Why are United board/owners so slow to act?

Leftback99 said:
Even so, a decision to sack Ole and hire someone else isn't sure to be worth the £20m+ it will cost.
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It won't look that way in a month or two when the champions League starts to look unrealistic again and the likes of Fernandes are demanding a transfer.

Or even in a few weeks when Ole fecks up away to Villarreal and the Europa League moves back onto the horizon.

When you spend hundreds of millions on a squad, it's not to market and profit from them as a midtable second tier side.
 
Mindhunter said:
No. They want employees who will further their interests while keeping the football side relatively stable. They are not inept, they are shrewd.

You ar forgetting that Glazer’s own a lot of sports teams. They aren’t bumbling American businessmen who don’t understand the football economy.
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But the football side is not “stable” is it? Or am I watching the wrong team here? Surely a team that is winning is better for the business overall?

Am I missing something here?
 
noodlehair said:
What happens on the pitch affects the money. As does miss managing £50m+ assets so they leave the club for free, or spending over £100m on players you have no use for so they just decrease in value.

Even purely financially Ole is burning the house down.
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Said this in another thread last week: the most baffling thing is how much money Ed Woodward has personally cost them over the last few years. I guess given they paid 0 for the club, its all gravy.
 
They react fast to the thing they care about, income.
Football is secondary, so they won't budge that fast as long as the income is going as they want.
 
noodlehair said:
It won't look that way in a month or two when the champions League starts to look unrealistic again and the likes of Fernandes are demanding a transfer.

Or even in a few weeks when Ole fecks up away to Villarreal and the Europa League moves back onto the horizon.

When you spend hundreds of millions on a squad, it's not to market and profit from them as a midtable second tier side.
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That's assuming a worst case scenario and that the alternative will be better. If they think the outcome of sacking (-£20m?) and hiring (-£10m?) will be a net benefit they'll do it.
 
DeGea said:
But the football side is not “stable” is it? Or am I watching the wrong team here? Surely a team that is winning is better for the business overall?

Am I missing something here?
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they actually played their part this summer, that should have been comfortable top 4. Nobody really saw Ole plummet this hard and quick after those summer signings ontop
 
Leftback99 said:
Even so, a decision to sack Ole and hire someone else isn't sure to be worth the £20m+ it will cost.
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Missing out on the Champions League costs a lot more than this alone.

That's without getting into the investments Solskjaer has made on players who we won't get anywhere near what we've paid for them because of the way they are utilised. Eg. When Van der Beek inevitably leaves under the current management we'll probably take a 20m loss on him alone.

20m is nothing compared to the costs, and it probably won't cost 20m to sack him anyway.
 
L1nk said:
Because it costs them money to act. They just gave him a new 3 year contract, he will require suitable compensation when he’s sacked, they don’t want to pay it.
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Exactly. The lack of midfield signing in the summer was another penny pinching decision.
 
Big Ben Foster said:
We give Chelsea a lot of shit, but to be fair they usually time their managerial changes to perfection. As soon as it's clear the man in charge is going nowhere, they pull the trigger - zero sentimentality. Usually saves their season and wins them a few trophies in the process.
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I think SAF was the ultimate example of why you give a manager time and Chelsea have been the perfect counter balance to that.

Ole is now weighing things far in favour of don't give a manager time if they don't look up to it.

There is no point in delaying the inevitable when the damage it causes is far more costly.
 
RazorOz said:
Missing out on the Champions League costs a lot more than this alone.

That's without getting into the investments Solskjaer has made on players who we won't get anywhere near what we've paid for them because of the way they are utilised. Eg. When Van der Beek inevitably leaves under the current management we'll probably take a 20m loss on him alone.

20m is nothing compared to the costs, and it probably won't cost 20m to sack him anyway.
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But it's not certain that we'll miss out on the CL or that the replacement would definitely make it.

That's what they'll be looking at from their point of view is all I'm saying.
 
DeGea said:
But the football side is not “stable” is it? Or am I watching the wrong team here? Surely a team that is winning is better for the business overall?

Am I missing something here?
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Yes it isn’t and their hand is now forced so they have to act. The ideal scenario for them is that we continue to be moderately successful and they keep getting the capital appreciation they want.

They are not in the business or going the extra mile to win trophies. It’s a business for them so as long the revenues are stable, they are good.
 
Ultimately the businessman inside Woodward and Arnold would loath to make another managerial pay off and the former's ego will take a lot of bruising to admit that his flagship Ole project was an utter failure. Then Fergie and his Co92 boys are just protective of a mate so two ideologically divergent forces have found a convergence point in Ole and will ride out this wave, including offering him moral support which I believe is influential in keeping him resolute.
 
Gary Neville talks a lot of shite but he has one thing right about the board/ownership structure - they’ve no actual winning experience & don’t know what it actually takes to win.

We’ve got incompetents at every level.
 
literally everybody is agreeing ole isn’t good enough. opposition fans and players are laughing at us.

we fans need to seriously start making more of a fuss if this mindless board won’t pull the trigger.
 
I had no problem with idea of a rebuild and three years to win title etc but always objected to who was entrusted to oversee and carry out that rebuild, Ole and Woodward.

