Hear hear. Great post of explaining the real underlying issue at the club.
Manchester United Board
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So is your main goal here is to have a forum where we can talk about lots of different issues at United, or, to have a successful football club? For me, I survived long enough without a forum, and would much rather have a successful football club.
But like in any walk of life, especially my own, I will go to the source of the issue, rather than not discussing it and keep moaning about it!
The Brentford story is great. They're playing moneyball. Have you read the article Whitwell has done on Richard Arnold this morning? Apparently he's into data and makes "evidenced based decisions" And we did appoint a director of data science recently.
The boards 2 biggest failures, amongst many, is that they have never had a forward vision/plan of how they would want the football team to play, and then the second being, not hiring football people to make the correct decisions.
We brought in different managers with differing "philosophy's" on how they would like the team to play. This has therefore brought in a mish mash of players.
I mentioned above, we have no identity, no plan. However, I must say, the first biggest positive sign for me is in recruiting Ralf. If he is left to do the job of building the football operations of United, we will be successful again.
Yeah, just finished reading Laurie's article. This gives me some hope that we could be on the road of recovery. If RA allows the footballing men to do their job, now that we have recruited Ralf, than I have a lot more confidence that we will be successful again. However, RA will need to hold his nerve.
Absolutely and I’d like to think the Glazers have attempted to do that over the last few months. Making change is definitely realistic and I’m all for that but we’re never getting rid of them. The biggest problem at this club is that we don’t have football people in the higher up positions. We have unqualified yes men and ex players.
You’ve not answered what you want United fans to do to get rid of the Glazers. I would genuinely like to know your thoughts.
It’s possible to do both.
Ultimately though people are watching football matches and then make comments on said football matches.
Now if Marcus Rashford is too useless to pass the ball to a team mate five yards in front of him or Ralph Ragnick can’t work out that playing Matic, Cavani and Ronaldo for 90 minutes is stupid. Then you can’t expect people’s initial response to matches to be “That damn Avram Glazer”.
We all know the Glazers are shit owners, everyone knows it. We’re not being educated here.
But the bottom line is you cannot have a successful football club with incompetent management and players. You can have a successsul football club in spite of incompetent owners.
That is a fact whether anyone likes it or not and that is why football and player discussion will always take centre stage.
What doesn’t help either is a lot of the heavily vocal anti glazer crowd (on here in particular) were the same ones who were more than happy for Ole to manage the team for three years, no questions asked despite it being an obviously incompetent decision made by the board.
Not only to give him the job but all that money to spend. A decision they probably made because they knew it would appease the fans. The same fans who claim to have the clubs best interest at heart but were happy to see the club waste three years on a manager clearly never going to be good enough to do anything purely so they could position themselves as “better fans” than those who wanted the opposite.
On the bold part, I don't disagree but I think its incorrect to say that all successful clubs deliver a consistent tactical vision of how they want to play football. Most of the time changes are made because change is needed. Different personalities, different philosophies, it happens everywhere.
What hampers United more than most is that every manager that comes in is overburdened with issues to solve. Yes, partly because they want to play different tactics but IMO more because the squads they inherit contain too many players just not good enough to be there, and we struggle to move those players out which limits our options.
We do exactly what we do when were unhappy with players and managers...show our dissatisfaction at the games, social media etc. We stop blaming the players and managers, because they are the symptom of the problems...not the problem!
So which big club has been successful with having incompetent owners?
Out of curiosity, which successful clubs would you say have changed their philosophies and still continue to be successful?
I agree in regards to the squad. However, like pointed out in Laurie Whitwell's piece today, our board are so incompetent, they give big contracts to players who don't deserve it...
"The transfer of Daniel James to Leeds for £25 million was shrewd business but it was only the seventh sale of £10 million or more since Woodward took charge in 2013. United need to act with greater dynamism to keep the atmosphere fresh. They have Andreas Pereira, Axel Tuanzebe, and Tahith Chong, all saleable assets, out on loan. Lingard and Martial, whom Solskjaer was happy to sell, could have brought in £50 million or more last summer.
