Can’t wait until this guy is no longer employed by this club.
Manchester United name John Murtough as Football Director and Darren Fletcher as Technical Director
- Thread starter Tom Van Persie
- Start date
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) was joined by comedian Ali Woods to look back at the best and worst moments of a rollercoaster season with the annual United Hour Awards.
Has Ten Hag been sacked yet? We're not sure and we hope not, but it's looking more likely as the days pass.
Who should replace him and why is it taking so long to make a decision?
Amazing to see how quickly other clubs make business. It's almost too quick to be exciting, no time for gossip.
Having said that, I very much prefer that to what we have. Dilly dally FC.
Having said that, I very much prefer that to what we have. Dilly dally FC.
It's almost as if United are the biggest story in town, demand the most column inches and you're not invested in other clubs transfers.
That can all be true and it is but he’s still clueless. It’s been proven.
Other clubs take ages as well, you just dont follow them as closely! Everybody has deals that go and on, some fail, some succeed. At least united's dealings have made sense this summer in terms of FFP and expected sales etc.
When did I or the other poster mention anything about that?
Although clueless is an extreme and probably ill-informed view.
This is so so far from the truth it's not even funny anymore.
I do think he’s hindered by the fecking Glazers who have historically been slow to act on things. I really do have this vision in my head that Joel Glazer’s first thought that pops into his head about a transfer is whether this will impact on his dividends.
We’ve invested heavily into the wrong positions leaving a big hole elsewhere in the last 3 summers he’s been DoF. That has little to do with the Glazers really, I don’t think they’ve been too much of a hindrance when you see how much we have spent in that period of time.
Need to find the article, but essentially Murtough works with the scouts and manager to identify target's, then he has to put a budget together for each player they needs to be signed off by the Glazers, then it goes to Hargreaves to negotiate and then if clubs want more money from us then everything needs to be signed off by all 6 Glazers again.. it's a fun process.
Says who? Liverpool and Arsenal wanted him too. Do you just pluck random numbers out of your arse?
Absolutely sick and tired of the whingeing. I understand that people are frustrated after a decade of mismanagement by Ed Woodward but he's gone now and we need to separate his time at the club, and the damage that it did, from the current regime.
Unfortunately, you can't undo a decade's worth of poor decisions in 18-months. Arnold and Murtough have had to deal with a restricted budget, owing to Woodward blowing £1BN+ net, and having a bloated, unbalanced squad full of players on salaries well above market rate - which makes selling difficult.
First and foremost, the got their biggest decision to-date correct. The appointment of ETH. So let's give them credit for that. It would have been easy to get another 'name', but they waited and took something of a gamble on ETH. Lest we forget, he wasn't available when OGS was relieved of his duties and they were called all sorts of names with the interim appointment of Ragnick, which was disastrous but at least enabled us to get the right man in the Summer.
Following that, if you look at our dealings in the transfer market, I think it's hard to say (without bias) that they haven't massively improved and re-addressed the balance of the playing squad. The wage bill is also finally coming under control...and this all matters and stands the club in good stead for future windows.
INs
Hojlund - £72m
Mount - £60m
Onana - £43m
Bayindir - £4m
Evans - Free
Antony - £89m
Casemiro - £62m
Eriksen - Free
Martinez - £45m
Malacia - £13m
OUTs
Henderson - £20m
Elanga - £15m
Fred - £10m
Kovar - £7m
Telles - £4m
Zidane - £1m
Mengi - Undisclosed
DDG - Free
Jones - Free
Ronaldo - Free
Garner - £15m
Chong - £1.75m
Cavani - Free
Matic - Free
Lingard - Free
Pogba - Free
Pereira - £8m
Tuanzebe - Free
Unfortunately, you can't undo a decade's worth of poor decisions in 18-months. Arnold and Murtough have had to deal with a restricted budget, owing to Woodward blowing £1BN+ net, and having a bloated, unbalanced squad full of players on salaries well above market rate - which makes selling difficult.
First and foremost, the got their biggest decision to-date correct. The appointment of ETH. So let's give them credit for that. It would have been easy to get another 'name', but they waited and took something of a gamble on ETH. Lest we forget, he wasn't available when OGS was relieved of his duties and they were called all sorts of names with the interim appointment of Ragnick, which was disastrous but at least enabled us to get the right man in the Summer.
