Club Sale | It’s done!

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Teja

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Let's see how competent we are with the DOF appointment. If we do it quick and get a good structure going immediately, I'll be optimistic. If we dilly dally and make a mess of our summer business as a result I'd be pretty pissed.
 

JPRouve

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To be fair things went south when Moyes decided to change the menu.
 

sglowrider

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Let's see how competent we are with the DOF appointment. If we do it quick and get a good structure going immediately, I'll be optimistic. If we dilly dally and make a mess of our summer business as a result I'd be pretty pissed.
I highly doubt a DOF's impact will be seen in terms of months. Its more likely, results or a consistent pattern will only emerge in terms of years.

Any short-term results, positive or negative, will be an anomaly.
 

P-Nut

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I highly doubt a DOF's impact will be seen in terms of months. Its more likely, results or a consistent pattern will only emerge in terms of years.

Any short-term results, positive or negative, will be an anomaly.
The actual DOF yes, you're possibly right. But getting the appointment of one wrong, and the effects could be seen as early as this summer.

We've seen in the past that we start working on targets too late, that we aren't willing to sign players due to not having the manager in place etc.

If we get the appointment done in a timely manner, and decide that we are building towards a certain style, then there is no reason we can't have a productive summer window.
 

devilish

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I highly doubt a DOF's impact will be seen in terms of months. Its more likely, results or a consistent pattern will only emerge in terms of years.

Any short-term results, positive or negative, will be an anomaly.
It highly depends on the quality of the staff and how willing they are to make it work. Cause if its only a matter of having someone experienced enough to integrate things up and make departments work with one another them that can be achieved relatively quickly. A total overhaul though will take months
 

devilish

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Incredible that he's been in the job so long. A clueless goon.
He was a Woodward/glazer puppet, a placeholder meant solely to shut those who wanted a DOF up. Its surprising that most fans needed so much time to recognise that
 

Chumpsbechumps

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https://www.skysports.com/football/...bellingham-who-has-the-highest-transfer-value

City have 11 players in the top 100 valued in the world.

Arsenal have 9

Liverpool have 6

Man United have 5

Newcastle & Spurs have 3

This is such a damning statistic when you think about how much United have spent the last 11 years.

I don’t want to hear people blame managers , this is all on the club’s hierarchy. No long term planning. Sh*te at negotiating for players. And shite at selling players.

This is just some of the stuff I hope INEOS will help us address.

Oh and Peps sub striker is ranked 8th in the world value wise while our managers have to make so with Ighalo , marital and weghorst.. FFS , how could Pep not be winning everything….
 
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Teja

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I highly doubt a DOF's impact will be seen in terms of months. Its more likely, results or a consistent pattern will only emerge in terms of years.

Any short-term results, positive or negative, will be an anomaly.
I feel any competent DOF can stand out pretty quickly against the shit show we had going on for the past 10 years. A good litmus test will be how we handle things when we (eventually) sack Ten Hag.
 

Escobar

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No coach, I repeat, no coach can be successful under these conditions.
This is very obvious. And in a way, Jose and last season ETH overachieved. The Glazers are the main people to blame, they messed up for 15 years straight. Not that comes as a surprise but to fix things is difficult, as it will take time
 

FujiVice

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I mean, the worse things are the only way to go is up. You cant help but be happy that a man is walking into the club with his own team of people he trusts behind him. He's going to be hands on with the day to day and his agenda is success on the pitch. Considering how bad things are, its crazy Ole and Mourinho did the jobs as well as they did. Because this is a poison atmosphere for any decent coach.
 

sglowrider

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I feel any competent DOF can stand out pretty quickly against the shit show we had going on for the past 10 years. A good litmus test will be how we handle things when we (eventually) sack Ten Hag.
Hindsight is 20/20. We did hired branded, highly regarded managers, all of them with the exception of Ole -- who Woodward probably thought, I have tried all approaches, might as well try something counter intuitive.

Almost all, with only with a few exceptions here thought ETH was the dream signing including myself.
So really it's easy to criticise in hindsight but most here were all enthusiastic about each of the managers early in their tenure, including for Ole.

But you are right about the litmus test.

That leaves the question -- what sort of structure do we want this new DOF want to build?

Like a generic Pep/Klopp model where the manager is built for the image of one manager -- or one that has the flexibility like a Roman's Chelsea and now Brighton, a 1-2yrs stint? (Pep/Klopp got more than a season or two to bed in whereas under a Chelsea model, they would have been sacked.)

Then imagine the complexity and difficulty for each of those models?

Then how as fans do we gauge or judge the DOFs performance?
 

LawCharltonBest

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Didn’t Ratcliffe say that they are going to release a statement in the new year?

Or was it once the deal was ratified?
 

WPMUFC

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I guess we can put to sleep any theories about murtough being half decent
The two moments where I felt we were in serious trouble with Murtough and Arnold.