In the same period, Chelsea raised £102 million, selling Tammy Abraham for £34 million and Kurt Zouma for £25.8 million. Liverpool got £12 million for Harry Wilson, £10.5 million for Marko Grujic, and £9.5 million for Xherdan Shaqiri.
One recruitment source considers how City have dispensed with Ferran Torres, Sergio Aguero and David Silva in recent years, saying: “Manchester City are letting go of genuine first-team players. United keep hold of players who haven’t featured for two years.”
This what what the management have to contend with, due to the incompetence of the executive board.
Totally agree. They have caused this mess through a combination of gross mismanagement, zero planning, zero football knowledge and the small matter of leeching 1 billion out of the club that could've been spent on players.
Been saying this for ages, just not here. Manchester United FC are finished as long as the Glazers remain in charge.
Buy as many players as you want, change as many managers as you want, bring in as many new staff as you want, the result is the same - we are finished as long as they are here. The end goal of this "football club" is completely wrong. The quotations are because this... organization is no longer and hasn't been concerned with competitive sport for a decade.
All Manchester United is is a side hustle, a source of passive income, for a bunch of American billionaires. "Disneyland for adults", if you will. The fish rots from the head. Their complete lack of interest has led to this - completely incompetent staff, nepotism, catastrophically bad recruitment, ridiculously overpaid players on ages-long contracts that couldn't care any less, grounds that are falling apart, etc.
And the Glazers are here to stay. No one in their right mind would pay 4 billion for a club that's also 500 million in debt. "But you keep spending hundreds of millions, you can't complain!". Yeah, we do haphazardly spend millions of the club's money. While the Glazers siphon billions.
Sure, the players and managers carry the immediate blame. But the overarching villain of this story is only one - the Glazer family.
Buy as many players as you want, change as many managers as you want, bring in as many new staff as you want, the result is the same - we are finished as long as they are here. The end goal of this "football club" is completely wrong. The quotations are because this... organization is no longer and hasn't been concerned with competitive sport for a decade.
All Manchester United is is a side hustle, a source of passive income, for a bunch of American billionaires. "Disneyland for adults", if you will. The fish rots from the head. Their complete lack of interest has led to this - completely incompetent staff, nepotism, catastrophically bad recruitment, ridiculously overpaid players on ages-long contracts that couldn't care any less, grounds that are falling apart, etc.
And the Glazers are here to stay. No one in their right mind would pay 4 billion for a club that's also 500 million in debt. "But you keep spending hundreds of millions, you can't complain!". Yeah, we do haphazardly spend millions of the club's money. While the Glazers siphon billions.
Sure, the players and managers carry the immediate blame. But the overarching villain of this story is only one - the Glazer family.
Wow, only if there was a "retweet" functionality on this forum!!
EVRYTHING you just said nailed it!!
Not too sure how others can disagree? The standards are set from the top, not the other way around!
Perfectly summed up there we are stuck with them until someone will buy us but as you said for £4B and in £500M debt not going to happen. We are stuck in purgatory.
While I'm not particularly fond of the board, I have a hard time seeing how they can be the reason for all of these problems. Are they causing players to play poorly? Are chances being missed and passes misplaced because of the executive decisions being made behind the scenes? While it's clear that the board shares part of the blame, the players themselves are failing to live up to even the most lenient standards. This squad may not be what one would wish for, but practically all of these players have proven in the past that they can do much better.
Let's take Maguire, for instance. When we signed him, he was one of the most desirable defenders in the league. He was player of the season at the time. His fee was a bit over the top, granted, but so what? United has the money, and we almost always have to pay a premium because other clubs know this. Would anything really have been different if we'd got him for, say, £50m? £40m? Would his rapid decline somehow not be a concern if only we'd paid less for him? Or do people think he wouldn't have declined at all if he'd been cheaper? A lot of our players are on higher wages than they deserve, but is this supposed to somehow make them unable to play well and/or want to leave? Why would that be the case?