Following that, if you look at our dealings in the transfer market, I think it's hard to say (without bias) that they haven't massively improved and re-addressed the balance of the playing squad. The wage bill is also finally coming under control...and this all matters and stands the club in good stead for future windows.
INs
Hojlund - £72m
Mount - £60m
Onana - £43m
Bayindir - £4m
Evans - Free
Antony - £89m
Casemiro - £62m
Eriksen - Free
Martinez - £45m
Malacia - £13m
OUTs
Henderson - £20m
Elanga - £15m
Fred - £10m
Kovar - £7m
Telles - £4m
Zidane - £1m
Mengi - Undisclosed
DDG - Free
Jones - Free
Ronaldo - Free
Garner - £15m
Chong - £1.75m
Cavani - Free
Matic - Free
Lingard - Free
Pogba - Free
Pereira - £8m
Tuanzebe - Free
I think FFP was a major issue for them this summer. It's been a bit of a whirlwind but they did OK. Could have been better, could have been worse. Our fanbase is a joke at this stage. I'm convinced they think everyone but Mbappe is sh*te. Actually, they would probably moan if we signed Mbappe too.
Onana - Needed to replace DDG, makes sense. Knows ETH. OK price. No complaints.
Mount - Price in this market is alright. Ive never been convinced by him but my Chelsea mates loved him. The concern is the opportunity cost when we arguably needed other positions first. We'll see how he goes.
Hojlund - In this CF market when we cant spend 100M + I dont think we could do any better.
Bayindir - 4M almost doesnt register. Never seen him play.
Evans - FFP stop gap signing. Makes total sense.
Amrabat - Should have been done sooner but I think he will be a good signing in the end. Made a bit of a show of themselves with some of the opening offers.
Regulion - I doubt they wanted to be in this position so their hand was force. What can they do.
Onana - Needed to replace DDG, makes sense. Knows ETH. OK price. No complaints.
Mount - Price in this market is alright. Ive never been convinced by him but my Chelsea mates loved him. The concern is the opportunity cost when we arguably needed other positions first. We'll see how he goes.
Hojlund - In this CF market when we cant spend 100M + I dont think we could do any better.
Bayindir - 4M almost doesnt register. Never seen him play.
Evans - FFP stop gap signing. Makes total sense.
Amrabat - Should have been done sooner but I think he will be a good signing in the end. Made a bit of a show of themselves with some of the opening offers.
Regulion - I doubt they wanted to be in this position so their hand was force. What can they do.
They are just Woodward rebranded, spent a huge sum already which you can’t see on the pitch, still paying huge wages to players that will make them impossible to offload and still all over the shop every summer transfer window.
Even FFP isn’t an excuse for them, it was obvious this problem was coming but they’ve been spending like it wasn’t a concern. There is still no plan beyond the here and now and defaulting to the manager.
This was always going to be the case, they are Woodward 2.0 and under this ownership there was never going to be a huge change in how things were done.
I think for the most part the deals they've done and the prices they've done them for are OK (they massively overpaid for Antony and I've never really got Mason Mount but you're never going to operate at 100%). The concern for me is still the process. I enjoy Adnan's posts about the structures in place and the people who have been brought in and the key members of the recruitment and scouting department but when it comes down to it they still seem way too reliant on the manager.
In Guardiola's whole career he's bought maybe a couple of players he's managed before and yet within just over a year we've signed 4 of Ten Hag's former players, in addition to other players with whom he has links through the Eredivise, despite him having only managed at a lower level which makes the players more attainable but also means they're not as good for the most part. To me that either indicates that the quality of the scouting and talent identification isn't good enough and therefore they need to rely on Ten Hag or, more likely, Murtough to this point hasn't had the authority and force of personality to tell the manager occasionally that they've identified options that they think are better or more affordable. Klopp wanted Julian Brandt before Mo Salah, if that was at United seemingly Salah wouldn't have even been considered and all focus would have been on signing Brandt rather than going for the player that the club as a whole thought was better.
There's players who needed to be moved on (how is Eric Bailly still at United?) and maybe they priced Maguire and McTominay out of moves, albeit the club have taken such poor deals for sales in the past that they can't then really be criticised for wanting actual money for players, but they have been slightly better at selling players than was the case previously and they've effectively got rid of the 2 highest earners along with some other bad contracts so it's definitely not been all bad but it's also not been that good and not the significant change that was hoped for when we finally put football directors in place.
