You mean Buttner and Young that were signed under Gill?
Woodward (old thread)
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You mean Buttner and Young that were signed under Gill?
Gill is a past and Ed's task is to not repeat mistakes from that era.
Fellaini looks like a bad omen so far.
What about Mata and Van Gaal?
That is to be determined in a longer run. As much as Van Gaal is legend I won't buy so quickly into everything but I gotta admit - I am optimist when it comes to LVG's professional judgement.
Mata's transfer was occupied with a largest fee in the history of this club. It needs to pay off and will also require time... Time that Ed Woodward is having less and less with every passing day.
To put it in the shorter way - less talk more substantial actions and Ed will be safe for years to come with his instinct of a sponsorship deal hunter. There's a potential there but so far it doesn't show in a right way mainly because of some pointless quotes and most of all club's results.
Weird people think Gill or Woodward had any say in the players brought in during their tenure and are judging them based on that. They're deal brokers acting under the specific instruction of the manager with the approval of the Glazers.
They have a say because they're deciding how much resources is to be invested in the offer and it's clearly affecting the possibility of success.
LVG said that for him it's not about the money at all so many things is and will depend on Woodward. Even Scholes pointed out that Ed needs to prove himself to finally make things clicking.
I'm not saying Gill is responsible for choosing Buttner or Young, just trying to point out the weirdness of arguments being used here. Not many complained about Gill when the transfer record under him wasn't exactly amazing.
Scholes was suggesting he needs to prove himself by closing deals. Woodward cannot spend a single penny without the express approval of the Glazers.
That's a great point and this is where the rabbit hole leading us every time we're speaking about club's financial ambitions.
It creates the question who is mr Woodward to Glazers and how much influence he can create in convincing the owners that serious investments needs to be implemented.
Next two months may also show how much Glazers are trusting their new manager. The interesting part of all is that Louis Van Gaal has not surprisingly low tolerance for people telling him how to do his job, especially people who know obviously less than him about football.
Gonna be interesting if LVG decide to go ballistic to put pressure on club's spending. Lots of truth to be revealed.
I think there is evidence Wooward sees the capture of a "marquee" name as a way to increase revenue streams and shirt sales and he could make that case to the Glazers.
The issue is if LVG has a "marquee" name on his shopping list or wants to see those funds wasted on a player he doesn't require.
I'm just hoping there's already something close to communication created between LVG and Woodward even through Giggs or Sir Alex just to help reach conclusions when new manger will enter his office, so he can easily start acting from the point where Woodward already working on the list he received or even is close to full completion of most of the transfer goals and we won't have to start things over in the middle of transfer window madness.
I'm certain there is direct communication between Van Gaal and Woodward. Each is relying on the other to get things done.
With so much business to be done, I expected us to be quick out of the blocks this summer, particularly as we were briefing journalists that certain deals were already in the bag. It's a cause for concern that we're now facing the difficult task of trying to sign 3/4/5 players in the 6 weeks between the end of the WC and the closing of the window.
It can be done, but we'll be under huge pressure, and Woody didn't exactly distinguish himself in similar circumstances last summer. I wish we'd brought in someone with knowledge and experience who knew his way around the football world rather than mergers and acquisitions.
By midnight August31 Woody will either be our Churchill or our Benedict Arnold. Let's hope he's smoking a cigar.
It can be done, but we'll be under huge pressure, and Woody didn't exactly distinguish himself in similar circumstances last summer. I wish we'd brought in someone with knowledge and experience who knew his way around the football world rather than mergers and acquisitions.
By midnight August31 Woody will either be our Churchill or our Benedict Arnold. Let's hope he's smoking a cigar.
It's only the septics who don't like Benedict Arnold. We Brits love a good traitor.
i think you get the point...
To be fair to woody, it seems LVG didnt want to have Moyes targets forced on him and so in a sense we are back to square 1. Plus the LVG announcement was delayed due to an agreement with LVG himself and Dutch FA.
Pedant alert - the window closes on 1st Sept as 31st Aug is a Sunday.
Bit harsh that.
Sneijder (his partner that is),Benzema (Real was his dream malarky). Torres (Raf is the manager for me) and Hazard (Chelsea is for me) never wanted to come here anyway so it's hardly Gill's fault we didn't buy them. Maybe the others didn't want to come here either, who can say. United might be a "big club" but Manchester is not everyone's dream city to live or play in.
We are always going to fail to sign players and it will happen with Woody too. Surely you're not going to blame him every time a player doesn't want to join us are you?
Its very harsh to be over critical of Woodward to date. From everything we have heard, he was ready to execute many plans last summer but was not allowed to as his manager decided not to pursue those targets. I also think we have to remember how difficult it mst have been for Woodward in forming a totally new relationship with Moyes. They would have step toed around each other to a great extent, trying to offend each other, whilst at the same time trying to work out how there 2 personalities gelled with each other. I can only imagine his shock and frustration once he realised that Dave was of the divvering kind and took a long time to come to a definitive conclusion.
Likewise, we know that he moved quickly and decisively and was unafraid to break the club transfer record on Mata or to help to convince the board that it was necessary to commit a painful act: to sack Moyes. And from the various leaks in past few months, its evident he had put in the legwork on a number of major signings this summer, only for us the change manager and so suddenly have uncertainty and clear direction on the players the new manager wanted to sign.