Time and time and time again, we sign a player and the same thing happens. Either he's shit immediately upon arrival, or he's great for one season and then turns to shit afterwards. This has happened consistently for about nine years now, with all sorts of different managers. We've tried the working class hero, the eccentric, the proven winner, the club legend, and now the football technician. Nothing has worked at all. We've signed two or three squads worth of players and just about all of them have ended up playing at a far lower standard than they did before they came here. There are definitely big problems with the board, but can they really have such a ruinous effect on every aspect of the club?
There's something very wrong at this club and I have no idea what it is, but that's the point: what the hell is it? With most of our noteworthy signings, we have to compete against other big clubs to get the player. It's not as if we're throwing darts at a Panini sticker album to determine who we sign. They're usually sensible signings at the time, if occasionally somewhat overpriced. Pep was desperate to get Ronaldo, but we intercepted him at the last minute and got the player. Suddenly the board is woefully incompetent for nabbing Ronaldo from the clutches of our rivals who were eager to have him? It's like people simply look at the way things turn out and decide that if it didn't turn out perfectly, it was wrong to try at all.
Something's completely broken somewhere at United, but anytime people lay the blame fully on this or that, I'm scratching my head and wondering how they come to that conclusion. Yeah, the owners are parasitic and unwanted, but it's not as though we don't spend plenty of money. We splash as much as anyone. We may not have had the right managers or coaching staff, but it has been a revolving door for the better part of a decade and somehow absolutely everyone appears to fail at this club. Often after they've done just fine before coming.
Let's take Maguire, for instance. When we signed him, he was one of the most desirable defenders in the league. He was player of the season at the time. His fee was a bit over the top, granted, but so what? United has the money, and we almost always have to pay a premium because other clubs know this. Would anything really have been different if we'd got him for, say, £50m? £40m? Would his rapid decline somehow not be a concern if only we'd paid less for him? Or do people think he wouldn't have declined at all if he'd been cheaper? A lot of our players are on higher wages than they deserve, but is this supposed to somehow make them unable to play well and/or want to leave? Why would that be the case?
Time and time and time again, we sign a player and the same thing happens. Either he's shit immediately upon arrival, or he's great for one season and then turns to shit afterwards. This has happened consistently for about nine years now, with all sorts of different managers. We've tried the working class hero, the eccentric, the proven winner, the club legend, and now the football technician. Nothing has worked at all. We've signed two or three squads worth of players and just about all of them have ended up playing at a far lower standard than they did before they came here. There are definitely big problems with the board, but can they really have such a ruinous effect on every aspect of the club?
There's something very wrong at this club and I have no idea what it is, but that's the point: what the hell is it? With most of our noteworthy signings, we have to compete against other big clubs to get the player. It's not as if we're throwing darts at a Panini sticker album to determine who we sign. They're usually sensible signings at the time, if occasionally somewhat overpriced. Pep was desperate to get Ronaldo, but we intercepted him at the last minute and got the player. Suddenly the board is woefully incompetent for nabbing Ronaldo from the clutches of our rivals who were eager to have him? It's like people simply look at the way things turn out and decide that if it didn't turn out perfectly, it was wrong to try at all.
Something's completely broken somewhere at United, but anytime people lay the blame fully on this or that, I'm scratching my head and wondering how they come to that conclusion. Yeah, the owners are parasitic and unwanted, but it's not as though we don't spend plenty of money. We splash as much as anyone. We may not have had the right managers or coaching staff, but it has been a revolving door for the better part of a decade and somehow absolutely everyone appears to fail at this club. Often after they've done just fine before coming.
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Agree completely. That's really my whole point about this. The board have made a lot of mistakes but its the management of our playing squad that has hampered us most of all. I have some sympathy for all of our previous managers because none of them have come into a situation that has given them a strong platform for success, and it seems to get worse with each one.
