Ed Woodward | Groundhog Day Edition

Cloud7

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Kinda sucks that the season has started and we haven’t concluded our transfer business
 

GiddyUp

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This club should be doing for Edwin Van Dar Sar what city did for Guardiola.
 

Coleyoscar

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We all know the facts. Woodward has made mistakes, but they have been mistakes that a lot of people would have made. Van Gaal, Mourinho. Top class managers. Big personalities that you would expect to come in and be the right type of manager for this club. It didn't work out.
How many chances does Woodward get? Blaming Van Gaal and Mourinho raises the question of who appointed them. If these world class managers failed (and they did by United standards) there are two possibilities: either they weren't supported by the club or they were the wrong choice in the first place. In either case Ed Woodward bears the responsibility.

Your defence of Woodward reminds me of the old story about the man who murdered his parents and, just as he was about to be sentenced, pleaded for clemency on the grounds that he was an orphan.
 

Bilbo

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How many chances does Woodward get? Blaming Van Gaal and Mourinho raises the question of who appointed them. If these world class managers failed (and they did by United standards) there are two possibilities: either they weren't supported by the club or they were the wrong choice in the first place. In either case Ed Woodward bears the responsibility.

Your defence of Woodward reminds me of the old story about the man who murdered his parents and, just as he was about to be sentenced, pleaded for clemency on the grounds that he was an orphan.
He gets as many chances as the Glazers decide he gets. There would have been few complaints had they moved him on during those periods. There would actually be few complaints now, but you fire someone for making mistakes at the time they are making them, not 2 years after when things appear to be on a more progressive track.

Great story though. I bet when you thought of that you couldn't wait to find a post you could massively overreact to and use it.
 

Coleyoscar

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He gets as many chances as the Glazers decide he gets. There would have been few complaints had they moved him on during those periods. There would actually be few complaints now, but you fire someone for making mistakes at the time they are making them, not 2 years after when things appear to be on a more progressive track.

Great story though. I bet when you thought of that you couldn't wait to find a post you could massively overreact to and use it.
Not sure how you come to the conclusion that losing patience with a serial failure is an overreaction. Your faith that Woodward has finally found the secret of success is touching though. Glad you liked the story, can't claim it as mine alas, it's been around for years.
 

Bilbo

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Not sure how you come to the conclusion that losing patience with a serial failure is an overreaction. Your faith that Woodward has finally found the secret of success is touching though. Glad you liked the story, can't claim it as mine alas, it's been around for years.
It was an overreaction because you tried to paint me as some kind of die-hard Woodward backer based on nothing. Typical modern redcafe where people need to be pigeonholed and have 'sides'.

I see progress at the club. I see signs that Woodward has learnt from past mistakes. Feel free to just disagree with that without going over the top
 

Coleyoscar

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It was an overreaction because you tried to paint me as some kind of die-hard Woodward backer based on nothing. Typical modern redcafe where people need to be pigeonholed and have 'sides'.

I see progress at the club. I see signs that Woodward has learnt from past mistakes. Feel free to just disagree with that without going over the top
I honestly tried to address the arguments raised rather than attack the poster. You feel that Woodward has learnt from past mistakes. I don't. I think United would be well rid of him. You're perfectly entitled to your opinion of course. You acknowledged the mistakes that he has made during his reign at the club so you're certainly not a 'die-hard' Woodward support and I didn't mean to suggest that you were.
 

Bilbo

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I honestly tried to address the arguments raised rather than attack the poster. You feel that Woodward has learnt from past mistakes. I don't. I think United would be well rid of him. You're perfectly entitled to your opinion of course. You acknowledged the mistakes that he has made during his reign at the club so you're certainly not a 'die-hard' Woodward support and I didn't mean to suggest that you were.
Its cool. No harm done

The one point that stuck with me from watching the Spurs Amazon show was when Levy said something along the lines of 'people outside football cannot fathom how difficult it can be to sign a player' and this from a CEO that has not ever tackled a transfer of this magnitude. Now the obvious counter argument to that is that clubs sign players all the time, and this is also true, but i think we need to be fully informed of all the facts before we can be so cut and dried with a judgement.

Having said that, people in football are there to be shot at and its totally right and fair that Woodward has drawn criticism in recent years. Some of the things that have happened appear almost comical, and other things are viewed with perfect hindsight such as our managerial appointments - which many supported at the time of hire.

