Ed Woodward | Groundhog Day Edition

Crustanoid

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He is a plague on the running of our club. How should we deal with this plague?
 

HJ12

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C'mon guys, it's all about the "multi-year squad evolution analysis". Although at the rate we're going, Ed's gonna need to rename his catchphrase to something with a bit of a longer timeframe!
 

bosnian_red

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Honestly starting to feel VDB will be our only signing this summer.
Yep. Disaster of a summer. So disappointing after we had such an encouraging 2020, getting 3rd and having very obvious holes that shouldn't have been difficult to address to push us on. Yet here we are. The thing is, football is always moving and always changing. You can't rest and constantly have to freshen things up and improve. We barely finished fecking 3rd and we're standing still, while everyone around us is improving, only to have more holes open up next season that will need addressing next summer in addition to the glaring holes we have now. Just disastrous post season for us.
 

Tom Cato

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I'm a pretty rational guy. Calm under pressure, able to see reality for what it is, nice to everyone and quick with a joke.

But if we go this entire transfer window, miss out on all targets we've been after for x reason and somehow manage to not commit to signing Sancho (despite me only yesterday writing a post arguing we will sign him), I will become SO SALTY.

I HATE that we don't get business done faster. And I beyond hate that team Glazer take dividens from the club instead of investing it in transfers. !"#%e&#¤!&¤!
 

jasT1981

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If theres a chance of getting Dortmund to lower the price, then it was ALWAYS going to be late on in the window when they know for certain that we are not giving them £108m.

Its a high risk game. The only way we can properly judge how we've performed is at the end of it. I couldn't really care less about 'enough time to bed in' and all that crap when we are talking about a player we could have for 10 years
I'm not talking about Sancho though. I am talking about Woodwards attitude in the transfer windows since taking over in 2013. Its a very relaxed, only if we have to type attitude. We get top 4, qualify for Champions league and then we sleepwalk through the next window as if it seems just qualifying is to be enough to get us through.

He knew what was needed in many windows and failed, and in this one, with our season beginning in 5 days we are nowhere near what was needed or what was asked of him by Ole when the window opened. And this is a reoccurring theme.

Qualify for Champions League
Relax in market
Bad start
Manager fired
Europa League.
 

Adamsk7

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You do realise Ed is just an employee of the Glazers, same as Ole, right? He might well want to pay the money for transfers but can’t.
before our fans go and do something disgustingly horrible to his house again it might be worth remembering that.
Ultimately nobody knows how good or bad a VICE (not the main man) chairman he is
 

Amadaeus

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I'm a pretty rational guy. Calm under pressure, able to see reality for what it is, nice to everyone and quick with a joke.

But if we go this entire transfer window, miss out on all targets we've been after for x reason and somehow manage to not commit to signing Sancho (despite me only yesterday writing a post arguing we will sign him), I will become SO SALTY.

I HATE that we don't get business done faster. And I beyond hate that team Glazer take dividens from the club instead of investing it in transfers. !"#%e&#¤!&¤!
Our first eleven is good enough to challenge. We only really needed to add depth to our squad. DVDB was a great addition. We also extended Igahlo loan to be economically. I would have preferred we let him go and sign someone like Jimenez, or Oshimen.

A perfect summer would have been Grelish or DVDB (checked) and a right attacker (Sancho, Traore, Dembele, Kubo or Coman). I feel our board looked at the mess Barcelona is in and are being more intelligent on the way we spend money. Sancho will not guarantee us a title if we don’t have a competent manager at the helm that can’t exceed expectations with the top squad we have already. After seeing our results last season and how we fluked third and no trophies, it makes the board question whether another significant investment must be made after spending close to £300m with Ole in charge
 

TheGodsInRed

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You do realise Ed is just an employee of the Glazers, same as Ole, right? He might well want to pay the money for transfers but can’t.
before our fans go and do something disgustingly horrible to his house again it might be worth remembering that.
Ultimately nobody knows how good or bad a VICE (not the main man) chairman he is
That's kinda the annoying thing. We don't know who to blame, but there is clear incompetence at the club to get these deals done. I imagine it's mostly the Glaziers though.
 

Highfather_24

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Its so obvious. We will under invest this summer. Our opponents will move ahead of us. At the end of this season we will have effectively regressed and OGS will be blamed for it. The Glazers will panic and make some stupid buys to overcompensate. Club will stagnate.

Rinse and repeat.
 

Bilbo

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I'm a pretty rational guy. Calm under pressure, able to see reality for what it is, nice to everyone and quick with a joke.

