Blaming Woodward and all those above Ole

[shamans]

After a terrible managerial display of starting Lingard we once again hear "Woodward out".

 

[RedDevil@84]

After a terrible managerial display of starting Lingard we once again hear "Woodward out".

Its a more than decent call. At least people are coming out of this delusion that we are just one manager away from some sort of glory times.

 

[RedBanker]

In the most crucial, marketable summer since SAF (a top manager, a squad with big name players and a 2nd placed finish, rivals strenghtening) we bought an overpriced CM and a backup RB/GK and set the clock back by years again

This. I have always and forever been arguing with my mates as to this being the real wtf moment of the last decade for our club. Why on earth will you not back a pedigreed manager whom you appointed especially after he has got you into second place and won in Europe? It had to be a ego trip for Woodward who was probably afraid that Mourinho would usurp his power and position, if God forbid he bettered the previous seasons achievements. We all knew Mourinho was always about results. Why not see what is the extent to which he can improve our results?

 

[shamans]

Its a more than decent call. At least people are coming out of this delusion that we are just one manager away from some sort of glory times.

Woodward sucks but ole is worse.

 

[Gehrman]

This. I have always and forever been arguing with my mates as to this being the real wtf moment of the last decade for our club. Why on earth will you not back a pedigreed manager whom you appointed especially after he has got you into second place and won in Europe? It had to be a ego trip for Woodward who was probably afraid that Mourinho would usurp his power and position, if God forbid he bettered the previous seasons achievements. We all knew Mourinho was always about results. Why not see what is the extent to which he can improve our results?

I sort have to agree, but look at how many of José's transfers that has been a succes. The Glazers don't want us to keep wasting money without it showing on the pitch. We've hardly had 1 transfer that was 100% succes despite spending around 1 billion pounds since Saf.

 

[steffyr2]

This. I have always and forever been arguing with my mates as to this being the real wtf moment of the last decade for our club. Why on earth will you not back a pedigreed manager whom you appointed especially after he has got you into second place and won in Europe? It had to be a ego trip for Woodward who was probably afraid that Mourinho would usurp his power and position, if God forbid he bettered the previous seasons achievements. We all knew Mourinho was always about results. Why not see what is the extent to which he can improve our results?

Because 2nd was good enough for the board. Mourinho wanted to win. Also, Mourinho could see that if we didn't go forward, we'd go backwards....the board would rather not spend money. Many of the fans wanted to torpedo the manager and didn't care about that season.

 

[Nou_Camp99]

After a terrible managerial display of starting Lingard we once again hear "Woodward out".

Two wrongs don't make a right. Ole being out of his depth (which he is) doesn't mean Woodward isn't as well. Both of them are and badly out of their depth too.

I want a clean sweep in 2020. New owners, new CEO and finally a new manager. I think the Saudis will eventually buy the club whatever some fans may think about them.

 

[AshRK]

Woodward sucks but ole is worse.

And who appointed Ole?

 

[steffyr2]

I sort have to agree, but look at how many of José's transfers that has been a succes. The Glazers don't want us to keep wasting money without it showing on the pitch. We've hardly had 1 transfer that was 100% succes despite spending around 1 billion pounds since Saf.

I'm not sure why people keep saying things like this. Who exactly would you consider to be a success without a team around them? Our fowards look bad with no midfield to pass them the ball. Our midfield looks bad with holes in the defense. Ore players are constantly injured because they're overworked. If we'd continued to improve window by window, there'd look like a plan. As it is, we look like we haven't a clue.

 

[RedDevil@84]

Woodward sucks but ole is worse.

Maybe, but firing Ole and not firing Woodward is just fail, hire, rinse, repeat. It doesn't matter if Poch or Klopp becomes next coach.

 

[Gehrman]

I'm not sure why people keep saying things like this. Who exactly would you consider to be a success without a team around them? Our fowards look bad with no midfield to pass them the ball. Our midfield looks bad with holes in the defense. Ore players are constantly injured because they're overworked. If we'd continued to improve window by window, there'd look like a plan. As it is, we look like we haven't a clue.

