Ed Woodward | Groundhog Day Edition

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I'd love to know why all of our transfers turn out to be such an epic social media saga yet when other clubs go in for big players, boom its just announced as done more often than not.
Cause you don't keep track about other clubs transfers so much.
 

bond19821982

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I've got no faith in him/the glazers whatsoever. Remember when we finished 2nd and we bought Fred and Dalot in the hope of closing an 18 point gap to City :houllier:
Yet, we have people thinking it was perfectly alright :confused:
 

Irwin99

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To be honest, if the club feels they don't want to pay the money then it would be fair enough if this was a one off but this type of thing is constant with him.

To be fair if he'd have listened to Mourinho we'd currently have a defence with Boateng in it and our front 3 would be Willian Perisic and Lukaku.
I think Jose's vision for the club was extremely short term but in his defence (and LVG's) they've both implied that some of the signings they got were 6th or 7th choice at best. Boateng was a desperation choice if I remember correctly (Jose wanted Maguire didn't he?). Moyes said he was disappointed by the lack of transfer activity too. There's a certainly a theme developing here but you're right as well in that doesn't absolve the previous managers either.
 

RORY65

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Cause you don't keep track about other clubs transfers so much.
There's definitely an element of truth in this but I think the way journalists and other fans speak does also show that it's an opinion held elsewhere as well that it is a flaw, albeit it is for other clubs too (Tottenham and Arsenal have a habit of dragging out deals on a smaller scale). As noted previously though the situation this summer makes a deal like this even harder and makes it more reasonable to try to structure the deal a certain way rather than focusing more on getting it done quickly at maybe a slightly higher cost overall or at least initially.
 

siw2007

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Not entirely sure what Woodward’s game is here. Really hope that we have funds this summer otherwise this could be a grim window.

Assuming that Sancho is our no. 1 target this summer, I don’t think Woodward is playing a game with Dortmund that he can win. He’s going to end up paying the sum of money or having to walk away, either way he doesn’t look good coming out of this. Things can change of course if Jadon pushes for move but I am not optimistic of our chances right now.

On top of that, I’m not seeing where our potential other targets are coming from. It’s all Sancho and we aren’t hearing anything else at the moment. If the club are managing to keep it all quiet then fair play but don’t think that’s the case.

Maybe I’m being a bit impatient with the transfer window. But it’s imperative that the team we field in September is better than the one we put out against Leicester, we have to hammer home our position in the UCL otherwise we will lose it again so forgive me if I’m a little anxious about the possibility of a 2018 happening again.
 

united_99

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Although I've defended Woodward in the past, failing to land Sancho will be a monumental feck up that will cost us for years to come. He still has time to get it done. No real challenger to signing an elite English RW talent from a smaller selling club. He has a golden opportunity to buy a lot of goodwill with everyone, really.
Maybe we just don’t have that huge amount to spend at the moment / or Glazers just don’t want to approve such a big amount upfront in the current risky times? It’s normal that Dortmund might have started with 120 mil and majority upfront, and United tried / still try it with 120 mil total. With the loss we have made in the last 4 months and will continue to make it does make a difference if we pay let’s say 60 mil upfront or 90/100 mil upfront.
 

MattofManchester

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Can we have a Matt Judge edition too? A but unfair he gets away quietly when he's basically chief negotiator.
 

Untied

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We do not know how to sell. I don't know why but it seems that way.

Other clubs like Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, City all manage to get rid of their deadwoods.

Liverpool got rid of 4th choice CB Lovren for £11m with no issues.

We cannot get rid of Smalling who some say was the best defender in Serie A for £15m..
We're not the only ones — probably most similar to Chelsea, who still have Drinkwater, Kenedy, Moses, and Bakayoko. But City loaned Mangala out for two seasons before he left on a free. Arsenal could only loan Mkhitaryan, and have been terrible at sales and preserving squad value generally (Welbeck and Ramsey leaving on frees). Even Liverpool still have Karius.
 