1. When Murtough and Arnold were in Barca for FdJ and got photographed. Considering that Athletic report about how we laser focus on one person, feck about and then overpay. We couldn't even do that right. Don't get snapped turning up to win the heart of your crush when she's already put the restraining order on you. What a bunch of clowns.

2. When Luckhurst ran a tweet and article about how fecking orgasmic and mindblowing Murtough was in his job. Probably the worst article i've ever seen on the club. It came across as a man so desperate to prove his job that it seemed liked he paid Luckhurst to write it.
 

Teja

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Hindsight is 20/20. We did hired branded, highly regarded managers, all of them with the exception of Ole -- who Woodward probably thought, I have tried all approaches, might as well try something counter intuitive.

Almost all, with only with a few exceptions here thought ETH was the dream signing including myself.
So really it's easy to criticise in hindsight but most here were all enthusiastic about each of the managers early in their tenure, including for Ole.

But you are right about the litmus test.

That leaves the question -- what sort of structure do we want this new DOF want to build?

Like a generic Pep/Klopp model where the manager is built for the image of one manager -- or one that has the flexibility like a Roman's Chelsea and now Brighton, a 1-2yrs stint? (Pep/Klopp got more than a season or two to bed in whereas under a Chelsea model, they would have been sacked.)

Then imagine the complexity and difficulty for each of those models?

Then how as fans do we gauge or judge the DOFs performance?
It's not just about the decisions, it's also about how you get there.

I never want another interim to an interim situation. Never want a situation where we have all of the international break to sack a manager and find an interim but then fail to do that and get the new guy in few days before the game. Do not want a situation where we end up chasing big money players all summer only to fail and then waste money on panic signings. Do not want to chase guys like Arnautovic at all. Just don't be in a situation where you can't sign a player for a position you identified as a priority but then you panic blew your budget on other rando signings so you can't follow your plan anymore.

But anyway, even if you look just at the decisions, sure Ten Hag (and maybe even Ole) were near unanimous but the Fdj saga, Antony 80m+, Casemairo panic buy, Weghorst on loan, Mount - none of those were unanimous. Even without the hindsight, people knew McFred wasn't good enough. We are also seemingly incapable of raising any amount of funds by selling players.

All the new DOF has to do is be more competent than a 5yo, but yeah a Mane / Salah type signing in the first year + a clear out where we raise some decent money would be a nice thing to hope for.
 

golden_blunder

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https://www.skysports.com/football/...bellingham-who-has-the-highest-transfer-value

City have 11 players in the top 100 valued in the world.

Arsenal have 9

Liverpool have 6

Man United have 5

Newcastle & Spurs have 3

This is such a damning statistic when you think about how much United have spent the last 11 years.

I don’t want to hear people blame managers , this is all on the club’s hierarchy. No long term planning. Sh*te at negotiating for players. And shite at selling players.

This is just some of the stuff I hope INEOS will help us address.

Oh and Peps sub striker is ranked 8th in the world value wise while our managers have to make so with Ighalo , marital and weghorst.. FFS , how could Pep not be winning everything….
Except that report is a complete pile of sh1te anyway. Gapko more than 100m? Give me a break
 

devilish

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The two moments where I felt we were in serious trouble with Murtough and Arnold.

1. When Murtough and Arnold were in Barca for FdJ and got photographed. Considering that Athletic report about how we laser focus on one person, feck about and then overpay. We couldn't even do that right. Don't get snapped turning up to win the heart of your crush when she's already put the restraining order on you. What a bunch of clowns.

2. When Luckhurst ran a tweet and article about how fecking orgasmic and mindblowing Murtough was in his job. Probably the worst article i've ever seen on the club. It came across as a man so desperate to prove his job that it seemed liked he paid Luckhurst to write it.
Quite frankly I don't know why I was one of the very few to read the writing on the wall especially since I don't consider myself as among the most brilliant posters in here.

A- The club is owned by the Glazer ie people who hate change, they have trust issues and they don't rate football people. That was evident throughout their reign. They constantly replaced experience with inexperience (SAF was replaced by Moyes, Gill with Woodward, Bout and Lawlor were kicked out of the club etc, transfer negotiations were given to people like Judge and Hargreaves despite having no clue how to negotiate football player transfers etc)

B- Woodward was a Glazers man and it was evident that he loved calling the shots (we can do things few can dream of doing bla bla bla) There was huge resistance from the club to implement a proper football structure as well. It took us till 2021 to appoint a DOF and a technical director, both of whom had no experience in the role and one was given a job and then promoted twice in a year.

