I mean it's normal for the board to sign off on transfers, but you think Joel is dictating the signings and so doesn't want some coming in with their own ideas? I hadn't heard that but it would make sense. I assumed it was Woodward who didn't want the power taken away from him and that's why we ended up with Murtough, but I guess it's possible Joel is the one dictating the transfer policy. I hadn't heard that.
The John Murtough Era
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He is in full FM mode.
Search for midfielders. Check
Starts bidding for first 20 on the list. Check
Search for midfielders. Check
Starts bidding for first 20 on the list. Check
The point remains. It was his first summer and he failed. He wasted so much money over the last 9 years. How he didn't get sacked is beyond me.
It might be controversial, but I'd rather the club buy nobody than buy complete shit and give them contracts that make them impossible to sell.
Its not, its normal for a board to sign off on budget.
It has been reported many times that, United have agreed a fee but waiting for final sign off from Glazers.
Its reported Ten Hag approved Ronaldo sale, but Glazers did not, there are many reports like this
Read my post.
He understood that if YOU hire the manager you at least need to "appear" to back him in the first summer.
That was my post, your point above does nothing to dispute that which was the point.
Ten Hag is Murtoughs hire, and he has not backed him even with months to prepare. Woodward in his first summer did not have any time to prepare and did not hire Moyes either
No i'm with you. I don't want to see us spending money for the sake of spending money. The Rabiot and Arnautovic links are just scary. The idea that these are the kind of moves been considered worries the hell out of me.
Is it? ive always understood that owners / board have to agree to signings? I also understood it that in most clubs the manager doesn't have the final say on departures either. If I'm wrong I'm wrong but that the way I've always understood it.
I'm not sure why you'd be expecting best in class when you've got a board/owners that are worst in class.
Perhaps. I'm neither supporting nor disparaging the fact that the club has done that.
However, leveraging their contacts and their experience in the approach to planning for transfers for the short/medium/long term (not the actual mechanics of talent selection) may not be the worst thing in the world.
As far as I'm aware the likes of Ajax and Bayern use those sources of experience and knowledge to good effect
Mourinho, in his first season, got all his targets (4 players) before first PL game. (Pogba played in second). And neither of those transfers wasn't easy.
Solskjaer also got all signings that he wanted before game one.
Woodward was bad in his business but he is still huge upgrade to this clown who we have today
He's have a fu*king mare
As I predicted (to heavy abuse), this guy is a Woodward mini-me and fecking awful at getting his job done
Honestly I was ok when we walk away from Antony's deal when Ajax asked too much, I was happy we went for targets like like Sesko. I was ok if our primary target is FDJ or no one. ETH to live and and die on that hill named FDJ. I was ok with restructuring taking time.
However I am not ok with all these prolong negotiations playing out in public then either getting rejected or walking away until too late.
Linking to 3-4th choice targets that no one wants. Murtough very publicly flying throughout Europe working on deals that never materialize (ok, he may actually be on holidays and Fletcher is suppose to be the one closing deals). This doesnt look like a club with a plan or a strategy. This looks like man using company expense to chalk up his frequent flyer miles.
Did we trust ETH to only work on his target WHEN he says is ok to try? Meaning we would not have target Rabiot until 2 weeks ago when ETH gave us the ok? If this the way the club works, then the person that agrees to this deserve to be sacked.
Yes change takes time to take effect but not having transitional transfer strategy this summer smacks of amateurish planning. It may be the case where we have a fixed budget to spend, hence only one deal at a time. If this is case then why do we take so long to negotiate then before walking away or being rejected leaving us with much lesser time, and smaller pool of targets? Doubt ETH is the one doing the negotiation. Take the Rabiot case, took us more than 2 weeks and a trip to Turin to realize we couldn't pay his wages. Murtough does not report to ETH and ETH surely doesn't tell Murtough how much we can pay or should pay for Rabiot.
My point is , there is no excuse for a such badly plan transfer. We knew this back in December that we will have clear out in June. We knew back in December we will have a new manager come June. We knew who our new manager back in May. We should know way before June what is our budget and how much we can spend.
I am happy we missed out on Rabiot by the way.
However I am not ok with all these prolong negotiations playing out in public then either getting rejected or walking away until too late.
Linking to 3-4th choice targets that no one wants. Murtough very publicly flying throughout Europe working on deals that never materialize (ok, he may actually be on holidays and Fletcher is suppose to be the one closing deals). This doesnt look like a club with a plan or a strategy. This looks like man using company expense to chalk up his frequent flyer miles.
Did we trust ETH to only work on his target WHEN he says is ok to try? Meaning we would not have target Rabiot until 2 weeks ago when ETH gave us the ok? If this the way the club works, then the person that agrees to this deserve to be sacked.
Yes change takes time to take effect but not having transitional transfer strategy this summer smacks of amateurish planning. It may be the case where we have a fixed budget to spend, hence only one deal at a time. If this is case then why do we take so long to negotiate then before walking away or being rejected leaving us with much lesser time, and smaller pool of targets? Doubt ETH is the one doing the negotiation. Take the Rabiot case, took us more than 2 weeks and a trip to Turin to realize we couldn't pay his wages. Murtough does not report to ETH and ETH surely doesn't tell Murtough how much we can pay or should pay for Rabiot.
My point is , there is no excuse for a such badly plan transfer. We knew this back in December that we will have clear out in June. We knew back in December we will have a new manager come June. We knew who our new manager back in May. We should know way before June what is our budget and how much we can spend.