Ole IMO looked to be getting the squad back on track, but even then we still have a board that lets Lingard & Pogba run down contracts, makes seemingly no attempt to sell the likes of Martial, Bailly or Donny (among others), signs Heaton when we already have a pissed off reserve keeper too good to never play, renews Matic and Mata and then to top it all off throw in the Ronaldo hand grenade when I'm certain Ole would have much preferred a midfielder.
It undermines everything else that the board try to do. I personally have no issue with any of the managerial appointments despite how they turned out, and they clearly make good commercial decisions, but its all for nothing if we can't manage our squad of players properly.
To try and help you with this, can I ask, do you work for yourself, or for a company?
So it's the board who are responsible for the management of players, coaches, staff etc, so they are the one's responsible.
If you can't blame the managers, then you have to blame the card they get dealt with...by the board! No?
Anti glazer chants, banners and signs can be seen and heard at every game.
There’s an anti glazer thread on here basically every other week.
Glazers out trends on Twitter regularly, in fact 500 mentions of it already today.
It’s all there, United fans have done it. Anything beyond what they’ve done would probably be illegal. And I’d assume you’re not advocating that?
Literally our club
Manchester United have won the same amount of league titles under the Glazers as city have under Abu Dhabi and the same as Chelsea under Roman.
It was proven that with a world class executive and manager under Fergie and Gill that trophies could be won in spite of the Glazers.
You can even look at a lesser level. Cardiff under Vincent Tan have been promoted to the PL twice but he’s incompetent. Southampton have had pretty atrocious owners for years but have maintained mid table status for years. Liverpool owners have been penny pinching for years and haven’t got a clue about football but Liverpool have Klopp and good recruitment and a league title and European cup to show for it.
I think we're getting off track here. I'm agreeing that the board are ultimately responsible, but not necessarily the same parameters as you. Hapless squad management - yes. Lack of continuity and poor managerial appointments - not so much.
The Glazers inherited the existing successful manager and the exec board. Making no changes to the footballing side. So hardly incompetent were they??Anti glazer chants, banners and signs can be seen and heard at every game.
There’s an anti glazer thread on here basically every other week.
Glazers out trends on Twitter regularly, in fact 500 mentions of it already today.
It’s all there, United fans have done it. Anything beyond what they’ve done would probably be illegal. And I’d assume you’re not advocating that?
Literally our club
Manchester United have won the same amount of league titles under the Glazers as city have under Abu Dhabi and the same as Chelsea under Roman.
It was proven that with a world class executive and manager under Fergie and Gill that trophies could be won in spite of the Glazers.
You can even look at a lesser level. Cardiff under Vincent Tan have been promoted to the PL twice but he’s incompetent. Southampton have had pretty atrocious owners for years but have maintained mid table status for years. Liverpool owners have been penny pinching for years and haven’t got a clue about football but Liverpool have Klopp and good recruitment and a league title and European cup to show for it.
When it came to making changes, they fell on their a***s! Ps, Malcolm was the main man in charge of the club. Poor guy passed away in 2014...coinciding with our failures...God rest his soul! Well the fans managed to get Ed Woodward out, and got Joel to actually speak with the fans etc. You underestimate the power of the fans.
So but yeah, going back to the original conversation, the failure of the past 8 years, and the current situation is due to the board, headed by Ed Woodward. With him now leaving, hopefully Richard Arnold can do a better job!
"We have money" is entirely the wrong way to think about. It's one of the reasons we are in this mess. When you think you can buy everything with money, you get players that put money above everything. Now I'm not saying this is the case with everyone in this squad, but for a lot of them - it is. Think about it, you are 20-something years old and you've just signed a 3-year contract for 300k - 400k in the most commercial sport on the planet. You've made it in life. You are famous on social media, you got your licensing deals, sponsorships, all that. Why try anymore?
Moving on to the responsibility on the Glazers. When you are a leader people expect you to make the right decisions. To do that you have to have a clear goal in mind. You will make wrong choices, but if you have a clear goal, likeminded people will see that and will naturally be drawn to that and help you.