For me though the club are now rediscovering themselves and moving forwards. Id give Ole the lions share of the credit for this, but even so I believe we now have a manager and CEO that are aligned for the first time rather than being at odds with one another, and this feels a lot closer to how Ferguson and Gill worked together and how they both believed this club should be managed.

Id say I'm cautiously optimistic about the clubs prospects right now. We are competing against clubs who have owners willing to throw their own money into the club and we do not have that luxury, so where I think Woodward would love to simply transfer £108m to Dortmund this afternoon we are forced into being creative to try to get this one over the line.
 

Fluctuation0161

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The time to put pressure on the Glazers has come and gone. Long gone. Let's not forget that a new football club was actually formed off the back of an 'exodus' of long standing reds, and it caused barely a ripple at the club.

We all know the facts. Woodward has made mistakes, but they have been mistakes that a lot of people would have made. Van Gaal, Mourinho. Top class managers. Big personalities that you would expect to come in and be the right type of manager for this club. It didn't work out.

What we see now is that decisions taken in the last 18 months or so have been a lot, lot better. There is a clear plan, and our signings have been smart. We look like we have gotten our act together, and fans now need to be patient and let this play out
This attitude is part of the problem.
 

Bilbo

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This attitude is part of the problem.
Well I'm not sure which part of my post you take issue with (all of it?) but okay. I was one of those in the stands back then with my green and gold scarf - even though I didn't think the approach that was taken was the right one, I played along. It achieved absolutely nothing at all. Neither did FC United.

What we learnt from that time was that even when emotions were at their most raw, nowhere near enough fans were willing to do what was required. Stop attending games. Stop going to the megastore. Etc etc. That was then......

Now? Who knows? There might be a renewed opportunity because supporters have adapted to being away from Old Trafford, but even then I was uncomfortable with the thought of how much we would have needed to hurt the club to get what we wanted. I still am. I would rather have the Glazers than see the Saudis come in and pump billions into the squad as an example.
 

Fluctuation0161

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Well I'm not sure which part of my post you take issue with (all of it?) but okay. I was one of those in the stands back then with my green and gold scarf - even though I didn't think the approach that was taken was the right one, I played along. It achieved absolutely nothing at all. Neither did FC United.

What we learnt from that time was that even when emotions were at their most raw, nowhere near enough fans were willing to do what was required. Stop attending games. Stop going to the megastore. Etc etc. That was then......

Now? Who knows? There might be a renewed opportunity because supporters have adapted to being away from Old Trafford, but even then I was uncomfortable with the thought of how much we would have needed to hurt the club to get what we wanted. I still am. I would rather have the Glazers than see the Saudis come in and pump billions into the squad as an example.
I agree with this post. Especially preferring Glazers over Saudi owners.

My previous point wasn't specifically directed at you, although your post reminded me of the fact. Apathy is widespread across the fanbase.

Historically if people want any kind of change it can take years for anything to happen, but a will needs to be there and a sense of not giving up.

I get the sense that the fanbase has given up getting any kind of change. Or even trying to influence the currennt ownership.
 

Bilbo

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I agree with this post. Especially preferring Glazers over Saudi owners.

My previous point wasn't specifically directed at you, although your post reminded me of the fact. Apathy is widespread across the fanbase.

Historically if people want any kind of change it can take years for anything to happen, but a will needs to be there and a sense of not giving up.

I get the sense that the fanbase has given up getting any kind of change. Or even trying to influence the currennt ownership.
Back then there were very real fears that the Glazers would bleed the club dry and we'd find ourselves playing at the McDonald's stadium, but the reality is that we, like 99% of clubs, simply have owners that want to make money from the club. We find ourselves playing catch up right now - IMO - because we've made too many bad decisions. Lack of investment is a fairly distant second place. We've invested that money poorly.

In terms of the Glazers continuing to own this club long term, the key issue is that there are so few realistic candidates that can purchase this club, and of those few many of them are not considered to be better than what we have, and in fact could easily be significantly worse, so i agree that a level of acceptance has set in amongst our fanbase but I personally feel relatively at ease with the situation. We'd all love an obscenely wealthy United fan to decide to throw his legally and ethically obtained fortune at the club, but thats not going to happen.
 

Revan

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Of course Woodward is the one who gives the final call. Managers give their suggestions and Judge seems to be the one who does negotiation now, but Woodward is the highest name in the club and anything that happens has to be with his approval. Any signing that happens he must approve it and if he doesn't, we call the deal off. Managers can say otherwise but it's pretty obvious really.