I am happy we missed out on Rabiot by the way.
Check his thread when he was hired. It is funny how people were happy with it just because "he did great stuff with women team".
I also said that guy is a rookie and Ed's apprentice but got abuse because "his CV looks great"
I can't understand how can someone with youth and women football experience can be deemed fit to be DOF of Man Utd.
BTW, what has he done in youth football? He has wasted lots of money on Amad and Pellistri. And no standout player from the youth team break into first squad.
BTW, what has he done in youth football? He has wasted lots of money on Amad and Pellistri. And no standout player from the youth team break into first squad.
I'm going to guess that after this window, we'll have some statements explaining the situation from Arnold or the Glazers and that Murtaugh might get moved out of any transfer role. Shambolic.
I get it, it's very bad, but mostly because the team is playing badly which puts pressure on everyone and it's last regime's leftovers if we're being honest.
What these new guys absolutely have to avoid is signing players on astronomically high wages which deepens the complacency in our squad and also creates more greed.
So far we've not given ridiculous contracts and only excessive expenditures so far is Martinez with whooping 50m£
He's another example of a terrible appointment. Another yes man of the Glazers who is totally out of his depth. No other big club would touch these people.
Amad and Pellistri were not Murtough/academy purchases.
We recently just won the FA Youth Cup with Hannibal, Hansen-Aaroen, Garnacho, McNeil, Mainoo, Fernandez and Gore all having varying chances at breaking into the first team, some are extremely close. With exciting groups following up behind them.
So Amad and Pellistri were bought for first team?
The fact is still there is no standout player currently that can break into first team.
I wish Murtough stay in the youth and women football since many think that he has done an excellent job there. Shouldn't let him mess around with men first team football.
Hopefully people on here that have talked up Murtough in the past are hanging their heads in shame right now
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Someone to be worse than Woodward takes some doing.
You’ve gotta say, ol’ Johnny has had one hell of a holiday season….I mean transfer window.
Nope just hiding.
Do we blame Murtough or do we blame the Glazers for hiring him or elevating him to a position he is clearly not capable of filling?
So tired of our failures. Failure on the pitch, failure in the boardroom, failure in the transfer market, failure in organizational structure. Hell, we’re even on a downward trend financially.
Again, everyone could be incompetent at the club, but I keep going back to the owners, The Glazer Curse.
I had high hopes for Murtough but he's clearly as incompetent as his predecessor. Get rid asap. Michael Edwards is still available - we could do a lot worse.
When a business is continuously failing, the blame has to go on the owners.
They are in charge of appointing the right people for the job. The problem with the current ownership is that they have no idea what football is. They only care about the bottom line figure.
Over recent years, our commercial arm has slowed down, which means profits taking a hit, which has meant that the Glazers are not allowing us to spend money.
Woodward leaves and we get even worse?
They are fecking filthy soulless rats who have never done a damn thing in life other than be born to a billionaire.
Regardless of whether you understand football, this is a business. If you are incompetent leaders, your organization is going to suffer.
People in the Caf sometimes mention the success of the Tampa Bay Bucs… 2 Super Bowls in 26 years and an overall losing record. Is that success? Also, totally different revenue structure (franchise) with salary caps and basically guaranteed profit.
He's absolutely useless, only United can also end up having the worst DoF in football.
I have no doubt that he’s not the only culprit here but with this clusterfeck of a window, they may well have doomed ETH’s tenure here. A lot of managers don’t recover from this sort of thing, particularly when they’re not getting the players he wants to play the way they want.
He was head of PL Elite performance.
Not really, it would be having his legs cut out from underneath him too soon imo. There have been moves to modernise us from a recruitment stand point and these will take time. We have seemingly asked EtH to lead the recruitment in his first year to try to establish a new playing style through the squad, (a move Liverpool made with Klopp in his first summer) the profile of which will be searched for with the new recruitment structure and should start to bear fruit around January time.
I also don't think the winter World Cup has helped us and has probably worked against a few others as well.
Bit weird the whole "hang heads in shame" rhetoric but I get it if you are thin skinned, impatient "embarrassment" merchant.
Sounds like a job and a fancy title with no actual substance.
For 12 months a decade ago.
And you know that, that role is about youth development and the current incumbent came from a similar role in British Cycling? The DoF we need isn't focused on developing 12 year old footballers. They have to deal with modern agents, players, connections with other clubs etc..
In addition to that, the premier league haven't exactly covered themselves in glory when hiring people. Look at the CEO farce.
Murtough has been at United for 9 years and was appointed as DoF by Woodward when it was apparent we didn't really want one.
It's self evident he's not suitable to be DoF at United.
Some stupid excuses for him here now it's getting ridiculous. It's not that he just took over as DOF. He has been here long enough.
What is this excuse of ETH wanting to decide his own philosophy? No it's the job of the DOF to do that and the manager follows that.
What is this excuse of ETH wanting to decide his own philosophy? No it's the job of the DOF to do that and the manager follows that.
If that is the case he has no clue how to use search filters effectively, that being said I heard that some managers at lower league clubs actually use the FM database to look for players.
Wait, lower league club... 
Triple bid for Savic, Casemiro, and Antony in the works.
Haters in the mud
Haters in the mud
He’s an absolute muppet, and this story about the takeover will deflect attention from his idiocy for the next few weeks until the window closes.
When the takeover talk dies down he can say he is preparing for next window
When the takeover talk dies down he can say he is preparing for next window
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