Blood Mage

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There will be no post-Covid war chest that much is certain, and it's clear that Dortmund want a pre-Covid fee for Sancho which isn't going to happen. I think we'll end up with Grealish and Chiesa maybe and that will be it. It's not entirely Ed's fault this time around.
 

RedDevilRoshi

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He’ll be briefing the media about recruiting for a DoF if we fail to get the Jadon Sancho deal done.
 

gorky_utd

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I will not blame Woodward if he can not generate 120m for him because of covid but will blame him if he fails to strengthen other areas of this squad. If he thinks top 4 is enough and we don't need to spend any money this summer, then I don't know what to say.
 

Revan

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The club management and owners don't have the right ambition to go and properly compete. Sancho is a perfect example. We have a clear run at a world class generational talent in a position of dire need, and it looks like we'll miss out on him because we don't want to pay whats required. Bullshit that we can't afford it.

Now is the time where we need to kick on and aggressively strengthen the team. Liverpool won the champions league in 2019 and premier league in 2020. City won the premier league in 2018 and 2019, and are favorites to win the champions league in 2020. Chelsea is spending aggressively to bridge that gap and getting top talents. What the feck are we doing in response? Backing out on signing Sancho when we'll never have this good a chance at him again? fecking ridiculous. Pay what is needed and bring him in.
You are such a loser, totally unambitious. Otherwise you would be driving a Ferrari. After all there are people your age who drive one, and some others who are buying one.
 

liamp

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Made a thread about praising Woodward and Glazers. It got closed because the fans don’t want to hear the truth. They have been redeem for awhile. Only a few big club spends as much as we do and that is thanks to our board. Woodward is doing his job properly and is still getting big advertisements even though we have had little success. Moreover, giving our manager a cheat code with lots of funds to play with. The guy who handles wages and financial transactions though and our managers are more of the problem the past few years.
The problem with this is that Woodward is the CEO and the buck stops with him. It's problematic to blame Matt Judge specifically for the wages and player negotiations and yet praise Woodward and not Richard Arnold for the commercial success this club has had. It's too convenient to laud the guy at the top for good things and to hammer his underlings for the bad things.

Ultimately, I think fans in both camps are partially right. I completely agree with you that there should be praise for the frankly ridiculous amount of money that we've been able to spend on transfers since 2013. The spend can be compared to City specifically to make it seem reasonable, but 850 million pounds is an absurd amount for a club that hasn't won a league and has only qualified for the CL 4 times since 2013. I also agree with supporters that say that Woodward is to blame for not creating a better football operations structure that allows our managers to create the problems we've seen (i.e. Moyes' cluelessness in the transfer market, LVG's aimlessness in the transfer market, Mourinho needing to clear our LVG's signings, Ole needing to clear out Mourinho's signings, every manager signing extensions that the next manager ultimately pays the price for, etc.).

I don't really understand why Ed hasn't hired a Chief Football Officer/Sporting Director/Director of Football or whatever you want to call it that reports to him directly. I understand that he enjoys the trappings of football operations, but he could still be actively involved and having a person in that role partially shields him from the massive PR blowback he gets every time something negative like this Sancho delay happens.
 

acnumber9

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This summer is United’s best chance to kick on finally get back where they belong. Don’t be surprised when Woodward decides that scraping top four is the limit of our ambition and delivers maybe one signing.
 

amolbhatia50k

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Maybe we just don’t have that huge amount to spend at the moment / or Glazers just don’t want to approve such a big amount upfront in the current risky times? It’s normal that Dortmund might have started with 120 mil and majority upfront, and United tried / still try it with 120 mil total. With the loss we have made in the last 4 months and will continue to make it does make a difference if we pay let’s say 60 mil upfront or 90/100 mil upfront.
Doubt it's that far apart. I still feel there's more to happen on this one. I understand that Covid has its effects but for some transfers you have to make exceptions. I'm sure we will continue to spend big as Chelsea are too. It's just allocating that a single crucial player. Give me one Sancho over two Maguire's anyday
 

Fosu-Mens

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Who is to blame for what transfers is made and when they are made, is difficult to pinpoint. First of all, we are not sure what authority Woody and Judge got regarding transfers and negotiations. Do they have to run everything through the Glazers or can they do as they please within a set budget each season? Secondly, given that the owners have not spoken much to the media regarding their vision for the club, what the club actually attempts to achieve further clouds how we operate. Do we aim to actually win the EPL and the ECL or is this something that the manager wants while the owners want to keep their cash cow healthy?

