conclusive bit though
 
#07 said:
Lots of very detailed pieces in the media tonight trying to explain why United didn't do more in the transfer market. Clearly someone at the club has been on the phone to their favourite journalists...

...Yeah cos what the media tells us will convince everyone that actually there's no defenders better than what we have, no full backs better than what we have and no wide right's better than what we have.
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Links?
 
Enigma_87 said:
Dalot is currently with a knee injury.

What we know for sure is that he has no pre-season, has no experience at the highest level, no game time since months, played grand total of 6 games at Porto, and not sure if he even understands the language yet.

Shaw being crap and injured actually does make that investment disappear in thin air. Sometimes you have to write off a bad asset. Can someone imagine he's starting his 5th season at the club and has probably started 50-60 games at the club?

I'm sure it was hard to accept Hargreaves as a write off at the time, but sometimes you have to get the dying horse behind the barn and shoot it.
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That is very harsh. Surely there is some lush pasture that he could allocated to go out to feed on?
 
Enigma_87 said:
Shaw being crap and injured actually does make that investment disappear in thin air. Sometimes you have to write off a bad asset. Can someone imagine he's starting his 5th season at the club and has probably started 50-60 games at the club?

I'm sure it was hard to accept Hargreaves as a write off at the time, but sometimes you have to get the dying horse behind the barn and shoot it.
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Wow nice. Just the kind of advertisment we want to send out to young footballers.

JOIN MAN UTD! Where you will be taken behind and shot if you suck.

And you wonder why we sign nobody.
 
The topic of this post is Ed Woodward 2018/19, but it really should be our entire transfer market performance since 2000. We've always been shit in the transfer market, missing out on players here and signing the wrong players there, even in Fergies era. Our scouting has always been piss poor with the odd exception. I'm surprised by how many people thought we were going to have a good window, when our history says otherwise.

For example:

  • We replace arguably the greatest goalkeeper in history with Mark Bosnich and when you read Fergie's book, he wanted VDS, but Edwards had "shook hands" with Bosnich, I didn't know Bosnich had hands from his performances. He wore his gloves on his feet. I mean FFS. We then spend 6 years trying to find a replacement and get the man Fergie wanted originally. Just imagine, those 6 years with Van Der Sar in the net, instead of Bosnich, Taibi, Barthez, Carrol, Howard, Goram and Ricardo.
  • We sell Stam and his replacement is a 38 year old Larry White. Blanc was a top player, but a replacement for Stam he wasn't at 38. Imagine Stam and Ferdinand partnership.
  • Fail to sign Robben, wanted Cech but thought it best to wait one more year. Ronaldo and Robben on each wing.
  • We sell Van Nistelrooy, no replacement.
  • Cristiano Ronaldo with Valencia who scored 5 goals in his first season compared to Ronaldo's 18.
  • We sign Berbatov who we didn't need instead of signing Tevez.
  • We sign a winger in Anderson and transform him into a midfielder which never worked.
  • We replace Keane with Carrick. I like Carrick was a good servant, but he was no replacement for Keane.
  • We sign Bebe, the same season City sign David Silva, for 19m more. The perfect replacement for Scholes who initially retired the following season.
  • We sign Felliani
  • We sign Mata
  • We sign a one legged Falcao
  • We sign a winger in Di Maria and try to turn him into a centre mid.
  • We signed Sanchez who we didn't really need and who from the looks of it, has caused more problems than he's solved. Pogba apparent annoyance of his wages, Martial who was in form when we signed him as examples.
Yes, we've had some great signings over the years with some world class players and performances, but a lot of stupid transfers (Bebe, Bosnich) and transfers that made no sense (Berbatov over Tevez).

So my point is, I am not sure why people thought this transfer window was going to be any different. Fred looks like a good player, but is he any better than Andreas Pereira.

We need a whole new defence, a defence that has been there since before Fergie retired which uses two fecking wingers as full-backs. We need someone on the right, as good as Mata is, who is great on the ball, amazing first touch, brings it down with snow on, but he has no pace, can't beat a man, gets caught in possession and gets knocked off the ball all the time.

So Ed Woodard looks like he is great at brining in money through sponsors, can't sign a player for shit. We're likely going to have a really shit season and struggle (I hope I'm wrong, please be wrong) and Mourinho will likely either leave or be sacked. We'll then try go get either Zidane or Poch and the same thing will happen again.

feck I'm pissed off at this window.
 
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Imagine being Mourinho, a man with nearly 30 years coaching experience, who, as a manager has won the league in four different counties and the Champions League twice, having your opinions on football-related matters discarded by some ex-banker who's never kicked a ball in his life. No wonder he's miserable.
 
edgar allan said:
That is very harsh. Surely there is some lush pasture that he could allocated to go out to feed on?
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He's currently at one - Carrington.

We can at least save some money on caretaker on second thought.

spiriticon said:
Wow nice. Just the kind of advertisment we want to send out to young footballers.

JOIN MAN UTD! Where you will be taken behind and shot if you suck.

And you wonder why we sign nobody.
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And we should sign some players like Bebe, pamper them and let them stay at the club until their contract expire?

If you suck at your job and regularly call sick and not even remotely look fit when actually do it wouldn't you get the sack after 5 years?
 
el3mel said:
I didn't. You said you don't know how I knew we were targeting these positions, and my replay with that if we were actually blind to not see these weaknesses, that will be even a bigger problem, not a less one. You probably didn't read well, did you ?
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Yes you did, you said “we” entered the market wanting to strengthen the right wing, full backs and central midfield. I read perfectly well.
 
