United announce Richard Arnold as new Chief Executive

hellhunter

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What is this obsession of having a football guy at the helm as CEO? City ceo is an mba who started in a similar role to woodward and arnold at barcelona, chelsea's ceo is a telecom executive who once headed vodafone, Liverpool's ceo under whom they transformed the club was a video game guy before joining liverpool, CEO's job is to increase commercial appeal and monetise the company not to play football manager in real life whatever woodward might have thought. Even David Gill was an accountant.

The problem with woodward was the idiot had delusions of grandeur and unlike others who understood the fact that they didn't know much about actual football and hired or promoted people who did understand it, he decided he knew best and plodded on crapping his pants every step of the way. Everything we are hearing about arnold makes me think he clearly has learnt what not to do from woodward, ofcourse it could all be bs and he'll be another woodward, but let's atleast give him a chance shall we.
Very good post
 

UnitedWA

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When I think about past, before Glazers I didn't even know who was CEO, who owned United etc... I knew SAF and later Gill and that's all. I wonder why is that, maybe I was too young or we were so good that it didn't matter?
 

AneRu

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What is this obsession of having a football guy at the helm as CEO? City ceo is an mba who started in a similar role to woodward and arnold at barcelona, chelsea's ceo is a telecom executive who once headed vodafone, Liverpool's ceo under whom they transformed the club was a video game guy before joining liverpool, CEO's job is to increase commercial appeal and monetise the company not to play football manager in real life whatever woodward might have thought. Even David Gill was an accountant.

The problem with woodward was the idiot had delusions of grandeur and unlike others who understood the fact that they didn't know much about actual football and hired or promoted people who did understand it, he decided he knew best and plodded on crapping his pants every step of the way. Everything we are hearing about arnold makes me think he clearly has learnt what not to do from woodward, ofcourse it could all be bs and he'll be another woodward, but let's atleast give him a chance shall we.
This, he fancied himself a Fiorentino Perez clone. Trouble is Perez learned from his Galactica days and perfected his art - Woodward dug in and continued in the wrong direction. If he had brought in a DOF circa 2016-19 we wouldn't be in this mess right now.
 

Cloud7

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When I think about past, before Glazers I didn't even know who was CEO, who owned United etc... I knew SAF and later Gill and that's all. I wonder why is that, maybe I was too young or we were so good that it didn't matter?
When you're good it doesn't matter, unless you enjoy being in the limelight like Perez or those guys at Bayern. For example, how often do you hear about the administration at City or Liverpool? I have no idea who's the CEO/DOF or whatever at Pool, and I only know City has some ex Barcelona guys because there were loads of stories about them being there to prepare for Pep, but even then you rarely ever get stories about the upper administration of either of these clubs.

The two biggest failures in recent years in English football are us and Arsenal, so you see a lot of stories about the owners, other administration etc.
 

SuperiorXI

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CEO is definitely a totally different position to someone that dictates the footballing side of things, especially at a huge club like Manchester United. This guy just seems like another Glazer muppet but if he focuses on the finance side it's too hard to fail at this club with so many fans.

My hope is that Rangnick's position after his interim period becomes the focal point for the football direction of the club.
 

Lebowski

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What is this obsession of having a football guy at the helm as CEO? City ceo is an mba who started in a similar role to woodward and arnold at barcelona, chelsea's ceo is a telecom executive who once headed vodafone, Liverpool's ceo under whom they transformed the club was a video game guy before joining liverpool, CEO's job is to increase commercial appeal and monetise the company not to play football manager in real life whatever woodward might have thought. Even David Gill was an accountant.

The problem with woodward was the idiot had delusions of grandeur and unlike others who understood the fact that they didn't know much about actual football and hired or promoted people who did understand it, he decided he knew best and plodded on crapping his pants every step of the way. Everything we are hearing about arnold makes me think he clearly has learnt what not to do from woodward, ofcourse it could all be bs and he'll be another woodward, but let's atleast give him a chance shall we.
Nobody is saying we should hire Ryan Giggs as CEO, but we should be looking for the best football directors out there. Instead, the Glazers gave it to somebody with no track record in sport just because they helped you buy the club and then when his position become untenable, decided to hire a carbon copy from within the club who happens to be his old uni mate.

Let's take the examples you've given.

Man City - Soriano
A decade of experience at Barcelona as vice president and CEO, and is supported by several of his Barcelona team who city also poached and people like Brian Marwood as an MD who has worked as an executive in either football or sports for decades since he retired as a player.

