Man United's most baffling decisions

Nas-JR

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This one is purely created to poke fun at ourselves (because if you don't laugh you'd cry right??). I consider Ruben's stint , from the circumstances around his hiring to his recent sacking, to be a perfect example of shocking executive level decision making. It made me realise how often the man united executive team had made these kinds of baffling decisions so I thought it would be worth going through them.

These are the ones I can think off on top of my head:

- Hiring Ragnick on a 6 month stint as a manager (not a manager) in preparation for him to take over as sporting director, only to bin him because he correctly identified what the club needs to do to succeed (open heart surgery).

- Paying a 6-figure compensation package to get Ashworth, and wait 6 months of gardening leave (which your co-owner was aware would happen??) only to bin him 3 months later!

- Hiring a new manager to replace a managerial great, giving him a 6 year contract and a grand total of 1 player in the summer to support his rebuild. That 1 player was fellaini who was bought for more money than his release clause which expired a month earlier

- Getting ETH after your worst season ever in the premier league and giving him a total of three signings (eriksen on a free, a back up left back and martinez) before the start of the season having lost 6 first team players ( matic, mata, pogba, lingard, bailly, cavani, telles). Then panicking and paying 90 mil to buy antony (available for 60 mil earlier in the summer) and 65+ mil on a 30 year old casimero.


This thread is actually meant to be light-hearted so apologies if this opens up old wounds!
 
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Different club managements.
Most of the stuff you cited, was under a previous regime, from top to bottom.
All the executives from the CEO downwards, were all moved on, once SJR’s people started to be installed.

The current regime had to deal with what they had, when they took over.
Had to make a hasty judgement call on ETH and backed the wrong horse, which they later admitted was a mistake.
 
Hiring Moyes set the tone for the post Sir Alex era. A thoroughly under qualified man floundering about and eventually being crushed by the task. There's been lots of these under qualified men at United for far too long. Especially at the very top in regards to ownership. You can also add another one with the guy, that just got booted too. Pretenders. That's what they are and were.

Another one I'd add; not backing Mourinho properly after his second season. We had money and in February that year we heard once again big talk by Woodward about standing behind the manager and how ambitious they want to be in the summer. All we got was Fred, Dalot and a backup goalkeeper. Well done there. Baffling doesn't describe it.
 
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Banana Republic said:
Different club managements.
Most of the stuff you cited, was under a previous regime, from top to bottom.
All the executives from the CEO downwards, were all moved on, once SJR’s people started to be installed.

The current regime had to deal with what they had, when they took over.
Had to make a hasty judgement call on ETH and backed the wrong horse, which they later admitted was a mistake.
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Nas-JR said:
This thread is actually meant to be light-hearted
Click to expand...
 
Banana Republic said:
Different club managements.
Most of the stuff you cited, was under a previous regime, from top to bottom.
All the executives from the CEO downwards, were all moved on, once SJR’s people started to be installed.

The current regime had to deal with what they had, when they took over.
Had to make a hasty judgement call on ETH and backed the wrong horse, which they later admitted was a mistake.
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Absolutely, not disputing any of that. Hence why it's not intended to be a serious discussion on senior management, rather a best (worst?) hits of the club's management decisions as a collective.

Also, just to point out, Amorim and Ashworth is the new management and theyve only been here a couple of years. I haven't mentioned keeping ETH on as it was a 50/50 call so I don't consider it to be a bad call at the time.
 
726092-scaled.webp
 
Neglecting the midfield for god knows how long.

Not buying a decent right back.

Paying 80m for Maguire (I like him but 80million!), similar for Antony.

Bringing an aging Ronaldo back (great thrills but bad footballing decision).

Some horrendous away kits.
 
Managers prior to Amorim had signed an extension months before they were sacked. All under the guise of providing backing to the managers as they shouldn't be entering their final year of the contract because God forbid. Ten Hag was unnecessarily given an extension when they were unsure on whether to keep him. Jose and Ole signed 3 year deals at a time where it was becoming clear that their time is likely to be up.
 
The double bid for baines and Fellaini always cracks me up. Then paying over for Fellaini because we’d missed his buy out clause.

The Moyes appointment itself- “ a victory for sanity in football” as Nev called it.
 
Going from Moyes to LvG to Jose to Ole - four completely different managers with completely different styles and needs from their players. Watching from the outside it was just bizarre.
 
Taking away lasagne from the staff and Luke Shaw
 
Yeah, it's definitely the Ashworth situation. Waiting for him for months while he was attending to his garden only to sack him after a few months because he didn't feel Amorim's system was up to it... Only to sack Amorim a year or so later because his system wasn't up to it.
 
Reading The Athetlic article from the other day and it stated that:

We wanted Semenyo in the summer but opted for Mbeumo because he was cheaper.

Then we negotiated a price for Mbeumo that was actually higher than the release clause for Semenyo but continued on anyway.

Then they circled back for Semenyo in January and seemingly he was a bit scorned by what happened in the summer, not to say he wouldn't have picked City anyway.

I'm a big fan of Mbeumo and I'm fine with how it panned out, but it seems a bit comical.
 
Ohh a fun and cathartic thread :lol:

The Lingard to West Ham (lack of) transfer was ridiculous. Shipped him out on loan, he smashed it there, they offer a very generous fee to bring him in permanently, we reject and he spends the next season doing next to nothing of note at the club. Leaves for free.
 
