Woodward (old thread)

Should Studward remain as CE of Manchester United?

  • No - he should be sacked also.

    Votes: 40 22.6%

  • Yes - he should stay.

    Votes: 137 77.4%
  • Total voters
    177
  • Poll closed .
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Invictus said:
Fair enough but do we have any other choice ? We don't know the inner working of the club so it's unfeasible to pass judgement either way. Like I said before it's hard to quantify his role in the apparent transfer debacle when there are multiple variables involved - some of which were addressed before.

I can 110 % guarantee Ed Woodward won't get sacked. At a max the owners will appoint a full-time DOF while Ed returns to his executive duties. That is a fair rational prognosis. People like the Glazers don't earn billions by being kneejerk and firing the primary money men (I loathe the concept as a supporter but it makes sense if you put yourself in their position in a detached role with no natural allegiances to United). Business savvy folk like Woodward and Arnold - who bring in hundreds of millions are difficult to find and exceptionally hard to replace. We sack him and then what ? Who will replace him in the commercial side of things ? The amount of market expertise he brings in is unparalleled and I'm pretty certain he'd be snapped up by other clubs in a similar role. Woodward leaving would only set the club back.
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We had plenty of disappointments in the transfer market with SAF and Gill (much less pre Glazers) but they where almost always a top player choosing to go to another club, Ronaldinho, Benzema ,Nasri, Ozil, Hazard,Thiago etc but never did we have the type of circus like we saw with the Fellaini/Baines dual bid and subsequent overpay for moptop, the herrera 3 amigos, an entire summer dedicated to bidding 25m for Fabregas or the type of scattergun deadline day which embarrassed the entire club, that was all Woodward and he hasn't seemed to learn much since another circus seems to be upon us with the deal for Rojo were by going behind Sportings back and making a deal with the 3rd party ownership has upset Sporting into outright refusing to sell and prepared to take legal action.

I should have been clear when I said sack him in a previous post I fully understand he is more than competent at his job on the commercial side of the business and would be glad to see him continue in a role like that however he has proved himself to be incapable of performing this role and we couldn't afford to have a poor window this summer never mind going forward when Chelsea/Arsenal/City/Liverpool are regularly outspending us and able to get deals done with relative ease.
 
goin4glory said:
We had plenty of disappointments in the transfer market with SAF and Gill (much less pre Glazers) but they where almost always a top player choosing to go to another club, Ronaldinho, Benzema ,Nasri, Ozil, Hazard,Thiago etc but never did we have the type of circus like we saw with the Fellaini/Baines dual bid and subsequent overpay for moptop, the herrera 3 amigos, an entire summer dedicated to bidding 25m for Fabregas or the type of scattergun deadline day which embarrassed the entire club, that was all Woodward and he hasn't seemed to learn much since another circus seems to be upon us with the deal for Rojo were by going behind Sportings back and making a deal with the 3rd party ownership has upset Sporting into outright refusing to sell and prepared to take legal action.

I should have been clear when I said sack him in a previous post I fully understand he is more than competent at his job on the commercial side of the business and would be glad to see him continue in a role like that however he has proved himself to be incapable of performing this role and we couldn't afford to have a poor window this summer never mind going forward when Chelsea/Arsenal/City/Liverpool are regularly outspending us and able to get deals done with relative ease.
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Proof ?

Surely a man who's had a fast ascent to the Manchester United CEO post would've been less foolhardy in the approach ? Maybe he was given a go ahead signal by Doyen/ Mendes who own a majority of the player rights ? And this case is not unique either. In 2007 Gill and Fergie decided to sign Tevez for 20 million but West Ham wanted legal recourse. Then MSI had to pay his 2 million release clause to West Ham and loaned him to United. These dealings are quite complex and something normal people like us may not be able to fathom in their entirity because all we have are media reports (most of which are patented lies anyway). We have to consider these are professionals with insight into the market and a bevy of contacts. Do you genuinely believe Woodward intentionally put in a derisory bid to Sporting on his own ? What is to be gained of that ? Do you think he's bent on cocking up the deals at a time when he's under intense scrutiny ?

Well that's not true is it ? Since his appointment Woodward has a net transfer of almost 120 million in just one year. Have any of those clubs spent that much ?
 
