Joel Glazer: If you want to know the road ahead find someone who’s been there

[BR7]

Just purely from a long suffering dolphins fan perspective, screw Brady

 

[arthurka]

They bought a business to make money and are not a charity and lets be honest, they could take out more or even worse, be like liverpools owners, as what the feck have they spent when they dont sell big.

What I meant is that it´s not their money to begin with. They bought the club with loans that they saddled the club with and it´s still there, they have also taken a lot of money out of the club both personally and to pay of the loans they bought the club with so all in all they have let the club pay for itself. They could be worse of course but let´s not kid ourselves and talk about how great they have been to let the club use it´s money to buy players. Because other owners are worse doesn´t change the fact that our owners have not brought a dollar into this club. The Liverpool owners at least have done that, Utd and Liverpool weren´t even playing in the same division when it came to revenue before Liverpool got new owners.

Let´s just call an orange an orange and not compare ourselves with the worst of them lets try to match ourselves with the best of them.

 

[lex talionis]

They made Martial and Pogba untouchable over any manager up to now. Dithered on Maguire for a year and between Jose’s compensation and the bump in Maguires price lost another pretty penny. Took a massive risk Cavani on a free at his age would produce in this league. Still no right winger. Signing jones and Matic up to long new deals just to prop up the value of the squad when in reality they provide nothing to the squad. They are absolute idiots. I wrote a longer post when I saw this article yesterday. It’s not that they aren’t spending enough. They meddle and constantly make the wrong decisions and it’s holding us back

Much appreciated. I honestly don’t know the answer...is it the Glazers or Woodward who decides who to sign and for how much?

 

[Ali Dia]

Much appreciated. I honestly don’t know the answer...is it the Glazers or Woodward who decides who to sign and for how much?

if it was just Ed at this stage even the most deluded person would have got some help and pushed for a DOF. I feel like it’s always just the glazers hiding behind Ed and that’s the only logical reason he hasn’t been removed from ‘footballing decisions’ and a DOF hasn’t been appointed. I doubt Ed actually has much of a say at all.

 

[KiD MoYeS]

I can't take anything said publicly by the Glazers or Woodward at face value.

 

[clarkydaz]

Much appreciated. I honestly don’t know the answer...is it the Glazers or Woodward who decides who to sign and for how much?

Reports were they refused the Sancho deal. The stupid wages and contracts are signed off by Woody

 

[Ali Dia]

Reports were they refused the Sancho deal. The stupid wages and contracts are signed off by Woody

they also didn’t move heaven and earth to get haaland when Ole really wanted him and we were the biggest club interested. Very slim chance of getting him now he has his choice of clubs. Moved the goalposts on the Upamecano deal last minute when he was going for about 5% of his current value. It remains to be seen if them not agreeing to Bellingham’s wage demands was another big mistake. Leaving Maguire for an extra year. Not signing him when he was going for 20 million a few years previously. Basically any mistake you can make when it comes to recruitment they’ve made it, repeatedly. Not going for Tielmanns De Jong or De Ligt after they played well against us in the EL and were going cheap with little competition.. They’ve had a touch of luck Bruno has been so immense but they tried to not get that deal done with any haste. Pandemic might make sancho a bit cheaper next season but leave us yet another season without a RW going into that CL group for the sake of 20 million or so? It’s negligent. It’s pretty clear from the above that they can’t really spot a player and when they do they can’t adapt quick enough to make the correct decision in a decisive fashion when snags come up but they insist on handing out monster deals to mediocre squad players and mercenary star names on the way down. Disaster class.

 

[Ali Dia]

When does Woodward become a football person?

when we win more than the EL with a billion quid wasted post Fergie.

 

[stevoc]

when we win more than the EL with a billion quid wasted post Fergie.

So 99% of chairmen/Ceo's currently running football clubs aren't football people by that logic then?

 

[Ali Dia]

So 99% of chairmen/Ceo's currently running football clubs aren't football people by that logic then?

yeah that’s correct and guess what they then hire people who actually know what they are at instead of playing football manager with one of the most popular clubs in the world. I suppose it is technically their money they’ve wasted but we all know their many various failures mean restrictions to what we will spend in the future. Their squad management has been criminal.