We've spent more than enough money to have a team. When I talk about succesfull transfers, I simply mean players who have matched expectations.

 

[djembatheking]

The penny will drop one day . As long as the Glazers/Woodward are here we will be wallowing in a cesspit of mediocrity .

 

[RedDevil@84]

The penny will drop one day .

How?? When?? The stands are full. The merchandise still sells. Season tickets are still being sold.

 

[steffyr2]

We've spent more than enough money to have a team. When I talk about succesfull transfers, I simply mean players who have matched expectations.

Back in the day, Sir Alex would change every year, review every player each season, add something new. Now the board, and the fans for some reason, want to count every penny.
As soon as we reached 2nd, the board lifted off the accelerator.

 

[Gehrman]

Back in the day, Sir Alex would change every year, review every player each season, add something new. Now the board, and the fans for some reason, want to count every penny.
As soon as we reached 2nd, the board lifted off the accelerator.

Fergie actually spent quite little compared to our revenue. Clubs like Liverpool outspent us in the same period. City and Chelsea as well. I think it was Mourinho wanting to buy Perisic despite having Martial and a flopped Sanchez on mega wages. Wanting to buy a ball playing CB in maguire despite having tons CB's and 2 he had already bought while selling Blind.


But I agree, the board should have pushed on spend what was needed to compete for the league but didn't trust José with the money.

 

[Fluctuation0161]

I've had enough of people shoving all the blame on Ed Woodward and defending Ole with this whole "until Woodward resigns". Complete nonsense. I'm not here to say Woodward has done a great or even good job but it is nowhere near the incompetency Ole has shown.

Woodward backed every LVG transfer till the end. Backed Mourinho with all sorts of players he wanted that turned out to be garbage. Mourinho was not backed for one season because of his failed transfer record. Yes Woodward made a mistake giving Mourinho that long contract and I said it back then as well but at the time it did make sense.

Now he has made (in hindsight) the mistake of appointing Ole but put yourself in Woodwards shoes. Imagine not giving Ole the contract back then and getting another manager in who may also have failed. We would have slaughtered Woodward for "what could have been" with how Ole was winning every game. Still, Woodward does take some blame for not giving him a shorter contract or waiting till the end of the season.

When it comes to summer 2019 transfers I simply do not understand how Ed Woodward is getting the blame. Time and time again, press conference after press conference Ole has shown his naive approach when it comes to judging players. Ole truly believed we would be fine going in this season with youth like Greenwood and Perreira. Okay, Wan Bissaka Maguire and James are good transfers but they cost a fortune -- any of us could have known Wan Bissaka or Maguire would be good fits. A top manager would (such as Poch) would find a low price bargain. Someone like a Soyuncu.

Ole chose to let Fellaini and Lukaku go and replace them with youngsters from the academy. If Ole identified targets such as Dybala, Bale and/or Modric and the board failed to get them that is not the boards fault. Identifying world class players can be done by any of us on here. The manager failing to identify realistic targets is another blunder on his part.

Furthermore, Woodward is not to blame for Ole playing Perreira on the wings, Mata on the right and back three's when we don't need it.

Yeah feck Woodward but Ole's failure has nothing to do with him. We can be a very successful club even with a shitty board.

Woodward is definitely to blame for our gross mismanagement since 2013.

Ole is not good enough either. That is true.

But guess who hired him?

 

[El Zoido]

Its a more than decent call. At least people are coming out of this delusion that we are just one manager away from some sort of glory times.

Absolutely true, people need to understand this. I don’t know how we go from firing three manager in five years yet people think if we fire the 4th one, the next one will be great. There’s one consistency in this whole debacle, and it’s not fecking Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

 

[Fluctuation0161]

We've spent more than enough money to have a team. When I talk about succesfull transfers, I simply mean players who have matched expectations.

Woodward signed LVG and then invested heavily in players which suited his philosophy. Possession based weaklings!

Then Woodward hired Jose. He required anti possession giants for counter attacking. So the LVG investment was wasted.