So we had clueless owners/CEO who didn't want to relinquish their control over the football side and who went on appointing two newbies to push the biggest football reform the club had engaged itself into since SAF joined Manchester United. What could possibly go wrong? Sure, Murtough knew how to sell himself to the public. The 'I am hiring an army of data analyst' PR BS made plenty of people in and out of the forum go overdrive. But I always insisted that the proof was in the pudding and that when faced with the actual true nothing had really changed. We still had huge injury issues, we still brought players in on silly salaries and gave them silly contracts, we still relied heavily on the manager's list of transfers and we still leaked like a sieve.
 

Sir Erik ten Hag

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Quite frankly I don't know why I was one of the very few to read the writing on the wall especially since I don't consider myself as among the most brilliant posters in here.

A- The club is owned by the Glazer ie people who hate change, they have trust issues and they don't rate football people. That was evident throughout their reign. They constantly replaced experience with inexperience (SAF was replaced by Moyes, Gill with Woodward, Bout and Lawlor were kicked out of the club etc, transfer negotiations were given to people like Judge and Hargreaves despite having no clue how to negotiate football player transfers etc)

B- Woodward was a Glazers man and it was evident that he loved calling the shots (we can do things few can dream of doing bla bla bla) There was huge resistance from the club to implement a proper football structure as well. It took us till 2021 to appoint a DOF and a technical director, both of whom had no experience in the role and one was given a job and then promoted twice in a year.

So we had clueless owners/CEO who didn't want to relinquish their control over the football side and who went on appointing two newbies to push the biggest football reform the club had engaged itself into since SAF joined Manchester United. What could possibly go wrong? Sure, Murtough knew how to sell himself to the public. The 'I am hiring an army of data analyst' PR BS made plenty of people in and out of the forum go overdrive. But I always insisted that the proof was in the pudding and that when faced with the actual true nothing had really changed. We still had huge injury issues, we still brought players in on silly salaries and gave them silly contracts, we still relied heavily on the manager's list of transfers and we still leaked like a sieve.
So what's your view on Ratcliffe's incoming new reign?
 

devilish

Juventus fan who used to support United
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So what's your view on Ratcliffe's incoming new reign?
The Glazers are horrible owners. The muppetier guy think that they are better then hedge funds which I disagree.They are determined, they have a plan (ie making money), they will stick to their plan no matter what and they will trample on anyone who stand in their way. That's what they did with AC Milan were they cut losses, they bought wisely, they stuck to the budget no matter how painful it was and ultimately they won the title. The moment they hit the peak they sold it off, no love lost because there was no love to lose in the first place. The Glazers are poor owners, they are quite kneejerk, they are thin skinned, they love to micromanage and they have an allergy towards competent football people as they fear that they will make them look bad. If Elliott is Tywin then the Glazers are Cersei so to speak.

The Glazers put the club on sale for two reasons. First of all we're not a solid footing financially wise. The club is losing money. Its not as tragic as some people think but we need external investment + expertise to stir the ship in place. The Glazers are reluctant to do that. The second reason was that after the Chelsea sale they thought that they were going to make crazy money out of the club. They were sort of right but also wrong. SJR did hit the jackpot for their shares (that deal hit the rocks because the way United is structured its impossible to buy the Glazers shares without also buying the Class A shares which then drove the price to the silliness). However the auction they expected didn't happen. Jassim was the only alternative to SJR and he was 1 B short. That's important because the Glazers want to sell and they now know that unless something radical happens or SJR is able to find new buyers then the only viable buyer for their shares will probably be SJR.

SJR is a self made billionaire. He is experienced in doing deals with the devil, to make those deals work He also made his money specifically by buying struggling companies and then turn things around. I've seen an old interview of his and its evident from the very beginning that this is what SJR is specialized in and quite frankly what he loves to do. So the man will come in the building quite aware on the situation at hand, what needs to be achieved and will have a plan on to achieve it. He is also aware that petrochemicals are perceived as dull and quite frankly in a hostile way by people (pollution, fraking etc). Manchester United is the biggest spotlight in football and its now throwing all its light on INEOS and Ratcliffe. Thus they will have to make it work. That probably explains why SJR is sparing nothing to get the best people on board ie Ashworth and Mitchell. He will also push very hard to turn United into an effective and efficient machine. A sluggish United will reflect badly on its richer but duller brother (INEOS) and the owners.

Thus we're in an uncomfortable situation were on one hand the Glazers would want this partnership to work (more success = share price go high = more interest) but on the other hand they would want to keep SJR on a tight leash. The least they want is him growing comfortable with his 25% just as he's currently comfortable with his stake at Mercedes. That became evident with the Blanc issue. Every reputable journalist in the world was 100% certain that Blanc was going to be our CEO (thus it was definitely leaked by the club or INEOS) only for the Glazers to exert their dominance and say no. Whether they will backtrack on that or not means nothing. The Glazers had shown the world that they are the one who call the shots and that SJR will have to toe in line. That would certainly frustrate a man who controls a multi billionaire company as if its a local grocery shop (ie a private owned company owned by him and 2 other people). That was meant to push SJR to buy more shares thus more control. I expect more and more of this hiccups.