We don't have a Director of Football, and to my knowledge, deciding which players we sign is not the CEO's specific remit so he requires clear direction on that front before he can do his job. But what we do know he that he has a clear track record on quickly establishing new relationships with people from all cultural backgrounds (evidenced by the geographic and content diversity of our many sponsorships), is entrepreneurial and knows how to value and close a deal and understand football economics better than most.
I have far less reservations about his job suitability than I did Moyes or even LVG. Put simply, I think Woodward simply needs a talented enough manager who gets our club and he will provide him leadership and support, much like Gill could offer SAF. Im willing to give him plenty of time.
All well and good, but how good is he when it comes to changing the mind of a club that doesn't want to sell its player? How good is he at changing the minds of players who don't want to sign for Utd? It's a different skillset from negotiating sponsorship deals.
My opinions are probably jaded after last season's chaos in the club but if LVG will be fine with Woodward's strong connections to Glazers and communication between everybody will be healthy then I think financially we're definitely in professional hands.
Really can't wait when Louie will enter the office and start doing things officially and when he said that he doesn't care about money then I think the may at some point trust the chairman already.
Time will definitely tell.
He's playing a dangerous game by all these media briefs. Particularly with transfers because the messages portrayed contradict each other. He's trying to get the media on his side which Gill never really bothered about but he's setting himself up for lots of criticism if United have another poor window because frankly his constant "we're close to getting player x", "we were never interested in player x" is ruining any credibility these people in the media have. The knock on effect could see his position be untenable if this was to happen.
true..in a way last season he saved his ass by sacking moyes with the latter taking all the blame for all that went wrong. This time around things will be different..
Many do blame Woodward for that.
Just a few post above this asks how well can Woodward change the mind of clubs not willing sell or players that didn't want to come.
It's not like we went from brilliant to rubbish in transfer market but you would think we did based on most comments here
In fairness to Woodward - Moyes could have bought the likes of Strootman or McCarthy quite easily but opted against it and then wasted an absolute fortune on Fellaini so in that sense only Moyes can take the blame for those comedy of errors...It seemed by the end of the transfer window that Moyes then panicked into bidding for tons of players we had no hope of getting like De Rossi and Khedira just to try and make it look to the fans that he was trying when we had already missed out on targets that were readily available....But Woody has still yet to prove he can land big names but he will definitely get soem good midfielders in this summer as LVG, unlike Moyes, will have Plans B,C and D...Can't really count Juan Mata as a major signing last January as Chelsea were desperate to get rid of him, we were the only ones willing to offer what Chelsea wanted and you can argue that we didn't actually need him but hopefully he can prove that theory wrong one day
Find it quite funny in a way.
After all Ed has done for the Glazers, if he signs a few players for the club, he'll be a messiah in the eyes of the fans and the Glazers...For different reasons.
World of football is actually mad
After all Ed has done for the Glazers, if he signs a few players for the club, he'll be a messiah in the eyes of the fans and the Glazers...For different reasons.
World of football is actually mad
Woodie managed to close the deal on United for the Glazers -- deal of the fecking century -- buying for a few hundred million quid and using the rest from United's future profits.
I think spending a few million quid on some players wont be too difficult, albeit over the odds at times.
All part of his learn curve.
I think spending a few million quid on some players wont be too difficult, albeit over the odds at times.
All part of his learn curve.
I said that and my point was that it's something we don't know and he so far hasn't shown us. He's certainly shown he was good at negotiating with potential sponsors in a situation where they wanted to sponsor Utd - let's face it, who in their right mind wouldn't - but it's a completely different matter negotiating with someone who doesn't want to do something. 1st Sept will tell how good he is at that.
Do you think we have a queue of potential sponsors waiting for us and then all we do is approve them or not?
Do you think we go charging around the world begging people to sponsor us?
Begging isn't a word I'd use, do you think companies call up begging to give us money?
Oh right, I didn't realise how easy Eds job is. It's amazing to wonder why our sponsorship revenues have doubled since the Glazers have taken over then and Arsenals have stayed the same.
Well winning things and being top of the pile year after year helps.
We went from having a great squad that regularly won the league to being told our squad was well below par and we needed to invest massively in a major squad rebuild. It's not just about the business itself either, it's the expectation management.
Well Liverpool have done a lot worse than Arsenal in the last 8 years or so and their commercial revenues have jumped higher than Arsenals static commercial stream.
You're making it sound so simplistic.
The global brand of Arsenal bears no comparison to that of Man Utd.
Sponsorship deals are rarely arranged directly between the two parties, normally there's a "middle man" who puts together a company looking to increase its profile by sponsorship and a company commensurate with what the sponsoring company is looking to spend.
My point is that in sponsorship deals both parties are obviously willing before any negotiations take place. In transfers sometimes only the potential buyer is willing and the seller has to be convinced, against their will, to sell their player. Convincing someone to do something against their will requires a very specific skillset. We don't yet know whether Woodward possesses that. As I said, we'll find out on 1st Sept.
9 years ago they won the champions league and 2 domestic trophies since then. They've always had a huge fanbase. Bigger than Arsenal. It's not simplistic and we've done well to tap into the markets but sponsors have been falling over themselves to get their name on our kit for years
You're scrambling around trying to deny Woodward credit where it's due. One party has to be convinced in commercial deals too, that's why you get sales teams.
I'm not "scrambling around" at all. Are you saying the job of attracting sponsorship involves getting people to spend money they don't want to spend? Surely not.
You seem to have missed my point completely. I'm not trying to deny Woodward credit for anything. What I've said is that negotiating transfers requires a different skillset from negotiating sponsorship deals (which he has done exceptionally well) and we don't yet know how good he is at that.
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