 

[stevoc]

yeah that’s correct and guess what they then hire people who actually know what they are at instead of playing football manager with one of the most popular clubs in the world. I suppose it is technically their money they’ve wasted but we all know their many various failures mean restrictions to what we will spend in the future. Their squad management has been criminal.

But the Glazers and Woodward have hired top experienced coaches.

For the most part Moyes, Van Gaal, Mourinho and now Solskjaer have been backed financially and been allowed almost total control over who to sell/buy. And build their own squads

So its mainly been Moyes LVG and Jose wasting money by playing football manager and largely failing at it. Van Gaal in particular was atrocious at squad management and we're still trying to shift some of his buys 6-7 years later.

 

[Ali Dia]

But the Glazers and Woodward have hired top experienced coaches.

For the most part Moyes, Van Gaal, Mourinho and now Solskjaer have been backed financially and been allowed almost total control over who to sell/buy. And build their own squads

So its mainly been Moyes LVG and Jose wasting money by playing football manager and largely failing at it. Van Gaal in particular was atrocious at squad management and we're still trying to shift some of his buys 6-7 years later.

Who hired the managers? Who let the squad drop in quality and rise in age after ronaldo? Who let city and Chelsea hoover up the top players of that generation? They even let Liverpool overtake us. Who didn’t have any plan for Fergie’s retirement?

Every manager who has left said players were bought in over their heads and the owners meddled plenty. We have had to rely heavily on a youth system they neglected until recently. They brought in much cheaper alternatives to their managers actual targets. Also who was doing the scouting? Memphis, Sanchez, di Maria a crocked falcao, crocked Basti, martial, Pogba, Morgan S, Shaw not exactly players you would have wanted in your corner when things got tough.

look at the various transfer disasters over the years. Overpaying for fellaini affer his clause expired. The Herrera lawyer fiasco. Selling Di Maria after one year for a loss. For all their meddling still letting LVG and Moyes kill the Kross and Thiago deals. Making DDG the highest paid keeper ever. Buying Sanchez only to play him on the left Paying him to leave. Chasing sancho for 3 years and not signing a RW since Nani. Signing Pogba and not building a decent team around him. Making Jose the highest paid manager in the country to sack him 5 months later. Look at all the stuff I’ve listed above. that’s organisational failure plain and simple. They might be rich and they might have spent a lot but they are absolutely inept and clearly don't understand how to rebuild a successful football club.

And that’s without mentioning the fact they are soulless leeches sucking the life out of us.

 

[Denis' cuff]

Who hired the managers? Who let the squad drop in quality and rise in age after ronaldo? Who let city and Chelsea hoover up the top players of that generation? They even let Liverpool overtake us. Who didn’t have any plan for Fergie’s retirement?

Every manager who has left said players were bought in over their heads and the owners meddled plenty. We have had to rely on a youth system they neglected until recently. They brought in much cheaper alternatives to their managers actual targets. Also who was doing the scouting? Memphis, Sanchez, di Maria a crocked falcao, crocked Basti, martial, Pogba Shaw not exactly players you would have wanted in your corner when things got tough.

look at the various transfer disasters over the years. Overpaying for fellaini affer his clause expired. The Herrera lawyer fiasco. Selling Di Maria after one year for a loss. Sanchez to play on the left? Paying him to leave. Chasing sancho for 3 years and not signing a RW since Nani. Signing Pogba and not building a decent team around him. Making Jose the highest paid manager in the country to sack him 5 months later. Look at all the stuff I’ve listed above. that’s organisational failure plain and simple. They might be rich and they might have spent a lot but they are absolutely inept and clearly don't understand how to rebuild a successful football club.

And that’s without mentioning the fact they are soulless leeches sucking the life out of us.

Top post, Sir.

 

[tenpoless]

Well to be fair that's what he did. He let Mike Phelan in - our savior, the mastermind behind ManUnited, king of men, slayer of dragons, balloon popper.

