Ed Woodward 2019 - Until all Arctic ice melts edition

[Saf94]

The closest to it is Peter Moore (Liverpool) who I believed played semi pro for a few years but he too like Woodward has majored in Business Management.
Arsenal's CEO is CFA qualified.
Soriano as you say, Masters in Business.
Levy at Spurs is qualified in Economics and Land economy ffs!
Laurence at Chelsea I believe doesn't even hold a relevant educational qualification! He's made it to where he is solely on experience and hard work it seems.

We're arguably the only club currently blaming the CEO for on field issues, its mental.

It's because people don't understand the problems we have and how to solve them so they want to point at someone and blame all our problems on them. First its the manager but after 3 managers we can't blame the manager anymore so we move up to the CEO.

The problems we have are much much more complicated than just saying this guy made bad decisions, if we replace him it will fix everything. Every wants to believe our issues can go away with one simple decision but that's not the case. Trying to do an entire top to bottom rebuild of a club, after losing the manager and figurehead of 25 years all while trying to please sponsors and fans by remaining competitive was a job that was almost definitely going to result in failure. It will take years to fix this thats just the nature, things cant be solved so easily all the time

 

[UncleBob]

That's a fair question. To be honest, as I mentioned to you specifically I'm pretty far gone. But here is a quick list of what would make think to start to change my opinion:

- stop speaking publicly about United's spending power in the transfer market

- to not hear anymore talk or boasting in shareholder calls about the number of likes on social media his signings have gotten

- if Ole is really unsuccessful within a couple seasons and at the point where he really needs to be replaced per the consensus of all that have a say or even just opinion, then I'd want to see Ed publicly apologise for hiring Ole so soon after saying there would be a long, thorough process for the next manager. I'd then want an actually thoughtful and thorough vetting of the next candidate.

- see United be the world richest club again for consecutive years, having dropped to third behind Madrid and Barca. Considering how much money Premier League draws in versus La Liga, being anything but first is failure in my eyes.

And that's just to begin thinking about forgiveness. Not actually changing my opinion.

 

[Beachryan]

We're arguably the only club currently blaming the CEO for on field issues, its mental.

I think there are 2 reasons for that:
1. Ed has created a media image of himself as heavily involved in transfers. This has not all come from speculation, the man himself has talked about it. You can argue whether or not the CEO should have any say (probably should) but people like to attribute the bad/lack of signings to him. Personally I think you can go through every signing and sale and pretty clearly blame the manager at the time.

2. He is the CEO. He is responsible for the results of our 'company'.
Looking at 5 years of stock price movement, United are up 13% - BUT - the DJI is up 52%. So pretty massive failure there, shareholders would have been far more successful if they'd just stuffed their dollars in a tracker index.

On the pitch - we've undeniably gone backwards from last season, but did have to deal with the Jose meltdown and somewhat bizarre Ole collapse. The negativity is amplified by - imo - Liverpool being so damn good this year. United do not compete with City in terms of spend. All the media/pundits/fans that argue this are just buying the line. City should walk the league every year. They have outspent everyone, virtually every window, for the past decade. And listen, it shows, but that's at least partly because they've broken a lot of eggs, to quote a certain man. Mendy (52m), Mahrez (60m), Danilo (27m), Nolito (14m), Bravo (17m), Mangala (40m), Fernando (12m), Bony (28m). That's more than virtually every other team has spent over the time period, just on players who basically aren't used.

But, we didn't finish second again, we didn't perform particularly in the last 2 months of the season and things aren't looking rosy, so Ed is copping a lot of flak about systems, managers, directors of football and so forth.

Personally I think we need to see how he does this summer, how Ole gets on by Christmas and then we can judge things. I'd imagine Ed's under more pressure because of the relatively crap business results he's delivering.

 

[Johan07]

That's a fair question. To be honest, as I mentioned to you specifically I'm pretty far gone. But here is a quick list of what would make think to start to change my opinion:

- stop speaking publicly about United's spending power in the transfer market

- to not hear anymore talk or boasting in shareholder calls about the number of likes on social media his signings have gotten

- if Ole is really unsuccessful within a couple seasons and at the point where he really needs to be replaced per the consensus of all that have a say or even just opinion, then I'd want to see Ed publicly apologise for hiring Ole so soon after saying there would be a long, thorough process for the next manager. I'd then want an actually thoughtful and thorough vetting of the next candidate.

- see United be the world richest club again for consecutive years, having dropped to third behind Madrid and Barca. Considering how much money Premier League draws in versus La Liga, being anything but first is failure in my eyes.

And that's just to begin thinking about forgiveness. Not actually changing my opinion.

To be fair; that is kind of the purpose with the conference calls with investors. He is supposed to "sell" interest in our shares. He would be neglecting his duty as CEO if he did not. And the global interest for United are important to the share price. Its just how it is.
And also: I find Woodward´s IR conference calls extremely boring and non-informative. I would actually like him to speak more anout the football side of things, but those calls are mostly just filled with numbers and cliches.
Then media picks out some small thing ot of context and distorts it.
I dont know if you mean an earlier statement or the more current Varane-quote, but it does not matter, since they are actually quite correct, logical and should if anything be applauded by us fans.
What Wooldward means - in context - is that the club has no transfer limit when investing in young talented players. There will always be money for that. And there has been as well. See Pogba and Lukaku for example. Its another thing that our wage budget - already highest in the PL - might hinder some transfers.

