As ive said in my other post - nothing has changed for the Glazers. Revenue and Sponsors are growing. Despite not investing correctly in the team for many years their income continues to grow.
Woodward (old thread)
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
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Under-investment in the team but crucially, success despite that. Those days are over, and with a vengeance, They will know that.
Nope. An agent concluded that deal
We shall see. Ive seen nothing from them in 9 years that signifies their behaviour will change.
You really don't understand.
I wonder if the Glazers, perhaps Woodward too, completely underestimated the market's development over the past year. They've spent nearly 100m on 3 players during the past 6 months - did they think this would be enough? Should it be enough? When losing 3-4 experienced players due to retirement/age etc, then obviously not. But the fees have gone mad (thanks Real and Barca) and in a world cup year they are further infalted. Given our apparent obvious problems/weaknesses, you'd have thought this was something we'd address quite quickly. That said, a new manager deserves his say of course. He also deserves time to evaluate the players himself.
But perhaps the Glazers and Woodward misjudged the Moyes episode? Is the squad is in worse "shape" than first thought? Was it not all down to Moyes after all?
I definitely think the malaise and the lack of CL is likely to make it harder to attract the big names, but I do wonder if the owners hadn't really appraised the situation realistically and were not prepared for the outlay that is clearly needed (i.e. another 100m at least plus higher wages to compensate the lack of CL football).
But perhaps the Glazers and Woodward misjudged the Moyes episode? Is the squad is in worse "shape" than first thought? Was it not all down to Moyes after all?
I definitely think the malaise and the lack of CL is likely to make it harder to attract the big names, but I do wonder if the owners hadn't really appraised the situation realistically and were not prepared for the outlay that is clearly needed (i.e. another 100m at least plus higher wages to compensate the lack of CL football).
It was never just down to Moyes. But Moyes had Rio, Vidic and Evra available, as well as Giggs. You may say all those players were past their best but that's a few thousand games worth of experience gone. You can't just rip the entire defence out of a team, buy one youngster and then expect things to improve. We knew Vidic was leaving months before the seasons end, we will have decided not to keep Rio on well in advance too. The amount of time we've had to prepare for these huge departures was more than enough and it's a disgrace that we've entered the new season without addressing this.
The most shocking thing about this entire fiasco is that all of us morons on a message board are in unison about this, so if we can figure it out how couldn't they have?
I'll still maintain the biggest f*ck-up in our recent history is allowing Fergie and Gill to leave at the same time.
David Gill leaving really shouldn't be that big an issue. Other teams have DOf's quietly getting the job done efficiently and many of us don't even know who they are. It's about who you replace your current guy with, like it was with Moyes. We seem to have picked a novice who is trying to learn on the job (re: transfers).
Seriously, WHAT do I not understand? Except for your unwillingness to answer my basic questions and telling others to ignore my posts. You accuse me of: "You tried to call out Drummer and fell on your face". I don't even have a clue what you're talking about.
Received the following email today. Woodward really is useless.
Thank you for joining Manchester United as an Official Member for the 2014/15 season.
Unfortunately due to a delay in the printing of Membership packs, these have not yet been dispatched. You will receive separate communication once your pack has been posted.
We apologise for the delay and any inconvenience caused.
Regards
Sam Kelleher
Ticket Operations Manager
Ticketing & Membership Services
Thank you for joining Manchester United as an Official Member for the 2014/15 season.
Unfortunately due to a delay in the printing of Membership packs, these have not yet been dispatched. You will receive separate communication once your pack has been posted.
We apologise for the delay and any inconvenience caused.
Regards
Sam Kelleher
Ticket Operations Manager
Ticketing & Membership Services
But only as long as we're succesful. And that's exactly the issue - we need to invest to get back to the top
Woodward drew parallels with Liverpool's continued popularity despite years without success in an interview last year - the Glazers do not see it as simply as you are putting.
You may think its obvious that we have to be successful for them to make money - success is relative to them. Their income stream will define what they do but they will do the absolute bare minimum where possible. They've done it since they arrived and, as ive said before, I have not seen anything to suggest they will change.
What I don't get is the guy can pull off sponsorship deals like no-one else.
But for the second year in a row, he has said we can spend £70 million on a player. Doesn't exactly strengthen our negotiating stance, does it?
How can he be so ruthless with sponsorships but such a fecking idiot when it comes very basic transfer talk?
But for the second year in a row, he has said we can spend £70 million on a player. Doesn't exactly strengthen our negotiating stance, does it?
How can he be so ruthless with sponsorships but such a fecking idiot when it comes very basic transfer talk?
