Solskjaer and Woodwards plan - When will it start, and is there even one?

[DoomSlayer]

Why do people criticise Ole for transfer negotiations? These are not the times of Sir Alex Ferguson, who was like the Godfather in British football and could phone some clubs or players to convince them to join in just one conversation.

The problem lies with Woodward, Judge and all the other incompetent twats that have no idea what they have been doing since being appointed at the club. Absolute clowns, the lot of them.

 

[Bulldog United]

I think Woodward might have slightly mis-sold his vision for adult disneyland to Klopp, when he was in reality constructing a circus fairground. Fortunately for toothy, but definitely not for us, he saw right through it.

 

[M16Red]

Why do people criticise Ole for transfer negotiations? These are not the times of Sir Alex Ferguson, who was like the Godfather in British football and could phone some clubs or players to convince them to join in just one conversation.

The problem lies with Woodward, Judge and all the other incompetent twats that have no idea what they have been doing since being appointed at the club. Absolute clowns, the lot of them.

100%. Imagine the conversation between the three of them after fecking up the Haaland transfer

Ed - "Err we tried to save 10 million"
Ole- "okayyyy"
Judge- "They wanted a minimum fee clause"
Ole- "okay"
Ed- "So he's agreed with... Dortmund"
Ole- "errhh at least you tried, you were much better the second half. Well done boys"

26 million, or 30. Hell even 40 million is nothing for a forward now a days.

 

[Runaway Sue]

condescending mushroom eating consipracy theoretical fans many of you. Go to sleep. If someone have "no clue" it would be the lot of you sorry unintelligent fecks.

The only one who hasnt a clue is Ole Bramserud. You have to leave you bias behind, it wont do you, or us, any favours. He is sooo out of his depth id rather have Magnus Haglund (better cv).

 

[simonhch]

Anyone complaining about cost cutting or lack of spend, clearly hasn’t been paying attention. We have absolutely spunked money over the last 6 seasons. We have the second highest wage bill in the league, and in terms of quality we barely have the players for a top 6 finish. With a better manager we could scrape top 4.

I completely agree with the massive purge going on of playing staff. To change the culture, a lot of overpaid shit has to be moved on. It’s the only way to put the club back on a sustainable path and then recruit effectively. It’s literally the only area where Solskjær has performed well. Every transfer out and every transfer in has been good so far. We need some additions, but after the last 6 years we should ONLY be signing players that adhere to clearly defined recruitment parameters. There is evidence that these finally exist.

For the record, this is absolutely not an endorsement of the management/leadership on any level. But when something is being done right, you still have to acknowledge it.

Young, Jones, Rojo, Bailly, Matic, Lingard, Mata all have to go as they are not of the required quality to even be squad players.

Lindelof, Shaw, Pereira, Fred, James are squad player quality. Not starters. I would sell Shaw if a good offer came in.

The Pogba circus has to leave town. It’s detrimental to the club and culture.

Smalling has thrived under a new challenge and should be allowed to leave. People forget how poor he’s been the last 2 years. I’m delighted it’s working out for him elsewhere. But it didn’t work here.

Greenwood and Williams have earned spots challenging for first team places over the next couple of years. Tuanzebe is a player I highly rate, but has to stay injury free.

Martial is starting quality but is still on the fence between that and rotational roles due to his inconsistency and injury record.

We need a starting CB, LB, CDM, AM, and RW. We need another CF for depth. That’s 6 players, 5 of very high quality. This squad is desperately lacking leadership and experience of players in their prime. Lots of young, developing, high potential players, and a few over the hill (Mata, Matic, Young) Players in their peak years are mostly extremely mediocre at best (Rojo, Jones, Lingard etc). We need a few players in their peak years (Eriksen, Koulibaly for example) or about to enter their peak years (Van Dee Beek, Fernandes). This squad has the worst blend of experience since the 80s.

 

[Sky1981]

With the news that we are "considering' Van De Beek, it just screams of another press briefing.

Surely by now, Ole had the whole summer window to think of players he wants, what has Woodward/Judge and the scouting team been doing since then?

We've had 4/5 months since the summer and now we're still only "considering" players? we should know exactly who we want and going at them with everything we have.

We desperately need new players but we will be fed the usual BS about it being hard to get people in January.

It feels pretty clear we are working on a cost cut budget recently, and the Glazers are trying to find miracles on the cheap.

If this "plan' is try to sign one Sancho / Maddison / Grealish in the summer and hope for the best, then god help us.

80M for Maguire who's marginally... not even marginally better than Smailing is a cost cut budget.....

 

[Foxbatt]

Donny is not going to come to United to play in a mid table side and an incompetent coach when he has much better options.

