What's with the defeatist attitude from the onset? Should the club just give up on trying to sign the best footballers around? That doesn't sound like a clever plan to be honest. If you want to compete with the elite year in and year out, you can't always operate with a deficit in terms of personnel quality, especially when the quality of domestic footballers has declined in recent years compared to the 1990s and mid 2000s. We can't just perpetually consider ourselves inferior to Real Madrid and Barcelona (that is something which is ingrained in the minds of a lot of our support base). It's a good thing that Woodward is atleast exploring the possibility of signing a Neymar or Müller, that doesn't make him a clown or a source of embarrassment to the club; it shows intent and ambition, and sooner or later, a player of that caliber is bound to join the club, especially considering how United's finances will surpass even Real Madrid in the near future. Once you set the precedent, more will follow their lead, and then you can build a plan around signing footballers of that ilk on a consistent basis, which is what Madrid and Barcelona have done through the years with all their imported greats. That's almost exactly how Santiago Bernabeu started the tradition of signing the best players in the world for Real Madrid. Was he an embarrassment for having the audacity to do that at a time when Athletic Club and Atletico were both superior to Real? Should he have given up on the Di Stefano transfer because of the loan farce with Millonarios and Barcelona? Different eras sure, but the concept in kind of comparable.
Someone like a Neymar would represent a huge coup for United. The possibility might sound remote right now, but strange things can happen in football. As
@carvajal pointed out, he might eventually get tired of playing second fiddle to Messi. As Brazil's best player, and their football ambassador of sorts, he should ideally be the best player at his club too, and that seems unlikely as long as Messi is around. Maybe he'll be lured by the money, who knows. Woodward should do whatever it takes to land players like him, even if he fails a few times, and try to get the ball rolling. Not only is he a brilliant footballer, there are a lot of added benefits to signing Neymar, much moreso than Bale in terms of the core demographic he will cater to. United's record with Brazilians is rather underwhelming right now. Kleberson, Anderson, the twins vs Romario, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Rivaldo for Barcelona; Kaka, Leonardo, Cafu among others for Milan; and so on for others. If we sign Neymar and he does well, that will open up a million opportunities. Young Brazilian footballers who idolize him right now might want to follow his lead and join United, his team-mates in the national team (Marquinhos and co.) might want to sign for us to play with him, and all of that can lead to a change in mindset.
Saying that we're poor in comparison to where we were before isn't an all encompassing argument either to be fair. When Ronaldinho joined Barcelona they weren't in the best shape either. There were probably half a dozen teams in Europe that were better than them. But along-with Laporta and Rijkaard, they rectified that; and in a couple of years, they could realistically have signed any player they desired. Sure, the city is an added benefit, and they have a long standing tradition; but in terms of competitiveness in the early 2000s, they were comparable to United right now. Also, like United, Bayern Munich had, and probably still has a reputation for dabbling mainly in the domestic market, and weren't the strongest team around in the late 2000s. But Van Gaal, Heyneckes, Guardiola improved things dramatically; to a point that now you could argue they have the ability to sign almost any player they want to. Not that they necessarily will given their modus operandi in the transfer market, but no one would call them or Rummenigge an embarrassment for chasing a Neymar, that's for sure. Things can change very quickly in football, we might be lagging behind the elite pack right now, but it can be a drastically different situation in 2-3 years, especially if we sign the top top players to form a quality nucleus. Which is what Woodward is trying to do, be it for cynical PR reasons, or an actual effort to boost the club's player quality.