When I see Ed Woodward I see a Thunderbird pilot, he has still to do something to convince me otherwise. I am still waiting.
Woodward (old thread)
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Does it seriously not bother anyone else that this cnut doesnt do interviews at all? We have heard more from the Glazers than this chinless wonder.
You do realise he was trying to buy Mata right?
The Fellaini thing he literally just got the job and probably wasn't his call to wait until the buy out clause expired. Since then he's bought Mata, sacked Moyes, hired LVG and did his usual stuff of getting the club more revenue.
Not really sure what more do you guys want?
It's as if you guys won't be satisfied until he hand delivers cabbages to your door
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I do not trust Woodward, last season he jetted out of the Australian tour to conduct some business back in Manchester and then we signed Apollo,Bulova, and Pepsico. So I have doubts about the guy until he starts signing some top quality players. They can stick their godamn pepsi
I think he will gain more favour when he delivers some signings as promised. It doesn't help that it is World Cup year, but (accepting there is probably a lot of effort being expended in the background) he hasn't secured any players yet. What's happening with the Shaw deal, and the midfield enhancements? Meanwhile, Chelsea look like adding Fabregas to Costa, both Spain World Cup players, BEFORE the tournament begins.
you're acting as if mata was a very difficult deal to pull off. sacking moyes..yeah what an incredible achievement even though that was a board level decision..hiring LVG..another board level decision..then he starts briefing to outlets about a massive transfer kitty, who are transfer targets our and how shaw deal could be tied up before WC. The man does himself no favours. Thankfully, he's kept a tight lip ever since LVG got appointed and we can just carry about our business quietly. I have nothing personally against the man but the way he just puts himself into unnecessary situations is incredible.
The briefing has been my biggest issue with him mainly because they are unnecessary and create too much expectation with fans. The Kroos "deal" was something we didnt need to brief about either. No surprise some around the club think he should have followed Moyes out the door.
I'm not sure why you're reading things that are not there in my posts about EW. I said I thought Ed's reaction in the Mata situation was sheepish. that doesnt mean I abhor every little thing he does. In fact, I feel for him in terms of the criticism he got earlier over Rakitic because he's at the mercy of LVG's transfer list when supposedly deals for Carvalho and Kroos were close. That's the nature of the business however unfortunately.
All I want Ed to do is secure deals quietly and not try to penny pinch or delay negotiations more than they need to. It's already bad enough with the World Cup. Do you see me screaming for signings? No. So I'd appreciate if you didnt assume as if I'm incredibly unsatisfied over here. We'll see what happens by the end of the window.
Out of curiosity, how many of David Gills interviews have you seen?
Are you kidding? Gill used to do kids birthday parties and christenings. Never has a man been more accessible to the media and fans.
Yep, he even did Q&A with fans questions on MUTV.
Mata is pretty high quality.
Apart from RVP, when was the last time we signed someone of Mata's quality?
He just started the job for the last transfer window and has Moyes. In the winter window, he signed Mata.
This window has a long time left and it's a WC year.
Is either Costa or Fabregas confirmed yet?
If you think Mata was a simple deal, then fine. He wasn't exactly penny pinching tho is he? And what evidence did we get to suggest he delayed transfer unnecessarily, or all?
Even assuming he had little to do when sacking Moyes, I assumed it took more with than a simple phone call to hire LVG?
I might have missed it but when did Woodward brief the media? When did he tell us how big the budget is or who is he going for?
It might have been leaked by him, by someone else or even completely made up, so it seems strange pin it him. The only thing I can remember him saying was "we'll invest in the squad" at the investment call - fairly standard response?
It's not like we didn't hear about SAF's retirement ahead of time, nor those transfer saga like Ronaldinho or Sneijder. And all those happened under Gill.
Now that he's "keeping quiet", we have people melting down at lack of communication and assuming nothing is happening.
I would love more signings obviously but for his first year at the job, he's done fairly well in my humble opinion.
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1) I didn't think Mata was a simple deal. It wasn't incredibly difficult either based on the facts.