I don't that this is the problem as most clubs follow the same route I guess, there's always someone higher than the manager who gives the call. The problem is the ones above the manager at United are incompetent most of time.

Though things have been improving a little bit since last summer.
Pretty sure it is one of the Glazers (Joel?) who actually does that. Obviously, if Woody does not send it higher up, then the deal is off, but without one of the Glazers approvals, we cannot spend crazy amount of money in players.
 

Matthew84!

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our club is supposed to be one of the richest in the world, we did good business last summer but 1 good window doesn't get ed or his team of the hook, we need a new negotiator who can work quick
 

Escobar

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our club is supposed to be one of the richest in the world, we did good business last summer but 1 good window doesn't get ed or his team of the hook, we need a new negotiator who can work quick
Rich in terms of what? Revenues? That doesnt help much, especially if you have owners who want to see dividends
 

Nou_Camp99

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Sacking Woodward and Judge and getting competent people in those roles would be better than getting Sancho.

Imagine giving P Jones a new 5 year contract. That decision came after the infamous and disastrous Sanchez contract too. Now we can't sell him.

The club is stuck is no man's land until we get rid of these gobshites. I don't think we will win another league title or CL under the Glazers and Woodward.
 

Eddy_JukeZ

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If we truly have concluded our transfer business this summer(I don't think we have), the Glazers and Woodward only care about top 4 and nothing else.

I know Covid-19 has hurt a lot of clubs financially, but wasn't Woody bragging about how we have the financial muscle to overcome it?
 

murali_red

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The Glazer/Woodward shills will be here any time soon to explain why no further transfers are necessary and how we do have a lot of money to spend because the club is so well run.
Can someone find out the email and phone of Woody so that we can share the load we are discussing on CAF !!
 

Red Comet

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If we truly have concluded our transfer business this summer(I don't think we have), the Glazers and Woodward only care about top 4 and nothing else.

I know Covid-19 has hurt a lot of clubs financially, but wasn't Woody bragging about how we have the financial muscle to overcome it?
Pure PR, wait for the results to go south and talks of a DOF will be coming about again.
 

Brightonian

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There's no excuse for our not having done some business by now. No-one's saying we absolutely had to get Sancho in for £120m. But if we couldn't get him we should have made three good acquisitions by now.

Chelsea are proof that covid is no excuse. Havertz, Werner, Chilwell, Ziyech, all in. Thiago Silva on a free. Deadwood moved out (Willian, Pedro, Morata sale finalised). This is the team we all knew we were neck-and-neck with, developmentally, and they've massively stolen a march on us.
 

sp_107

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The Glazer/Woodward shills will be here any time soon to explain why no further transfers are necessary and how we do have a lot of money to spend because the club is so well run.
so no more point in watching that space?
 

Kaos

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A bit of a hot take perhaps, but could it be that Woodward has been keen to get business sorted early, but has had trouble convincing the Glazers to release the funds since the parasites would rather spend the clubs money building shite mall strips in Florida or hot dog stands for their mediocre NFL team?
 

romufc

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There's no excuse for our not having done some business by now. No-one's saying we absolutely had to get Sancho in for £120m. But if we couldn't get him we should have made three good acquisitions by now.

Chelsea are proof that covid is no excuse. Havertz, Werner, Chilwell, Ziyech, all in. Thiago Silva on a free. Deadwood moved out (Willian, Pedro, Morata sale finalised). This is the team we all knew we were neck-and-neck with, developmentally, and they've massively stolen a march on us.
Some people may not want to use Chelsea as an example.

Everton have spent in the region of £70m
Villa are looking to spend around £70m

Manutd cannot afford to spend £108m?

Lies.
 

elmo

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Pure PR, wait for the results to go south and talks of a DOF will be coming about again.
Nope. DOF talks always starts immediately once transfer window closes.

Results go south and suddenly there'll be talks of major reinforcements in the next transfer window.
 

RedStarUnited

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There's no excuse for our not having done some business by now. No-one's saying we absolutely had to get Sancho in for £120m. But if we couldn't get him we should have made three good acquisitions by now.

Chelsea are proof that covid is no excuse. Havertz, Werner, Chilwell, Ziyech, all in. Thiago Silva on a free. Deadwood moved out (Willian, Pedro, Morata sale finalised). This is the team we all knew we were neck-and-neck with, developmentally, and they've massively stolen a march on us.
Some people may not want to use Chelsea as an example.

