United’s Worst Decisions of the Last 12 Years

1. Moyes.
2. Ten Hag.
3. Ronaldo return. Destroyed everything good Ole had done up to that point and set us up for the real disasters ahead.
4. Antony £86m, Maguire £80m, Sanchez. Three absolutely cataclysmic signings.
 
I think a lot came down to letting Edwards and Ferguson leave in the same summer, and not having a season to prepare for Ferguson going. But even before then the warning signs were evident. We let Tevez and Ronaldo leave in the same window (madness) and replaced them with Valencia, Owen and Obertan. That said everything you needed to know - for the record, that same summer Sneijder, Robben, Ibrahimovic and Eto'o were all on the move. Aguero had established himself on the scene by that point too. That was the window that, in hindsight, told you everything you needed to know about the ambitions of the owners.

You can handpick your decisions however you like after that but it was all leading in the same direction.
 
Letting Woodward become defacto director of football. He should have been left to just carry on bringing in sponsorship deals and the like.

Glazer family having a deluded value of the club which meant there were no serious buyers apart from the partial JR buy in.
 
Appointment of Amorin mid season is looking to be a huge a mistake. He can't implement a new system that doesn't suit the current players unless he has 200 million to spend on new signings. We should have kept Ruud until the end of the season as interim and have the new manager starting in the summer.
 
No1 must be the Moyes/Woodward appointment, since then everything went downhill, no title challenge, irrelevant in the CL and so on. There were ups and downs afterwards, some ups gave some glimmer of hope, but the downs were much prominent and harder to deal with.
Now we hit rock bottom, no plan, no good players, closer to relegation than to CL spots, no money to spend.
 
Big Ben Foster said:
At a high level, giving every manager carte blanche to rip up the entire squad and spend hundreds of millions building a new squad in their image.

Now we're broke, with a crap squad and nothing to show for it.

As for your list, I agree on Woodward but disagree on Moyes. He was a very poor appointment, but he came in, failed, left, and we moved on. He didn't make tons of shit signings that we were saddled with for years. Overall, his legacy barely casts a shadow on the club.
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Yeah Moyes made the least impact on the squad and the finances which in a way makes him less of a failure than some of the managers.
 
The lack of strategy put in place between 2009 and 2013. Not signing and/or developing a world class midfielder to help us win another European Cup, not investing in the academy, wasting a lot of money on young players that were never making it (Zoran Tosic etc).

Fergie retiring put the spotlight on a lot of those wider causes but even that, we made so many basic mistakes that could have prevented the slide. Imagine if Moyes had actually been backed that summer of 2013? Hell, even Herrera and Baines would have improved us 10% and stopped us relying on having to play Giggs in midfield and Buttner at left back.
 
The biggest mistake, with the most long-standing effect, is related to your first point.
No blue-chip company should ever let its two most valuable employees (Gill & Fergie) leave at the same time.
If Gill resigned first then Fergie should have been told he had to wait a season before he left so that we could prepare properly for his departure.
He did, after all, make Ronaldo wait another season before he went to Madrid.

We didn't get the best available executive to replace Gill (did we even conduct any headhunting?) and we got just about the most ill-suited manager possible to replace Fergie.
What was the saying? Prepare to finish 7th and you'll finish 7th.
 
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P0GBA said:
Appointment of Amorin mid season is looking to be a huge a mistake. He can't implement a new system that doesn't suit the current players unless he has 200 million to spend on new signings. We should have kept Ruud until the end of the season as interim and have the new manager starting in the summer.
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We could do nothing ..
This season was already a waste anyway..
The only hope is Europa ..
Bigger mistake was extending ETH
 
There's so many it's hard to list them. I think pre Mou sacking it was relatively normal, just guys who did not work out but still we were winning trophies and generally in the CL or EL. Then came the crossroads moment of Ole.

  1. Ole perm is still the one I think is most damning long term. To not have the level headedness to simply wait until the end of the season and assess options is amazing in hindsight. The embarrassing thing is PSG battered us over two legs missing gilt edged chances and we sucker punched them, went through and celebrated like we'd won a cup.
  2. Ragnick hired in a role he hadn't done in years, then refusing to use his actual skillset when the time came and ending up signing: Antony & Case for about £150m
  3. Moyes gutting a winning background staff and putting the Everton one in and then wondering why we reverted to Everton's level.
  4. Extending ETH, if you speak to other managers you have to then hire one.
  5. Hiring Amorim mid season by putting a gun to his head.
  6. Losing to Leicester in the cup and panic re signing Ruud.
 
It's funny reading some of these as you can see the clear bias on players/managers posters liked or didnt like.

