As great as that sounds
this transfer window we're in the midst of is suggesting otherwise
We're crap at picking managers, so it's no surprise we are crap at realising when it's pointless to continue and letting them go.
Yeah, I'd wager the board has a more long term view than you. To be fair to them, we were quite a mess. It wasn't going to be fixed overnight by a managerial appointment alone.
Manchester United lost their whole executive decision making and management structure in 2013 when Sir Alex retired and David Gill moved on to other positions outside United. It was a disaster on so many levels. Not only did we lose 26 years of extremely valuable experience we also lost our decision making infra structure.
To make the mess even deeper we hired a incompetent new manager without any experience as a manager on the highest level to replace a living legend. Edward Woodward took a step up without any previous experience as a executive director in a business on this level. On top of that and probably for the first time since the take over our relatively new owners had to get themselves involved in the clubs daily decision making. That without any experience in the European football industry. Owning a American football franchise is a totally different business with a fixed framework regarding players recruitments and wage bills.
In order for us a supporters to make the right analysis and conclusions we must first make sure we ask the right questions. Right now the narrative is about blaming specific individuals and especially our CEO and the owners. Even if the owners and our CEO is to blame for a couple of extremely poor decision making in the last few years it’s not exactly constructive to ask for their heads every time something not goes as expected. Owners don’t walk away as owners by themselves.
The owners and/or Edward Woodward took a very bold decision 2018 when they fired Mourinho and hired Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. First it cost the club a fortune. Secondly the club totally changed direction and went from reactive to active management. In short. Instead of recruit players like Falcao, Schweinsteiger and Zlatan the club started to buy local young talents like Maguire, AWB and Daniel James. That was a clear change of direction.
In order to take the right decisions any business needs trust between owners, executives and managers. There must be a framework in how to identify problems, how to implement new ideas or decisions and how to hold each and every decision maker accountable.
Since Ole took over as a manager the club soon made a new strategy how to rebuild our squad. Without any deeper insight I assume that the first step was to build trust between the owners, the executives and the manager. In the end of summer 2019 I saw a change in Ole’s approach regarding decision making and confidence. The only thing that didn’t worked as expected was the results. Injuries and bad luck was probably a part of it.
Fast forward six months and we bought Bruno. Suddenly our players started to deliver results.
Right now the embryo of a functional business plan is on its first steps. The owners has trust in our manager and we seems to have a plan how to move forward. Then COVID come and changed the landscape.
Our lack of new signings this summer is probably because of uncertainty about future revenues. Any sensible business should hesitate to heavily invest in such a financial hard times. Buying a young teenager for a fee of more then €100m in such circumstances needs deeper thoughts and a consequence analysis of what this means financially for our future.
Almost every United supporter just follow the bandwagon and blame Woodward and the owners without any deeper thoughts about what is the alternatives. Simple. You just can’t invest almost all own cash reserves if the incomes isn’t there.
Right now the club needs stability. We will invest in Jadon Sancho or similar caliber of player as soon we have financial security to such a heavy investment. Screaming on Twitter or similar and insult our owners and executives is counter productive. They are humans. WTF do you expect?
Our fanbase needs to calm down and accepts that this rebuilding process will take time. We also need to sell players before we can buy.
Changing manager would only slow down this process at least a year or maybe more.