And here lies the problem - competitive success isn't the goal of our leaders. Financial success for the duration of their stay is. As long as they get their dividends and don't draw too much scrutiny - everything is fine.
Think about PSG for a second. They have all the money in the world, but have failed to impress for years now. Why is that? Because the club's owner is more interested in his status. That's what all the big stars in PSG are - status symbols for him. And so he does what he can to be best buds with them? Need money? Got it. Need break in the middle of the season? Sure.
Now look at Real Madrid. They also have a lot of money. But their fans, and say what you will about Perez, at the end of the day they demand the best in return. The goal of Real Madrid is to be the biggest club in the world. That's what Perez equates to status. That's his goal. And that's why they have been the most successful club. Players go there for moneyz sure, but they also go there if they want their names etched on the wall of football history.
Back to us, you'd think competitive success would mean financial success, right? True, but competitive success requires investment and that comes with risk. (I'd also question the competence of the Glazers as their money was actually made by their father and not them). The Glazers do not like risk, like many big-time CEOs, investment bankers and such. No, they are content with leeching off of the club for as long as they can. This is their goal. And since they actually haven't invested any of their own money, they don't really care if the club eventually degrades. They can just bail if they need to.
Remember what I said about the nature of your goal and it drawing like-minded people? Well, there you have it. As we have become a safe retirement home and charity fund for has-beens and never-will-bes. We can buy our way to a point, but you have to be hungry to walk the extra mile. This is exactly how you reach mediocrity - which we have.
The Glazers aren't interested in the structure or squad of the club. And if there is trouble, they can just throw the club's money at it and pacify the fans for the time being.
Which is why they are the problem. The squad and the managers carry the immediate blame, but the lack of long-term competitive success is 100% on the Glazers. And ultimately they decide who comes and goes.
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I'm not sure what part of my post inspired such a rant haha. The bit about the board making good commercial decisions?
If my comments are coming across in any way in support of the board then that's not my intention at all. I'm just being specific about what I hold them accountable for, and what I don't. I wrote a fairly long post somewhere on here recently where I stated that my main hope with Rangnick is that he brings clarity back to this football club - by which I mean that every decision must be made with the overall strength & balance of our playing squad in mind.
When the people in charge actually think they are not only doing a great job, but that other clubs should be envious of the way we are run, you know nothing much is going to change. Glazers need to be hounded out so we can get back to being a proper football club, instead of being a cash machine for a bunch of leeches.
Big Malc was incapacitated after his strokes in 2006, not long after the takeover. At that point Joel and Avram took over the family business. He was never involved in running the club.The Glazers inherited the existing successful manager and the exec board. Making no changes to the footballing side. So hardly incompetent were they??
Well the fans managed to get Ed Woodward out, and got Joel to actually speak with the fans etc. You underestimate the power of the fans.
So but yeah, going back to the original conversation, the failure of the past 8 years, and the current situation is due to the board, headed by Ed Woodward. With him now leaving, hopefully Richard Arnold can do a better job!
I didn't mean this to come off as a rant (or so long for that matter), but I am ill at home, so I have a lot of free time.
You know what they say about hope, so I too hope we have eventually stumbled on some competent people, but that remains to be seen.
Luckily, I've reached the limit of my daily posts so I can now go to sleep now.
I was joking mate. Poster was being technical with his reply, and so was I.
Ahh fair enough. That's on me for not reading the post you quoted.I was joking mate. Poster was being technical with his reply, and so was I.
Fair play mate - I always enjoy reading the longer posts on here, and I enjoyed reading yours.I didn't mean this to come off as a rant (or so long for that matter), but I am ill at home, so I have a lot of free time.
You know what they say about hope, so I too hope we have eventually stumbled on some competent people, but that remains to be seen.
Luckily, I've reached the limit of my daily posts so I can now go to sleep now.