In Guardiola's whole career he's bought maybe a couple of players he's managed before and yet within just over a year we've signed 4 of Ten Hag's former players, in addition to other players with whom he has links through the Eredivise, despite him having only managed at a lower level which makes the players more attainable but also means they're not as good for the most part. To me that either indicates that the quality of the scouting and talent identification isn't good enough and therefore they need to rely on Ten Hag or, more likely, Murtough to this point hasn't had the authority and force of personality to tell the manager occasionally that they've identified options that they think are better or more affordable. Klopp wanted Julian Brandt before Mo Salah, if that was at United seemingly Salah wouldn't have even been considered and all focus would have been on signing Brandt rather than going for the player that the club as a whole thought was better.
There's players who needed to be moved on (how is Eric Bailly still at United?) and maybe they priced Maguire and McTominay out of moves, albeit the club have taken such poor deals for sales in the past that they can't then really be criticised for wanting actual money for players, but they have been slightly better at selling players than was the case previously and they've effectively got rid of the 2 highest earners along with some other bad contracts so it's definitely not been all bad but it's also not been that good and not the significant change that was hoped for when we finally put football directors in place.
Looking on how mediocre he is, yes we overpaid by 25m. In 2 years time we will struggle to offload him with his gigantic salary.
Right so you plucked a figure out of your arse, got it.
Ok.
Mount's salary isn't too far outside of what he'd have gotten at any other club he signed for this summer.
Very doubtful. He was in 80k/week, was crap last season and now is in 250k week (or 200k, have seen reported it both ways).
Hear! hear!
I honestly don't know what some people are expecting here. Moan if we do our business late, moan it's done too early, moan if we sell a player because it's too cheap, moan that we hold out for higher prices on a player and don't sell for peanuts, moan because Reguillon did great for Seville but we'd rather remember his crap spurs form, moan about Cucrella, then moan more because we actually wanted him not Reguillon, moan about Amrabat being the same as McT despite them being completely different players, moan about Rasmus who hasn't kicked a ball yet, moan about Evans...this is genuinely our best window in yonks, i don't know how some of the players will turn out but we have addressed actual holes in the team for once.
The moaning will carry on until we’re champions again mate. That’s the standard for a huge chunk of the fan base set by SAF. There’s been a constant role of blunders for the last 10 years and there’s been a few this summer directly involving Murtough, similar to his last 3 as DoF. Fans observing these mistakes and expressing their doubt is normal given the circumstances.
I agree. It’s entirely too early to judge this window. If Rasmus ends up regularly bagging 25 or 30 goals I think it obviously has to be viewed as a success. So a lot hinges on him. To me, Onana already appears to be an upgrade on DDG and will prob be with us for the next 8 to 10 years. I think Amrabat might add some composure at the back of the midfield, breaking up play and holding off defenders to keep the ball ticking. Reguilon is a low risk last minute move forced by injury so I’m not sure how you can complain about that.
The only 2 things I think we might end up looking back on as mistakes will be the move for Mount and the inability to offload Maguire and bring in a better central defender.
Chelsea offered him that initially last season and were offering him like 150-160k or something like that after the initial deal was taken back.
Critiquing the clubs actions/decisions is one thing but there's no discussion on here nowadays, it's just pages and pages and pages at a time of people whining about anything and everything.
Nobody cares about context or the complexities involved in our situation, it's just mindless brat-like bawling.
If people can't see the difference between the last 18-months and the Woodward era then it's because they don't want to
Good post. It’s unbearable on here these days. We’ve only played 3 games. We have terrible owners looking for a way out. For better or worse we are a club constantly in transition and we are trying to right 10 years of horrible mismanagement. These things will take years to correct not months.
Someone will write a discourse on the Woodward years at Man Utd and what a gigantic mistake it was allowing him to run a club with so little experience and mostly so little sense. The parasitic Glazers will add to the story as absent owners with no feel or interest and their ability to extract dividends as the clubs performance withered. Difficult to imagine more incompetence in control of possibly the biggest brand and club in world football, so sad and unnecessary .
All over an argument about ownership of a racehorse too, which makes it all the more disastrous.