 

[Ali Dia]

Top post, Sir.

thank you!

I hate the narrative they now know what they are at. Throw enough money around and some of it should eventually work out. Their managers and Ed taking the blame for them.They got lucky with Bruno affer being linked for over a year and tried their best to not get it done. They might get some money off Sancho after just blowing it in truth and leaving a vital position empty for a team going into the hardest champions league group? It’s criminal roster management. That’s not on Ole. Ole is doing a good job despite them. He’s working around them.

All of their really expensive signings that don’t or didn’t actually want to be here? Di Maria, Sanchez, Lukaku, Pogba, the highest paid goalie in the world. Do they actually talk to these players before they sign them? Just soulless corporate shite signing the biggest “brands” available on the market at any given time and mixing it with punts instead of thinking with any semblance of longevity or squad building in mind. Thank god we didn’t go for greizman...

 

[Mike Oxard]

The problem we have is that the Glazers business model is in a tight spot. Heavily leveraged businesses need to keep producing income, otherwise they default on loans. No income means cost savings are inevitable. The Glazers are very exposed to the USA Shopping Centre market, which like the U.K., was already in trouble. Covid has wrecked it. I really cannot se us spending a lot of money for the next few years over and above what we make in player sales.

 

[stevoc]

Who hired the managers? Who let the squad drop in quality and rise in age after ronaldo? Who let city and Chelsea hoover up the top players of that generation? They even let Liverpool overtake us. Who didn’t have any plan for Fergie’s retirement?

Every manager who has left said players were bought in over their heads and the owners meddled plenty. We have had to rely heavily on a youth system they neglected until recently. They brought in much cheaper alternatives to their managers actual targets. Also who was doing the scouting? Memphis, Sanchez, di Maria a crocked falcao, crocked Basti, martial, Pogba, Morgan S, Shaw not exactly players you would have wanted in your corner when things got tough.

look at the various transfer disasters over the years. Overpaying for fellaini affer his clause expired. The Herrera lawyer fiasco. Selling Di Maria after one year for a loss. For all their meddling still letting LVG and Moyes kill the Kross and Thiago deals. Making DDG the highest paid keeper ever. Buying Sanchez only to play him on the left Paying him to leave. Chasing sancho for 3 years and not signing a RW since Nani. Signing Pogba and not building a decent team around him. Making Jose the highest paid manager in the country to sack him 5 months later. Look at all the stuff I’ve listed above. that’s organisational failure plain and simple. They might be rich and they might have spent a lot but they are absolutely inept and clearly don't understand how to rebuild a successful football club.

And that’s without mentioning the fact they are soulless leeches sucking the life out of us.

Listen mate I find some of you points interesting and some of them I agree with but it would help to condense your posts into smaller paragraphs. As it becomes time consuming to reply to all your points.

No doubt they have mismanaged the club and are responsible for some of the issues you've listed. But Moyes and Van Gaal were equally if not more culpable for a lot of whats went wrong over the last 8 years. Yes they hired LVG and are then ultimately also responsible for his failures and Mourinho's for that matter.

The one thing I won't blame them for though as much as I'd like to is the hiring of Moyes. Ferguson left it very late in the season. Around March if I remember to inform the club he was retiring and Ferguson himself chose Moyes. A terrible choice if ever there was one.

 

[Ali Dia]

Listen mate I find some of you points interesting and some of them I agree with but it would help to condense your posts into smaller paragraphs. As it becomes time consuming to reply to all your points.

No doubt they have mismanaged the club and are responsible for some of the issues you've listed. But Moyes and Van Gaal were equally if not more culpable for a lot of whats went wrong over the last 8 years. Yes they hired LVG and are then ultimately also responsible for his failures and Mourinho's for that matter.

The one thing I won't blame them for though as much as I'd like to is the hiring of Moyes. Ferguson left it very late in the season. Around March if I remember to inform the club he was retiring and Ferguson himself chose Moyes. A terrible choice if ever there was one.