Boils down to Woodward and the decision to hire Moyes which was doomed to fail. I remember being in despair when we brought him in and knew it would be a disaster, he quickly gutted out our staff and destroyed the harmony in the dressing room. It's been one disaster after another since then. With some moments of hope, quickly followed by yet more disasters.
 
Cracks were starting to show when Sir Alex was here to be honest. His brilliance was getting the best out of squad that was getting older and the younger players coming through were not really of the best standard (see where they all ended up and that tells you everything).

Transfers, club structure and player power have all been massive issues and then there’s the managers: Moyes were disastrous. LvG had a plan but couldn’t get the attack to function well enough and every manager since has adopted a kind of underdog mentality to scrape top 4 and it’s not really served us well in the long run.

Depressing!
 
1. Glazers
2. Ed Woodward
3. Glazers
4. Ed Woodward
5. Glazers
6. Ed Woodward
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.
.
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112345. Glazers
112346. Ed Woodward
 
Irwin99 said:
Cracks were starting to show when Sir Alex was here to be honest. His brilliance was getting the best out of squad that was getting older and the younger players coming through were not really of the best standard (see where they all ended up and that tells you everything).

Transfers, club structure and player power have all been massive issues and then there’s the managers: Moyes were disastrous. LvG had a plan but couldn’t get the attack to function well enough and every manager since has adopted a kind of underdog mentality to scrape top 4 and it’s not really served us well in the long run.

Depressing!
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I always thought that Sir Alex knew that he was trying to safeguard the clubs future by skimping on transfers and allowing the club to build up a bit war chest of cash for the next 1/few Managers to roll into town. The issue has been that there's been zero control over the money spending and we've managed to squander 2 billion. I don't think even the biggest doom mongering fans could have predicted back in 12/13 that we'd have spent 2 billion later and be in the position we are now.

Genuinely scary how much we've spent and how little we've got back.
 
ole@thewheel said:
We all know that Manchester United’s decline over the past decade hasn’t been due to just one bad decision but a series of them. However, if we were to pinpoint the worst single decisions that led to failures, which ones would stand out the most?

For me, these are the biggest mistakes in order:

  1. Moyes/Woodward appointment (2013) – The start of the post-Ferguson disaster. Moyes was never the right man, and Woodward’s inexperience in football operations was evident from day one.
  2. Ten Hag contract extension (2023) – Absolute shambles with the way it was handled and the outcome we all saw it coming and are living currently.
  3. 2013 summer transfer fiasco – From the failure to sign key targets to ending up with Fellaini on deadline day. Absolute mess.
  4. Rangnick appointment (2021-22) – A short-term manager with no authority and an advisory role that never happened. The whole thing was doomed.
  5. 2022 summer transfer spree – Overpaying for players like Antony and Casemiro, leading to an unbalanced squad and financial strain.
  6. Sanchez signing (2018) – A huge flop, disrupted the wage structure, and offered nothing of value on the pitch.
  7. Ronaldo signing (2021) – Meant to be a dream return but ended up causing dressing room issues, unbalancing the team, and setting the club back tactically.
What do you think? Are there worse individual decisions that should make the list?
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Actually that reminds me, how somehow the Alexis 2018 move seemed like a more definitive downfall in (transfer?) power. There was something odd about it with his bad first half of that season that already felt some sort of "past it" - with such a high salary that some whole balance got disrupted.

All the other six were decisions that were bad in hindsight, but Sanchez seemed like some desperation move doomed to fail. Even more than Ronaldo's, which at least made some sense. Any of those - Glazers or not - could be argued as unlucky or mishandled.

ETH sounds unfair the more Amorim's spell gets going. Instead, whoever is the manager of this squad sounds like whoever is the US president. Redemption seems nigh or arrived to many/some, but not that much changes about the whole organization, not as much as one might hope. Plus, after that FA Cup win, and the lack of directly available alternatives that summer, new management, new support... it made some sense. It would have made sense to let him go, but it's not very outlandish to keep him, either.

It's not like we're better off now with our new scapegoat-to-be - the most solid this season was RvN who basically brought a sobered down and refreshed ETH setup with him. Though, it's relatively safe to assume both Amorim and ETH are bigger manager talents.

----

But, Sanchez... somehow being reminded of that transfer reminds me of some definite turn for the worse. Not he himself as a player, but the way it all went down. Shaky grounds became a freefall that doesn't dare call itself so. Now Sanchez became Pogba, became Rashford, became Bruno. None of these players objectively suck, but it seems like there's always someone up in the hierarchy in the way of a full rebuild, of a full reorganization, instead of being fully part of it. It's taken so long now, you think it's best if just everyone goes and they start at 0. Pogba, Ronaldo, Martial, Antony, Rashford, they're all out. I don't think we're better off, no matter how certainly they hindered "everything" - Bruno leaving wouldn't solve things either, though him as captain might be on an even higher pedestal (internally speaking).

