I don't know. Until we know the targets, its difficult to ascertain. For example, if he was given a list of players, but their clubs refused to do business, then what? It has to be realistic and the clubs should be willing to sell.
Woodward (old thread)
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I don't know. Until we know the targets, its difficult to ascertain. For example, if he was given a list of players, but their clubs refused to do business, then what? It has to be realistic and the clubs should be willing to sell.
it was reported that van gaal gives woody a list of As, Bs and Cs that he wants. i wish he just stop at B... C sounds so buttner.
anyway..woodward needs to get those... 2 top CMs, a top CB,shaw and probably another ruthless attacker and i can see the fans happy with him. getting van gaal is a good start towards next season.
anyway..woodward needs to get those... 2 top CMs, a top CB,shaw and probably another ruthless attacker and i can see the fans happy with him. getting van gaal is a good start towards next season.
That depends on who's on the respective lists. For example:
A) Ronaldo
B) Messi
C) Bale
Every player has a valuation and in football there is no such thing as an impossible transfer. Any player will become possible if you offer enough money. In the position that we are in we must be ready to overspend as our image will be hurt if we stay out too long from the Champions league. Woodward needs to deliver the goods now, Manchester United can't go into next season without strengthening their midfield and back 4.
Ed Woodward seem's like some sort of mad Genius who is bound for either world domination, or world wide destruction. Either way he is going to make things interesting this year.
Like somebody else stated, at this level dithering and indecision gets you nowhere. You must be ruthless and learn to die by the sword if necessary.
Like somebody else stated, at this level dithering and indecision gets you nowhere. You must be ruthless and learn to die by the sword if necessary.
I don't really think he has been dithering, I actually think he has played a blinder for both us and the KNVB. The announcement caught most off guard, Van Gaal has done an interview over in Holland explaining the situation, therefore it needn't be a distraction in press conferences for him, he doesn't have to field any United questions now until he arrives at OT and now the announcement is official it allows us to start announcing signings off the back of it. Luke Shaw most likely being the first of those.
Contrast this to last season where similarly we had a manager due to enter the fray at the start of July but from that start doing all work towards transfers from then. Now we have a manager announced, with transfer targets agreed upon for Woodward to crack on with.
Contrast this to last season where similarly we had a manager due to enter the fray at the start of July but from that start doing all work towards transfers from then. Now we have a manager announced, with transfer targets agreed upon for Woodward to crack on with.
Considering no one has any idea about what he's actually doing how about we judge him on results?
By all accounts played a blinder over Mata, now as a manager sorted and both he and Van Gaal agree theres a plan in place.
We'll see in September how well we've done.
By all accounts played a blinder over Mata, now as a manager sorted and both he and Van Gaal agree theres a plan in place.
We'll see in September how well we've done.
I think we'll be in the best position to judge him depending on this summer
The Mata deal definitely changed some opinions. He seems to have learned quickly since last summer's transfer horror show. Jury is still out, but I have a feeling he'll do okay this summer. ie. we'll get at least one or two key targets, and a couple more secondary ones.
Wasn't all that impressed by the Mata deal because, in my opinion, it was a bit of a pointless signing. But his role in sacking Moyes, getting Van Gaal in and setting transfer targets this summer would be interesting to know.
In all honesty though, I don't really have an opinion about him.
In all honesty though, I don't really have an opinion about him.
This is why I think we need to approach this summer with a sober approach because it could be a potential make or break period for us . Whilst I agree that we need big signings inkey positions we should also note that, even with bottomless pockects, there is a limit to what we can do on our side go force through a deal and with that in mind try not to go overboard, for instance would paying a fee in the region of forty million for Luke Shaw make sense ? Yes we need players but we should not just pay up unrealistic valuations just to consumate a deal because we will spend the next half of the decade correcting mistakes of these two summers a la City with the likes of Adebayor and Santa Cruz . What I mean is that every deal has a price beyond which it's disadvantageous to pursue .
We need to appreciate that there are plenty of factors that will determine whether a deal succeeds or not and we are also approaching this summer from a position of weakness . Do we embrace the City/Monaco approach of offering ridiculous wages to average players who in turn will bleed us financially with no real benefit or do we take an incremental improvement approach ? Suppose we are up against Arsenal for Lars Bender, should we double the 100k that they are offering to compensate for our lack of CL football and how then do we respond when an equally important player like Mata demands parity ?
In my view we should appreciate the challenges we are going to have in the summer and recognise that whilst the absolute best players are ideal you do not necessarily need them to achieve your objectives as Athletico have shown .