Ok so they hired them and then only partially backed them and hung them out to dry. They also created a huge mess that continues to this day by hiring managers with 3 completely differing styles. They will neither lead nor follow and they definitely have some strange spending patterns. They don’t seem to want to kick on when we are on the up and the squad is up for the fight. Our transfers are nearly always embarrassing sagas that go on for longer than 1 window trying to shave a few million off. I understand no owners are perfect but ours have to be among the most smug wasteful and slow to act. It’s such a contradiction. They won’t buy in vital positions but they’ll pay over the odds for stuff we don’t need. Add to that they’ve let the infrastructure of the club fall behind and I don’t really know what they do that’s positive apart from hold the purse strings.

Look at the expensive players they’ve brought in? More expensive problems than anywhere close to being a league winning team. We go and splurge on Pogba and don’t build a team around him. City go and buy KDB a better player for the league, actual captain material and cheaper. There are tonnes of examples like that where we got it wildly wrong.

 

[Teja]

The problem we have is that the Glazers business model is in a tight spot. Heavily leveraged businesses need to keep producing income, otherwise they default on loans. No income means cost savings are inevitable. The Glazers are very exposed to the USA Shopping Centre market, which like the U.K., was already in trouble. Covid has wrecked it. I really cannot se us spending a lot of money for the next few years over and above what we make in player sales.

I'd be happy if they don't suck out any more money from the club. If we had reinvested all our earnings into the club instead of servicing debts from the leveraged buy out or paying dividend payments to line their pockets, we could've spent atleast another 1bn more on transfers. Or atleast spent that on the stadium / other infrastructure.

I think we've actually increased dividend payments during peak pandemic uncertainty.

 

[clarkydaz]

I hate the narrative they now know what they are at. Throw enough money around and some of it should eventually work out. Their managers and Ed taking the blame for them.They got lucky with Bruno affer being linked for over a year and tried their best to not get it done. They might get some money off Sancho after just blowing it in truth and leaving a vital position empty for a team going into the hardest champions league group? It’s criminal roster management. That’s not on Ole. Ole is doing a good job despite them. He’s working around them.

All of their really expensive signings that don’t or didn’t actually want to be here? Di Maria, Sanchez, Lukaku, Pogba, the highest paid goalie in the world. Do they actually talk to these players before they sign them? Just soulless corporate shite signing the biggest “brands” available on the market at any given time and mixing it with shitty punts instead of thinking with any semblance of longevity or squad building in mind. Thank god we didn’t go for greizman...

Remember they walked away from Bruno in the summer letting anybody else have a free hit. Thankfully it was only spurs who didnt want to pay. But they will spin it as shrewd business.

 

[Ali Dia]

Remember they walked away from Bruno in the summer letting anybody else have a free hit. Thankfully it was only spurs who didnt want to pay. But they will spin it as shrewd business.

totally we absolutely dropped the ball and luckily nobody else reacted. Where would be without Bruno?? We didn’t sign him for Jose when it looked like Pogba was leaving. Instead we kicked that can down the road for another year until we had to write the season off and give Jose a huge pay day. The Pogba situation that still hasn’t been resolved 3 years later! Fans rioting at the time because the squad was so depleted.

Maguire and Bruno would have been excellent signings at any stage and may have even saved Jose’s job but I’m 100% glad he’s gone. They were both going substantially cheaper the summer before we bought them in too but we just piss about. I think we almost enjoy the headlines that dragging these things out generates as much as trying to save some money and looking like great businessmen. Recreating a successful footballing dynasty seems pretty far down their list of priorities. We’ve got the money so we must be right. Eh no not really...

 

[stevoc]

Ok so they hired them and then only partially backed them and hung them out to dry. They also created a huge mess that continues to this day by hiring managers with 3 completely differing styles. They will neither lead nor follow and they definitely have some strange spending patterns. They don’t seem to want to kick on when we are on the up and the squad is up for the fight. Our transfers are nearly always embarrassing sagas that go on for longer than 1 window trying to shave a few million off. I understand no owners are perfect but ours have to be among the most smug wasteful and slow to act. It’s such a contradiction. They won’t buy in vital positions but they’ll pay over the odds for stuff we don’t need. Add to that they’ve let the infrastructure of the club fall behind and I don’t really know what they do that’s positive apart from hold the purse strings.