At this point it's just too easy to blame the level of the manager and the squad. Look at Nottingham. Look at Bournemouth. Look anywhere. There's more than just managers and squads. Sometimes the Galacticos with the best manager in the world works. Sometimes you get Mourinho vs Pogba.

Again, this isn't Alexis' fault, but that transfer window looked like something about Utd's force of nature died back then. At least it felt that way. New managers and new players won't solve all this. Because not only does it need to click. It needs to click consistently and convincingly. So much that the current hierarchy makes sense to everybody involved. But no matter what you personally think of Bruno, Onana, Amorim... does it look like everybody involved is convinced of these decisions? There's a reason ETH didn't become invinvible after the Barca games, or Amorim after Amad on RWB in that first game.

Somehow it started then.

Forgive my rambling. No rereading.
 
1) Sign a young, unproven striker from the Italian league (with a fairly average highest scoring season) for a high fee.
2) have a partial take over, hire an entirely new footballing structure to change the way we operate. Repeat step 1.
 
Moyes was the domino starter

We let player power grew with constant ridiculing him, leaking the insider info (chips, hero to zero, Jagielka). While it was the right target in principal it shouldnt be tolerated. We never recover culturally from that point with players constantly undermining each manager we hire.

We also took things for granted. Mourinho was correct when he said getting 2nd with united is his biggest achievement. How we long to even finished top 4 let alone second. We really underestimate the quagmire that is United thinking that a modern young attacking manager is the cure to our problem. It wasnt.

We're also not ruthless enough with players like Rashford, Lingard, Pogba etc clearly not taking their job seriously and still offers unconditional support. We pamper them too much as a fan.

Now the cancer has spread, in management one of the biggest headache is when the company culture becomes bad. A bad bunch of players can easilly be sold, but a bad culture will take more than a brutal culling to fix. Every player that comes to United become lazy, lethargic, magically turns stupir over the course of a few months.

We used to have standards with Zlatan, at least we look like a football team, even if the manager phylosophy is defensive. Now we're a lauhing joke of a team who cant string 3 passes.
 
INEOS acquiring minority stake when Glazers were proposing a full sale.

Worst thing that has happened and will happen when we look back in 5 years time.
 
1) Woodward and Moyes. Appointing both of them at the same time brought the empire that Ferguson built crashing down overnight.

2) Ten Hag. Tied with Moyes as the worst manager we've appointed post-Ferguson and we bafflingly gave him more power than anyone else at the club for most of his time here. He has made us a bottom half team with his terrible signings.

3) Keeping Ten Hag beyond the summer and hiring Amorim mid-season. Another terrible decision that has plunged us into a relegation scrap, asking a squad with non-existent morale to switch to a completely alien system halfway through a campaign was always going to have consequences.
 
Todd said:
The Summer '23 window was an unmitigated disaster for us, and will haunt us for years.

170 million on a goalkeeper whose next howler is just around the corner, a midfielder who is permanently injured, and a striker who can't score goals.
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Both of those windows were abhorrent. We got a grand total of a brilliant half season out of Casemiro, and one great season from Martinez, and the rest was utter non contributors (barring Onana who’s been the most hot and cold keeper I’ve ever seen at a major club)
 
What's so bad about Ole's perm?

His first xi is the best we had post SAF, the best finish, the best players and even Ole was targeting players like Haaland and Grealish but instead got players like VDB.

Ole wasn't a bad decision, it just wasn't a successful decision.

Im pretty sure it was Ole who targeted Amad aswell at such a young age.
 
Shaw's Shank Redemption said:
What's so bad about Ole's perm?

His first xi is the best we had post SAF, the best finish, the best players and even Ole was targeting players like Haaland and Grealish but instead got players like VDB.

Ole wasn't a bad decision, it just wasn't a successful decision.

Im pretty sure it was Ole who targeted Amad aswell at such a young age.
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Nope, that was our former chief scout Jim Lawlor, who Murtough eventually sacked IIRC
 
Shaw's Shank Redemption said:
What's so bad about Ole's perm?

His first xi is the best we had post SAF, the best finish, the best players and even Ole was targeting players like Haaland and Grealish but instead got players like VDB.

Ole wasn't a bad decision, it just wasn't a successful decision.

Im pretty sure it was Ole who targeted Amad aswell at such a young age.
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Well actually Jose got the best finish by a fair distance with 81 points and won two trophies the year before. Also saw a stat today he never lost more than 5 home games in the league in his time here. Was quite shocked at that.