 

[Johan07]

I think there are 2 reasons for that:
1. Ed has created a media image of himself as heavily involved in transfers. This has not all come from speculation, the man himself has talked about it. You can argue whether or not the CEO should have any say (probably should) but people like to attribute the bad/lack of signings to him. Personally I think you can go through every signing and sale and pretty clearly blame the manager at the time.

2. He is the CEO. He is responsible for the results of our 'company'.
Looking at 5 years of stock price movement, United are up 13% - BUT - the DJI is up 52%. So pretty massive failure there, shareholders would have been far more successful if they'd just stuffed their dollars in a tracker index.

On the pitch - we've undeniably gone backwards from last season, but did have to deal with the Jose meltdown and somewhat bizarre Ole collapse. The negativity is amplified by - imo - Liverpool being so damn good this year. United do not compete with City in terms of spend. All the media/pundits/fans that argue this are just buying the line. City should walk the league every year. They have outspent everyone, virtually every window, for the past decade. And listen, it shows, but that's at least partly because they've broken a lot of eggs, to quote a certain man. Mendy (52m), Mahrez (60m), Danilo (27m), Nolito (14m), Bravo (17m), Mangala (40m), Fernando (12m), Bony (28m). That's more than virtually every other team has spent over the time period, just on players who basically aren't used.

But, we didn't finish second again, we didn't perform particularly in the last 2 months of the season and things aren't looking rosy, so Ed is copping a lot of flak about systems, managers, directors of football and so forth.

Personally I think we need to see how he does this summer, how Ole gets on by Christmas and then we can judge things. I'd imagine Ed's under more pressure because of the relatively crap business results he's delivering.

He has? Please enlighten us on how he has done this?

 

[Sterling Archer]

To be fair; that is kind of the purpose with the conference calls with investors. He is supposed to "sell" interest in our shares. He would be neglecting his duty as CEO if he did not. And the global interest for United are important to the share price. Its just how it is.
And also: I find Woodward´s IR conference calls extremely boring and non-informative. I would actually like him to speak more anout the football side of things, but those calls are mostly just filled with numbers and cliches.
Then media picks out some small thing ot of context and distorts it.
I dont know if you mean an earlier statement or the more current Varane-quote, but it does not matter, since they are actually quite correct, logical and should if anything be applauded by us fans.
What Wooldward means - in context - is that the club has no transfer limit when investing in young talented players. There will always be money for that. And there has been as well. See Pogba and Lukaku for example. Its another thing that our wage budget - already highest in the PL - might hinder some transfers.

As a shareholder I hear that and then see United drop to third in revenue behind the Spanish clubs. And so whatever he is selling on those calls to me is snake oil. It's not substance of value to me. We joke about the money from shirt sales, but at least that is tangible. He went on about the bloody social media. And then the clubs financials disappointed.

My opinion then gets more and more strong that he's fixated on image and popularity , the galactico kick and none of that translates directly to either football success nor financial success

 

[tenpoless]

Here is a quick list of what would make think to start to change my opinion :
1. Go back to Marketing Department
2. Thank you very much

 

[UncleBob]

2. He is the CEO. He is responsible for the results of our 'company'.
Looking at 5 years of stock price movement, United are up 13% - BUT - the DJI is up 52%. So pretty massive failure there, shareholders would have been far more successful if they'd just stuffed their dollars in a tracker index.

Calling it a massive failure is more than just a bit ott.

 

[Johan07]

As a shareholder I hear that and then see United drop to third in revenue behind the Spanish clubs. And so whatever he is selling on those calls to me is snake oil. It's not substance of value to me. We joke about the money from shirt sales, but at least that is tangible. He went on about the bloody social media. And then the clubs financials disappointed.

My opinion then gets more and more strong that he's fixated on image and popularity , the galactico kick and none of that translates directly to either football success nor financial success

Well, I respectfully disagree. Brand recognition is extremely important. Its what drives sponsor investment and therefore also share value. And like it or not, today brand recognition is to a big part established on social media.
I think its completely normal for him to take one or two examples of this on an investor call. And again: this is like one sentence from a 30 min call even if one for some reason should think it was wrong to highlight this to begin with. Which I do not.

 

[Beachryan]

Calling it a massive failure is more than just a bit ott.

Is it? I mean, you could have made 5x the returns by investing in a simple tracker versus United. Surely that's not good performance?

 

[Sterling Archer]

Well, I respectfully disagree. Brand recognition is extremely important. Its what drives sponsor investment and therefore also share value. And like it or not, today brand recognition is to a big part established on social media.
I think its completely normal for him to take one or two examples of this on an investor call. And again: this is like one sentence from a 30 min call even if one for some reason should think it was wrong to highlight this to begin with. Which I do not.

That's fair. Going back to my overwhelming dislike of Woodward, it's down to no single thing. It's an accumulation over several years. That's really going to be hard to shake. In fact, it will take years of good decisions and behavior.