I've been thinking about this. How would you stop them? Genuine question.
Simple, you wouldn't.
How is that Woodward's fault exactly? Is the CEO in charge of printing now as well?
Utd are a money making machine. It probably isn't very hard to pull off big sponsorship deals. Since the Glazers took over we have been marketed far better abroad and that has shown with the multi nationals who are throwing money at the club.
Probably because we were negotiation with Addidas and Nike at the time. The bloke is a very, very clever man and it's all about generatin revenue. United won't be paying 70m for a player. He is the Glazers front of house and will do as they direct.
They can say Glazers Out all the like unfortunately they are sat in America and will not give a damn.
Each day that passes Woodward looks even more like a total incompetent twat.
If this kind of dithering went on at a club like Bayern, Madrid, Barca etc. it would be totally unacceptable for not even a second.
For this sort of dithering to go on at Madrid, Barcelona or Bayern, they'd need to be owned by the Glazers, in which case he'd be dithering mostly because they don't want to pay what's necessary.
Years of under investment now well and truly catching up with us.
more like? He is a total incompetant twat.
Good Director of Business Development. Bad CEO.
It's not so much that we don't spend anything like we should given our means, but that the money we do spend quite often doesn't seem to address the glaring weaknesses. So when people say "But we've spent £60m this summer", well of course we did. In the ordinary course of things that's what a club of our size should be spending, never mind in a window following the season we've just had, when the need for rebuilding is quite obvious. So we might sign Di Maria, and he'll probably be great for us, but why are we still rattling around the second tier trying to sign defenders at this stage of the summer? Why haven't we invested in a genuinely top class midfielder? I like Herrera but he's not at that level yet, if indeed he ever gets there.
To my mind Woodward has to take some blame for that, as it's his job to guide the owners on what's needed to have a successful team which is the reason for the entire commercial monster we seem to take so much pride in and also because he's there to get those difficult deals across the line. At the moment he hasn't done that and, IMHO, even if we bring in top players between now and the end of the window those delays might be enough to rule us out of the title race conclusively, though personally I never saw that as realistic.
To my mind Woodward has to take some blame for that, as it's his job to guide the owners on what's needed to have a successful team which is the reason for the entire commercial monster we seem to take so much pride in and also because he's there to get those difficult deals across the line. At the moment he hasn't done that and, IMHO, even if we bring in top players between now and the end of the window those delays might be enough to rule us out of the title race conclusively, though personally I never saw that as realistic.
Regardless of who comes in this week, we really need to hire a DOF, Woodward clearly needs help.
We should have never been allowed to lose that match Saturday, LVG said he knew before the match we needed players therefore Woodward knew as well.
Woodward is way better at signing inanimate objects.
100m is a lot of money but because they underinvested in previous years it is nowhere near enough. They have let the team deteriorate so much it is now a major rebuilding job. The fact that they have quite happily let us spend on some 2nd rate players in the past because they don't know football and nobody has alerted them to the fact SAF and Gill were wasting money in the wrong places(yes they must take some of the blame as well) has led to this. They obviously thought Moyes would be happy with any money at all to spend, but I even think he was surprised by our incompetence at signing players. So that is another season where the team has got worse and now LvG has one hell of a task on his hands. Yes he might now be getting his wish to manage a PL team, but it might not be at the level he expected unless major additions are made.
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From the Premier league to League 2, Only Exeter City have made less signings than Manchester United.
Couldn't agree more. It's obvious in my opinion.
That is shocking.
I agree. But the big question is would LVG be comfortable working with someone on transfers. The main problem for us this summer is LVG being in the WC.
BUT BUT WE SPENT 60 MILLIONSS!1!!
Whilst i'm starting to get nervous, it's not purely a numbers game! Whilst only Exeter have signed less players putting us right at the bottom of the list, we've spent £60m on two players which probably puts us up into the top 2% in terms of spend.
I don't want us filling spaces with anyone that is going. I hope that LvG is casting his net after a few select players. Whether we get them is another matter entirely, but lets not just go after all and sundry purely to put more average players on our bench!
Glazer must be very proud now
During the match Saturday, the Glazer in attendance looked almost as pissed as I was.
LVG has made it public now twice that he needs signings... clearly the problem isnt LVG so its either Woodward is out of his depth or the money isnt there.
I believe the money to be there, there is simply too much at stake long term.
Woodward isnt up to dealing with transfers.
feck what we spent on them. Honestly if we are dumb enough to pay 30 million pounds for Shaw then so be it. Doesnt change the fact we need to rebuild and so our transfer window was always going to be rated by who and how many players we got in rather what we paid for them.
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