Everton have spent in the region of £70m
Villa are looking to spend around £70m

Manutd cannot afford to spend £108m?

Lies.
Good thing you mentioned those three clubs. Have a look at this..

 

romufc

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Good thing you mentioned those three clubs. Have a look at this..

Exactly, there is no way someone can tell me the Glazers have spent money on this club.

The players we are buying, over the years is not their money.
 

Stretender

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There's no excuse for our not having done some business by now. No-one's saying we absolutely had to get Sancho in for £120m. But if we couldn't get him we should have made three good acquisitions by now.

Chelsea are proof that covid is no excuse. Havertz, Werner, Chilwell, Ziyech, all in. Thiago Silva on a free. Deadwood moved out (Willian, Pedro, Morata sale finalised). This is the team we all knew we were neck-and-neck with, developmentally, and they've massively stolen a march on us.
Unless Woodward and his friend Matt Judge ensure that they appoint a competent team in charge of transfers and all football related matters, it will always be like this. The definition of insanity is Ed Woodward and we should not expect a different outcome with him in charge. I am all for Sancho, but other signings can be made while still negotiating the Sancho deal. Selling players and buying players seem to be a big problem at United, a clear sign that the wrong people are in charge. The only thing they seem to be good at is awarding huge contracts to undeserving players. Something needs to change.
 

SER19

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I genuinely can't believe we are in this position again. It feels like a recurring nightmare of frustration. Even in light of covid this window was arguably the least complicated of any under his reign, our first xi is in good shape, and we really truly just needed some quality depth. Van de beek was a great signing and I have no big demands for mega money deals or marquee names, but if Man United can't sign three substitutes that are an upgrade on lingard, Pereira and James then we really should be actively protesting this set up.

We will have an arduous year with congestion and so on, and when Solskjaer is sending out lingard James and Rojo in a CL knockout game, please remember this before slating the manager
 

amolbhatia50k

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Good thing you mentioned those three clubs. Have a look at this..

:lol: The Glazers

If the talk of our lessening financial muscle and inability to get business this summer done is an indicator, we could well be in for a very long title drought. And if this has to do with having wasted money for years on the wrong players/managers then surely Woodward and Judge should be sacked?

Let's see what the pair of them can pull off by October 5th. But all these signs are worrisome. Like I said in another thing, one thing you could have faith in during this post SAF phase, was our abundance of resources. If we don't even have that, then it's looking bleak.
 

White Fury

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I am now certain that Manchester United WILL NEVER WIN the League or Champions league EVER AGAIN under Glazers ownership and Woodward as active CEO meddling in football related stuff along with his butt buddy Matt Judge. Sir Alex Ferguson was a magician to win so many trophies under these parasites.

Current Glazers are bad businessmen. Malcom Glazer single-handedly built the family fortune, he was a driving force in their family and the better businessman. His offspring are incompetent and just leeching from their father's work. Pretty sure if Malcom was still alive and sane he would have sacked Woodward and his cronies for their sheer incompetence.
Glazers dont run Man Utd as a football club but as a business, they dont care about trophies, dont have the ambition to make the club worlds best, top 4 is their main target for TV and sponsorship money. When were out of top 4 then they let the club spend a bit to get in there. Thats it.

I know most of you dont like the idea of Man Utd having a new owner like MBS or an oligarch, but the club will be run so much better. When the owner's objective is not to make money from the club and take dividents, but instead make it one of the best in world football. And you will forget about topics such as owner image,politics and blood money when we buy Sancho with the click of a finger and Mbappe next summer etc.
 

clarkydaz

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Current Glazers are bad businessmen. Malcom Glazer single-handedly built the family fortune, he was a driving force in their family and the better businessman. His offspring are incompetent and just leeching from their father's work. Pretty sure if Malcom was still alive and sane he would have sacked Woodward and his cronies for their sheer incompetence.
Certainly the club was gifted to them from daddy so if it fails they aint really arsed, they never put the work in. Its interesting to wonder if Malcom would have tolerated Woodwards failings for so long. If he was the man who built the family empire he might have been more ruthless to people that fall short
 

Tango80

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I actually think Woodward / the Glazers have played the Sancho situation really well. Nobody is paying that sort of money for one player in this climate, and they don't deserve the abuse they're getting for essentially making what is a sensible decision.

Still need cover for that right wing mind, but let's not judge till the window closes.