Ole’s second season was good but a lot of people misremember how badly he struggled in his first full season before Bruno came in. I’ve never seen Old Trafford as toxic as it was in one home defeat before the Bruno transfer…well, not until a month or so back with the Newcastle game.

None of the managers have been great but the structure of the club and players haven’t helped.
 
100% Woodward. He did some marketing well but he should've appointed a Director of Football when Ferguson retired.

I'd also argue we should've done everything possible to get Mourinho after Ferguson. Just for 2 years to keep us competitive.
 
Not having a best in class sporting director and football structure until INEOS. That would've saved us a lot of pain because there's no way Ole would've been hired in the first place and Casemiro/Antony etc. would never have been signed for that money.

So yeah, the worst decision was the decision to allow us to be run by accountants for over a decade who have zero football knowledge or guile in the market.
 
It's a good list. Personally I would add that van Gaal should have stayed for the remainder of his contract.

Hiring Rangnick was not a mistake. Letting him go and not giving him the advisory role was a catastrophic mistake.

Giving Ole the job as a permanent appointment. What a mistake that turned out to be.

Not firing ETH last season was also a very poor decision.

Big Ben Foster said:
As for your list, I agree on Woodward but disagree on Moyes. He was a very poor appointment, but he came in, failed, left, and we moved on. He didn't make tons of shit signings that we were saddled with for years. Overall, his legacy barely casts a shadow on the club.
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I completely disagree. In my opinion Moyes destroyed the dressing room. He inherited an aging squad, yes - but it was a winner's squad. We lost that mentality under Moyes. We never got it back.

A baffling and literally crazy appointment that should have never happened. It set us up for a ride into chaos.

Mourinho should have inherited that squad and things would have turned out very differently. Probably not the transition we needed, but the fall would not have been so hard.
 
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Fugeeface said:
I completely disagree. In my opinion Moyes destroyed the dressing room. He inherited an aging squad, yes - but it was a winner's squad. We lost that mentality under Moyes. We never got it back.

A baffling and literally crazy appointment that should have never happened. It set us up for a ride into chaos.

Mourinho should have inherited that squad and things would have turned out very differently. Probably not the transition we needed, but the fall would not have been so hard.
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That would've eventually happened regardless with Woodward and his cronies running the show, and the Glazers in charge above them.

Yes, if we hired Mourinho right after SAF we might have been able to squeeze out another league title or two with that squad plus a few reinforcements, but after that? We'd eventually be more or less where we are now.

Some relatively minor personnel decisions wouldn't overcome the long-term impact of chronic structural mismanagement.
 
Big Ben Foster said:
At a high level, giving every manager carte blanche to rip up the entire squad and spend hundreds of millions building a new squad in their image.

Now we're broke, with a crap squad and nothing to show for it.

As for your list, I agree on Woodward but disagree on Moyes. He was a very poor appointment, but he came in, failed, left, and we moved on. He didn't make tons of shit signings that we were saddled with for years. Overall, his legacy barely casts a shadow on the club.
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It was his damage to the backroom staff that was the worst thing he did. In the last years at United, SAF wasn't running the training - he would watch from the side and make small tweaks but leaving most of it to his assistant coaches.

Immediately Moyes (despite SAF trying to change his mind) let all the staff go that had been serial winners and replaced him with all his guys from Everton who were not.

I'm sure Fergie picked Moyes mainly from the perspective of continuity but this was destroyed immediately.
 
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Paul778 said:
It was his damage to the backroom staff that was the worst thing he did. In the last years at United, SAF wasn't running the training - he would watch from the side and make small tweaks but leaving most of it to his assistant coaches.

Immediately Moyes (despite SAF trying to change his mind) let all the staff go that had been serial winners and replaced him with all his guys from Everton who were not.

I'm sure Fergie picked Moyes mainly from the perspective of continuity but this was destroyed immediately.
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I think that's overstated too. Generally, managers prefer to bring in their own staff to assist them. Nothing really out of the ordinary there. Yes, he should've probably kept one of Phelan or Rene just for continuity purposes, but I don't think it would've changed a whole lot in the grand scheme of things.
 
Big Ben Foster said:
That would've eventually happened regardless with Woodward and his cronies running the show, and the Glazers in charge above them.

Yes, if we hired Mourinho right after SAF we might have been able to squeeze out another league title or two with that squad plus a few reinforcements, but after that? We'd eventually be more or less where we are now.

Some relatively minor personnel decisions wouldn't overcome the long-term impact of chronic structural mismanagement.
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We replaced a winner with a loser.

What you describe probably would have happened but to absolve someone like Moyes - out of his depth, incompetent - is absurd.

They might have made better picks - Klopp as an example.
 
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