This. Except he probably knows more than your average fan given the info he has available to him.
Why the negativity against Ed and the Glazers? Sorry I don't follow
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What do you mean neither did anyone else?
Spurs and City clearly have a plan and direction at top level.
If you think Woodward has had a plan for the club other than to make money, please tell me what it is?
I’m sorry but after knowing all of it from behind the scenes, SAF recommended....err Moyes?!
He has worked with the club for around 15 years to be fair. Before he became vice-executive officer, he was essentially Gill's deputy. Yet he suddenly knows nothing about football, but some guys here know cause they played FM a lot, and made some posts in redcafe.
We finsihed second last season that was his trial, if he'd have finished out of the top 4 he'd have been sacked. Our board should not be saying finish second again and only then can you sign another player.
Our manager is not the only one deciding targets and no matter what some like to parrot from the sun our manager is very unlikely to have provided only a couple of candidates. Also the club will have gone over them with him and the scouts in detail to agree before the summer window even started. If that level of basic governance wasn't carried out then its on Ed again, either why he's involved in this balls up.
He actually rated Cleverley and Anderson even if it seems ridiculous in hindsight.
Because that's what everyone is saying, that they know better, not that we should have a director of football/technical director as a go to between Eddy and the manager. Someone who can define the direction of the club.
You make shit up and then reply to it aggressively. You posts are terrible.
Agree . This is were we stole a march on our rivals in the early 90s club new all seater stadiums were coming in. And did old Trafford before the others, made it bigger more seats more money. SAF took control learned of others ie Wenger when he come . We have stagnated in the last 3 or 4 years. The main set up is all there now the football side is behind the rest it needs to be sorted . And I'm sorry to say we have to spend spend spend..As they should because outside of a couple of directors none of them have a clue about football
Woodward and the Glazers have allowed us to stand still during this summer transfer window, at a time where City were already streets ahead of us and Liverpool have spent tons and all because the players the manager wants didn't make commercial sense
'Ed knows nothing about football', 'he should have signed X player for Y amount' is exactly what a lot of posters are saying and have been saying for a long time. About DoF, I have advocated it long before you signed up in Caf, it was clear that since Fergie left we should have got a DoF.
If you find my posts terrible you can either report them, or ignore me. Or both.
In developing Manchester United as a commercial behemoth, no one can have an argument against any of these guys.
I don't think you can put a date of when football got bloated by money, but in a time where clubs like Chelsea and City grew unnaturally due to unbelievable, United needed to do something in order to keep ahead of the chasing pack.
Now even in recent years where our claim to fame is 2 domestic cups and the second rate European title, the club sits on a record share price, record revenues, record breaking sponsorship deals and a queue of corporations ready to partner their brand with United. This is all down to the great business minds.
Where these people fall short is on the actual football side. David Gill worked very closely with Sir Alex and he seemed to understand the football side as well as the money side. He was a great middle man between the great man and the Glazers.
Discontent at the moment in time arises because the club backed the manager in January and gave him a new contract, only to not follow through on what he wanted to do to the squad in the summer. Football people would back their man, and don't get me wrong I'm not sat here saying that Jose's plans would have worked either.
I don't think you can put a date of when football got bloated by money, but in a time where clubs like Chelsea and City grew unnaturally due to unbelievable, United needed to do something in order to keep ahead of the chasing pack.
Now even in recent years where our claim to fame is 2 domestic cups and the second rate European title, the club sits on a record share price, record revenues, record breaking sponsorship deals and a queue of corporations ready to partner their brand with United. This is all down to the great business minds.
Where these people fall short is on the actual football side. David Gill worked very closely with Sir Alex and he seemed to understand the football side as well as the money side. He was a great middle man between the great man and the Glazers.
Discontent at the moment in time arises because the club backed the manager in January and gave him a new contract, only to not follow through on what he wanted to do to the squad in the summer. Football people would back their man, and don't get me wrong I'm not sat here saying that Jose's plans would have worked either.
Here's a excerpt from a Fergie book. You can be sure that he faced the same rubbish now and then, but rightly didn't stand for it.
Why the feck have I never read any Fergie books? Is this his autobiography? I need to order it right now.
You need to calm down a bit, buddy. Read posts before replying to them. Generalizing and saying that, "......some guys here know cause they played FM a lot, and made some posts in redcafe" is just plain wrong when not even a small number is saying that they are football experts. All I read is people saying that Eddy knows little about football and should get help, like you mention you also believe. Is by advocating that, you are also a FM playing expert? Because Eddy hasn't appointed one and he has been with the club for 15 years.
They have hired three managers in a row who don't play attacking football and were on downward career trajectories.
