Ed Woodward | Groundhog Day Edition

[Denis' cuff]

The Glazers remain the ultimate problem; Woodward is just their employee.

It's going to take an absolute monumental, collective effort from our fanbase to drive these cretins out of the club.

Exactly this. Even if Woodward had the football side of it at heart, His hands are tied as much as Ole’s are. We won’t become relevant until this disease gets out of our club.

i wish people would stop going on about how much money we’ve spent. Apart from the fact that a team full of world class players were never replaced, even when we did spend, it was an initial spend for successive managers who were never allowed to finish the job, hence the fragmented recruiting that was the start of something, only to be undone when the supply stopped and another manager took over. Doesn’t matter whether we think they were the right managers or not but what is the point of recruiting them if they are not allowed to manage. LvG was sacked prematurely, Jose was never allowed to develop his squad. I wasn’t wild about either of them but every time it happens the next boss is lumped with players that suited the previous manager and is the hamstrung with their contracts and wages. At least allow them to do their job.... and still, some idiots think getting rid of Ole and getting Poch will fix it. Hellooo... he’ll be given 100m net one season and 30m the next and still be stuck with Jones, Dalot, Rojo etc

 

[Fosu-Mens]

The problem isn't that we haven't signed Sancho yet, every credible journalist has acknowledged that a transfer of this size will take time. Even Chelsea have taken weeks to negotiate for Havertz with a much better infrastructure and DOF. The problem is that we are employing a one transfer at a time policy which is a risky strategy and often leaves us unprepared throughout pre season getting deals over the line too late into the window.

The fans also play a poor role with a lack of consistency, if we sign Sancho and other targets this summer Woodward will be hailed despite his poor track record he cannot have it both ways. Woodward / Judge are two of the most inept individuals in the hierarchy. Even if we had the most amazing summer he needs to go.

I don't know about whether this strategy being employed, more like it's an excuse for not being able to do more transfers during a window. And the people involved with transfers at the club seems to be under the impression that one can not make deals during the season and outside the windows...

While getting Woody and Judge out of the club would be satisfying, the root cause of all our problems will still be there: the Glazers. They are only interested in MUFC as a financial asset and are unlikely to allow the club to spend its own money unless the deal is financially beneficial. From a strict ROI point of view, it is more profitable to be 3/4th place and getting into CL than investing and maybe challenging for title in both competitions.

 

[Litch]

I don't understand the attitude of let us wait till end of the transfer window. I mean it's like every time this guy and the board dithers till the final days before getting the players. That's just unfair on the manager. So what if we have a poor start and then Woodward panics and ultimately buys the same target. That's what I call bad job. Woodward and the board need to stop getting these excuses. They have done a very mediocre job( That too me being generous, otherwise they have done a pathetic job).

If you are saying we don't have money then stick to it and stop acting smart and cocky. What's the logic of suddenly panicking and ending up spending a similar amount of money when we are already behind others.

What I'm saying is the window hasn't closed and people are acting like it has. Let's see whether we have completed our business but let's not compare ourselves to Chelsea, the way they go about their football club is completely soul less like those up the road. Half the players they are signing, was probably never their first choice. Also look how they are going to bin off the young players.....

 

[AshRK]

What I'm saying is the window hasn't closed and people are acting like it has. Let's see whether we have completed our business but let's not compare ourselves to Chelsea, the way they go about their football club is completely soul less like those up the road. Half the players they are signing, was probably never their first choice. Also look how they are going to bin off the young players.....

Both chelsea and United finished joint on points and one team has already started doing their business while we are dithering and some fans are making all kind of excuses for the board. There seems to be a lack of planning so far.

Yes the transfer window is not closed but we have seen from woodward and co. how they end up paying similar amount 2 days before the window. Point is why can't they do that now. Or if you don't have money for sancho, go for the next target and a clear talks with Ole should have happened much before July. This whole Covid thing has been going since March so a club could and should plan better than what they are doing now. It's like the board rarely speaks to the manager during the season and then in the transfer window they act smart and hope other clubs accept a less money for sancho.