Who is to blame for this? Woodward.

 

[Gehrman]

Absolutely true, people need to understand this. I don’t know how we go from firing three manager in five years yet people think if we fire the 4th one, the next one will be great. There’s one consistency in this whole debacle, and it’s not fecking Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

There is really nothing wrong with firing managers when you can replace them with better ones. Klopp is an example. Other big clubs do it all the time. Why persist with a poor manager? It's even more detrimental to have a poor manager than a poor player.

 

[Tincanalley]

How can anyone be even debating this, at this point? Check out your face. Hopefully there is an appendage there, above your mouth. That's your nose. Use it to sniff out useless cnuts and parasites on the club. May I introduce the Glazers and their little pet pig? Ole, well, humm. Ole is OK, he is a nice lad, with an enchanting smile. He is - right now - an eminently middling manager. Maybe he can improve, maybe he can learn.

 

[Terminator]

No replacements for Herrera, Fellaini, Lukaku and Sanchez. No matter how poor they were, they were regular first players. We have no ambition and that's undeniable.

 

[do.ob]

I sort have to agree, but look at how many of José's transfers that has been a succes. The Glazers don't want us to keep wasting money without it showing on the pitch. We've hardly had 1 transfer that was 100% succes despite spending around 1 billion pounds since Saf.

How can you try to make that particular excuse for Woodward, when it's him who has the final responsibility for every last cent of that 1 billion. People who study sports management will probably spent entire semesters analyzing Woodward's work at United.

 

[El Zoido]

There is really nothing wrong with firing managers when you can replace them with better ones. Klopp is an example. Other big clubs do it all the time. Why persist with a poor manager? It's even more detrimental to have a poor manager than a poor player.

What’s the point in churning good managers through this shit system. Klopp would win feck all at United and would be gone within two years. Fortunately for him he’s smart enough to not even want to come here in the first place, as will be the case with most good managers.

 

[passing-wind]

Its a more than decent call. At least people are coming out of this delusion that we are just one manager away from some sort of glory times.

That's very true but the same happened for Liverpool, the problem with Woodward is actually what fans want with Solskjaer and that's backing managers with funds and resources.

Solskjaer is content performing under an old regime that has seen Mourinho / LVG / Moyes get fired and it's the lack of infrastructure between the manager / Woodward which is the problem. We need a mediator between the two (DOF), so that if Solskjaer is sacked we don't have a revolving door rebuild of continually reinstituting a transition over and over again dependant on who the manager is. The problem with this club is not Woodward himself, the problem is the position he currently occupies.

The shortsightedness I see with fans is that the answers to Ole's inadequacies is give him funds which is exactly what got us in this mess in the first place. Einstein's theology of doing the exact same thing and expecting different results bodes well with our present circumstances. The long term aspirations for the club to successfully move forward is to scout a DOF before even thinking about allocating resources to Solskjaer, because Ole likewise any coach CANNOT guarantee his success here.

The DOF gives the manager / club the platform to build upon. We have it the other way round which contributes to the mess. I'm expecting nothing but failure for the next 5 years until the hierarchy is reformed.

 

[Gehrman]

What’s the point in churning good managers through this shit system. Klopp would win feck all at United and would be gone within two years. Fortunately for him he’s smart enough to not even want to come here in the first place, as will be the case with most good managers.

Klopp would not win feck all if he got 400 million to spend like José.

 

[Gehrman]

How can you try to make that particular excuse for Woodward, when it's him who has the final responsibility for every last cent of that 1 billion. People who study sports management will probably spent entire semesters analyzing Woodward's work at United.

I'm not excusing Woody, but he backed the managers untill it became obvious how much money was wasted. I think Woody needs to go as well, but no one was unhappy with him hiring Van Gaal at the time, and no was unhappy about him hiring Mourinho. He backed the managers in their first 2 seasons and there's hardly a player worth showing for it.

 

[AshRK]

I'm not excusing Woody, but he backed the managers untill it became obvious how much money was wasted. I think Woody needs to go as well, but no one was unhappy with him hiring Van Gaal at the time, and no was unhappy about him hiring Mourinho. He backed the managers in their first 2 seasons and there's hardly a player worth showing for it.