That's the big question here, really isn't it? Have we now stumbled upon someone competent? Rangnick certainly talks a good game but he has a very tough job on here and I don't see him making any significant progress in his six months, but if he is able to at least identify some of our problems and give the next guy a head start then that will be good enough.
Hope you feel better soon
Whether it was inherited or not is irrelevant. The point is they were there and they were in charge so to speak. What it tells you is that if the right people are beneath you, it can work.The Glazers inherited the existing successful manager and the exec board. Making no changes to the footballing side. So hardly incompetent were they??
Well the fans managed to get Ed Woodward out, and got Joel to actually speak with the fans etc. You underestimate the power of the fans.
So but yeah, going back to the original conversation, the failure of the past 8 years, and the current situation is due to the board, headed by Ed Woodward. With him now leaving, hopefully Richard Arnold can do a better job!
I underestimate our fans? Haven’t you spent this entire thread complaining that the fans are not doing enough and I’ve literally been telling you that yes they have.Just read it now, sounds more promising than Woodward but probably still not enough. He is just another accountant really. Footballing decisions lie with Murtough and Fletcher, but the former has sanctioned some terrible transfers since becoming head of footballing in 2016.
We’ve all known for a long time that the board is the root of the rot. They’ve done a brilliant job of monetizing nostalgia but they’ve allowed the core product — performances on the pitch today — to decay.
This would be a great time for the Glazers to cash out and the sell the club. The farce that this club has become under their stewardship is at serious risk of becoming a financial albatross on them as fans wise up to our persistent mediocrity.
This would be a great time for the Glazers to cash out and the sell the club. The farce that this club has become under their stewardship is at serious risk of becoming a financial albatross on them as fans wise up to our persistent mediocrity.
How about " if conte asks the board to do six things, he expects them to be done immediately. We were not sure that was a great fit for us"
Reading some of this stuff, it's hardly surprising Zidane didn't even entertain coming to us.
Our players probably would not have rated him as well, since YouTube wasn't as big when he was active.
Our players probably would not have rated him as well, since YouTube wasn't as big when he was active.
I don't see it like this, I like to think we have taken a more longterm view this time, and are finally trying to change things properly this time, whether it works or not is open to question, but it's better than just hiring whatever big name manager is available at any given time, or giving it to Carrick and if does well going down the Ole route again.
The players know Rangnick is not some no mark, is here short term, and know he is here to change things for the better, the sooner they learn to accept it and get on with things the sooner we get better.
In 6 months we will get a manager who we have at least done a bit of proper due diligence on, and have Rangnick upstairs fully armed with first hand knowledge of the players and what is wrong with the club, it has to be a better idea than just giving it to Conte because he was there and hoping for the best again.
Well I like your hopeless optimism. But we don't have the money to rebuild this squad yet again with a totally different style thanks to the septic fecks who own us. And this manager we'll have done our due diligence on, I would love for him to be the right man for the job but this is the same board who didn't even contemplate that Solskjaer might not prove to be capable of competing with Klopp, Pep et al FFS. I'll believe it when I see it.
As will I, for now I'm just glad Ole has gone, and we have someone who is at least capable in, the fact some players are seemingly struggling with things so quickly is not a bad thing imo.
Yes sadly it's looking like a rebuild again, but if we're doing it right this time then it could be worth it, that's surely why Ralf is here.
But what makes you think he's capable? He's an interim manager who's scraped a few results against rubbish teams. So far I've seen absolutely nothing to suggest he's a capable short term appointment.
'He knows huge mistakes were made' - assessing Ed Woodward's Man Utd reign
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/59898608
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/59898608
Not really. They put in the work for LVG, our recruiting was just dire and we never got any good attackers but you could see the tactics plain as day. They also put in the work for Mou for two seasons, then it stopped and never really came back for more than the odd game. Until that summer when Mou took on the board and lost, it was a bit of a circus but on the whole the team was likeable and we’d won trophies. Since then it’s been the fecking Cirque du Soleil.
I just realised what a trick all the shitty newspapers missed with the pun on cirque de sOLEil