Invictus said:
Fair enough but do we have any other choice ? We don't know the inner working of the club so it's unfeasible to pass judgement either way. Like I said before it's hard to quantify his role in the apparent transfer debacle when there are multiple variables involved - some of which were addressed before.

I can 110 % guarantee Ed Woodward won't get sacked. At a max the owners will appoint a full-time DOF while Ed returns to his executive duties. That is a fair rational prognosis. People like the Glazers don't earn billions by being kneejerk and firing the primary money men (I loathe the concept as a supporter but it makes sense if you put yourself in their position in a detached role with no natural allegiances to United). Business savvy folk like Woodward and Arnold - who bring in hundreds of millions are difficult to find and exceptionally hard to replace. We sack him and then what ? Who will replace him in the commercial side of things ? The amount of market expertise he brings in is unparalleled and I'm pretty certain he'd be snapped up by other clubs in a similar role. Woodward leaving would only set the club back.
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Agree with all of this. For all the the stick that Woodward gets sometimes, he's done a very good job with regards to the commercial side of things. I know our squad needs a couple more signings and I think we'll land them, but I doubt it will be the likes of Vidal and Di Maria.
 
goin4glory said:
Vermaelen should have been a United player weeks ago. He's been a rumoured target from pre world cup but we've sat around twiddling our thumbs and done nothing in the same time Barca managed to sign Suarez/Rakitic/Bravos/Ter Stegen/Mathieu, then after missing out on primary CB targets like Luiz/Marquinhos moved onto Vermaelen and got that done too. The transfer market won't wait around for us to make our minds up.

Look at the current Di Maria situation, should really be a no brainer that a player of his quality when available in a position we desperately need strengthening in and LVG has even mentioned him personally when discussing the type of player he would need if he's to change the system to a 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 should be signed without hesitation, but we've arsed about and if PSG can manage to offload Cavani/Pastore/Lavezzi they'll be back in for him and we'll miss out again. Then what will fans say? No value in the market? Overpriced? He was always going to a club with CL football? All the usual cliche answers I imagine, the truth is we're horrendous in the transfer market and while Woodward may be able to read a contract he seemingly can't work out the politics or many variables that can influence any deal, which has shown in the laughable dual bid for Fellaini/Baines as well as the Herrera circus and final day embarrassment.
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As much as Ed deserves criticism, I don't think he could do anything with TV, when all sources report that Arsenal wanted only a swap deal with us, which would have been entirely stupid.
 
This summer will end up with us trying to conclude deals for Blind, maybe Rojo if ppl can compromise, and maybe Vidal if we panic on deadline day (juve have already bough the players to replace him)..question is whether we can pull all that off without being completely mugged. If we only got Blind and Rojo that would satisfy me and I'd give Woody another 2 windows.. if our only buys are the two that have been lined up for months before the window then my confidence in him as a negotiator in transfers would be zilch..
 
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bugmat said:
This summer will end up with us trying to conclude deals for Blind, maybe Rojo if ppl cac ompromise, and maybe Vidal if we panic on deadline day (juve have already bough the players to replace him)..question is whether we can pull all that off without being completely mugged. If we only got Blind and Rojo that would satisfy me and I'd give Woody another 2 windows.. if our only buys are the two that have been lined up for months before the window then my confidence in him as a negotiator in transfers would be zilch..
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They haven't really to be honest
 
Sammyjunn said:
So United have signed the fewest players in the PL, good job Ed.
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Someone should have told him that getting 4 mediocre players for 15m each would have gone down better than two top players for 30m each.
 
Cassidy said:
They haven't really to be honest
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They have in the same sense we bought to replace Ronaldo - you really can't replace like for like so they have dealt with problem areas LB (Evra) striker (Moratta), 2 CMS (Romulu and another) who can play elsewhere is what they've done so far. Plus they have Asamoah who can now got CM with Evra there.
 
He's clearly out of his depth. Keep him on in some sort of capacity so he can work on commercial deals, but for the love of god don't let him near the transfer dealings. Not surprised van gaal is getting sick of it.
 
charleysurf said:
Someone should have told him that getting 4 mediocre players for 15m each would have gone down better than two top players for 30m each.
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Someone should have told him to save the two £30 million signings until mid August, & we'd now have a feel good factor rather than the current doom & gloom.
 
bugmat said:
They have in the same sense we bought to replace Ronaldo - you really can't replace like for like so they have dealt with problem areas LB (Evra) striker (Moratta), 2 CMS (Romulu and another) who can play elsewhere is what they've done so far. Plus they have Asamoah who can now got CM with Evra there.
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I thought Romulo played on the right as a fullback or right midfield?
 