 

[Johan07]

Here is a quick list of what would make think to start to change my opinion :
1. Go back to Marketing Department
2. Thank you very much

He never had a position at the "Marketing Department".

 

[Beachryan]

He has? Please enlighten us on how he has done this?

There's the big quotes on doing things in the market noone can, on being able to compete in an increasingly competitive market and so forth. Also some from an insider about Ed loving to quote social media figures to agents when discussing players - apparently we increased Daley Blind's 72% when we signed him. Hooray.

I could be wrong, but I feel like he's also in a quite a few signing pictures.

 

[Johan07]

There's the big quotes on doing things in the market noone can, on being able to compete in an increasingly competitive market and so forth. Also some from an insider about Ed loving to quote social media figures to agents when discussing players - apparently we increased Daley Blind's 72% when we signed him. Hooray.

I could be wrong, but I feel like he's also in a quite a few signing pictures.

Well, he kind of is the CEO and does sign for the company so.... And how is that different from any other CEO. Sorriano is in most of Citys "signing pictures" also. Its normal.
And those "big quotes" are from investor calls where his purpose and duty is to promote the company´s shares. But I have touched on that earlier in this thread.
For me Woodward if anything seems to try to escape the spotlight. He seldom if ever does interviews. That media attributes quotes to him without sources I at least disregard.

 

[Keefy18]

That's a fair question. To be honest, as I mentioned to you specifically I'm pretty far gone. But here is a quick list of what would make think to start to change my opinion:

- stop speaking publicly about United's spending power in the transfer market

- to not hear anymore talk or boasting in shareholder calls about the number of likes on social media his signings have gotten

- if Ole is really unsuccessful within a couple seasons and at the point where he really needs to be replaced per the consensus of all that have a say or even just opinion, then I'd want to see Ed publicly apologise for hiring Ole so soon after saying there would be a long, thorough process for the next manager. I'd then want an actually thoughtful and thorough vetting of the next candidate.

- see United be the world richest club again for consecutive years, having dropped to third behind Madrid and Barca. Considering how much money Premier League draws in versus La Liga, being anything but first is failure in my eyes.

And that's just to begin thinking about forgiveness. Not actually changing my opinion.

Just to touch on some of these then

stop speaking publicly about United's spending power in the transfer market

That's part of his job as CEO, to talk up how strong financially we are. Most of these quotes come from the investor business calls, its not like he's running to the media giving interviews to promote our financials.

Our financials are public record anyway, so weather he mention it or not its there for all to see.

to not hear anymore talk or boasting in shareholder calls about the number of likes on social media his signings have gotten

Again, You do realize that those quotes are from investor calls? It's a business call about the business side of the club... so you can fully expect business to be discussed.

if Ole is really unsuccessful within a couple seasons and at the point where he really needs to be replaced per the consensus of all that have a say or even just opinion, then I'd want to see Ed publicly apologise for hiring Ole so soon after saying there would be a long, thorough process for the next manager.

Where and when did he say there would be a "long, thorough process for the next manager"? He didn't as far as I'm aware. They just hired Ole as an interim and rumor is was impressed with his plans for the team over the next 3 years.

In the first public statement post Jose he said he wouldn't be brought into discussing his replacement. Quotes can be found below.

You are again, creating things that never happened to base your personal opinions on which is fundamentally flawed.

https://www.express.co.uk/sport/foo...ward-Ole-Gunnar-Solskjaer-Mauricio-Pochettino

And your last point is double standards at its finest. You start out complaining about how he promotes our financial strengths and round it out by complaining that we aren't ahead of Barca and Real?

So basically he's a clown for trying to make us financially powerful but then moan that we aren't financially top... yeah wonderful logic there pal.

 

[UncleBob]

Is it? I mean, you could have made 5x the returns by investing in a simple tracker versus United. Surely that's not good performance?

It's nonsensical. If it's a good performance or not depends on what you can compare it with, considering the limited amount of comparable sport clubs on the market it's difficult to say, simply comparing it with what an index tracker would give you and calling a 13% increase a massive failure is bizarre. How many single companies beat index trackers.

There's the big quotes on doing things in the market noone can, on being able to compete in an increasingly competitive market and so forth. Also some from an insider about Ed loving to quote social media figures to agents when discussing players - apparently we increased Daley Blind's 72% when we signed him. Hooray.

I could be wrong, but I feel like he's also in a quite a few signing pictures.

It's hardly a surprise that we're using social media figures when discussing deals with players, it can potentially mean a major increase in income for both the player and club. If you look at various top players and their income, wages compared with image rights, sponsorships etc, it'll tell you why

In terms of signing pictures, David Gill was in the vast majority of pictures when we signed players (Evra, Vidic, Van Persie, Nani, Ronaldo, Giggs renewals, Cleverley etc etc), it's nothing new.

 

[Keefy18]

It's because people don't understand the problems we have and how to solve them so they want to point at someone and blame all our problems on them. First its the manager but after 3 managers we can't blame the manager anymore so we move up to the CEO.