 

[Cathy Ferguson]

Ed is also finding it hard to sell the deadwood. Jones, Rojo, Smalling, Dalot, Lingard and Perreira are still at the club. What is he doing? I guess this window is completely dependent on if we sign Sancho or not. At least when it comes to our midfield and attack.

 

[Sparky Rhiwabon]

Ed is also finding it hard to sell the deadwood. Jones, Rojo, Smalling, Dalot, Lingard and Perreira are still at the club. What is he doing? I guess this window is completely dependent on if we sign Sancho or not. At least when it comes to our midfield and attack.

I assume he’s still working on the Sancho deal. Everything else is on hold.

 

[Litch]

Don't be dense. Nobody is saying anything of the sort! It's obviously better to get the players in ASAP so they can bed in, have a proper pre-season with the club and get used to playing with their new teammates. Ed leaving everything to the last second (or managing to cock things up so badly they have to go back in the next transfer window, ala Bruno) is a recipe for disaster. The squad has glaring and easily identifiable holes in it, and pretending it isn't so because magically things could work out, is negligent.

Plus next season is going to be even harder than this one, due to the compressed schedule. We all saw what a shitshow it was trying to rely on the same first 11 all game, every game. This squad won't make it to Christmas without significant additions.

Dense....bit rude. What pre-season is that then in this unprecedented year? Never fails to impress me how fans are so knowledgeable about transfers and most of the time we believe the media when it suits our own negative view. The selling club cause Utd can demand things that we don't want to pay. Please come and buy my car and pay double what it's worth irrespective of whether you can insure it for that value. Crap analogy but just cause you want something, doesn't mean you do it at any cost. Who knows but transfer don't appear to be easy and more fail than succeed.
The squad has holes in it, which squad didn't. Signings don't fix the gaps as previous signings didn't either otherwise we would never need to buy players. Also how many start poorly and couple of seasons start to produce? How many fans wanted Martial sold? Whatever you do for a living is wasted if it's not a clairvoyant as you seem to be able to tell the future. The squad needs improving but shall we wait till the end of the window to see how we have done within it.

 

[Cathy Ferguson]

I assume he’s still working on the Sancho deal. Everything else is on hold.

More likely that few clubs are willing to sign our deadwood. Selling any of the three CBs has very little to do with signing Sancho, unless Ed thinks he will get 40m for Smalling.

 

[Offside]

The thing about Woodward is he’s clearly trying to change the way he does things after so many disaster windows. I actually support the idea of only 3-4 players per Summer window as huge splurges often don’t work (although even them a competent club would be able to get 7 quality signings in a window with proper football people doing the recruitment). Careful recruitment and building a proper United side is what we need.

However, the new things he’s trying like trying not to get rinsed for money because we’ve overpaid so much doesn’t work. The moron shouldn’t have been mouthing off about how much we had a few years ago. Clubs will always bump the price up with us and probably know that Woodward is a clown. We never seem to get a good deal on anyone anyway.

The really idiotic move is the obvious recent strategy of only working on one transfer at a time. It’s absolutely bizarre and once again we will simply run out of time to get enough of the positions covered. Same way we did last Summer missing out on Fernandes/Dybala and the Summer before missing out on Maguire and the Summer before missing out on Perisic.

He’s basically finding new layers of pure incompetence. The guy clearly isn’t up to running a football club.

 

[Litch]

Both chelsea and United finished joint on points and one team has already started doing their business while we are dithering and some fans are making all kind of excuses for the board. There seems to be a lack of planning so far.

Yes the transfer window is not closed but we have seen from woodward and co. how they end up paying similar amount 2 days before the window. Point is why can't they do that now. Or if you don't have money for sancho, go for the next target and a clear talks with Ole should have happened much before July. This whole Covid thing has been going since March so a club could and should plan better than what they are doing now. It's like the board rarely speaks to the manager during the season and then in the transfer window they act smart and hope other clubs accept a less money for sancho.