But if we go this entire transfer window, miss out on all targets we've been after for x reason and somehow manage to not commit to signing Sancho (despite me only yesterday writing a post arguing we will sign him), I will become SO SALTY.

I HATE that we don't get business done faster. And I beyond hate that team Glazer take dividens from the club instead of investing it in transfers. !"#%e&#¤!&¤!
For gods sake Tom don't let the general panic here get to you. You're better than that.

Judge our window when the countdown has ended and we know where we are at
 

fezzerUTD

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People mad at Ed and the Glazers for refusing to cough up 120 million on Sancho. If anything they should be commanded for that, nobody should be stupid enough to pay that kind of money, especially in this climate. Dortmund setting up arbitrary and ridiculous prices and us getting in on the act and gifting them that amount would have been stupid. They've already fleeced another club(Barca) with their retarded valuation of their player and we should learn a lesson from that fiasco.

All the 100+ million transfers that have happened the last few years have proven costly for the paying clubs, they ended up utter dud deals and as observer from the side we should learn something from this and it's that we shouldn't be quick nor willing to put 100+ million for any players.

Ole also ought to start looking at alternatives, preferably non British players because so far they've cost us a fortune but haven't proven that they are worth the amount we paid for(Maguire for 80 million and AWB for 50 million). Paying 120 million for Sancho would have just been another case of overpaying for a British player. If Dortmund don't want to put a reasonable price then so be it, Sancho will be there next year and we could always try again but no one would be bidding 120+ million next year for him either.

As soon as we looks elsewhere we get good deals for reasonable prices(Bruno, VBD), so I don't see this need to shoot ourselves in the foot trying to waste money on over priced British talents. The likes of Grealish being quoted for 80 million, Sancho 120 million, Maguire 80 million etc is all one needs to know to realize it's simply not worth it.


Stupid post because he thinks not paying 120 million on a player is the right thing to do, especially in current circumstances?
So fecking drop the pursuit like Chelsea and Real Madrid did as soon as the figures were quoted. They are parasites and money grabbing leeches, feck them.
 

clarkydaz

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You do realise Ed is just an employee of the Glazers, same as Ole, right? He might well want to pay the money for transfers but can’t.
before our fans go and do something disgustingly horrible to his house again it might be worth remembering that.
Ultimately nobody knows how good or bad a VICE (not the main man) chairman he is
He signs off the stupid wages and deals for deadwood nobody can buy. if we could sell some deadwood the Sancho deal would be more straightforward
 

georgipep

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I'm a pretty rational guy. Calm under pressure, able to see reality for what it is, nice to everyone and quick with a joke.

But if we go this entire transfer window, miss out on all targets we've been after for x reason and somehow manage to not commit to signing Sancho (despite me only yesterday writing a post arguing we will sign him), I will become SO SALTY.

I HATE that we don't get business done faster. And I beyond hate that team Glazer take dividens from the club instead of investing it in transfers. !"#%e&#¤!&¤!
You've mentioned in previous posts that you are a business owner yourself, right?

If you owned United and had zero emotional attachment, how would you operate?

Would you not squeeze every bit of discount on the transfer and agent fees? Negotiate personal terms that are in line with long term budget? Delay costs to the absolute latest?

I also don't like it but my rational side completely sees the logic and agrees with it.

If we don't get our targets, I assume they were out of financial reach and made no sense considering our budget limitations (we do have such, contrary to popular belief). And I don't think settling for "second-best" targets and buying players just for the sake of buying players, will do the club any good.
 

Bwuk

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Stupid we haven’t invested, in no way can we bank on top 4. Chelsea have massively invested, and Arsenal have improved to no end.

We are two or three injuries to key players again from being a utter shitshow.
 

Annihilate Now!

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There are two possibilities

1) we are going to start the seasons without all our new signings in place, which shows incredibly poor planning, especially considering the amount of time we've had to sort shit out.

2) we will not actually be making anymore signings, which is frankly ridiculous and Woody and the Glaziers have fecked us.

Either way its a bit of a shit show.
 

Al-T

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Other clubs get their business done quickly and efficiently. Every year with us it's like mating Elephants.
 

klayton88

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Is he preparing to prepare a bid yet? Gone to Office for some really high quality paper. Saved £3 by getting the free shipping that takes 5 working days. The look on all of your faces when the bid goes in and you've not realised he's been preparing to prepare a bid this whole time.
 

Infra-red

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Don't know why we are all so worried about missing out on Sancho, when Woodward has made it perfectly clear in the past that United have an absolutely world-beating scouting system at their fingertips.