Chelsea - Laurence
Before being hired by Chelsea he worked as the director of the largest sports company in Canada which owns hockey, football, basketball teams. They've also had Emenalo as their technical director and the Iron Lady now. Clearly a setup that allows them to chop and change managers every season but still keep the consistency and vision from above to achieve footballing success.

Liverpool - Hogan
Worked for FSG for over 20 years across their various sports enterprises in various roles. Again someone with pedigree in sports as an industry. Supported by the likes of Edwards, who has experience at Spurs, Portsmouth etc etc before being hired by Liverpool.

Let's hope you're right and Richard Arnold has been sitting back quietly and being overruled by Woodward and has learned exactly how not to run a football club as CEO. It's not exactly inspiring though is it? Our fresh start after our worst period in the modern era is going to be spearheaded by a bloke who is already part of the failing regime, and has exactly the same background as the guy who has led us to disaster.
 

saivet

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Positive signs that he's a least open minded. It's pretty scathing on Woodward though who at least recognised a huge number of mistakes he made. Woodward's introduction to the role was with SAF leaving so maybe he should be cut some slack as he was effectively thrown in the deep end with no experience at this level.
 

pedgon

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Who cares? Just timing this nonsense re-shuffle to distract from the complete shower of shit that is going on within the squad and on the pitch.
Correct and the official site tries to disguise the shocking performances and results with clips of old goals and shit, complete bollox
 

UnitedSofa

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Sounds like the sort of fecking loser who makes it to ops director by talking a good bullshit game and then remains at the level of his incompetence.
Lots of expert CEO’s here in this thread. Maybe @TwoSheds can give it a go, considering they seemingly know everything there is to know about running a football club & before Arnold has even stepped foot in the CEO role has completely written him off and effectively called the guy “incompetent”

So @TwoSheds what’s first on the agenda as new CEO of Man Utd?
 

Adnan

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I was not aware of this. Jesus fecking Christ…
Bout was the opposition scout (next opponent), which was well documented at the time, and was in a role that was obviously not involved in recruitment.

It's also not the first time Luckhurst will have been wrong either, he once reported that Norwegian midfielder Sander Berge was coming into Carrington for a medical and it turned out to be a youth player.
 

Pogue Mahone

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Bout was the opposition scout (next opponent), which was well documented at the time, and was in a role that was obviously not involved in recruitment.

It's also not the first time Luckhurst will have been wrong either, he once reported that Norwegian midfielder Sander Berge was coming into Carrington for a medical and it turned out to be a youth player.
Ah. Ok. Good to hear. Is he still at the club? What’s his role now?
 

tomaldinho1

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What is this obsession of having a football guy at the helm as CEO? City ceo is an mba who started in a similar role to woodward and arnold at barcelona, chelsea's ceo is a telecom executive who once headed vodafone, Liverpool's ceo under whom they transformed the club was a video game guy before joining liverpool, CEO's job is to increase commercial appeal and monetise the company not to play football manager in real life whatever woodward might have thought. Even David Gill was an accountant.

The problem with woodward was the idiot had delusions of grandeur and unlike others who understood the fact that they didn't know much about actual football and hired or promoted people who did understand it, he decided he knew best and plodded on crapping his pants every step of the way. Everything we are hearing about arnold makes me think he clearly has learnt what not to do from woodward, ofcourse it could all be bs and he'll be another woodward, but let's atleast give him a chance shall we.
It all stems from VDS at Ajax (who has gone on record saying the CEO role at United is way harder given his role is so different given their domestic strength and strategy of selling academy products) because he has United affiliation and somehow people think a 'football man' must somehow be better than a someone without footballing history. Woodward, once he stopped trying to do everything and be chummy with players was actually fine after he set up the committee - it doesn't excuse him for the initial errors but it's bizarre this idea of needing football people running a business. I've even seen people complain on here that Woodward had the power to block transfers, as if a CEO (or EVC in his case to be accurate) at any other company wouldn't also have that power.


I was not aware of this. Jesus fecking Christ…
Bout wasn't doing recruitment I think. I doubt this is true as well given Woodward was way more involved back then (so this would reflect awfully on him) and given Van Gaals side of the story, which seems likely when you think of the signings we actually made, was he arrived and the scouting team recommend Schneirderlin & Darmian (Herrera and Shaw were already inbound/about to be done) and that was it - so he went for players he knew, had tried to sign previously or had impressed him at the WC (Depay, Blind, ADM, Valdes, BFS, Rojo)... absolute disaster when you think of his age and being out of domestic football. Plus the rumours about how Woodward said they could sign anyone and then none of those big name signings materialised.
 