I can see this ending in two ways

A- SJR buy more and more shares to reduce the Glazers influence and have them out of the building. It would be a death of a thousand cuts so to speak but it will be necessary.
B- SJR will use his contacts to find a viable buyer either for the entirety of Manchester United or to come in as a partner with him.

Whatever happens it will take us time to get back on top
 
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AFC NimbleThumb

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2. When Luckhurst ran a tweet and article about how fecking orgasmic and mindblowing Murtough was in his job. Probably the worst article i've ever seen on the club. It came across as a man so desperate to prove his job that it seemed liked he paid Luckhurst to write it.
The same Luckhurst [who blatantly has a burner account on here] & week after weeks talks down on journalists doing the same thing.

He was in classic form this week. He was ‘harsh’ on EtH last week then this week took the first part of Manchester is Red skating Sancho for everything from his underwear to his food choices.

Guy is a clown.

The Glazers are horrible owners. The muppetier guy think that they are better then hedge funds which I disagree.They are determined, they have a plan (ie making money), they will stick to their plan no matter what and they will trample on anyone who stand in their way. That's what they did with AC Milan were they cut losses, they bought wisely, they stuck to the budget no matter how painful it was and ultimately they won the title. The moment they hit the peak they sold it off, no love lost because there was no love to lose in the first place. The Glazers are poor owners, they are quite kneejerk, they are thin skinned, they love to micromanage and they have an allergy towards competent football people as they fear that they will make them look bad. If Elliott is Tywin then the Glazers are Cersei so to speak.

The Glazers put the club on sale for two reasons. First of all we're not a solid footing financially wise. The club is losing money. Its not as tragic as some people think but we need external investment + expertise to stir the ship in place. The Glazers are reluctant to do that. The second reason was that after the Chelsea sale they thought that they were going to make crazy money out of the club. They were sort of right but also wrong. SJR did hit the jackpot for their shares (that deal hit the rocks because the way United is structured its impossible to buy the Glazers shares without also buying the Class A shares which then drove the price to the silliness). However the auction they expected didn't happen. Jassim was the only alternative to SJR and he was 1 B short. That's important because the Glazers want to sell and they now know that unless something radical happens or SJR is able to find new buyers then the only viable buyer for their shares will probably be SJR.

SJR is a self made billionaire. He is experienced in doing deals with the devil, to make those deals work He also made his money specifically by buying struggling companies and then turn things around. I've seen an old interview of his and its evident from the very beginning that this is what SJR is specialized in and quite frankly what he loves to do. So the man will come in the building quite aware on the situation at hand, what needs to be achieved and will have a plan on to achieve it. He is also aware that petrochemicals are perceived as dull and quite frankly in a hostile way by people (pollution, fraking etc). Manchester United is the biggest spotlight in football and its now throwing all its light on INEOS and Ratcliffe. Thus they will have to make it work. That probably explains why SJR is sparing nothing to get the best people on board ie Ashworth and Mitchell. He will also push very hard to turn United into an effective and efficient machine. A sluggish United will reflect badly on its richer but duller brother (INEOS) and the owners.

Thus we're in an uncomfortable situation were on one hand the Glazers would want this partnership to work (more success = share price go high = more interest) but on the other hand they would want to keep SJR on a tight leash. The least they want is him growing comfortable with his 25% just as he's currently comfortable with his stake at Mercedes. That became evident with the Blanc issue. Every reputable journalist in the world was 100% certain that Blanc was going to be our CEO (thus it was definitely leaked by the club or INEOS) only for the Glazers to exert their dominance and say no. Whether they will backtrack on that or not means nothing. The Glazers had shown the world that they are the one who call the shots and that SJR will have to toe in line. That would certainly frustrate a man who controls a multi billionaire company as if its a local grocery shop (ie a private owned company owned by him and 2 other people). That was meant to push SJR to buy more shares thus more control. I expect more and more of this hiccups.

I can see this ending in two ways

A- SJR buy more and more shares to reduce the Glazers influence and have them out of the building. It would be a death of a thousand cuts so to speak but it will be necessary.
B- SJR will use his contacts to find a viable buyer either for the entirety of Manchester United or to come in as a partner with him.

Whatever happens it will take us time to get back on top
Good post.

If Blanc isn’t installed as CeO it casts further doubt on a deal many on here were waxing lyrical over.
 

ScarleyUtd

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No coach, I repeat, no coach can be successful under these conditions.
Yep, and as soon as we had owners who didn't understand or didn't care about why the club is what it is, and hire people who follow their ethos of milking it instead of focusing on the club's legacy (Woodward), it's hardly surprising things go down the pan.
 
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