Idiot needs to be sacked ASAP! Two summers in a row is a joke! Last year we went into the start of the league with no signings, this year we're going in with two when we should be going in with at least 4 or 5
 
manutddjw said:
I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for now. Alot of the resentment stems from are inability to secure targets, and while I'm frustrated as well, we also have to look at each specific case and we'll see it isn't all that easy.

Cuadrado and Di Maria are both available and we can likely get them, but there's a few questions that need to be addressed by the manager before pursuing them. Do we sign the better fit in the 3-5-2 (Cuadrado) or go for the better player who will be better off in a 4-3-3? It's a head scratcher and I'm sure LvG needs time to ponder the same dilemma, as we fans are split on this as well.

The other is Vidal, and I do believe that Juventus want players in exchange. I want Vidal here in the worst kind of way as well, but even I think that the fee on top of adding players like Hernandez and Nani is quite excessive even if you use the most modest valuations for Nani and Hernandez.

I will say if it turns out that we are in for players like Rojo and Blind, and he can't close those without incident then I will consider him to be as useless as a chocolate tea pot as those should be relatively easy to complete.
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A player like Rojo or Herrera can be more difficult to get than a big name like for example Di Maria. If the club doesn't want to sell and there are complex situations like 3th party ownership and release clauses that hev to be paid by the player himself, thinking about tax law etc can sometimes be more difficult than getting a player who is allowed to leave and whose contract situation is straightforward, sure he'll be more expensive, but penning up a contract for £200.000 isn't harder than penning one up for £100.000 and tabeling a bid of €60m ain't harder than tabeling one of €20m, it is the negotiations that make all the difference in the world and those can be pretty darn difficult or quite straightforward no matter how big the deal. Sure it is alot easier to convince the players like Rojo, Blind, Herrera, those were and are jumping up and down from excitment like a little kid at the idea of joining a club like United but that don't make it easy to iron out a deal with the clubs or other parties that own them.
 
This thread makes me angry because literally not a single person on here has any right to be commenting on the abilities of this man. It really makes me wonder. Ridiculous that people have such strongly-held opinions about a domain of which they have no knowledge.
 
Reapersoul20 said:
This thread makes me angry because literally not a single person on here has any right to be commenting on the abilities of this man. It really makes me wonder. Ridiculous that people have such strongly-held opinions about a domain of which they have no knowledge.
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I agree, we should only comment on Ed Woodward when any of us find out what the feck he actually does.
 
Reapersoul20 said:
This thread makes me angry because literally not a single person on here has any right to be commenting on the abilities of this man. It really makes me wonder. Ridiculous that people have such strongly-held opinions about a domain of which they have no knowledge.
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I have no idea how to run a restaurant nor how to make food taste good, but if that doesn't mean I can't complain about paying expensive prices for shite good.
 
Reapersoul20 said:
This thread makes me angry because literally not a single person on here has any right to be commenting on the abilities of this man. It really makes me wonder. Ridiculous that people have such strongly-held opinions about a domain of which they have no knowledge.
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To be fair, he has brought it upon himself, by making naive, bold and indeed arrogant claims that we can and will compete with anybody in the market and there categorically will be more big signings. That only works as PR if you can pull it off. Instead, to break what the fans see as a promise is the equivalent of a child being told by his dad that he'll be getting a brand, shiny new bicycle for Christmas and then getting a bar of chocolate instead. If the dad had said nothing in the first place, the child might have been quite happy with the bar of chocolate. Although, it currently looks like we won't be getting a bar of chocolate either. Which makes Ed Woodward the world's worst dad.
 
Invictus said:
Proof ?

Surely a man who's had a fast ascent to the Manchester United CEO post would've been less foolhardy in the approach ? Maybe he was given a go ahead signal by Doyen/ Mendes who own a majority of the player rights ? And this case is not unique either. In 2007 Gill and Fergie decided to sign Tevez for 20 million but West Ham wanted legal recourse. Then MSI had to pay his 2 million release clause to West Ham and loaned him to United. These dealings are quite complex and something normal people like us may not be able to fathom in their entirity because all we have are media reports (most of which are patented lies anyway). We have to consider these are professionals with insight into the market and a bevy of contacts. Do you genuinely believe Woodward intentionally put in a derisory bid to Sporting on his own ? What is to be gained of that ? Do you think he's bent on cocking up the deals at a time when he's under intense scrutiny ?