The only thing we can say for sure is that the manner in which the club conduct transfers and contract negotiations are inefficient and ineffective and often causes the club to overpay regarding fee and contract. So, either Woody, Judge or the Glazers are to blame. Most likely some blame on all of them.
 

bosnian_red

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You are such a loser, totally unambitious. Otherwise you would be driving a Ferrari. After all there are people your age who drive one, and some others who are buying one.
Erm.... its well known we're one of the richest clubs around. The owners straight up just aren't doing what's needed to push us further. Our year on year finances show this. Not sure what your comment has to do with anything. We got 3rd place this year, now is time for the board to back Ole for us to push on. Chelsea is doing it to bridge that gap to City and Liverpool. We pretty clearly aren't if we let Sancho fall through.
 

Loon

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Is Daniel Harris considered reliable? He's basically suggested on Twitter Woodward has Keynon'd this deal trying to be Billy Big Bollocks.
 

7even

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The day has come. I has to defend Edward Woodward. Who would have thought that.

Wake up! Manchester United currently losing money. In Q3 2020 we lost £8m.

2019 our net profit was £94m and our cash reserves was £307m. Up to Q3 2020 (31 Mars) our losses so far is £3m and our cash reserves is down to £90m.

In order to prepare for future loss of incomes the club took a revolving credit of £150m.

That means that we only have approximately £50-70m of our own cash for players transfers. Our only way to increase that amount is to sell more players. With that in mind it’s impossible for us to pay Dortmund €120 in one installment. In a best case scenario we can pay €60-70m in 2020 and the rest 2021 and 2022, depending on the pandemic. I’m not even sure that is possible.

If the club continues to make losses then we have to adjust and accept reality. Getting rid of Sánchez was a good thing but it only decrease our wages with £15m in fiscal year 2020/21.

In order to keep our finances in balance we probably need more adjustments if the arenas are closed.

I usually criticize Woodward and the owners but in this case they have been very good. Getting Maguire, Bruno and AWB in one season has cost the club a fortune, to even consider buying Sancho in these circumstances is a sign that they fully back Ole and his ideas.

We should back them all in these difficult times, not acting like spoilt teenagers and expect miracles
 

Revan

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Erm.... its well known we're one of the richest clubs around. The owners straight up just aren't doing what's needed to push us further. Our year on year finances show this. Not sure what your comment has to do with anything. We got 3rd place this year, now is time for the board to back Ole for us to push on. Chelsea is doing it to bridge that gap to City and Liverpool. We pretty clearly aren't if we let Sancho fall through.
You probably missed a worldwide pandemic which has cost the club a shotload if money.

We are one of the richest clubs in the world, and we have spent like one of the richest clubs in the world.
 

fezzerUTD

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This simply isn't true though. Joel Glazer has direct sign off on incoming players, and he talks to Ed Woodward on the regular. He supposedly even spends eight hours a day working on United from an office in DC. To say that the Glazer's aren't also culpable for years of mismanagement is palpably false, and gives the impression that everything hangs on the head of a small cabal of execs reporting to Woodward.

I'm not a huge fan of Woodward, never have been, but like everything in football; it's a team effort.
Where did you find this from? Why would someone that has 0 knowledge of football make football decisions?
 

In Rainbows

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You probably missed a worldwide pandemic which has cost the club a shotload if money.

We are one of the richest clubs in the world, and we have spent like one of the richest clubs in the world.
There is a pandemic, yet we're trying to buy Sancho? You're acting like the reason we're not doing this is because we can't afford this, yet we're more than willing to spend 100mil. The real contention is that we can't afford an extra 20mil, which would only be 20% more.
 

marktan

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He's a former investment banker, probably gets a buzz of dragging things out and having them go down to the wire. In IB that would've meant more fees.
 