Rest assured, we will have people in every corner of the globe feeding player information back to the superbrains at Carrington. Indeed, just like last summer, we will surely have a shortlist of 800+ players for that right wing position - Ed told us this is how we work. I look forward to seeing who the top class alternatives are...
 

pocco

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FINALLY... Someone said it.

Herein lies the problem... Perception.

Too many supporters today hang on every single last little transfer rumor as reality.
Yeah, like you. You have feck all evidence for your standpoint.

Let's have a look at the cold, hard facts. Zero PL titles under Woodward, Zero CL titles under Woodward. We won the PL the season before he came in. Now we're nowhere near. 5 managers later, might I add.

They're the facts.
 

pocco

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Not exactly disastrous, no. But this summer is following the same pattern as past summers we have qualified for Champions league.

We scrape the top 4 and qualify, only for nothing much to happen over the summer leading to frustration. Followed by a slow start to the season due to lack of reinforcements to the team (and manager fired due to results of not getting reinforcements) and come end of season we drop out of Champions League again back to the Europa.

The ambition seems to be get Champions League, and it doesn't matter after that. No planning to keep us in the position to qualify again the next season.

Truthfully, we only scraped top 4 due to signing Bruno in Jan, lets not forget Woodward's hand was forced here as he had the chance to sign him last summer and didn't due to Bruno reportedly 'taking too many risks. It was only when the crap hit the fan we had to shell out to sign him. Something Ole and everyone else had told him last summer we needed.
And full on capitulation from other clubs after Covid, a once in a million event that saved our bacon big time this season. Though, it wasn't enough to overcome the mighty Sevilla or look good against other shit teams we played.
 

sp_107

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Its so obvious. We will under invest this summer. Our opponents will move ahead of us. At the end of this season we will have effectively regressed and OGS will be blamed for it. The Glazers will panic and make some stupid buys to overcompensate. Club will stagnate.

Rinse and repeat.
I hope they sign few world class players and renovate the stadium
 

Womp

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From our previous few targets: Haaland, Bellingham, Fernandes, VDB, Sancho, Regulion, Upamecano(?), we have managed to sign 2, with no proper alternative identified or signed (so far). It's utter incompetence.
 

Dahmmy

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VDG was bang on, when he was the manager he wanted some major signings, he told Ed this is a big club we need to think like a big club

the way we carry on is embarrasing, we act like a 2 bob club trying to scrounge for pennies behind the sofa
 

pocco

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Don't know why we are all so worried about missing out on Sancho, when Woodward has made it perfectly clear in the past that United have an absolutely world-beating scouting system at their fingertips.

Rest assured, we will have people in every corner of the globe feeding player information back to the superbrains at Carrington. Indeed, just like last summer, we will surely have a shortlist of 800+ players for that right wing position - Ed told us this is how we work. I look forward to seeing who the top class alternatives are...
I know you're being sarcastic, but the only thing I've heard about our scouts in recent years are

1) Isco's head was too big.
2) Many scouting reports on Alphonso Davis were ignored, even when one scout apparently practically had it in the bag.
3) Scouts recommend the likes of De Jong and De Ligt a few years ago, again they were ignored.
4) The scouts then saw De Ligt's father and thought he'd be overweight in no time :lol:

Some of them may or may not actually be true. But these are what our scouts have been talked about for in recent years.
 
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From our previous few targets: Haaland, Bellingham, Fernandes, VDB, Sancho, Regulion, Upamecano(?), we have managed to sign 2, with no proper alternative identified or signed (so far). It's utter incompetence.
United never had any intention to sign those players. The club are happy to be linked with top players everyday but in reality we got Van de Beek because he was relatively cheap. The club refused to pay for Bruno last summer, then had to panic buy in January after the season was going down the shitter.

United have never had any intention of signing a player like Sancho. Under the current owners and Woodward United will be going for mid range players and competing with Spurs, Everton, Arsenal for players while the top clubs pull further and further away.

It's shocking to see this great club run into the ground to profit an american family and their lapdog.
 

Infra-red

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I know you're being sarcastic, but the only thing I've heard about our scouts in recent years are

1) Isco's head was too big.
2) Many scouting reports on Alphonso Davis were ignored, even when one scout apparently practically had it in the bag.
3) Scouts recommend the likes of De Jong and De Ligt a few years ago, again they were ignored.
4) The scouts then saw De Ligt's father and thought he'd be overweight in no time :lol:

Some of them may or may not actually be true. But these are what our scouts have been talked about for in recent years.
We were also informed in October 2019 by Woodward (via Ogden, Custis, Luckhurst, Jason Burt et al) that we have the bestest scouting team ever and that we initially had a shortlist of 804(!) rightbacks when we began shopping for Wan Bissaka.
 