The key is for 2 seasons. Jose signed a contract extension in Jan 2018 when he should not have been offered one and then in 6 months the club decided not to back him that summer. If they were not planning to back him then why was he given a contract extension in the first place and why did not the club sack him in the summer itself. We wasted full 2018-19 season because of Woodward's incompetence.

 

[Gehrman]

The key is for 2 seasons. Jose signed a contract extension in Jan 2018 when he should not have been offered one and then in 6 months the club decided not to back him that summer. If they were not planning to back him then why was he given a contract extension in the first place and why did not the club sack him in the summer itself. We wasted full 2018-19 season because of Woodward's incompetence.

2 seasons is a lot if they spend a feckload of money and get outperformed by clubs spending way less. Mourinho could have pulled a Poch and get on with doing his job as best as possible instead of throwing his toys out of the pram and try to get sacked. I think if we hadn't signed Sanchez, he would have been backed more. If though the club is wealthy they don't have unlimited funds like City.

 

[do.ob]

I'm not excusing Woody, but he backed the managers untill it became obvious how much money was wasted. I think Woody needs to go as well, but no one was unhappy with him hiring Van Gaal at the time, and no was unhappy about him hiring Mourinho. He backed the managers in their first 2 seasons and there's hardly a player worth showing for it.

But Woodwards job is far more than just being a money dispenser for randomly selected coaches. It's his job to give the club a clear football identity, so the club doesn't flip flop between counter attacking and possession hungry coaches (e.g. Moyes -> LVG -> Mou) and it's his job to put a recruitment system into play that doesn't result in making midtable players the most expensive players in history for their positions.
His coaches didn't do spectacular work and well earned their sackings in the end that much is true, but a club shouldn't live and die by the coach it appoints. Bayern for example got it totally wrong with Kovac, but because the club as a whole is (or at least was until recently) well run they didn't collapse because of it, infact they already hired Flick as a safety net in the summer. Similarly with Barca and Real, the lasting damage a coach can do at these clubs is quite limited, because they have have mid to long term strategies that run (to a degree) indepently of them.

 

[AshRK]

2 seasons is a lot if they spend a feckload of money and get outperformed by clubs spending way less. Mourinho could have pulled a Poch and get on with doing his job as best as possible instead of throwing his toys out of the pram and try to get sacked. I think if we hadn't signed Sanchez, he would have been backed more. If though the club is wealthy they don't have unlimited funds like City.

Every tom and harry in 2018 summer knew Jose will start acting up if he is not backed more. The whole summer he did nothing but went on crying. History shows how Jose acts if he is not given his toys, then how come the board thought things will be fine with Jose. That's called poor planning and that is why Woodward should not be making footballing decisions.

Jose should not have been given a contract extension and instead the club should have waited till the season end to see how we do in CL and if we win a trophy or not. After the Sevilla game most could tell we were going in a downward spiral and that was a good indication that time to let Jose go and appoint another manager or if you are going to stick with Jose then spend more on players that Jose needs considering that's how Jose's modus operandi is. We neither sacked him that summer nor we fulfilled his wishes of spending more money on players he want but we just wasted the whole freaking season in a stupid hope that Jose does a Poch. How anyone can defend Woodward after that is beyond me.

 

[Fluctuation0161]

I'm not excusing Woody, but he backed the managers untill it became obvious how much money was wasted. I think Woody needs to go as well, but no one was unhappy with him hiring Van Gaal at the time, and no was unhappy about him hiring Mourinho. He backed the managers in their first 2 seasons and there's hardly a player worth showing for it.

He needs to be more strategic than the fans. That is his job.

 

[steffyr2]

Fergie actually spent quite little compared to our revenue. Clubs like Liverpool outspent us in the same period. City and Chelsea as well. I think it was Mourinho wanting to buy Perisic despite having Martial and a flopped Sanchez on mega wages. Wanting to buy a ball playing CB in maguire despite having tons CB's and 2 he had already bought while selling Blind.


