Part of the point of our current set-up is that the manager shouldn't just be given each and every player he wants. Between the DOF and recruitment team there should be checks in place against the manager making bad decisions.
Given the price involved and the various questions that hang over Nunez' suitability as a transfer for us, as far as I can see they'd have been right to be hesitant. Only time will tell if that hesitancy (if it existed) was correct but on face value it seems very reasonable.
That was exactly the old way of doing things. LvG and Mourinho both complained the issue it in public. Ole might have kept mum on the topic, but there's no way he was given more power than his predecessors.
United's recruitment has been led by the scouting team ever since Woodward came in. Which is why we pursued Shaw across two different managers' reigns. Why we chased after Herrera over two windows despite him not being that good and other targets becoming available in the meantime. Why we initially rejected Maguire despite Jose wanting him, but then bought him under Ole because he'd already been pre-scouted. Why we bought AWB out of 806 scouted rightbacks instead of one of the other 805. Why we spent £40m on an unknown 18 year old attacker from the Atalanta reserves instead of a ready-made midfielder the first team was crying out for. Why we wouldn't sign Perisic like Jose wanted. Why we wouldn't sell Martial or Pogba like Jose also wanted. Why Ole couldn't get rid of the bad eggs like he wanted.
And when it wasn't being led by the scouting team, it was often directed by Woodward himself for marketing reasons (Di Maria, Pogba, Ronaldo, Sanchez, etc.).
LvG was the last manager who had significant power over transfers. And that was only during his first couple of windows. After that point, non-managerial business processes began to set the agenda. It's been sabotaging the club ever since.
If anything, managers should be given more control - albeit with oversight from the DOF. The scouting team should be having less say. And the chairman should have almost none.