TheRedDevil2019

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I feel it's just as crucial the deadwood is cut. Imagine lingering troublemakers being around the team. Smalling, Jones, Rojo and co. Would be dreadful for Ole and hardly ideal for morale if they are stirring the pot behind the scenes.

If the board fail to sell at least those 3 and one of Lingard/Pereira then Ole will have his work cut out.

Ole will be entirely blameless and the board will be in for a shitstorm at old trafford when the cogs eventually come off. The fans will stick with Ole (like before) and pundits will go to town on Ed Clownwood and co.
 

Man of Leisure

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I feel it's just as crucial the deadwood is cut. Imagine lingering troublemakers being around the team. Smalling, Jones, Rojo and co. Would be dreadful for Ole and hardly ideal for morale if they are stirring the pot behind the scenes.

If the board fail to sell at least those 3 and one of Lingard/Pereira then Ole will have his work cut out.

Ole will be entirely blameless and the board will be in for a shitstorm at old trafford when the cogs eventually come off. The fans will stick with Ole (like before) and pundits will go to town on Ed Clownwood and co.
Umm, how is Smalling a troublemaker?
 

Okey

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Just because the window is still open, I'll wait to pass judgement. But gosh, the stench of incompetence is thick in the air. If we finish with only VDB signed, after the momentum we garnered at the end of last season, then I'm not sure there'll be any point in ever expecting us to get back to the top under this ownership. We'll just be a top 4 chasing club, serving only to pad their wallets. But like I said, I'll wait 3 weeks to judge...
 

stepic

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Owners not interested in winning titles, simple as that. It’s not their priority, that’s for sure. Which is a shame.
 

manutddjw

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I’ve defended Ed quite a bit on this forum before but there is no defence of this. Just when we get close to having a solid team we do nothing to push on. Next summer we’ll need a winger and a Matic replacement at the very least and we’ll get told we can only have one and we’re back to “next year is our year”. I guarantee we’ll sign some average player by end of the window who blatantly isn’t good enough and we’ll just have added another “squad player” who we play that does nothing when we actually have to use them.

I see people talking about covid, but Everton have spent nearly 100 million, Italian teams are spending. Are those clubs better off in the covid times, than Manchester United? Give me a break.
 

Hawks2008

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The Glazer's have no ambition other than making money its simple. Covid is just the perfect cover for them this time, its not that they care about the financial health of the club (which wouldn't be a problem) but that spending big on Sancho would mean there's less money for them to take from the club.
 

Red Stone

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He's doing well for his employers. We are not his employers.
Is he, though? We've spent incredible amounts of money on both transfers and wages and have very little success to show for it, especially compared to what you'd expect from a club of our stature, and a club with our expenditure.

Even if we look past the fact that we've overspent on handfuls of garbage players in the last seven years, the money received from consistently playing in the Champions League and just being a competitive and marketable club would have probably outweighed the extra expenditure required to get to that level, especially long term. Kids growing up today aren't looking at our club any more, like they used to 10-25 years ago. Compared to Liverpool, City, Real Madrid, Barca, PSG, Bayern and Dortmund we don't have as many star players, we're not as entertaining to watch, we're not winning the big trophies and we're not as fun to play as on FIFA, and the result of that is that less kids are growing up as United fans nowadays. Sure, we're still pulling in fortunes on sponsorship deals, but it's off the back of the work done during the Fergie era that caused throngs of kids, such as myself to fall in love with the club and the football that it played, and not because Woodward is such a savvy business man. That gravy train is going to slow down if we don't get our act together quickly. The fact that we lose out on a big chunk of the Adidas money if we don't qualify for Champions League shows how important performance is from a financial perspective, and if Woody's just going to sit there with is hands in his pockets while our closest rivals are in full-on Arms Race Mode we're basically throwing more money down the toilet without even having any new players to show for it.

At the end of the day, Woodward is doing a pretty average job of generating short term profits, but if he'd had the brains to hire better people to deal with player and manager recruitment we would probably have spent less on transfer fees and wages, while performing better as a team, which in turn would have allowed Ed to negotiate even better sponsorship deals because of our increased exposure and marketability. It's all hypothetical, of course, but does anyone honestly believe we're even close to maximizing our profitability under Ed? If the answer is no, he's not doing well for his employer.