The problems we have are much much more complicated than just saying this guy made bad decisions, if we replace him it will fix everything. Every wants to believe our issues can go away with one simple decision but that's not the case. Trying to do an entire top to bottom rebuild of a club, after losing the manager and figurehead of 25 years all while trying to please sponsors and fans by remaining competitive was a job that was almost definitely going to result in failure. It will take years to fix this thats just the nature, things cant be solved so easily all the time

If I could give this a like I really would! Fantastic post and sums up the current situation nicely in 2 simple, straight forward paragraphs.

It's hilarious reading comments about DoF and I'd be certain that the majority posting about it haven't a clue what a DoF / TD does within the club.

Our fan base seems to believe City and Liverpool clicked their fingers and over night everything was hunky dory which is absolute b*llicks!

Gillet & Hicks was a disaster and Fenway got it wrong with Rodgers and there's been numerous changes at board level the last 3-4 years as well.

City are similar and it took them years to go from buy out to champions, they had 3 separate owners / buy outs in 2 seasons. From Bernstein & Wardle, Thaksin Shinwatra & then Sheikh Monsour and the latter rolled out his board changes over a 4 year period to their first league title.

 

[tenpoless]

He never had a position at the "Marketing Department".

Then lets put him there regardless.

 

[Keefy18]

I could be wrong, but I feel like he's also in a quite a few signing pictures.

Always been the way, it promotes unity and a common goal that board and manager are on the same hymn sheet.

 

[RedSky]

@Keefy18 - Fair fecks for trying mate. But when a caftard has an angry thought in their head it's very hard to shake it out of them.

 

[Keefy18]

I think there are 2 reasons for that:
1. Ed has created a media image of himself as heavily involved in transfers. This has not all come from speculation, the man himself has talked about it. You can argue whether or not the CEO should have any say (probably should) but people like to attribute the bad/lack of signings to him. Personally I think you can go through every signing and sale and pretty clearly blame the manager at the time.

I don't think he has created the image at all, his quotes are simply from investor meetings and he's there to promote the club and entice investment in the club which in turn funds our huge wage bill and ability to repeatedly break transfer records, which is what he has done.

I put it down to tabloid rhetoric and our fan base buying into it. Not much else to it than that for me.

2. He is the CEO. He is responsible for the results of our 'company'.
Looking at 5 years of stock price movement, United are up 13% - BUT - the DJI is up 52%. So pretty massive failure there, shareholders would have been far more successful if they'd just stuffed their dollars in a tracker index.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/Man Utd/manchester-united/stock-price-history

Our stock price fluctuates, don't see the issue here. Nothing that alarming to me stands out.

On the pitch - we've undeniably gone backwards from last season, but did have to deal with the Jose meltdown and somewhat bizarre Ole collapse. The negativity is amplified by - imo - Liverpool being so damn good this year. United do not compete with City in terms of spend. All the media/pundits/fans that argue this are just buying the line. City should walk the league every year. They have outspent everyone, virtually every window, for the past decade. And listen, it shows, but that's at least partly because they've broken a lot of eggs, to quote a certain man. Mendy (52m), Mahrez (60m), Danilo (27m), Nolito (14m), Bravo (17m), Mangala (40m), Fernando (12m), Bony (28m). That's more than virtually every other team has spent over the time period, just on players who basically aren't used.

On the pitch its down to the manager, weather its Moyes, LVG, Jose or Ole. The first 3 have been backed, Ole I'm sure will be too.

Ed himself has been CEO since 2012, in that time we've spent a total of £751.2M (includes Sanchez mind boggling wages due to the nature of that particular transfer and not including a fee) vs City's spend of £917.15M.

We should definitely be competing with them most seasons, 2nd or maybe 3rd at worst with that kind of spend carried out but our problem is scouting and how we invest it in players. Talented individuals have been bought but not made part of a team.

 

[Beachryan]

I don't think he has created the image at all, his quotes are simply from investor meetings and he's there to promote the club and entice investment in the club which in turn funds our huge wage bill and ability to repeatedly break transfer records, which is what he has done.

I put it down to tabloid rhetoric and our fan base buying into it. Not much else to it than that for me.



https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/Man Utd/manchester-united/stock-price-history

Our stock price fluctuates, don't see the issue here. Nothing that alarming to me stands out.




On the pitch its down to the manager, weather its Moyes, LVG, Jose or Ole. The first 3 have been backed, Ole I'm sure will be too.

Ed himself has been CEO since 2012, in that time we've spent a total of £751.2M (includes Sanchez mind boggling wages due to the nature of that particular transfer and not including a fee) vs City's spend of £917.15M.

We should definitely be competing with them most seasons, 2nd or maybe 3rd at worst with that kind of spend carried out but our problem is scouting and how we invest it in players. Talented individuals have been bought but not made part of a team.

In summary you think he's doing fine then?

 

[Keefy18]

@Keefy18 - Fair fecks for trying mate. But when a caftard has an angry thought in their head it's very hard to shake it out of them.

Caftards indeed

 

[Sterling Archer]

That's part of his job as CEO, to talk up how strong financially we are. Most of these quotes come from the investor business calls, its not like he's running to the media giving interviews to promote our financials.

Again, You do realize that those quotes are from investor calls? It's a business call about the business side of the club... so you can fully expect business to be discussed....
double standards at its finest. You start out complaining about how he promotes our financial strengths and round it out by complaining that we aren't ahead of Barca and Real?