The Fellaini transfer was certainly delayed. We easily could have bought out his release clause and got him 2 months ahead of time but then the player has to put in money just for the deal to go through in the remaining hours of the transfer window. Keep in mind this is the same summer when Ed went on record saying we have enough money to buy a player for £60m-70m. Then Moyes went on record to say it was great to be at a club where he could spend a lot of money (paraphrase) "no budget". So immediately a lot of expectation was drummed up but then we make a hash of the Fabregas pursuit and spend way too much time on it and then the deadline day fiasco. This isn't all on Ed as the succession plan from Fergie and Gill was just very poorly done. We've essentially set ourselves back a year because of it. Nonetheless, Ed made mistakes which is why he's getting criticised.
2) On Moyes and LVG, i'm simply saying it was a board level decision. Ed obviously had his input but so did others.
3) Ogden, Taylor and Mitten have been the main journalists Woodward has briefed over the course of this past season and this summer. Mitten has interviewed him. Taylor and Ogden have both tweeted about conversations with Ed. So you can get a pretty good taste of his briefs there.
4) The news about SAF's retirement wasn't supposed to come out like that. Again someone briefed that and Ogden was the first to break it but that's not usually how we do things. Under SAF, journalists talked about how diffiicult it was to get a story or a decent line from OT. It's well-known Fergie kept an iron fist in terms of what came out of OT which is why seeing the leak about his retirement was shocking. Now it's a lot more open.
5) Re: sneijder and ronaldinho, there's a difference between speculation in the papers and a brief to journalists from a source high up in the club.
6) Who cares if fans are melting down? Regularly briefing the media doesnt make things better either. Look no further than the Cesc saga last summer.
7) How has he done well? He had a rough start and is new to the job but in this industry that wont absolve you from blame. This summer is key for him to show he's learned from last summer's mistakes.
8) cabbage
Buying opportunity at my local grocer this morning, they were down to 50p a pop for a few hours. Chaos on there it was.
Got a feeling Woody has lost LVG's transfer list....
HAHA I like this better than "where in the world is Ed Woodward?"
Well at least he got it done, if he's getting blame for Fellaini, he's due some credit here?
I struggled to see how the Fellaini delay is Woodward's fault.
Surely, for someone as financially literate as Woodward, he would have bought Fellaini within the release clause unless:
- Fellaini wasn't anywhere near a certainty at the start of the window and we only bought him because we couldn't get the other targets
- Moyes told him to wait
I'm more inclined to put this under Moyes than Woodward.
I'm sure the board didn't travel to meet LVG to convince him to join.
Again, it's part of his job and he managed to convince LVG.
Job well done?
We are definitely more open and it frustrates me too.
And perhaps it's Woodward's fault, I see no hard evidence it was him and not any other senior sources, but no point arguing.
The fact that it's gone all quiet once LVG arrives suggest to me it's actually not Woodward.
Agreed but as mentioned above, Ronaldinho and Snijder happened under Gill's watch.
So transfer sagas have happened before and will continue to happen in the future.
He had a rough start, one I'm not ready to blame entirely on him.
Since then he signed one of the top players in the league.
He convinced LVG to join us
He gave Giggs a run as interim.
Apparently he's learnt to be more quiet about his business
And he's still getting us mega revenue.
All that in the first year.
Not bad for a rookie?
Overpriced, just like the mushroom we bought last season
Let's get something straight here, the bulk of the work was done via intermediaries which woodward chose not to be a part of. not saying he shouldnt get any credit but in terms of the negotiations, he chose to sidestep them. This is information he chose to brief to Daniel Taylor.
I guess you forgot about the joint bid for baines/fellaini
A lot of assumptions in your post. again board made a decision. without that there would be no Ed-LVG meeting. LVG was keen on the job. Otherwise he wouldn have turned down Tottenham. Saying it's down to Woodward convincing him is speculation I wish not to get into. We can go on LVG's words in the press on being keen to come. If he comes out later to say Ed played a big part in him coming, big kudos to Ed. Until then we're speculating.
Here's your evidence: (http://www.united.no/andy-mitten/ryktehysteriet/ scroll down to english translation at the bottom)
I never denied this. It's just annoying when we keep briefing details about it.
