I posted about the bolded part somewhere: essentially he's slightly above the Glazers. There are areas overlap where he defers to them but overall he's like a king's steward with a bunch of unworthy heirs unfit to actually rule.
Usually his posturing would just hurt him and not the club. And I'm pretty sure the club is still okay; it'd take many many many years of Woodward to affect the regard that the footballing world has for the institution.
But I posted before that at this point, for a great many people within footballing circles, it will have become a point of principle to stick it to Woodward. AKA to not do so will expose one to the ridicule of others. It's really really really bad. It's taken the fanbase this long to start speaking in nearly one voice that vaguely he's 'incompetent' (even this time last year there was a decent amount of 'Well he's still a financial genius', which thankfully has died down to a tiny trickle now).
Meanwhile, what he is is much much much worse than 'incompetent', and a huge chunk of the footballing world has known it - and even taken advantage of it - for years.
For me, you can't just go round trying to boot these kind of clubs to the side because you're bigger than them. It smacks of what happened with Spurs and Levy who we had a decent relationship with before it turned to unfettered hate and Levy made it his personal business to try and rinse us rather than be amicable so that we'd steer clear in future, which we have. There's no reason to sour these relationships nor act like that. Even if you're using your stature, you finesse, not strong arm. Nobody likes a bully or a bigshot and it becomes a matter of principle to stand up to them, which is completely avoidable with a bit of tact. Evra and Rio alluded to it, and it's pretty clear in our conduct that we have nobody dealing with these clubs who smooths the process.
As
@antohan said earlier, these business practices Ed probably had success with in his former career are not transferable and have made him/us a completely different entity to what we should be. You use your name to unsettle the player and then you use your negotiating team to eek out the best deal and at the end of the process you establish a strong working relationship that you can tap into further down the line. It's more like a madman taking chunks out of the pipeline with how we're bumbling along and that proverbial axe should have been taken out of Ed's hands if he has no idea how to wield the thing. In this instance, he's strengthened the position of the club he was negotiating with...
how can he then be allowed to have free rein going into other transfer windows?
I've said before that I sincerely believe Woodward is trying his best and wants the adulation and repute of being a savvy, master negotiator and that he certainly does not revel in being a heel for the Glazers, but he has to have the humility and self-awareness to say he doesn't know what he's doing and employ others that do. Hell, take all the credit after the i's are dotted and t's are crossed, if that's what sates your ego, but step aside and take care of affairs that you do know what you're doing in!