 

[Hawks2008]

The plan is just to keep bleating platitudes about the United way while hoping that throwing enough shit at the wall will end up with something that sticks.

 

[Steamboat Willy]

Why does people blame Ole for this transfermess we’re in. It’s not like he has an option to force Woodward to go buy some top-class players. All he can really do in public is to quit his job, or go all in José-style complaining at every pressconference, and how did that go? If Ole feels he has something to offer as manager, and he believes he is the man who can help to club regain glory, then who can blame him for trying, and stay in his job, a job that’s been his dream in a club he loves? It’s not like if he quits then Glazers and Woodward suddenly will wake up, and before the end of this window, get us Messi, Saul and Mbappe. If he quits, then some other poor guy will sit in his chair, not getting any new players.

 

[Adam-Utd]

Why do people criticise Ole for transfer negotiations? These are not the times of Sir Alex Ferguson, who was like the Godfather in British football and could phone some clubs or players to convince them to join in just one conversation.

The problem lies with Woodward, Judge and all the other incompetent twats that have no idea what they have been doing since being appointed at the club. Absolute clowns, the lot of them.

Why does people blame Ole for this transfermess we’re in. It’s not like he has an option to force Woodward to go buy some top-class players. All he can really do in public is to quit his job, or go all in José-style complaining at every pressconference, and how did that go? If Ole feels he has something to offer as manager, and he believes he is the man who can help to club regain glory, then who can blame him for trying, and stay in his job, a job that’s been his dream in a club he loves? It’s not like if he quits then Glazers and Woodward suddenly will wake up, and before the end of this window, get us Messi, Saul and Mbappe. If he quits, then some other poor guy will sit in his chair, not getting any new players.

Ole could publically put pressure on the board by saying he’d like some new players, the squad is small and strung out and needs reinforcements.

instead he sits there pretending everything is fine and that only the top 2% of players in the world could improve this squad (massive BS).

It seems ole has been given reassurances and
He will stay in the job until Woodward decides, so he will be happy sitting with a 30% win ratio.

there’s no pressure for him to ensure the squads and results improve quickly.

 

[Enigma_87]

Ole could publically put pressure on the board by saying he’d like some new players, the squad is small and strung out and needs reinforcements.

instead he sits there pretending everything is fine and that only the top 2% of players in the world could improve this squad (massive BS).

It seems ole has been given reassurances and
He will stay in the job until Woodward decides, so he will be happy sitting with a 30% win ratio.

there’s no pressure for him to ensure the squads and results improve quickly.

Ole is their puppet. He will never, ever go against the board because he lacks the expertise, the results and resume to back up his demands.

He will say whatever the PR department is briefing him, do whatever the board and Woodward tells him to do, whilst half of the fans are happy with him and mediocrity that will ensue.

 

[SteveCoppellFan]

Why would Ole's plan be merely to hang on to his 7.5m a year job ?

If he got sacked he would get his money regardless.

Ole's only goal is to be a success, he may or may not be able to do this but any personal income is safe.

 

[Bestietom]

Woodward promises there is a plan, so let's see some players coming in this window. We are down to the bare bones now.

 

[podurban2]

Woodward promises there is a plan, so let's see some players coming in this window. We are down to the bare bones now.

Has he ever claimed there’s not a plan? The problem is that the so called plan is absolutely shit.

 

[Denis79]

There's no plan. Woodward knee-jerks as badly as I do as a fan.

 

[Bestietom]

Has he ever claimed there’s not a plan? The problem is that the so called plan is absolutely shit.

But Woody always fullfills his promises.????

 

[dove]

Woodward's plan is simple and obvious- lower expectations from the fanbase so much that finishing in the upper half of the table would be seen as a successful season. Invent some BS excuses like "3 year plan", "rebuilding", "United way" etc etc. Unfortunately, it works. A good portion of our fanbase is fully behind it. Ed probably can't believe how easy it was. With LVG and Jose there was a constant pressure from the media, our ex players, fans etc. With Ole it's completely different, everyone just spouts this rebuilding nonsense and it's fine. Just like Liverpool hit the jackpot with Klopp, Ed did with Ole.

Solksjaer's plan is from his own fantasy world and reminds me of the fantasy lineups our fans like to create. Young, pacy, fit team created purely to counter attack. If the opposition closes all the space for counters, like 90% of the teams in PL do, we are fecked. But it's okay. Winning is not our primary objective anyway.

 

[podurban2]

We have been ”rebuilding” for over six years now. It’s time for someone to get fired.

 

[Bestietom]

Woodward's plan is simple and obvious- lower expectations from the fanbase so much that finishing in the upper half of the table would be seen as a successful season. Invent some BS excuses like "3 year plan", "rebuilding", "United way" etc etc. Unfortunately, it works. A good portion of our fanbase is fully behind it. Ed probably can't believe how easy it was. With LVG and Jose there was a constant pressure from the media, our ex players, fans etc. With Ole it's completely different, everyone just spouts this rebuilding nonsense and it's fine. Just like Liverpool hit the jackpot with Klopp, Ed did with Ole.