The mystery three “lawyers” who went to pay Herrera’s release clause, only for us to deny having anything to do with them when the transfer fell through.
 
sp_cgb said:
Hiring Moyes set the tone for the post Sir Alex era. A thoroughly under qualified man floundering about and eventually being crushed by the task. There's been lots of these under qualified men at United for far too long. Especially at the very top in regards to ownership. You can also add another one with the guy, that just got booted too. Pretenders. That's what they are and were.

Another one I'd add; not backing Mourinho properly after his second season. We had money and in February that year we heard once again big talk by Woodward about standing behind the manager and how ambitious they want to be in the summer. All we got was Fred, Dalot and a backup goalkeeper. Well done there. Baffling doesn't describe it.
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Ironically that's the one time they listen to football people (SAF)
 
Not selling Romero even though we couldn't register him. The cost was probably -10 mil on wages and lost fee. Not a massive cost. But it shows how incompetent they were.

Renewing Jones forever.

Renewing Rashford & Rooney instead of selling him when their value was good, even though they were past their peak.
 
The manager selling Ronaldo and letting Tevez go, the whole “no value in the market” nonsense and replacing them with Owen and Obertan.

More recently, and the one that annoyed me the most, Ralf Ragnick being convinced to take the mangers role short term so he could identify the issues with the playing staff before getting into his proper role as Sporting Director. He identified the problems, called out the issues and the board fired him because they realised his fix (and my god, how right he was) was “open heart surgery” and going to cost a lot to fix. Didn’t help that the Twitter brigade of supporters turned on him because he didn’t prove to be a successful manager and couldn’t turn Martial and Rashford into prime R9 and Ronaldinho
 
tyunited said:
Replacing Sir Alex with Moyes and we have never recovered from it since.
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I'd add Gill leaving added to the chaos.

Gill should have stayed for one extra season to oversee the change, with Woodward shadowing him. I highly doubt Gill would have allowed Moyes to completely sack the whole backroom staff if I'm honest.

Over one summer, we lost our CEO, longstanding manager and all the backroom staff. It's hardly surprising it all went to shit.
 
All of the above.

Makes me wonder who makes these decisions? And based on what? How is this possible?
 
Another couple that I just remembered.

Needing a striker in the summer of 2020 with Cavani sat around out of contract, then waiting until deadline day to sign him, only for him to then need another month to get up to fitness to actually play.

Also Ole having to get his contact book out to get a signing in the door the previous January and ending up with Ighalo because none of our entire recruitment team were seemingly able to identify anyone else.
 
Prising Ashworth out of Newcastle to not know what he does and sack him really does show what Ineos are about.

They claim to have done their experience before buying a PL club and probably thought United would almost correct itself from Glazer running things. Turns out it's much harder and they are making a worse job of it. Now Ineos are hiring Ole.
 
The Onana transfer has to be up there. Still can't believe we paid 50m to replace De Gea with this calamity. It was not even a priority.
 
astracrazy said:
I'd add Gill leaving added to the chaos.

Gill should have stayed for one extra season to oversee the change, with Woodward shadowing him. I highly doubt Gill would have allowed Moyes to completely sack the whole backroom staff if I'm honest.

Over one summer, we lost our CEO, longstanding manager and all the backroom staff. It's hardly surprising it all went to shit.
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Gill didn’t want to be do the job with anyone other than SAF. Yes, under him it would have been better - but not SAF good! It was well timed from him (from his perspective).
 
A lot of the "decisions" are just paired with the decision to undo it, once they realized it wasn't working. The decision itself to do Moyes, Rangnick and Ashworth were sensible. You can agree/disagree with them of course, but they had their arguments in order and were aimed to solve a problem. A decision isn't bad because the outcome was different than expected. There are so many factors in this, and a key component of having a succesful business is not only making the correct decision to begin with, but also being very good at undoing the things you did wrong. It's quite easy to sit here and say the end result was bad and point at the things you should have done differently.

Moyes? Definitely not a bullet proof decision - it was a punt. It didn't work out. No matter given 3 or 7 year contract, it wasn't their intention to not succeed with this. 7 years had a clear message, but if you loose the team's support, what are you really going to do? Stick to it and end further behind? Again, turned out bad, but it should not be simplified that much. Firing him made more sense than appointing him. Those are two different decisions. Not one.

Rangnick? Well, everything seems easy from the outside. Even if he said the correct things, what if they had issues working with him or he had a different solution to the problem? Of course you get rid of him. Again, it wasn't one decision to appoint and fire. To different ones based on the trajectory.

Ashworth? Of course they didn't expect it to go this way. But that is what happens when you start working together, even if you do your research before. Sometimes the chemistry isn't there. Afterall, he was just an employee. It's a gamble. Didn't go. Would be idiotic to keep him if they don't work well together, no matter what garden leave, package was paid etc.

Of course, do your best. But hire fast fire faster. Now, the only question is whether they should fire themselves. ;)
 
Irwin99 said:
The double bid for baines and Fellaini always cracks me up. Then paying over for Fellaini because we’d missed his buy out clause.

The Moyes appointment itself- “ a victory for sanity in football” as Nev called it.
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:lol:
Yep, that really set a precedent for what's to come.

Also remember Ed flying back from Australia for , what was reported as, urgent transfer business.
 
Waiting months to get Ashworth and then sacking him shortly after because he apparently didn't bow down to his Petrochemical overlords enough has to be up there
 
The one not mentioned is bragging about having 800 right-backs in a database and ending up with the most obvious, and ultimately underwhelming, signing of Wan Bissaka.
 
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