Look at the expensive players they’ve brought in? More expensive problems than anywhere close to being a league winning team. We go and splurge on Pogba and don’t build a team around him. City go and buy KDB a better player for the league, actual captain material and cheaper. There are tonnes of examples like that where we got it wildly wrong.

I hear you mate i'm not a fan of their at all, and they've been penny pinching at times and completely mismanaging the club at all other times. We know their game they ideally want United to win things but not at all costs CL football is the main goal every year.

When i started this conversation i wasn't defending Woodward, i just have a pet peeve for this 'football person' phrase. By this stage Woodward is very much a football person though not necessarily a competent one.

 

[ravelston]

We made the playoffs in two of the following four years, so there was some positive knock on effect from hiring Gruden. Dungy just wasn’t going to get us over the line so an offensive change was absolutely needed. We brought in something like 35 free agents the same summer as Chucky, mostly on offense, so all the hires in the summer of 2002 did pay off for the ultimate prize, something that had never occurred before, & there was residual success in subsequent years. So, the offensive hires initially worked, but you’re correct, it obviously wasn’t ultimately sustainable.

What didn’t happen was a Moneyball scenario where front office wizardry & shrewd frugal personnel acquisitions over a period of time turned us into plucky overachievers; we stacked the defense through many drafts & had a productive hiring spree immediately after bringing Gruden in.

Totally agree with the last part - nothing like moneyball. Moneyball is a sustainable strategy - 2002 was a one year gamble.

 

[patty123]

Because other owners are worse doesn´t change the fact that our owners have not brought a dollar into this club. The Liverpool owners at least have done that, Utd and Liverpool weren´t even playing in the same division when it came to revenue before Liverpool got new owners.

What, the liverpool owners have brought money in through sponsorship like ours have done and other deals, like the new kit deal, increase revenue from been in CL, on tv more etc, winning things, its not like they have put their hands into their own pocket and given klopp money to spend, as do you really think he wanted a defender from Preston.

Ole has spent more than klopp in less time, and the money klopp got was from sales and not their back pockets,so unless there is something I am missing, they are no better than ours in terms of penny pinching, as remember, they had to be bloody shamed into scrapping putting non playing staff on furlough.

 

[Mike Oxard]

I'd be happy if they don't suck out any more money from the club. If we had reinvested all our earnings into the club instead of servicing debts from the leveraged buy out or paying dividend payments to line their pockets, we could've spent atleast another 1bn more on transfers. Or atleast spent that on the stadium / other infrastructure.

I think we've actually increased dividend payments during peak pandemic uncertainty.

Unfortunately, the parts of their empire that are still cash positive will be subsidising the parts that aren’t for years to come. Their Retail portfolio is knackered, so they have structural problems. Our transfer budget will be limited to what we can raise from sales for the foreseeable.

 

[stw2022]

I’ve never got the wishful thinking they were in it for short term to make money like contestants on Bargain Hunt. They do want to make money, of course, but their business model is sports ‘franchise’ ownership. They’re not a family whose primary interest lies elsewhere who bought United on a whim. If their intention was to make a massive profit and sit on the beach and knit a blouse then they’d have sold us after 3 or 4 years.

Like it or not I can’t see them selling at any point at least whilst this current generation are in charge of the family business.

 

[choccy77]

What’s Tom Brady like on the right wing ?

Dunno, but his throw in's will be awesome!

 

[MyOnlySolskjaer]

We've signed our Tom Brady.

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[lsd]

We've signed our Tom Brady.

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I can just see the Brady Ronaldo photoshoot now. If the NFL wasn't starting Brady would be unveiling him

 

[duffer]

Isn't Tom Brady that Irish left back who came through Man United's academy and why is he the inspiration for this?

 

[big rons sovereign]

We've signed our Tom Brady.

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Aah, United have completed a transfer. Time to make up some numbers.