To be honest I don't think it's healthy for player salaries or any salary for that matter to become public knowledge to your colleagues. I've never been in a workplace were telling your co-workers your salary was considered ethical.
Players need to understand that we have to pay more wages to new players because of our lack of champions league football. If we don't, we will just keep going backwards and our rivals will keep strengthening while we're only signing 2nd tier players. Being out of the Champions league isn't an optimal situation and while paying over the odds salaries to convince players isn't optimal, the situation which we are in requires us to do so.
I know someone who used to work under him over in the marketing department and he had nothing but good things to day about Woodward as a boss. Obviously it's a totally new sector he's operating in which is what has caused some issues so far but I have a feeling he could come good.
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I reckon Scholes got it spot on about Woodward. He still has it all to prove.
It's funny the way opinions on him shifted on here. At the end of last summer his position was basically untenable, as far as the caf was concerned. As the season progressed and Moyes looked more and more out of his depth, people seemed more and more willing to blame "dithering Dave" for the transfer window cluster-feck. Then we broke our club transfer record to sign a player Chelsea were actively looking to move on and suddenly Woodward is back in our good books again.
As far as I'm concerned, his competency for the job he has taken on remains very much in doubt. Since the end of the season there's been a depressing similarity between this summer and the summer of 2013. Lots of carefully leaked stories intended to reassure everyone that our pursuit of blatantly unobtainable new signings is all part of a carefully managed strategy, even after we get rebuffed. Not to mention that one signing we do claim to have closed is looking to be on dodgy ground.
Very early days and plenty of time for him to play a blinder.but the jury is most definitely out.
It's funny the way opinions on him shifted on here. At the end of last summer his position was basically untenable, as far as the caf was concerned. As the season progressed and Moyes looked more and more out of his depth, people seemed more and more willing to blame "dithering Dave" for the transfer window cluster-feck. Then we broke our club transfer record to sign a player Chelsea were actively looking to move on and suddenly Woodward is back in our good books again.
As far as I'm concerned, his competency for the job he has taken on remains very much in doubt. Since the end of the season there's been a depressing similarity between this summer and the summer of 2013. Lots of carefully leaked stories intended to reassure everyone that our pursuit of blatantly unobtainable new signings is all part of a carefully managed strategy, even after we get rebuffed. Not to mention that one signing we do claim to have closed is looking to be on dodgy ground.
Very early days and plenty of time for him to play a blinder.but the jury is most definitely out.
Agreed. This summer is huge for us and I think his future might depend on it. No excuses this time, no Moyes to blame.
It's early days, but I was always very dubious that we'd suddenly become big hitters in the European market, regardless of what Woodward did or didn't do. We still seem to be labouring under this misapprehension that just 'being United' is enough to make the top players flock to us. Our two big signings this season were both overpriced domestic signings even though we had little competition.
2012/2013 we got RvP, another domestic signing and Kagawa.
2011/2012 we got DDG. Likewise, it doesn't seem we had a massive amount of competition at that price.
2010/2011 we took Hernandez, Bebe and Lindegaard from abroad and Jones and Young domestically.
2009/2010 we got Valencia, Obertan and Smalling.
2008/2009 it was the Da Silvas, Berbatov and Tosic.
2007/2008 Tevez.
2006/2007 we got Carrick, Hargreaves, Anderson, Nani and PIG.
So in the last 6 or 7 years the most high profile transfers we've done beyond domestic transfers were Kagawa and DDG. Go back 8 years and we had that splurge on Nani, Anderson and Hargreaves. Quite honestly, looking at that list of names, I don't think we've signed a player in the top 2 or 3 (or arguably top 5) in his position in the world - other than RvP, who appears to have wanted to play for Fergie - in his position in a long, long time. So the idea that we'd suddenly start flexing our muscle and just take top players from clubs, despite us having no CL and them having no incentive to sell always seemed fanciful.
But I'm of the view that Woodward needs to change that, whether by doing his job extremely well, or just adapting to the new reality and letting our financial clout do the work. It's time to stop hiding behind bullshit PR and vague statements about waiting until the market returns to where we want it. That time is gone. I mean, we take the piss out of Arsenal but their transfer record is £5m odd higher than ours
Woodward OUT
Are you a person or some complex yet idiotic spambot?
We don't know the situation at all. Van Gaal mighty simply not fancy any of the players on Daves list. That's hardly Woodys fault is it? Van Gaal may have given him a completely new list of different players at different clubs.
Let's not ruin this thread with nuance.
Where in comment did I say anything along those lines? I just said they summer is big for him and us.