Can't see it on the pitch? We finished, what, 7th under OGS/Rangnick? Last season was even more competitive and we finished 3rd and won a trophy.
Paying huge wages? Well...it sounds daft to say that salaries like £200K per week and £250K per week aren't "huge" but the reality is in today's game, they're par for the course. Under Woodward, we paid Sanchez and Ronaldo £500K per week. We paid DDG, Sancho and Varane £350K per week. Yes we gave Casemiro £350K per week but that's justifiable and in-keeping with his squad status. It looks like we've reset £350K as the ceiling for the most senior players and the average has surely come down significantly.
FFP isn't an excuse? They didn't blow £1BN+ net....Also, what were they supposed to do? Imagine what you would be saying now if they hadn't invested last season? Imagine where we might have finished without Casemiro, for example? Fact is, we had to spend. I'd say we've done really well to sign 10 players who've all come into the first team for £309m net. That's what Chelsea paid for Caicedo, Fernández and Mudryk.
I'm not saying everything they have done is perfect but they're already miles better than Woodward.
Very good and reasonable post.
The last line is the nail on the head. It staggers me that people can, at the same time, post message after message bemoaning the Glazers, the Woodward era and a decade of horrible decisions - and then at the same time criticise the current management team because we're not already challenging for major trophies.
I have often thought it would make a good book, "How not to run a football club" by Ed Woodward. Honestly, for a period of time, we were probably one of THE worst-ran large businesses in the entire World, never mind football.
I often hear "Woodward isn't a stupid man" and I really do question that. Some of his decisions and policies flew in the face of basic business 101. For example, entering into each transfer window bragging about how rich we were and how much we could spend. Brilliant. Handing out contracts to players nobody wanted to "protect their value". Signing mercenary footballers on wages 4 or 5 times that of some of their teammates. Falling for the old "City/Real Madrid are interested, better move quickly" line on more than one occasion. Not understanding the value of having most of our transfers done in time for pre-season.
I mean, honestly, I only meant to give a couple of examples but there's so many...I'd actually argue that it was actually entirely possible for the club to be successful in the Glazer era, had we had a different CEO/Sporting Director*
*although it was their loyalty to him despite his lack of qualifications that caused the issue
I don’t think that’s it though. There have been some really poor issues in the past but every single transfer is getting hammered these days, there’s not even any interest to see if players could be good or if they suit a style it’s just horrendously negative for the sake of being negative. This could, in hindsight, be our worst ever window - Onana becomes Taibi, Rasmus is the new Phil Jones, Mount never adapts as ETH thinks he can, Amrabat is terrible etc. but it could also be great but people have no interest in finding out.
Although i would prefer homegrown players but looking at the way City operates shows why they are champion ( they spend a lot of money but do it wisely). They just sold Palmer for 45m and got Doku. They identified the area they need investment and upgraded ( or atleast tried). We would have never done that.
Would atleast like to see us get ruthless and move players before they become useless. Not moving Scott this season and Maguire sticking around shows that we are not ruthless enough to compete with top performing clubs
Would atleast like to see us get ruthless and move players before they become useless. Not moving Scott this season and Maguire sticking around shows that we are not ruthless enough to compete with top performing clubs
city have players other clubs will want to buy and will not expect millions in pay-offs for a reduction in wages.
United unfortunately do not.
All in all, a good, if hardly spectacular window from the negotiation squad. Reguilon and Amrabat on loan means we will not be lumbered with them if they fail.
It feels like squad signings rather than the marquee signings we can expect whenever Qatar's state bid finishes its takeover.
You literally can’t force players out of the club/contract if they don’t want to go to the buying club. I’ve said it so many times.
The club would have got slated if we paid off Maguire for £12-15M & sold him for £30M meaning we’d only get a measly £15M for him.
I’ll say it again. You cannot force someone to leave the club if they don’t want to go.
Just like paying Maguire nearly 200k was par for the course, that’s the point. It’s the same approach Woodward used, same logic and same excuses.
FFP isn’t an excuse, if you know we have an issue, which everyone did, then that has to be factored in to the signings and wages. The argument that they didn’t cause it is irrelevant, they’ve compounded it by dishing out big wages, overpaying and signing players they’ll get little return for. You can’t whine about FFP when you’ve spent over 150m and 500k a week on Casemiro and Anthony.