So basically he's a clown for trying to make us financially powerful but then moan that we aren't financially top... yeah wonderful logic there pal.

That's the whole point Keef. He is in business meetings talking football. Our CEO is in these calls bigging up financial, marketing and football prospectives for United and then delivering on none of them.

When I told you my opinion of Ed Woodward wasn't going to change until Ed himself acted differently that was an opportunity for you to bugger off. I don't care what you think of my opinion. You're probably the very last person that's going to change my mind given what I've seen from you:

Folks are in meltdown cause Ole got the job too soon....the DoF appointment is arguably a lot more important as the idea is he stays beyond managers ...
Can only laugh really

This has to be the most ridiculous thing you've said. This level of arrogance about how football management works can only mean that you and I will never agree on this.

Let me say it again and without the condescension and petty language you consistently resort to as if it makes your point valid:

I don't agree with you. You don't agree with me.

That's it. I heard you out and disagree. I even went so far as to explain what I'd need to change my mind. And you genuinely think that you'll change me , that by rudely telling me I'm wrong is going to gain any sympathies? That's not how people function.

 

[Keefy18]

In summary you think he's doing fine then?

He's made mistakes no doubt about it, but folks blaming him for things that don't fall under his job remit is feckin daft.

I'm bored of reading about how poor a team we are and that's Ed's fault...How?

He was CEO in 2012, we won a league with Fergie in 2013! Folks weren't blaming him then were they?

He really shouldn't of bowed to supporter pressure and went with Jose. Huge, huge error for me and we definitely should of stuck with LVG for that final year and then changed to a younger manager after that season.

Our fan base is demanding instant fixes without allowing things play out to a conclusion in most cases.

Ole is being turned on, the rumors of mimicking Ajax / Bayern and involving former players also mocked and we've supporters saying it was a mistake to rush in and appoint Ole....but then are in meltdown as well cause a DoF hasn't been rushed to be appointed.

In short our fan base is more confused than a blind lesbian in a fish mongers!!!

 

[Class of 63]

That's fair. Going back to my overwhelming dislike of Woodward, it's down to no single thing. It's an accumulation over several years. That's really going to be hard to shake. In fact, it will take years of good decisions and behavior.

What like eating his greens and tidying his bedroom?

 

[R'hllor]

A good section of fans in here have no right to criticize EW when you see their way of thinking regarding transfers etc.

 

[Johan07]

In summary you think he's doing fine then?

If you judge him on his work as a CEO and what it entails he has done very well. If you are a fan deluded into thinking that a CEO has or should have any real influence over footballing matters you might think differently. But then your fundaments are wrong to begin with.
I seriously dont get why people are blaming our CEO for non-performance on the footballing side. This happens to no other CEO in the game. Its just weird.
As far as I am concerned under Woodward we have invested the most money in transfer fees after cheating City and eclipsed them in wages. Thats all I demand from the club and CEO: a fair backing financially and it has been given.
And: thats just a part of Woodwards "inheritance". We have completely restructured the youth program. We have built a world-wide scouting network. We have started a women´s team. Nothing of this comes cheap either.
The idea that we are lagging behind the other clubs because of Woodward is ridiculous to be honest.

 

[Keefy18]

That's the whole point Keef. He is in business meetings talking football. Our CEO is in these calls bigging up financial, marketing and football prospectives for United and then delivering on none of them.

He's talking about our finances supporting the football side, which is entirely true. He's been club CEO since 2012 and in that time he's over seen:

• RVP was a then record for a 29 year old in the PL.
• Mata was a British transfer record.
• The next summer we broke 2 transfer records - Shaw was a world transfer record for a teenager. ADM was a world transfer record.
• One year later, he broke the record he set the previous year for Shaw, by then spending a new record on Martial.
• The following summer we broke the World transfer record...AGAIN for Pogba
• Fast forward another year, Lukaku is a record transfer between 2 premier league clubs
• Go to Jan 18 and we again broke salary records and made Sanchez the highest paid player in the league

Delivering none of them? Utter, utter crap. How those players perform on field is not his job, its the managers.

When I told you my opinion of Ed Woodward wasn't going to change until Ed himself acted differently that was an opportunity for you to bugger off. I don't care what you think of my opinion. You're probably the very last person that's going to change my mind given what I've seen from you:

I'm not surprised, cause you've a closed mind and as proven above you are creating narratives that don't exist, blaming a CEO for on field matters when its not his job and imagining quotes that were never made to enforce your ideals.

This has to be the most ridiculous thing you've said. This level of arrogance about how football management works can only mean that you and I will never agree on this.

Far from it, read through any of the Woodward, DoF & compare to the Ole threads... I've seen the same posters on the first 2 threads say its a disgrace that we haven't rushed to appoint someone pre transfer window and travel over to the Ole thread to say the opposite and say its a disgrace we acted impatiently and rushed to appoint him.

The irony of you saying my quote is arrogant, when you haven't a breeze of what Ed's role in the club is.

I don't agree with you. You don't agree with me.

Disagreement is fine, won't all agree on everything.