Exactly. It's laughable that our fans think we're a big enough club that we should be up there with the absolute top teams in Europe, but then also support the penny pinching methods of our board. Teams like Barca and Madrid don't think twice about splashing huge sums on the players they want. Juve were delighted to sign 33 year old Ronaldo this season. If we'd done that, half the Utd fans would be reaching for the smelling salts, fainting at the prospect of a bad resale value instead of looking forward to having a player of his calibre in our team this season.
To be fair when Fergie left how many teams had a DOF and were successful at it in the premier league.
Man City had that great season followed by a disastrous season where the manager was blaming the directors for not signing players.
Spurs and Liverpool were not going anyway. The only ones who were good at it were Chelsea but they were loaning every fecker.
I can see why the club in 2013 didn’t feel the need to appoint one.
I just feel we been playing catch up ever since that first transfer window. We held onto old players too long and obviously had to spend big money to replace them. You won’t find a Rio or Vidic in the reserves.
Agreed. We know feck all.
Let's assume that it's all been down to the managers: Moyes, LvG & Mourinho.
Ed is the one who hired at the very least 2 of them. He shares a huge chunk of blame. He also didn't fully back Mourinho this summer, as evident by the briefing when the window closed.
If our managers have been failures, then the guy hiring them have been as well, it's that simple.
They have a negative net spent on the last 5 years (while our is around 500m, so in transfers alone we have payed more than 500m more than them in the last 5 years), and have signed feck all this season after selling their best ever play. At least we signed Valencia to replace him. And Michael fecking Owen.
Since Fergie left, we have the second highest net spent in the world (after City) and third/fourth highest gross spent (after City, Barca and might be PSG). City and PSG are richer than us, Barca comparable (and in 2 out of these 5 years, were richer).
Glazers want money from the club - nothing else.
Woodward wants to make money for the Glazers - nothing else.
Because of this MUFC now exists to primarily make money, football is secondary.
I'm astounded how anyone ever could or can still be supportive of this.
Woodward wants to make money for the Glazers - nothing else.
Because of this MUFC now exists to primarily make money, football is secondary.
I'm astounded how anyone ever could or can still be supportive of this.
Post of the month.Yeah, the plan in 2013 was to have Fergie Mk2 (Busby MK3), which was idiotic, but I guess that we owned Fergie that much. When Moyes was sacked though, we should had immediately hired a DoF. I don't know if it was idealism or incompetency to be blamed for not doing so. Everyone knew that both LVG and Mourinho are short term managers, so why we didn't have a DoF to plan long term is a mystery.
Probably Ed thinks that he can become our Florentino Perez. Thing is, in the entire history of football, there haven't been many Perezs, so finding one is as hard as finding a Fergie.
If you're holding this against them, which managers were better options at the time?
I agree with the OP. I said during last season that I personally couldn’t see any signings taking us from second to third, which is unusual. Many would sarcastically comment in the TF about links to any player that they will ‘be shit when they join us anyway’. And that’s the real issue for me.
We need a RW, Jose came in and bought one, who he immediately marginalised for months, played for a bit, and then sold him the following January. We need a centre half, yet Jose has bought two, none of whom have improved us.
I’m not a Jose detractor per se, but it’s clear that things are not as they should be and I wouldn’t be encouraged to hand over huge sums of money again without a bit of restructuring of our whole approach first. Even our fans don’t expect any signings to make much difference.
I think we should be selling before we buy at this stage. If Jose wants a centre half, sell one of the ones you have already splashed on, or the one you gave a 5-year deal to in January but seemingly don’t rate anymore. If you want a left-back, sell Shaw or Darmian. He can’t maintain this position if not wanting to sell anyone but be active in the market.
From a tactical perspective, there seems to be little plan too. All trial and error. When he signed Mkhi, he just said he signed ‘a creative’. Not specific on role. He tried him on the right, tried him as a 10, tried in the left. He wasn’t bought as ‘a right winger’. We didn’t have a clear plan of where to put him. Pogba has been similarly shifted around. Started off in a midfield 2 with fecking Fellaini, then has alternated between a 2 and a 3. Last season, we couldn’t say whether we would play 4 or 5 at the back from game to game. We still seem to be searching for a formula. We need a fecking clue far more than we need a RW, CB or LB. when we get that, the personnel requirements will become all the more obvious.
We need a RW, Jose came in and bought one, who he immediately marginalised for months, played for a bit, and then sold him the following January. We need a centre half, yet Jose has bought two, none of whom have improved us.
I’m not a Jose detractor per se, but it’s clear that things are not as they should be and I wouldn’t be encouraged to hand over huge sums of money again without a bit of restructuring of our whole approach first. Even our fans don’t expect any signings to make much difference.