TwoSheds

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Lots of expert CEO’s here in this thread. Maybe @TwoSheds can give it a go, considering they seemingly know everything there is to know about running a football club & before Arnold has even stepped foot in the CEO role has completely written him off and effectively called the guy “incompetent”

So @TwoSheds what’s first on the agenda as new CEO of Man Utd?
First off you tag @UnitedSofa and tell him what a sterling job he's doing here, feck that @TwoSheds guy who "sucks". @UnitedSofa isn't the hero this United CEO wanted, but @UnitedSofa is most definitely the hero this United CEO needs.
 

Adnan

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Ah. Ok. Good to hear. Is he still at the club? What’s his role now?
He's the head of global scouting now (since 2017) which is a different role to the one he was occupying during LVG's reign, which is well documented. He also worked at Bayern under Jupp Heynckes who entrusted Bout to analyse future opponents and also assist him on the training ground.
 

wolvored

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What is this ...
The problem with woodward was the idiot had delusions of grandeur and unlike others who understood the fact that they didn't know much about actual football and hired or promoted people who did understand it, he decided he knew best and plodded on crapping his pants every step of the way. Everything we are hearing about arnold makes me think he clearly has learnt what not to do from woodward, ofcourse it could all be bs and he'll be another woodward, but let's atleast give him a chance shall we.
This. Just read this on the Telegraph. He has also been endorsed by Robbo and Schmeichel, so hopefully...
 

sglowrider

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When I think about past, before Glazers I didn't even know who was CEO, who owned United etc... I knew SAF and later Gill and that's all. I wonder why is that, maybe I was too young or we were so good that it didn't matter?
Too young.

Fergie had constant battles and struggles with the owner.
 

decorativeed

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This. Just read this on the Telegraph. He has also been endorsed by Robbo and Schmeichel, so hopefully...
I actually got to spend a bit of time with Bryan Robson last year. He's such a nice, amenable guy that I doubt he has a bad word to say about anyone. He was even positive about the Saudi takeover of Newcastle. Also, don't forget that he's also still a club employee.
 

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Correct and the official site tries to disguise the shocking performances and results with clips of old goals and shit, complete bollox
Yeah they can feck off with that shite as well.

The United app pings me notifications for absolute nonsense while I’m absolutely raging after shite performances, like its going to be something to distract us idiot fans away from their mess, like we’re moths to a flame. :mad:

They will drop links to exciting players as the next distraction if we don’t win at Villa. All of a sudden ‘we’re in for Haaland.’
 

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Arnold is apparently more willing to delegate footballing matters to actual football people. I suppose that’s progress but I’m not hopeful knowing Murtaugh and Fletcher are leading the permanent manager search.
 

Mr Pigeon

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1) develop a strategic vision
2) Delegate

If he does these two things then he could have a history of hating football so much that it makes him have panic attacks whenever he sees someone kick a ball and it wouldn't matter.

CEOs haven't got time to barge into the DoFs office every day asking if there's any transfer updates, especially this guy who is more focused on social media reach and marketing revenue. Unless it turns out that the message from the club is total bullshit (which is entirely possible since we have a track record of pretending we know what we're doing) then he'll know better than to try and do a Ed "DON'T TOUCH MY TOYS THEY'RE ALL MINE" Woodward.

Unfortunately I don't think we have the right people in place to make footballing decisions either. Happy to be proven wrong but nothing goes right for us so...
 

MileStolar

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Wait who's the scapegoat now? Murtough, Fletcher or this new guy Arnold? Twas easier to blame in on Woody and be done with it, they even made the moaning harder for us...
 

elmo

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Don't think the Glazers would agree. Woodward did a lot of very good things on the financial side of business.
No he didn't. He did the bare minimum because the club literally can sell itself to sponsors and football was going on a commercial boom worldwide, practically every major football club gained enormous commerical revenues over the last two decades, Woodward wasn't doing anything special at all.
 

sglowrider

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Wait who's the scapegoat now? Murtough, Fletcher or this new guy Arnold? Twas easier to blame in on Woody and be done with it, they even made the moaning harder for us...
You have forgotten Rangnick. He will be on the hit list of the Caf geniuses soon.