It's the creation of things that were never there and blaming a CEO for on field matters and similar stuff that is bizarre. I mean, did we praise Edwards for our wonderful football under Fergie? No, Fergie got the praise but its done a 180 now and now were not winning leagues on field performances are strangely landed at the door of a CEO?!

Anyway last I'll say to you on it, your mind is closed as you've said as much.

 

[Saf94]

If I could give this a like I really would! Fantastic post and sums up the current situation nicely in 2 simple, straight forward paragraphs.

It's hilarious reading comments about DoF and I'd be certain that the majority posting about it haven't a clue what a DoF / TD does within the club.

Our fan base seems to believe City and Liverpool clicked their fingers and over night everything was hunky dory which is absolute b*llicks!

Gillet & Hicks was a disaster and Fenway got it wrong with Rodgers and there's been numerous changes at board level the last 3-4 years as well.

City are similar and it took them years to go from buy out to champions, they had 3 separate owners / buy outs in 2 seasons. From Bernstein & Wardle, Thaksin Shinwatra & then Sheikh Monsour and the latter rolled out his board changes over a 4 year period to their first league title.

Agree 100% with this. Context is everything, Man City built their team when money talked and very few clubs had it. No one had a billionaire owner at the time apart from Chelsea and the Arabs had several more billions than Roman did. Nowadays you can't just throw money and expect to sign the top players because all the top teams have money now. When Juve are signing Ronaldo for 100m and Barca are taking out loans to sign 100m+ players every summer.

The year City signed Silva, Toure, Balotelli, Boateng, Dzeko etc, Juventus spent a net of 20m and their biggest transfers were 13m to Bari for Bonucci, 13.5m for a guy called Milos Krasic and 10m for a guy called Jorge Martinez. Barcelona that year spent a net of 18m after selling Toure, Chygrynskiy they got Villa and Mascherano. Citys net spend that year was 130m!

I actually think Liverpool and Spurs are good templates to show how you actually do a rebuild. Here's the key similarities between what Klopp and Poch implemented at their clubs

- A modern progressive system based on high energy, high pressing and heavy emphasis on fitness
- Not signing superstars but instead bringing in guys who fit the system rather than quality for qualitys sake
- Shipping out players who don't fit the philisophy
- Improving the players who are there and turning average/underperforming players into key parts of the team

The problem with all this, it's all in hindsight. It's only now we can see how these philosophies have evolved. When we started the rebuild we were in an era of galactico success and that's what we tried but we didn't realise galactico times were ending and market inflation was killing it. Meanwhile managers like Klopp and Poch were paving the way for the new modern era but we were stuck in between, desperate for instant success so trying to replicate a model which wasn't being implemented by anyone anymore.

I think now Woodward has realised all this, if you look at the list i put above you can see signs for us trying to implement all of those steps. I think we are learning but it will take time. We were an unfortunate victim of just the worst situation of everything, too big a rebuild and no understanding of how to do it. We had to fail to learn, no one knew at the time what it would take and even now most can't see the examples of how to actually do it right and many aren't even recognising the steps we ourselves are taking to do it right.

 

[Patrick08]

He's talking about our finances supporting the football side, which is entirely true. He's been club CEO since 2012 and in that time he's over seen:

• RVP was a then record for a 29 year old in the PL.
• Mata was a British transfer record.
• The next summer we broke 2 transfer records - Shaw was a world transfer record for a teenager. ADM was a world transfer record.
• One year later, he broke the record he set the previous year for Shaw, by then spending a new record on Martial.
• The following summer we broke the World transfer record...AGAIN for Pogba
• Fast forward another year, Lukaku is a record transfer between 2 premier league clubs
• Go to Jan 18 and we again broke salary records and made Sanchez the highest paid player in the league

Delivering none of them? Utter, utter crap. How those players perform on field is not his job, its the managers.



I'm not surprised, cause you've a closed mind and as proven above you are creating narratives that don't exist, blaming a CEO for on field matters when its not his job and imagining quotes that were never made to enforce your ideals.




Far from it, read through any of the Woodward, DoF & compare to the Ole threads... I've seen the same posters on the first 2 threads say its a disgrace that we haven't rushed to appoint someone pre transfer window and travel over to the Ole thread to say the opposite and say its a disgrace we acted impatiently and rushed to appoint him.

The irony of you saying my quote is arrogant, when you haven't a breeze of what Ed's role in the club is.



Disagreement is fine, won't all agree on everything.

It's the creation of things that were never there and blaming a CEO for on field matters and similar stuff that is bizarre. I mean, did we praise Edwards for our wonderful football under Fergie? No, Fergie got the praise but its done a 180 now and now were not winning leagues on field performances are strangely landed at the door of a CEO?!

Anyway last I'll say to you on it, your mind is closed as you've said as much.

Weird defense of Woodward.

 

[Johan07]

Weird defense of Woodward.

Its only on the Caf where a well thought out intelligent post is being branded as "weird". Of course without any arguments at all.

 

[Keefy18]

Agree 100% with this. Context is everything, Man City built their team when money talked and very few clubs had it. No one had a billionaire owner at the time apart from Chelsea and the Arabs had several more billions than Roman did. Nowadays you can't just throw money and expect to sign the top players because all the top teams have money now. When Juve are signing Ronaldo for 100m and Barca are taking out loans to sign 100m+ players every summer.