Well that's not true is it ? Since his appointment Woodward has a net transfer of almost 120 million in just one year. Have any of those clubs spent that much ?
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The statement released by Sporting has been posted in the Rojo thread. He negotiated a deal with the 3rd party ownership which would be cheaper for United than paying his buyout clause which is clever from a business perspective as it saves us money but from the football side it's a complete failure as Sporting aren't willing to let him go when they recieve next to nothing and are seemingly willing to take legal action.

As for what's bolded I'd appreciate it if you didn't mis represent my argument or insert claims I never made. No I don't think an employee of Manchester United is intentionally cocking up deals I just think he's largely incompetent at understanding or navigating the multiple dynamics that go into different deals.

We're now in a situation similar to last season were deals have been left so late that any selling club can easily refuse our approaches knowing we're desperate and end up overpaying similar to Fellaini. The Sporting Execs are playing their hand perfectly even if they have no intention of going to court since they know with the current situation at United we're almost certainly going to intervene to get a deal done ASAP and if the BBC reports are to be believed we've already began these talks.
 
bleedred said:
As much as Ed deserves criticism, I don't think he could do anything with TV, when all sources report that Arsenal wanted only a swap deal with us, which would have been entirely stupid.
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Vermaelen should have been signed long before Barca ever got involved. Wenger couldn't keep him with only 1 year left on his deal if only United was involved and he wanted to leave.
 
I reckon we'll get Rojo and Blind.....And if we got those two then we have enough decent players to finish in the top 4 with Fletcher, Young and Valencia all looking like new players now that Moyes is gone. Moyes hasn't made life easier for him this summer by finishing out of the top 4. If Woodward lands Cuadrado or Di Maria then he will be an absolute saint on here again and I just get the feeling he may get a big name this time....but can Di Maria play as a wing back? And yes Woodward should not be spouting on about how we can easily break the world transfer record if he's not certain that we can land a monster world class player

I might add - Vidal is not fully fit yet so it's hardly Woodwards fault that Vidal currently is not fit to pass a medical yet if we are in fact still interested in him
 
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Code-CX said:
Agree with all of this. For all the the stick that Woodward gets sometimes, he's done a very good job with regards to the commercial side of things. I know our squad needs a couple more signings and I think we'll land them, but I doubt it will be the likes of Vidal and Di Maria.
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Let him stick to the commercial side of things. He's a fecking midget compared to Gill and he wasn't exactly Mr. Popular on here.
 
Red Comet said:
I have no idea how to run a restaurant nor how to make food taste good, but if that doesn't mean I can't complain about paying expensive prices for shite good.
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There are a great deal more variables involved when you speak about something like running a club like Manchester United - obviously. Most of them I'm sure we don't even consider. He needs to appease the Glazers, Van Gaal, the fans - these are 3 distinct groups of people that want 3 completely different things for the club. For all we know, without Ed Woodward and the seemingly ever-increasing stem of sponsorship monies we wouldn't have managed to scrape together our meager £120 million spending in the last few months. Perhaps less adequate CEOs would not have been able to raise so much money. Perhaps he was promised a large amount of money from the Glazers, only to have it taken away when Malcolm died. Perhaps there was a directive from one of the new owners that the club were taking a new stance this year and wouldn't be financing any more details. Perhaps he is an idiot who got to be one of the youngest CEOs around by blind luck and cheating in exams.

We don't know - and how there are 93 pages of people who think they do know astounds me.
 
But yeah guys, he is a midget and an imbecile and we should definitely get rid of him ASAP. Christ.
 