Well you're suggesting he will have no excuses this summer. Well I beg to differ, he's had 8-10months of negotiating torn up by the new manager and having us start from scratch again then I'd say that's a pretty decent excuse. Not to mention the situation that Dave put us in by not qualifying for Europe.
He still has 4 months to bring players in, if he fails at it then his job will rightly come under scrutiny.
I still think that we cant blame Woodward yet. Mata's transfer was conducted very efficiently and we are also told that the Shaw deal is done. This is nothing but fantastic. Regarding the Kroos mini-saga, we have been led to believe that Van Gaal scuppered the deal which was almost brought to conclusion by, I think, Woodward. One cant really fault him this year. There has been no dithering, undervalued bids. We still have the summer left and I am confident that we would make atleast 2-3 top quality signings that are unanimously popular with the fans.
No Shaw, no Kroos. My opinion of him will be completely governed by who he brings in this summer, and I'm not exactly brimming with faith so far. Early days mind....
I don't see how that's possible.
We were in discussions with Van Gaal for weeks, during which Woody must have talked about our transfer targets and asked for his opinion. According to numerous reports in the media, thought to have been briefed by someone within the club, probably Woodward himself, LvG approved many of those targets, including Kroos, and made some suggestions of his own, like Mats Hummels. In any case, there was no hint from the club of Kroos being dropped from our list. Then, out of the blue yesterday, Van Gaal apparently tells Woody he doesn't want Kroos!?
It's odd that within 24 hours of confident predictions in the media that we're about to get Kroos for £20m, we drop our interest entirely. An alternative scenario might be that Woody learned nothing from last summer's fiasco, and tried to lowball Bayern with a £20m bid, causing an angry Bayern to tell him to go f**k himself, and a statement that Kroos would not be sold.
All speculation, of course. But, imo, at least as likely as our sudden discovery yesterday that, after weeks of conversations with LvG, he actually didn't want Kroos after all!
Indeed.
Followed by Woodward getting on the blower to his mates on Fleet Street
"Listen lads, if you could just get it out there that Van Gaal never wanted him anyway..."
That does seem to be how he covered his arse when the Thiago/Fabregas deal went tits up anyway. If it ain't broke.
Not to mention the Herrera fiasco, when all those lawyers turned up who we knew nothing about. Oh no...
I'm just waiting for a headline splash about how we're going all out to sign Messi and it's last summer all over again. Without any of the fecking sunshine...
This summer no doubt is to be or not to be for Ed. It would look better if he could shut up and just act but he made quite a few statements regarding deals this summer and there's no turning back from it.
One more window like it was with Moyes and all the conspiracy theories about Woodward being a puppet for Glazers to control United's spending will rise as more than just a possibility.
One more window like it was with Moyes and all the conspiracy theories about Woodward being a puppet for Glazers to control United's spending will rise as more than just a possibility.
They haven't signed him yet, unless I missed something? He's as much a Chelsea player as Shaw or Kroos plays for United.
In defence of Woodward, it is still very early days. When no other clubs in the league/europe have done any significant business it would be churlish to complain about how long it's taking us to do the same.
I really only posted because of certain similarities between this summer and last. Far too soon to draw any conclusions though.
We're still in May and he is working on several transfers.. let's be patient. If we get towards the end of June and nothing has happened, then we can begin to be a little bit annoyed.
i would suggest wait until the beggining week of the world cup, if there isnt an announcement of some player of some sort then we will have to ask some serious questions. He has two weeks.
Yes, ideally we should have most of our business done before the World Cup.
Do any of you guys have a history in journalism, and maybe could track Woodwards phones GPS?
Listened to his voicemails but nothing interesting:
His wife was running late coming back from the salon last week, Wednesday I think, and told him to heat his dinner up from the fridge.
Some old JP Morgan friends called to organise a fox hunting trip for July.
His Dr called to see if he could reschedule his appointment to have his ear syringed.
That was it for last week. Absolutely nothing at all football related.
Also went through his bins a few times but nothing particularly relevant. Tho between you and me I think his missus drinks too much.
Did you pick up on the voicemail from Kroos saying he isnt interested and he should stop sending him friends requests on Facebook?That was weeks ago: not news.
Which isn't realistic. Every club knows about the whole world cup inflation thing and can easily hold out beyond that. It's partly our own fault that we've left ourselves so stretched with the other clubs benefiting from our desperation. The WC is also a time when players can be scouted/identified and it doesn't help that our manager is involved in the tournament.
Yes, but I'm pretty sure that van Gaal has already handed Woodward a list of the players he would like to have. I expect the process of all those players that van Gaal wants has already begun - think it would be a little late to scout someone at the WC and then pursue them when we're in desperate need.
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