Are you honestly trying to suggest all that was due to Ed? He may be the CEO but I can tell you with certainty this was not all due to him. Unless you wish to detail how exactly it was without speculating.
Sidestepped in a tactical decision.
Personally think it was wise rather than sheepish.
Perhaps it's him but still felt more Moyes than him.
Regardless, no debate his first transfer window was shit.
Fine, I credit him for not fecking it up then
I was wrong, he should shut up.
No, of course not.
However he's the CEO and responsible for all things non-pitch related so the list above seems like it's not been that bad (off the pitch).
If we didn't sign anyone, hired another dud in as manager and he kept blabbing about everything, I'm sure no one's going to say "well, he's only the CEO and not all due to him".
So credit where credit's due.
Regardless, no point debating.
You think he's been underwhelming, I think he did alright.
Fingers crossed we can both agree he's doing a fine job before the season starts.
I'm trying to get you to understand that while he has responsibilities, he's not the only person involved in some of these major decisions. Invariably, because he's the CEO he'll carry most of the flak but that's not necessarily because it's all on him. It's more to do with the fact that his role puts him as the face of the club. Therefore how much credit one gives is murky waters.
What happened on deadline day was enough to cause concern for me. Admittedly, that falls on Moyes and Woodward but this thread is mainly about Woody.
According to Daniel Taylor, Moyes had to tell Woodward no on Cavani and that Woody is desperate for a statement signing which is why he wanted to buy Cavani. To me, that's slightly worrying.
The reason I'm nitpicking at your list is because there's more to the story than just Ed. This is why blaming last season's debacle on one person is silly as well.
Fergie and Gill despising Woodward is the best news I've heard all summer. I was honestly thinking the world had gone mad and nobody else cared about the direction we were heading. I did wonder what Fergie would have made of it all.
Yeah, Philip de WHO? said that so obviously that is true.
Rooney's contract.? Moyes sacking.? What do you mean the direction we are heading. I can't see any massive changes in our clubs dealings apart from silly media leaks. Our club is still trying to settle down after SAF retirement. Don't you think it's too early to judge woodward.?
phil broke news early of moyes getting sacked. yeah you can say we all saw it coming but he's pretty spot on with the news he gets from what i've seen. if you dont want to trust him, completely fair.
Using a journalists Twitter account to prove a point. Is this how low caftards have fallen? Just as well i'm not a Mod, i'd temp ban anyone that dared post a Twitter message outside of the two Twitter threads!
if that news on cavani is true then my word...55m on cavani? jokes
No, the guy is a grade a cock. Leaked Moyes sacking, angered Fergie by leaking his retirement apparently. I've had enough of the guy, it's like night and day the difference in our conduct.
Remember last summer all the clubs complaining about how we conducted ourwelves in negotiations? The guys a tard.
Blabbing to the press every 5 minutes about who we're signing, how much we're spending, which top players we think we can nab from other great clubs. Woodward is a complete gobshite
err so let's take andy mitten for example. he's a journalist. is it ill-advised to post links from his twitter? if these journos have good sources what's the issue?Using a journalists Twitter account to prove a point. Is this how low caftards have fallen? Just as well i'm not a Mod, i'd temp ban anyone that dared post a Twitter message outside of the two Twitter threads!
I've said it a million times and I'll say it again.
The club needs a complete overhaul in how its run. Fergie basically ran everything, he's been gone a year and we can really see where needs improving.
Ed Woodward is clearly good at the finance bits but has no idea when it comes to transfers and football in general. Ideally we should bring someone else in a director of football type roll. Someone who could work with LVG and get transfers sorted.
The club needs a complete overhaul in how its run. Fergie basically ran everything, he's been gone a year and we can really see where needs improving.
Ed Woodward is clearly good at the finance bits but has no idea when it comes to transfers and football in general. Ideally we should bring someone else in a director of football type roll. Someone who could work with LVG and get transfers sorted.
Yeah, £26 mill for Rvp In Final year off his contract was a joke as well, a good one though he won us the tittle. Cavani is a world class player, we will be lucky to have hime in our ranks.