We were already too slow to act but now we’ve spent so much time, effort and money on a stupid idea that everyone involved is just hoping it’s still going to work out ok rather than just have guts to admit it failed and move on.
 
Leftback99 said:
But it's not certain that we'll miss out on the CL or that the replacement would definitely make it.

That's what they'll be looking at from their point of view is all I'm saying.
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And by the time it is certain you lose the CL money and the money to sack Ole, so anyone worth their salt would be doing an opportunity cost before missing out on CL become a certainty.
 
Bebestation said:
They watch NFL and not Football.
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This.
Watching shares go up and down. And their crap American World Series sports. That don’t involve the world.
They are as big a problem as the management and team.
 
Have you seen the list of who is on the board? Glazer family members with zero understanding or appreciation of the game, and a bunch of accountants and friends. We are nothing more than a cash cow for these f..cks.
 
The Irish Connection said:
Exactly. The lack of midfield signing in the summer was another penny pinching decision.
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We were the highest spenders this summer after a covid hit season. Can’t be making excuses about penny pinching this season. The big issues is not being pro-active in making necessary changes. It’s happened with all the managers since Fergie.
 
Because they don't understand football and they don't care as well. They are business people and the only thing they understand and care is money. Hurt them where it hurts the most; stop filling their pockets, surely they will act.
 
Rhyme Animal said:
They put Solskjaer in place to protect themselves - both from fan pressure and from having a manager that would challenge their broken, Disneyland, star signings over football philosophy of the club.

They don’t want to remove him because he protects their real interests.

They will look to find another ‘soft touch’ manager when they’re forced to sack him - Rodgers etc.
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So true. And depressing. And indicative of what we can expect from United until they go. Which they won't. Unless every fan stops buying our Chinese merchandise and spending on United generally.
 
There’s a lot of emotive comments in here and it’s easy to call the owners/exec management clueless, but if you step back, I can see why they haven’t removed Ole up to now.

Im not saying he shouldn’t be sacked, and if it had been left to me, he’d have gone after Leicester, Liverpool as a minimum, but that’s why fans aren’t owners/decision makers.

Theres a lot more to it than sacking a manager after a poor run of results, as would happen in Football Manager and probably why we’re perceived to be “slow” in making decisions.
 
Leftback99 said:
That's assuming a worst case scenario and that the alternative will be better. If they think the outcome of sacking (-£20m?) and hiring (-£10m?) will be a net benefit they'll do it.
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This is a bit of a daft argument tbh. It's not really a worst case scenario at this point. Unless you're blindly optimistic its a realistic one.

Pogba leaving for free is a near certainty. That's a huge financial loss due to poor squad management. VDB is a big financial feck up. Sancho is a much bigger one if Ole stays.

£30m is not a big cost to stop a leak that's costing you probably double that or more a year.

They could have saved £150m+ on the signings this year if the plan was to just make money and let the team fail as you're claiming it is. It simply doesn't add up.
 
Why?

Because they don’t care, never have, never will. They throw a bit of cash at the team like this year to keep the natives quite but it’s the same old shit.
 
noodlehair said:
This is a bit of a daft argument tbh. It's not really a worst case scenario at this point. Unless you're blindly optimistic its a realistic one.

Pogba leaving for free is a near certainty. That's a huge financial loss due to poor squad management. VDB is a big financial feck up. Sancho is a much bigger one if Ole stays.

£30m is not a big cost to stop a leak that's costing you probably double that or more a year.

They could have saved £150m+ on the signings this year if the plan was to just make money and let the team fail as you're claiming it is. It simply doesn't add up.
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This./

The mental gymnastics being played in the Ole situation is bemusing. ‘Can’t sack Ole because though he’s doing terribly people can’t absolutely guarantee his successor will do better’.

The squad is fecked if Ole stays.
 
Manchester United is a business with a football club as a front. Manchester United are not a football club to them, they are a brand. A brand that prints money for them regardless of trophies and the only requirement is top 4 for that CL money. The man facing up right now is Ole, absolutely perfect - a puppet that the fans won’t really turn on. A winner that’ll come into the club and question everything that’s going on is the last thing the board want.
 
noodlehair said:
This is a bit of a daft argument tbh. It's not really a worst case scenario at this point. Unless you're blindly optimistic its a realistic one.

Pogba leaving for free is a near certainty. That's a huge financial loss due to poor squad management. VDB is a big financial feck up. Sancho is a much bigger one if Ole stays.

£30m is not a big cost to stop a leak that's costing you probably double that or more a year.

They could have saved £150m+ on the signings this year if the plan was to just make money and let the team fail as you're claiming it is. It simply doesn't add up.
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£30m is more than a typical year's profit.

Where did I say the plan was to let the team fail?

Pogba is leaving either way, that's gone.
 
It will always come down to money doesn’t it. I doubt we make a change because any managerial candidates will require a release clause and paying compensation to Ole. For example, Rodgers has a release clause of £16 million. In addition add the £7 million or so we’d have to pay Ole and it’s unlikely the owners will do a single thing. They scoffed at paying Levy a fee for Poch. They’ll dither and the ineptitude will continue.
 
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They don't need to win to turn a profit. Thy just need to make the top four.
 
They listen to SAF.

And the advice of SAF is that they should give Ole more time.
 
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