Big Ben Foster

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I really can't blame Woody on this Sancho deal. He's a great player but why is our main priority a RW who's going to cost upwards of €100 mil when Greenwood is only going to get better with more game time.

I'd rather spend that on Ndidi, Telles, Kubo and Diego Carlos. Ndidi might be tough to get but his agent is on record saying if we're in for him, they will force the move out.

We shouldn't spend like Barcelona; who've spent ridiculous amounts on Griezmann, Dembele and Coutinho to no avail. We need to spend like Bayern Munich - go for the players who will improve us without necessarily being marquee.
That's the problem though; the hypothetical is nice and all, but under Ed, when we have a target, we go all in. There's never a plan B or plan C. We either get our man (in which case we overpay) or we panic and start shopping around on deadline day.
 

RedDevilzFox

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Meh!

Couldn't care less on this one. Sancho is nowhere near worth 120M. When things don't pan out the way fans want, they'd be back to blaming Woodward for "paying 120M" for Sancho.
 

red thru&thru

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The day has come. I has to defend Edward Woodward. Who would have thought that.

Wake up! Manchester United currently losing money. In Q3 2020 we lost £8m.

2019 our net profit was £94m and our cash reserves was £307m. Up to Q3 2020 (31 Mars) our losses so far is £3m and our cash reserves is down to £90m.

In order to prepare for future loss of incomes the club took a revolving credit of £150m.

That means that we only have approximately £50-70m of our own cash for players transfers. Our only way to increase that amount is to sell more players. With that in mind it’s impossible for us to pay Dortmund €120 in one installment. In a best case scenario we can pay €60-70m in 2020 and the rest 2021 and 2022, depending on the pandemic. I’m not even sure that is possible.

If the club continues to make losses then we have to adjust and accept reality. Getting rid of Sánchez was a good thing but it only decrease our wages with £15m in fiscal year 2020/21.

In order to keep our finances in balance we probably need more adjustments if the arenas are closed.

I usually criticize Woodward and the owners but in this case they have been very good. Getting Maguire, Bruno and AWB in one season has cost the club a fortune, to even consider buying Sancho in these circumstances is a sign that they fully back Ole and his ideas.

We should back them all in these difficult times, not acting like spoilt teenagers and expect miracles
This is literally everything I was thinking.

I really want Sancho but we shouldn't bow down and be shafted.
 

Hawks2008

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We followed up a 2nd place finish by going out and buying Fred and Dalot, not surprising Ed won't spend any money now we've secured CL revenue for his masters.
 

romufc

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We're not the only ones — probably most similar to Chelsea, who still have Drinkwater, Kenedy, Moses, and Bakayoko. But City loaned Mangala out for two seasons before he left on a free. Arsenal could only loan Mkhitaryan, and have been terrible at sales and preserving squad value generally (Welbeck and Ramsey leaving on frees). Even Liverpool still have Karius.
Chelsea have 4 and they are all out on loan.

Liverpool have one.

How many do we have?
Dalot, Rojo, Jones, Lingard, Perreira, Smalling
 

Untied

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Chelsea have 4 and they are all out on loan.

Liverpool have one.

How many do we have?
Dalot, Rojo, Jones, Lingard, Perreira, Smalling
Pereira made 25 starts this season. We can debate the merits of that, but you can't call him deadwood. Smalling and Rojo were out on loan too.

I think the biggest issue is the club has stupidly extended contracts (Jones and Rojo leap to mind), arguably to protect the transfer value of those players. BUT we pay them such inflated wages that no one can afford to buy them anyway. Entirely counter-productive.

Lingard and Rojo are now in the final year of their contracts, so there's very little transfer value there (they can agree free transfers for next summer in just over four months)

The priority should be to shift Jones. A loan for Rojo is fine. Smalling is probably the only one where we should expect a substantial fee (>10m) fee.