They are part of Woodward’s inner circle and by and large are following his blueprint, they could have done things very differently but haven’t done so.
Slated or not they should have don’t it and loaned a CB.
The club will be slated more if Maguire ends up having to play due to injury and puts in more shoddy performances.
So why did we then offer 90k more than Chelsea, a team that we love to moan about how much they spend?
I have put together a quick table showing the playing squad in 2021/22, which was assembled exclusively and entirely under the watch of Ed Woodward. Every single contract was signed/renewed under his tenure, so must have been negotiated or approved by him, as CEO.
I have then put together a quick table for this seasons squad. You can already see that the average is down £16,000 per week, despite us being three seasons into the future - i.e. footballers' wages are going up across the board, but our wage bill is trending downwards. This includes recent new long term deals for Shaw, Bruno, Rashford and Garnacho.
The most interesting thing for me, when you dig deeper, is that we have clearly taken steps to enforce some kind of structure. Under Woodward, it appears to have been done completely at random. Now, it's evident that there appears to be a ceiling of £300K (see the Rashford and Casemiro deals done by Arnold/Murtough) and that players are awarded contracts which are far more in-line with what you would expect with respect their position and squad status - i.e. Mount and Bruno are on virtually the same salary.
In addition, compare new signings in similar positions. Antony is very comparable to Sancho in terms of fee paid, age and position. We handed out £350,000 per week to Sancho, but 'only' £200,000 for Antony. Martinez has been signed at CB on a salary of £120,000, compared with Maguire (£190,000) and Varane (£340,000).
Finally, look at three of the top six salaries in 2023/24. Martial, Varane and Sancho account for £940,000 per annum, yet Varane is never fit and Sancho and Martial are bit-part players that the club seem willing to shift. When and if those three leave (and I expect that will be within 18-months), that average wage bill will come down even further. I'm certain we will not be paying their replacements anything like the crazy wages we've handed out previously.
So I reject the idea that there's been no progress or no change of course. I'd say there's clear evidence that a structure has been discussed and implemented and that the club are working to clear high earners from the balance sheet, with a view to bringing salaries under control. Of course, because of the very nature of a 'contract', they cant fix everything in 18-months.
| 2021/2022 | Salary | 2023/2024 | Salary | |
| Ronaldo | £480,000 | Sancho | £350,000 | |
| Sancho | £350,000 | Varane | £340,000 | |
| DDG | £350,000 | Casemiro | £300,000 | |
| Varane | £340,000 | Rashford | £300,000 | |
| Pogba | £290,000 | Martial | £250,000 | |
| Martial | £250,000 | Mount | £250,000 | |
| Cavani | £250,000 | Fernandes | £240,000 | |
| Rashford | £200,000 | Anthony | £200,000 | |
| Maguire | £190,000 | Maguire | £190,000 | |
| Mata | £160,000 | Eriksen | £150,000 | |
| Fernandes | £155,000 | Shaw | £150,000 | |
| Shaw | £150,000 | Lindelof | £120,000 | |
| Lindelof | £120,000 | Martinez | £120,000 | |
| Fred | £120,000 | DvdB | £120,000 | |
| DvdB | £120,000 | Onana | £100,000 | |
| Matic | £120,000 | AWB | £90,000 | |
| Henderson | £100,000 | Dalot | £85,000 | |
| Telles | £93,000 | Bailly | £80,000 | |
| AWB | £90,000 | Hojlund | £80,000 | |
| Dalot | £85,000 | Greenwood | £75,000 | |
| Bailly | £80,000 | Malacia | £75,000 | |
| Jones | £75,000 | McTominay | £60,000 | |
| Lingard | £75,000 | Garnacho | £50,000 | |
| Greenwood | £75,000 | Bayindir | £50,000 | |
| McTominay | £60,000 | |||
| AVERAGE | £175,120 | AVERAGE | £159,375 | |
| TOTAL | £4,378,000 | TOTAL | £3,825,000 |
Yes I have commented on this as well in the past. I have stood up for him, but he fell down on selling McTom and Maguire I reckon. We could have got £60 mill and with a bit of patience agreed another couple of mill extra to pay off Maguire, so ended up with around £50-52 mill to spend on new players.