But I agree, the board should have pushed on spend what was needed to compete for the league but didn't trust José with the money.

Accounting for inflation?
I agree that it costs less to maintain a team than to be creating one....plus Sir Alex should have spent more towards the end.

 

[Gehrman]

Accounting for inflation?
I agree that it costs less to maintain a team than to be creating one....plus Sir Alex should have spent more towards the end.

I agree Saf should have spent more. It went downhill since we started replacing quality or world class players with average ones. Valencia and Michael Owen for Ronaldo and Tevez. Phil Jones and Smalling for Ferdinand and Vidic. Cleverly for Scholes etc.

We could easily have splashed the cash on proven world class players.

 

[steffyr2]

Fergie actually spent quite little compared to our revenue. Clubs like Liverpool outspent us in the same period. City and Chelsea as well. I think it was Mourinho wanting to buy Perisic despite having Martial and a flopped Sanchez on mega wages. Wanting to buy a ball playing CB in maguire despite having tons CB's and 2 he had already bought while selling Blind.


But I agree, the board should have pushed on spend what was needed to compete for the league but didn't trust José with the money.

You say "didn't trust Jose"; i say "didn't want to spend". Same result. But, as someone says below, they'd just extended Jose's contract and he'd just got them to 2nd, how could they reasonably not trust him?

 

[Gehrman]

You say "didn't trust Jose"; i say "didn't want to spend". Same result. But, as someone says below, they'd just extended Jose's contract and he'd just got them to 2nd, how could they reasonably not trust him?

Look at how many of Mourinho's players were worth their transfer fee and our wagebill. Spending another 200 million on players who will be past it in max 2 years is a gamble. Maybe they expected Mourinho to act like a profressional and work with what he already had.

 

[red thru&thru]

So, has Ed or anyone from the club confirmed any new changes to the clubs structure? Anything significant that will see us progress?

 

[shamans]

And who appointed Ole?

Appointing Ole wasn't wrong. It was worth the punt. Giving him a long term contract was wrong.

Imagine he hadn't appointed Ole after that winning streak. Everyone on here would slaughter him for it. My point is we can succeed with a good manager and a bad chairman. Woodward leaving United would be for the good but the major issue here is Ole.

 

[clarkydaz]

So, has Ed or anyone from the club confirmed any new changes to the clubs structure? Anything significant that will see us progress?

expect a machine gun of stories. Director of Football, (SUMMER) warchest, scouting network developed by NASA etc

 

[shamans]

Maybe, but firing Ole and not firing Woodward is just fail, hire, rinse, repeat. It doesn't matter if Poch or Klopp becomes next coach.

This I don't buy at all. It's insulating Ole as if he hasn't had a "fair chance". We would be successful with a manager like Klopp or Pep. Poch? I'm not sure but certainly better than now.

We have had managers spend tons of money on substandard players. Management is the real reason we're here. Woodward's incompetency is also a factor but not nearly as much imo.

Look at where the managers we had have gone now. At their level, retired, still losing games at Totenham. We need a better manager. If we get a good one, we will be successful.

If woodward gets sacked I'd be delighted but more importantly we need a top manager.

 

[AshRK]

Appointing Ole wasn't wrong. It was worth the punt. Giving him a long term contract was wrong.

Imagine he hadn't appointed Ole after that winning streak. Everyone on here would slaughter him for it. My point is we can succeed with a good manager and a bad chairman. Woodward leaving United would be for the good but the major issue here is Ole.

We should have waited till the season was over, it would have been smart that way. It was a naive move to sign him without achieving top 4.

If replacing manager alone would have made us successful then how come after replacing 3 managers and wanting to replace 4th and still we are not successful. By just having a bad chairman making bad footballing decision we are just hoping for luck. The club right now is just hopeful that Ole somehow weaves his magic. What is even a guarantee the same bad chairman will get it right this time. Ole may not be the answer and should be let go but I do not trust this board to make a smart decision because if they were smart then they would have already hired a competent manager.