Reapersoul20 said:
There are a great deal more variables involved when you speak about something like running a club like Manchester United - obviously. Most of them I'm sure we don't even consider. He needs to appease the Glazers, Van Gaal, the fans - these are 3 distinct groups of people that want 3 completely different things for the club. For all we know, without Ed Woodward and the seemingly ever-increasing stem of sponsorship monies we wouldn't have managed to scrape together our meager £120 million spending in the last few months. Perhaps less adequate CEOs would not have been able to raise so much money. Perhaps he was promised a large amount of money from the Glazers, only to have it taken away when Malcolm died. Perhaps there was a directive from one of the new owners that the club were taking a new stance this year and wouldn't be financing any more details. Perhaps he is an idiot who got to be one of the youngest CEOs around by blind luck and cheating in exams.

We don't know - and how there are 93 pages of people who think they do know astounds me.
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The bottom line is that this is a team that is in serious need of improvement. His task is to address that, and so far he hasn't fulfilled that mandate. All the space-watching and social media monitoring in the world won't change that.
 
Reapersoul20 said:
This thread makes me angry because literally not a single person on here has any right to be commenting on the abilities of this man. It really makes me wonder. Ridiculous that people have such strongly-held opinions about a domain of which they have no knowledge.
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So honestly, what's the point of a forum like this? None of us knows as much about football as David Moyes does, yet I think we were all well within our rights to criticize him for the absolute shambles that was on display last year.
 
jem said:
The bottom line is that this is a team that is in serious need of improvement. His task is to address that, and so far he hasn't fulfilled that mandate. All the space-watching and social media monitoring in the world won't change that.
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He isn't meant to know about football. He is meant to know about business. If he received a list of targets from van Gaal and none of them were attainable, it isn't necessarily his fault. It could be any of a massive list of things - shouldn't blame be shared with van Gaal/the scouting network for not finding more realistically attainable players?
 
jem said:
So honestly, what's the point of a forum like this? None of us knows as much about football as David Moyes does, yet I think we were all well within our rights to criticize him for the absolute shambles that was on display last year.
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We watch football and have opinions on it because we see it. On a big screen. It is broadcast to us and we know that each player plays 90mins and should be adjudged by their contribution to the team in this 90mins. We don't watch the boardroom from which Ed Woodward works, we don't see the actions of Edward Woodward during his 9am-5pm (or more likely 9am-9pm), most of the posters on here wouldn't even know what the main responsibilities of his position are.

These two things are completely incomparable. I understand people being upset that there are no new signings, but nobody deserves a witch-hunt like this when, for all we know, Vidal, Di Maria, Ronaldo and Messi were all lined up to sign for United only to be vetoed last minute by the Glazers. We just don't know.

Unlike football, where we do. Because we can see them.
 
Reapersoul20 said:
This thread makes me angry because literally not a single person on here has any right to be commenting on the abilities of this man. It really makes me wonder. Ridiculous that people have such strongly-held opinions about a domain of which they have no knowledge.
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Excuse me, I have a wide range of experience in regards to dealing with transfers and tapping up players. I have bought over 30 players for at least 8 different teams in my life time. In Football manager
 
El-Manos said:
Excuse me, I have a wide range of experience in regards to dealing with transfers and tapping up players. I have bought over 30 players for at least 8 different teams in my life time. In Football manager
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John Player Blues, were they?
 
I will reserve my judgment till this shambles of window closes. I must say he scored a lot of positives with me by sacking United biggest mistake ever.

I just wish United's hierarchy stop with this we are the biggest club in the world bull till they act like one. This slogan use to agitate me since Sir Alex days with his favorite "no value in the market".

players who United thought were overpriced or would refuse to pay what they were sold for all look a bargain now. The like s of Modric, Javi Martinez, Hazard and so on.

Big acts big.
 
Reapersoul20 said:
We watch football and have opinions on it because we see it. On a big screen. It is broadcast to us and we know that each player plays 90mins and should be adjudged by their contribution to the team in this 90mins. We don't watch the boardroom from which Ed Woodward works, we don't see the actions of Edward Woodward during his 9am-5pm (or more likely 9am-9pm), most of the posters on here wouldn't even know what the main responsibilities of his position are.

These two things are completely incomparable. I understand people being upset that there are no new signings, but nobody deserves a witch-hunt like this when, for all we know, Vidal, Di Maria, Ronaldo and Messi were all lined up to sign for United only to be vetoed last minute by the Glazers. We just don't know.

Unlike football, where we do. Because we can see them.
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A witch-hunt? God the melodrama these days is incredible. Woodward himself invited everyone to 'watch this space'. He can hardly be surprised that people are growing impatient at doing so.
 
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