Has Ed done any interviews recently, or ever? Or the Glazer offsprings?
 
Woziak said:
Pretty Much what I was saying, if the board no longer back him they should get rid but they can't really get anyone who is a superior Coach tactically but they might feel that they can get a Coach like Zidanne who commands the ultimate respect as a player to get the most out of flair players like Rashford, Martial, Pogba and Sanchez and mentally swich the players on to a more attacking style. From what we hear Zidanne is not as good a Coach as Mourinho tactically but he seems currently to be far superior at man management.
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I don't think we're saying the same thing at all.

At this point all your statements are just based on assumptions that havent been validated by a single fact. Even if one were to believe that the club wants to hire Zidane, why would person of his standing in the game want to join United? The CEO describes the club as a disneyword for adults, messes up the job he's given months to prepare for and the owners aren't interested in winning titles. We are a club run by people only interested in one thing - money.

The fact is Mourinho is still the manager of this club and as long as hes there the board and Woodward must back him such that we can win trophies. The hope that they might be able to recruit Zidane is not enough reason to weaken the club by not adding quality players in the problem positions.
 
Coops73 said:
Yes you did, you said “we” entered the market wanting to strengthen the right wing, full backs and central midfield. I read perfectly well.
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Yes and that was assumption, and if you're implying we didn't then that will even a major problem.

You're clearly changing the discussion to a complete new and useless direction tbh.
 
 
Greck said:
Thanks

The Club are 100% in the right on this. Jose can drop his resignation letter if he doesn't like it. They were willing to spend but not on Jose's short term fixes
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They could have told him 3 months ago and subsequently found out which players would be acceptable to both the manager and the board in fixing what are still glaring issues with the squad. This does not read like a "Jose was wrong on all accounts so f him" it looks like an attempt to save face in a summer where they probably weren't going to spend serious money. That's how it looks to me at least.
 
Greck said:
Thanks

The Club are 100% in the right on this. Jose can drop his resignation letter if he doesn't like it. They were willing to spend but not on Jose's short term fixes
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And then replace Jose with who? Guys like Moyes and van Gaal? What would those board actions tell to the players like Sanchez, Pogba and the likes? Isn't it what made Sanchez leave Arsenal at first place?

If the club sacks Jose and hires the next clown in line with zero to no credentials, what's stopping Pogba, Sanchez, Lukaku and the other actually good players at the club walking?
 
Bastian said:
Has Ed done any interviews recently, or ever? Or the Glazer offsprings?
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Did a few under Van Gaal on the pre-season tour. I can't remember any during Mourinho's time but perhaps someone can correct me.
 
Bastian said:
They could have told him 3 months ago and subsequently found out which players would be acceptable to both the manager and the board in fixing what are still glaring issues with the squad. This does not read like a "Jose was wrong on all accounts so f him" it looks like an attempt to save face in a summer where they probably weren't going to spend serious money. That's how it looks to me at least.
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Yes we can both agree on the bolded. They should have gotten into a room to discuss alternatives however there's nothing to say they didn't. Quite the opposite because Maguire was quite clearly an alternative, so were Boateng and Godin so maybe they did discuss it.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Link?
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There are more, its all over twitter. They've all clearly had the same briefing because they're all using the same numbers about Varane etc.

Notably Duncan Castles hasn't said anything so it unlikely came from a pro-Mourinho source.
 
Minimalist said:
Did a few under Van Gaal on the pre-season tour. I can't remember any during Mourinho's time but perhaps someone can correct me.
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Thanks. Didn't find anything on Youtube. But found this on Vimeo if anyone is interested (from 2015).
 
Greck said:
Thanks

The Club are 100% in the right on this. Jose can drop his resignation letter if he doesn't like it. They were willing to spend but not on Jose's short term fixes
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Right? Really?

Think I agree with Scott at R_O_M more:

 
#07 said:
Right? Really?

Think I agree with Scott at R_O_M more:

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Jose isn't an almighty decision maker. Ask Chelsea if they don't regret vetoing his short term decisions.
 
Greck said:
Thanks

The Club are 100% in the right on this. Jose can drop his resignation letter if he doesn't like it. They were willing to spend but not on Jose's short term fixes
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What a loaf of utter bollocks. The feck does Woodward know about identifying quality centre halfs? Man doesn't know his elbow from his arsehole.

Leaking these type of stories 24 hrs before the season kicks off is a recipe for disaster, Mourinho will be furious.
 
Greck said:
Jose isn't an almighty decision maker. Ask Chelsea if they don't regret vetoing his short term decisions.
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So Alderweireld isn't one of the best defenders in the Premier League and wouldn't be worth less than Gylfi Sigurdson cost Everton?

Alright then. Board vetoing manager signings. The Fergie era is truly dead. The Florentino Woodward era has begun. I stand corrected. We are headed in the right direction.
 
goin4glory said:
What a loaf of utter bollocks. The feck does Woodward know about identifying quality centre halfs? Man doesn't know his elbow from his arsehole.

Leaking these type of stories 24 hrs before the season kicks off is a recipe for disaster, Mourinho will be furious.
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You're right. He has no right to question the view of a man who spent £65 million on two centre backs (note: pre-van Dijk money) he doesn't rate himself.
 
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