The year City signed Silva, Toure, Balotelli, Boateng, Dzeko etc, Juventus spent a net of 20m and their biggest transfers were 13m to Bari for Bonucci, 13.5m for a guy called Milos Krasic and 10m for a guy called Jorge Martinez. Barcelona that year spent a net of 18m after selling Toure, Chygrynskiy they got Villa and Mascherano. Citys net spend that year was 130m!

I actually think Liverpool and Spurs are good templates to show how you actually do a rebuild. Here's the key similarities between what Klopp and Poch implemented at their clubs

- A modern progressive system based on high energy, high pressing and heavy emphasis on fitness
- Not signing superstars but instead bringing in guys who fit the system rather than quality for qualitys sake
- Shipping out players who don't fit the philisophy
- Improving the players who are there and turning average/underperforming players into key parts of the team

The problem with all this, it's all in hindsight. It's only now we can see how these philosophies have evolved. When we started the rebuild we were in an era of galactico success and that's what we tried but we didn't realise galactico times were ending and market inflation was killing it. Meanwhile managers like Klopp and Poch were paving the way for the new modern era but we were stuck in between, desperate for instant success so trying to replicate a model which wasn't being implemented by anyone anymore.

I think now Woodward has realised all this, if you look at the list i put above you can see signs for us trying to implement all of those steps. I think we are learning but it will take time. We were an unfortunate victim of just the worst situation of everything, too big a rebuild and no understanding of how to do it. We had to fail to learn, no one knew at the time what it would take and even now most can't see the examples of how to actually do it right and many aren't even recognising the steps we ourselves are taking to do it right.

Timing they say is everything, probably more true in football as it is anywhere else.

As you say City's billionaire owners was new to the league and they spent wildly for a few years and those first two league titles were good achievements but they still weren't the team they are now under Pep. The spending helped of course but he's also molded them into something completely different to what they were between 2011-15.

You are indeed right, the era of "Galactico" is all but over due to the ridiculous sums of money involved in transfers now. Its not feasible for clubs to operate this way, instead its about finding hidden gems and developing them and our 2 out of 3 of our managers didn't do this (Moyes and Jose).

Whilst we spend £75m on Lukaku, Liverpool snap up Salah & Mane for cheaper. There are examples like this all over the team when compared to City & Liverpool.

I've always believed of all the post Fergie managers LVG was the best fit to date and should of been given that final season. The football was tumescent but our fan base thinks we should be walking to leagues like we've a divine right to them, we don't.

If we look at your list and think of what LVG done or was trying to:

- A modern progressive system based on high energy, high pressing and heavy emphasis on fitness - Fail. He opted for possession.
- Not signing superstars but instead bringing in guys who fit the system rather than quality for quality's sake - Hated galactico's and opted for youth and developing talent over marquee signings for most part.
- Shipping out players who don't fit the philisophy - Yep, he was slaughtered for selling on players and trying to rebuild us into a new generation. Our fan base wanted to hang onto former glories.
- Improving the players who are there and turning average/underperforming players into key parts of the team - He got good results from Shaw (pre leg break), Smalling & Blind, Fellaini, Martial, Rashford and Lingard was doing decent for him too among others.

The sad thing is now still that even though we might possibly see a change of philosophy from Ed and Ole, our supporters aren't willing to give it a chance and are already writing off signings like Daniel James. They are saying we've become a joke and should be signing top players

Really can't win.

 

[Keefy18]

Weird defense of Woodward.

Weird how?

 

[Touseef]

Weird how?

Let it be dude. People have preconceived notions that Woodward is the blame guy and aren't willing to listen to any reason or logic

 

[Saf94]

Timing they say is everything, probably more true in football as it is anywhere else.

As you say City's billionaire owners was new to the league and they spent wildly for a few years and those first two league titles were good achievements but they still weren't the team they are now under Pep. The spending helped of course but he's also molded them into something completely different to what they were between 2011-15.

You are indeed right, the era of "Galactico" is all but over due to the ridiculous sums of money involved in transfers now. Its not feasible for clubs to operate this way, instead its about finding hidden gems and developing them and our 2 out of 3 of our managers didn't do this (Moyes and Jose).

Whilst we spend £75m on Lukaku, Liverpool snap up Salah & Mane for cheaper. There are examples like this all over the team when compared to City & Liverpool.

I've always believed of all the post Fergie managers LVG was the best fit to date and should of been given that final season. The football was tumescent but our fan base thinks we should be walking to leagues like we've a divine right to them, we don't.

If we look at your list and think of what LVG done or was trying to:

- A modern progressive system based on high energy, high pressing and heavy emphasis on fitness - Fail. He opted for possession.
- Not signing superstars but instead bringing in guys who fit the system rather than quality for quality's sake - Hated galactico's and opted for youth and developing talent over marquee signings for most part.
- Shipping out players who don't fit the philisophy - Yep, he was slaughtered for selling on players and trying to rebuild us into a new generation. Our fan base wanted to hang onto former glories.
- Improving the players who are there and turning average/underperforming players into key parts of the team - He got good results from Shaw (pre leg break), Smalling & Blind, Fellaini, Martial, Rashford and Lingard was doing decent for him too among others.