One side because they cheated couldn't buy players for a season so have twice the resources they originally had anyway. You know because Utd ask for a player, the club can say no. You know some players say no and it's the club that want the money more than the player wants to leave. Some clubs don't want to sell without a replacement so like buying a house, there are a chain of events that need to happen first. It happens to every club just our signings that take this long are often because the signings are unprecedented.... highest price CB, CM, Forward etc.

You realise the world has not come to terms with COVID and planning when it comes to terms with the future but you expect utd to? We weren't even sure the season wasn't even going to be ended without playing the remaining fixtures....

If I knocked your door to buy your house, why should you sell it when it's not even up for sale for less money than you think it's worth. I think it's a good offer, You think it's worth more. Is that no different than this sale. He is worth as much as Utd are willing to pay and they are willing to sell.....if that don't match, it's going to be drawn out. Never easy buying the jewel of anyone's crown easily. Other teams in this country rarely do including City.....Ed likes a high profile signing as it often they pay for themselves in revenue of the pitch. I'd argue and agree if we are improving the squad, would be better spent on a number of players.

 

[Siddharth]

If we have a budget limitation every couple of years then it is better to not make expensive signings like Maguire and Sancho. Trust the scouting department. What is the point of scouting department if the Manager only wants to make 80 million pounds Centre Back signing and 120 million pounds Right Wing Signing. No owner or CEO can sustain this kind of spending.

 

[red thru&thru]

Maybe the following is wishful thinking on my part but more and more I think about it, the more I believe we are just waiting for Edwin to come in.

He has stated in the past he would and apparently on very good terms with Ed. Also, more of a Bayern model being introduced to our club, whereby a lot of the ex players are more involved in the running of the club.

 

[Terminator]

Sorry if not the right place to post, but is it true Brandon Williams earns only 5k less than TAA/Robertson with his new contract? That's actually insane.

 

[Bazi]

Sorry for being a bit lazy: how many of those fellows were of the run-down-contract-to-go-to-Bayern-for-peanuts type?

Only Goretzka really although it has to be said that Schalke mismanaged his contractual situation terribly due to constant changes in management at the time.


Coman, Kimmich and Davies were identified as young talents and purchased for market value at the time while Gnabry was a neglected talent at Arsenal. The Gunners had shown no interest in extending him before his standout performances at the Olympics when his transfer to Bremen with the option to join Bayern the year later were already agreed on.

 

[Nou_Camp99]

The Glazers remain the ultimate problem; Woodward is just their employee.

It's going to take an absolute monumental, collective effort from our fanbase to drive these cretins out of the club.

Unless they agree to sell us for less than market value then you can forget it. We are stuck with them.

We are valued in the 3 to 4 billion range not to forget the debt we still owe from their takeover. Who is going to spend that on a football club in the very choppy financial waters we are entering now on the back of Covid? Nobody is who.

The Glazers will continue to take money out of the club and keep us in huge amounts of debt.

Providing money to the managers has always been done though we can't deny. However they have allowed all that money to be handled by an absolute muppet so it's been wasted a lot of the time. The amount of money we have spent post Fergie could have had us back as PL champions no problem had we had someone at the club who knew what they were doing with it. Instead we have Woodward.

Glazers going nowhere. Any chance they may have upped and cashed in went when Covid happened.

 

[clarkydaz]

The thing about Woodward is he’s clearly trying to change the way he does things after so many disaster windows. I actually support the idea of only 3-4 players per Summer window as huge splurges often don’t work (although even them a competent club would be able to get 7 quality signings in a window with proper football people doing the recruitment). Careful recruitment and building a proper United side is what we need.

However, the new things he’s trying like trying not to get rinsed for money because we’ve overpaid so much doesn’t work. The moron shouldn’t have been mouthing off about how much we had a few years ago. Clubs will always bump the price up with us and probably know that Woodward is a clown. We never seem to get a good deal on anyone anyway.