I think we should be selling before we buy at this stage. If Jose wants a centre half, sell one of the ones you have already splashed on, or the one you gave a 5-year deal to in January but seemingly don’t rate anymore. If you want a left-back, sell Shaw or Darmian. He can’t maintain this position if not wanting to sell anyone but be active in the market.
From a tactical perspective, there seems to be little plan too. All trial and error. When he signed Mkhi, he just said he signed ‘a creative’. Not specific on role. He tried him on the right, tried him as a 10, tried in the left. He wasn’t bought as ‘a right winger’. We didn’t have a clear plan of where to put him. Pogba has been similarly shifted around. Started off in a midfield 2 with fecking Fellaini, then has alternated between a 2 and a 3. Last season, we couldn’t say whether we would play 4 or 5 at the back from game to game. We still seem to be searching for a formula. We need a fecking clue far more than we need a RW, CB or LB. when we get that, the personnel requirements will become all the more obvious.
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The difference between us and those teams is that we lost Giggs, Scholes, Rio, Vidic, Evra, Rooney and Van Persie next to nothing. Those players needed replacing, so the board needed to spend big.
You could argue Barca lost Xavi and Iniesta. They signed Rakitic and Coutinho. They replaced world class players with other world class players. Not saying the latter two are as good before anyone asks.
We did a shoddy job of replacing the above players.
You're saying we haven't spent enough?
A transfer for an overinflated price for an average footballer? Maguire for anything above 30-40M? Leicester would laugh their way to the bank and it would be a shitty footballing decision.
Maybe Madrid weren't spending because they didn't need to be. Do you think if they hadn't won Leagues or Champions leagues consistently over the past few years, they'd just be sitting on their hands waiting for some value? No, they'd spend their way back to the top and not stop until they got there. That's the bonus about actually getting to the top, you can ease up on spending money once you're there. If you ease up before you get there, then chances are you're not ever going to get there.
The difference between Woodward and Perez is that when Perez really wants his man he will get him 9/10 times. Where as Woodward just seems to get played about especially if the Godin and Umtiti stories are true.
Perez also has full control. Woodward needs to ask the Glazers permission.
But we spent quite a lot of money since Fergie left. Around 700m pounds, recuperated circa 200m from players sales. Barca in addition to those two you mentioned, lost also Neymar, Alves and Mascherano, three very important players.
Our biggest problem has been that we spent money in a poor manner, either on not good players, or on players not suitable for us. Blame that on managers who did so, and on Ed who hired them and didn't hire a DoF to second guess managers. But blaming him for not spending money is (IMO) wrong. Cause we did that. On Rafa's words, that is a facht.
You're saying we have spent enough and should just stop and cross our fingers?
Doesn't this work both ways though? Maybe Fergie didn't spent money on 2008, 2009 and 2010 because he didn't need so. We spent money in all other seasons as long as I can remember.
Madrid had many problems last season and just lost Ronaldo without replacing him. Why they are still counted as a club who spends a lot compared to us? If this was 2009 sure, but one decade later?
Like Mahrez? VVD? Salah? Mendy?
How many more managers will we go through before the OP cottons on, you reckon?
I'm going for 2-3 more.
Baffles me.
The club has been on the decline for 10 years under these owners and was accelerated further when Gill was replaced by Woodward and Fergie left who had major control on the club.
And the decline shows no sign of stopping.
I'm going for 2-3 more.
Baffles me.
The club has been on the decline for 10 years under these owners and was accelerated further when Gill was replaced by Woodward and Fergie left who had major control on the club.
And the decline shows no sign of stopping.
I agree that Woody is nowhere as a good CEO (let's call him CEO despite not being one) or powerful as Perez.
Perez has missed on many players he wanted in the last few years. Since Bale he has signed only James and Courtuis from players he wanted. No De Gea, Hazard, Pogba etc.
Perez can spot talent and has an eye for good players - Woodward not so much.
Darmian, Blind, Rojo etc and extending Fellani's contract makes me think player recruitment is not is forte.
Yeah I agree with you that we spent the money badly. So the board will need to spend again. Is Jose the man to trust with that money? Not for me because how many of his signings have actually worked out. The team definitely shouldn’t be conceding possession at home to Leicester or conceding 3 goals to Brighton.
My point was the club made a mistake keeping too many old players around at the same time. You can’t just let all Vidic, Ferdinand, Evra, Scholes and Giggs go in one year and not expect a drop in quality. Fergie wasn’t ruthless enough in his latter years hence why he held onto average like Young and Cleverley.
Don't you think that there is a lot of luck involved when everything just falls into place at a club?
Leicester crawled out of the arse end of nowhere to become premier league champions, and then were almost flushed back where they came from.
Klopp instead of Moyes and Van Gaal. Conte instead of Mourinho.