The sad thing is now still that even though we might possibly see a change of philosophy from Ed and Ole, our supporters aren't willing to give it a chance and are already writing off signings like Daniel James. They are saying we've become a joke and should be signing top players

Really can't win.

The problem with LVG was it was too big a departure from what this club is used to. Going from a club known for direct, fast paced football to trying to become a dutch/barca style possession team was a huge move, it would be to entirely change the identity of the club. For sure with a few more years LVG could have got it working but was that what we wanted to become? I just don't think anybody was ready for that, not the club, not the fans, not the media.

The thing that people don't really realise is rebuilding is rebuilding towards something, towards a style and identity. Mou didn't come in and pick up from LVG's rebuild he had to start his own rebuild because his style and philosophy was entirely different. And now Ole taking over from Mou is another new rebuild because we also don't want to move in the direction that Mou was taking us.

If we kept Mou or got someone like Conte we could have built upon what Mou did and we wouldn't need to start fresh but the problem is, just like with LVG, is we got a manager who's style we didn't actually want. We wanted success but didn't realise we weren't willing to give up our identity for it. So now we go again, start a 3rd rebuild, finally clear on the identity and philosophy we want and thats why it feels like we've progressed nowhere since Fergie left. In reality im thankful we didn't stick with LVG or Mou because even though both could have been extremely successful it's not the way i want this club to be.

I don't want us to be Ajax or Chelsea, i want us to Man Utd and for players to associate us with those qualities which make us great.

 

[Keefy18]

The problem with LVG was it was too big a departure from what this club is used to. Going from a club known for direct, fast paced football to trying to become a dutch/barca style possession team was a huge move, it would be to entirely change the identity of the club. For sure with a few more years LVG could have got it working but was that what we wanted to become? I just don't think anybody was ready for that, not the club, not the fans, not the media.

The thing that people don't really realise is rebuilding is rebuilding towards something, towards a style and identity. Mou didn't come in and pick up from LVG's rebuild he had to start his own rebuild because his style and philosophy was entirely different. And now Ole taking over from Mou is another new rebuild because we also don't want to move in the direction that Mou was taking us.

If we kept Mou or got someone like Conte we could have built upon what Mou did and we wouldn't need to start fresh but the problem is, just like with LVG, is we got a manager who's style we didn't actually want. We wanted success but didn't realise we weren't willing to give up our identity for it. So now we go again, start a 3rd rebuild, finally clear on the identity and philosophy we want and thats why it feels like we've progressed nowhere since Fergie left. In reality im thankful we didn't stick with LVG or Mou because even though both could have been extremely successful it's not the way i want this club to be.

I don't want us to be Ajax or Chelsea, i want us to Man Utd and for players to associate us with those qualities which make us great.

FINALLY! Someone gets it!

On the LVG thread I said this exactly that firing LVG and hiring Jose was the worst possible move Ed could make, but he pandered to our spoiled rotten fan base and panicked due to Pep showing up across the City.

LVG, Jose and Ole are 3 completely different managers in their ideals so yes its right to say that each is its own rebuild. I think had we gone from LVG to Ole even we'd not have such a monumental task as it currently is. He'd of had to change playing style alright but there would of been a distinct focus on youth, the rebuild further along with fewer superstar, galactico sorts in the squad and most likely no toxic atmosphere we currently and also improving some players like I've listed above. So, 3 out of 4 ain't so bad.

Overall I just think we'd be in a far healthier position had Jose not been part of the clubs history at all.

I personally would concede winning the league cup & Europa if it meant the team was healthier with a long term vision in mind.

 

[Pscholes18]

Woodward Out! Woodward Cnut!

 

[Bicks]

Kudos to Keefy18.

I don't post at all but thought I would at least appreciate for posting clear points with sound logic.

 

[Saf94]

FINALLY! Someone gets it!

On the LVG thread I said this exactly that firing LVG and hiring Jose was the worst possible move Ed could make, but he pandered to our spoiled rotten fan base and panicked due to Pep showing up across the City.

LVG, Jose and Ole are 3 completely different managers in their ideals so yes its right to say that each is its own rebuild. I think had we gone from LVG to Ole even we'd not have such a monumental task as it currently is. He'd of had to change playing style alright but there would of been a distinct focus on youth, the rebuild further along with fewer superstar, galactico sorts in the squad and most likely no toxic atmosphere we currently and also improving some players like I've listed above. So, 3 out of 4 ain't so bad.

Overall I just think we'd be in a far healthier position had Jose not been part of the clubs history at all.

I personally would concede winning the league cup & Europa if it meant the team was healthier with a long term vision in mind.

Yep I totally agree, but sadly if im honest at the time i didnt agree. I wanted Mou and thought he was the best choice and I think most people did too. That's why I can't blame Woodward when 95% of the decisions (including signing Sanchez) were ones I myself agreed with at the time. It's only in hindsight we can see all the mistakes. All you can ask is that mistakes are learnt from, if we don't get it right this time then you can say it's fair to blame Woodward but every decision he made seemed right at the time.