The really idiotic move is the obvious recent strategy of only working on one transfer at a time. It’s absolutely bizarre and once again we will simply run out of time to get enough of the positions covered. Same way we did last Summer missing out on Fernandes/Dybala and the Summer before missing out on Maguire and the Summer before missing out on Perisic.

He’s basically finding new layers of pure incompetence. The guy clearly isn’t up to running a football club.

its not incompetence, we just dont want to pay, so drag things to the death. We are run as a bank, not a football club

 

[TsuWave]

this is kinda funny

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[SATA]

this is kinda funny

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Or it could be ‘Sancho is a red’ next week. Pathetic tweet. The second, third and fourth point aren’t even remotely confirm yet.

 

[TsuWave]

Or it could be ‘Sancho is a red’ next week. Pathetic tweet. The second, third and fourth aren’t even remotely confirm yet.

Hopefully. As it stands it’s funny cause of the Craven cottage tweet from our twitter admin, and because of how quiet the Sancho thing has gone (which could be good). Either way, it’s not something to be furious about.

 

[Rightnr]

Sorry if not the right place to post, but is it true Brandon Williams earns only 5k less than TAA/Robertson with his new contract? That's actually insane.

I asked the question in another thread what other club would give Williams 65k/week. We give too many of our average youth players too much money, Rashford included.

This makes it all the more difficult to move them on when they prove themselves not good enough even for our bench.

 

[Josep Dowling]

Exactly this. Even if Woodward had the football side of it at heart, His hands are tied as much as Ole’s are. We won’t become relevant until this disease gets out of our club.

i wish people would stop going on about how much money we’ve spent. Apart from the fact that a team full of world class players were never replaced, even when we did spend, it was an initial spend for successive managers who were never allowed to finish the job, hence the fragmented recruiting that was the start of something, only to be undone when the supply stopped and another manager took over. Doesn’t matter whether we think they were the right managers or not but what is the point of recruiting them if they are not allowed to manage. LvG was sacked prematurely, Jose was never allowed to develop his squad. I wasn’t wild about either of them but every time it happens the next boss is lumped with players that suited the previous manager and is the hamstrung with their contracts and wages. At least allow them to do their job.... and still, some idiots think getting rid of Ole and getting Poch will fix it. Hellooo... he’ll be given 100m net one season and 30m the next and still be stuck with Jones, Dalot, Rojo etc

I’ve said many times before there is a trend that when we qualify for the Champions League the spending is substantially less than the previous year. It will happen again this summer. I don’t think we will sign anyone. They will make out they went for Sancho. The club needs to move on and find another solution.

 

[Josep Dowling]

Just seen a diagram on Twitter and it sums up our situation.

Get a new manager.

Allowed to hire 3-4 players.

Qualify for the Champions League.

Make no signings and release search for a DOF.

Finish 6th due to lack of signings.

Sack manager for poor performance.

Repeat.

One side because they cheated couldn't buy players for a season so have twice the resources they originally had anyway. You know because Utd ask for a player, the club can say no. You know some players say no and it's the club that want the money more than the player wants to leave. Some clubs don't want to sell without a replacement so like buying a house, there are a chain of events that need to happen first. It happens to every club just our signings that take this long are often because the signings are unprecedented.... highest price CB, CM, Forward etc.

You realise the world has not come to terms with COVID and planning when it comes to terms with the future but you expect utd to? We weren't even sure the season wasn't even going to be ended without playing the remaining fixtures....

If I knocked your door to buy your house, why should you sell it when it's not even up for sale for less money than you think it's worth. I think it's a good offer, You think it's worth more. Is that no different than this sale. He is worth as much as Utd are willing to pay and they are willing to sell.....if that don't match, it's going to be drawn out. Never easy buying the jewel of anyone's crown easily. Other teams in this country rarely do including City.....Ed likes a high profile signing as it often they pay for themselves in revenue of the pitch. I'd argue and agree if we are improving the squad, would be better spent on a number of players.

Werner £47m
Ziyech £35m
Chilwell £45m plus add ons.

Each player is good value and you could argue we need all 3 players in our squad. They would certainly improve our squad anyway.