Twitters bullshit, it's just a giant game of Chinese whispers. The sooner people realise that Twitter is bollocks, the sooner we can go back to actual debate. Do you honestly think that Gill/Ferguson would be that unprofessional to "despise" Woodward? It's a stupid bullshit comment that turds latch onto to point score in threads like this.
Absurd. Some people take shit written on Twitter as gospel. It's irritating as feck.
Not saying I support signing Cavani for that much but we need more goals in the team. We've only got two payers in the squad with a realistic chances of getting more than 12. When you look at what City did and how many they scored overall and how many got over 20 in all competitions, I think we'd be foolish if we think we can get away with Welbeck and Hernandez pitching in with the old goal every month or so.
Are you being serious? That's the last position on the pitch we should be focusing on. If he wants to throw money around he needs to do it in the right areas. He's been banging on about it for 12 months and if he doesn't deliver these big names he's going to look like an even bigger idiot.
Yo man you need to get through your head there are reliable people on twitter. It's simply just another media platform. Yes obvioulsy there's alot of guff out there but there are reliable people as well. If you cant accept that good luck then.
How would you know whether or not Gill/Ferguson despise Woodward or not? Plus perhaps you're getting hung up on the word and your own interpretation of it? Just because something seems implausible to you doesnt mean it's untrue. Once again there's a reliable journalist who uses twitter alot whose name is DiMarzio. Very rarely is he wrong on deals but he will tell you he's been wrong because it happens. My point? Twitter is a media platform which allows the BSers to reel in as many people who choose to be gullible. But it doesnt mean everything posted from twitter or journalist's account is folly. Otherwise, it might as well be all locked down from being used on this site. It's just important users here use discretion when posting links from Twitter.
The extra £4m wouldn't have been a massive issue if say, we'd have paid it in order to sign Fellaini sooner, in order to incorporate him into the squad properly, for example.
But, we paid an extra £4m in order to sign him about 2 months too late. We wouldn't pay his buyout clause because we didn't think he was worth it...then at the last minute we paid £4m above it. This makes absolutely no fecking sence. Imagine explaining to your boss that you had done this and trying to convey it in a way that didn't make you sound like an idiot.
On top of that we were going around at the exact same time, literally publicly flaunting around the fact we had a spare £30m+ odd to blow on Cesc Fabregas. As if insulting Everton by acting like they somehow desperately needed to sell Fellaini to us wasn't enough, we'll just slap them in the face with this spare £30m note we have lying around at the same time.
What an astonishing display of idiocy, when you actually think about it.
I don't know what happened with Herrera, but again, we weren't going to be getting him cheap when we'd made the entire world aware of just how much we were willing to pay for that type of player.
There's even debate on this point but discussion for another thread. RVP fee was reported as £24m. 55m for a player two managers allegedly dont want is ridiculous
Yeah, let's forget that SAF chose moyes to take us forward. Gill and SAF ignored the obvious lake off quality in our midfield for years.. The board/woodward trusted SAF judgment.. I think it's a bit harsh to just blame everything on woodward.. He is no Harry potter, it will take time for hime to settle down things.
I can see why you are frustrated with hime. But I have no problem the way he sacked moyes or angered SAF in any way. Find a new manager, and convince top players to sign for a team which finished 7th in the league is not a easy task.
Bolded statement is wrong. Feel free if you like to prove me wrong, but pretty much every Twitter I read on this site ends up being completely wrong. You know 100% when it's true (like when Van Gaal was hired) as it tends to come from dozens of journalists at the same time. Posting one random Journalists opinion is arse.
People don't use discretion on the Caf, they'll post any tripe and you'll have muppets who will believe what's been said. That's a journalists job, to report what they hear/make up. But as I've said already, it's just a giant game of Chinese whispers and on the whole it's mostly always rubbish.
Posters who post Tweets to prove a point should get shot down for being a cretin. So without further ado @#07, you're a cretin.
No it's not wrong. I already gave you an example of a reliable journalist so you sir are wrong. He's (de brun) not a random journalist either. You really need to read Mitten's piece. I'll post his article up in a second. But you're making your mind up based on what youve seen here which doesnt necessarily show what's all out there. If anything, you're just telling me people's discretion isn't very good on here.
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