 

[ColvaleGoa]

Just read on twitter , those justifying us not spending money due to Covid...the Glazers have taken more than £1bn. from the club. No doubt we are scrounging around for loose change to buy player's. Ed and Judge being Dumber and Dumberer don't help matters either.

 

[Rolaholic]

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[MattofManchester]

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Kinda the same with Herrera if I remember. Both had issues with feeling undervalued when the club took too long to offer them a new deal.

You'd think there'd be better communication going on between the club and it's staff ffs

 

[red thru&thru]

Just read on twitter , those justifying us not spending money due to Covid...the Glazers have taken more than £1bn. from the club. No doubt we are scrounging around for loose change to buy player's. Ed and Judge being Dumber and Dumberer don't help matters either.

Glazers have also spent £1.2b on transfers, post saf. The net spend is £900m.

 

[Litch]

Just seen a diagram on Twitter and it sums up our situation.

Get a new manager.

Allowed to hire 3-4 players.

Qualify for the Champions League.

Make no signings and release search for a DOF.

Finish 6th due to lack of signings.

Sack manager for poor performance.

Repeat.



Werner £47m
Ziyech £35m
Chilwell £45m plus add ons.

Each player is good value and you could argue we need all 3 players in our squad. They would certainly improve our squad anyway.

Yes on the surface they look good value but let's see how the progress in PL. Would def improve our squad but they are going to Chelsea to sit on the bench. Sancho is a generational talent which sometimes you have to sacrifice other priorities for but equally we have to see how he deals with the PL if he comes....

 

[clarkydaz]

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how the feck is he offering the captaincy? He insists he doesnt get involved in that stuff

 

[UnitedFan93]

Glazers have also spent £1.2b on transfers, post saf. The net spend is £900m.

Net spend is £900 million? What's your source? Surely that can't be right. The likes of Lukaku, Di Maria, Schneiderlin, Depay, Blind etc were all sold for decent money where we pretty much got our money back.

 

[red thru&thru]

Net spend is £900 million? What's your source? Surely that can't be right. The likes of Lukaku, Di Maria, Schneiderlin, Depay, Blind etc were all sold for decent money where we pretty much got our money back.

Kieran Maguire, the football financial expert.

 

[UnitedFan93]

Kieran Maguire, the football financial expert.

Interesting, have you got the link? It will be good to read. Cheers.

 

[sp_107]

I assume he’s still working on the Sancho deal. Everything else is on hold.

Ed's wife is a lucky as he can do just one at a time.

 

[Escobar]

Again way too passive and without a game plan or strategy. It will cost us again

 

[red thru&thru]

Interesting, have you got the link? It will be good to read. Cheers.

 

[UnitedFan93]

@red thru&thru, not allowed yet to respond to a media post, but thanks for finding, I'll give it a listen, cheers.

 

[red thru&thru]

@red thru&thru, not allowed yet to respond to a media post, but thanks for finding, I'll give it a listen, cheers.

Ah ok. No problems. Have a listen. Really good. Give me your feedback.

 

[dev1l]

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[GiddyUp]

I think I loath Ed Woodward. He is a fecking cancer on this club and I honestly cannot see a downside from keeping him away from the football side of the club at this point.

 

[Ali Dia]

I hate Eds work but 95% of our problems this summer is the glazers dragging their feet on making it rain. Combine that with Ed and Matt being slow, reactionary and overly meticulous in negotiations and you’ve got one huge mess. The glazers need to back Ed. He’s their guy and he really needs a win. I’d say if a real DOF ever comes in it’ll be like an episode of kitchen nightmares or something

 

[Morpheus 7]

I think I loath Ed Woodward. He is a fecking cancer on this club and I honestly cannot see a downside from keeping him away from the football side of the club at this point.

Least your honest, people need to start getting angry. They have been running the club so bad. This is the first time since Fergie left we can push on, we are clearly stalling on investing. There is something to build with, instead they clearly want the minimum to get top 4. The trust between the owners and fans simply isn't there.