Solksjaer's plan is from his own fantasy world and reminds me of the fantasy lineups our fans like to create. Young, pacy, fit team created purely to counter attack. If the opposition closes all the space for counters, like 90% of the teams in PL do, we are fecked. But it's okay. Winning is not our primary objective anyway.

In 3 years if Woody is still here, he will be saying these same things. He is able to pull the wool over fans eyes year after year.

 

[48 hours]

The Ashley Young situation (if all true) shows we don’t plan ahead.

We must know his contract expires at the end of the season and that from January he is free to talk to other clubs. Other clubs then show an interest and we then decide to offer him a new contract.

If we want to keep him, shouldn’t we have offered a new contract earlier so other teams couldn’t approach him?

 

[romufc]

Anyone complaining about cost cutting or lack of spend, clearly hasn’t been paying attention. We have absolutely spunked money over the last 6 seasons. We have the second highest wage bill in the league, and in terms of quality we barely have the players for a top 6 finish. With a better manager we could scrape top 4.

So we have spunked loads of money in the last 6 seasons and the players have not performed. How many players that we signed are actually still here?

How much have we spent in the last 2 years? Considering we have sold alot as well.

So lets sell and cut the squad down the bear bones and not sign anyone because we have spent so much money in the past and nothing come of it?

 

[Bestietom]

The Ashley Young situation (if all true) shows we don’t plan ahead.

We must know his contract expires at the end of the season and that from January he is free to talk to other clubs. Other clubs then show an interest and we then decide to offer him a new contract.

If we want to keep him, shouldn’t we have offered a new contract earlier so other teams couldn’t approach him?

We done the same thing with Herrera and Mata, but lost Herrera.

 

[drdoityourself]

Ed Woodward is almost an anagram of deadwood. Keeping Ashley Young again is a clear indication of a lack of plan going forward.

The quality of players retained when there was a good chance to move on and improve, is simply not good enough. Jones, Mata and now Young should not have gotten new contracts. Dead-Woodward strikes again.

 

[Nikelesh Reddy]

With the news that we are "considering' Van De Beek, it just screams of another press briefing.

Surely by now, Ole had the whole summer window to think of players he wants, what has Woodward/Judge and the scouting team been doing since then?

We've had 4/5 months since the summer and now we're still only "considering" players? we should know exactly who we want and going at them with everything we have.

We desperately need new players but we will be fed the usual BS about it being hard to get people in January.

It feels pretty clear we are working on a cost cut budget recently, and the Glazers are trying to find miracles on the cheap.

If this "plan' is try to sign one Sancho / Maddison / Grealish in the summer and hope for the best, then god help us.

Forget about the “plan”,do we even have a manager capable of executing such any plan?I”m not calling for Oles head,I don’t want him sacked immediately....But if we keep displaying such unacceptable inconsistency every week,then the club has to take a decisive call at the end of the season.Right from the day when he was given the job,I”ve always felt that he’s not good enough to manage this club...

I hope he proves me wrong and I will keep supporting him until the end of the season,but if we don’t see greater consistency in performance or results,then he should go at the end of the season....

 

[romufc]

The one annoying thing about the Manchester United set up is there is no clear plan.

I say this because since the sacking of LVG it is all just reactive.

Hire Jose - give him money to spend and have players that are over paid and average.
Finish 2nd - give Jose a new contract and not back him in the transfer window, 6 months later sack him.

Hire Ole as temp - club comes out with a statement saying a DoF will be hired before another permanent manager is hired.

Ole does well and gets the job - DoF is forgotten about because Ole can fulfil both roles?

Ole is partially backed in his British FC and players have been got rid of and not replaced.

We are in January with a thin squad and injuries, no player has been targeted and we seem to be giving Young a extension because of interest elsewhere.

Why not come up with a plan and stick to it rather than changing minds every 6 months?

 

[TRUERED89]

I think it was back in Novemeber (I could be wrong on the month) that Woodward hosted the conference call with investors, after reading up on that, I knew we weren't signing anyone in January and Ole has dropped it in a few press conferences too.

If we're sticking by Ole (most likely scenario) I hope to god we have started to make inroads with signings for summer because we have a very narrow window to sign players between them going to the Euros and the window closing.

Good point, the way Ed dithers this summer could likely be another shambles again with everyone going to the Euro's.

 

[Adam-Utd]

The one annoying thing about the Manchester United set up is there is no clear plan.

I say this because since the sacking of LVG it is all just reactive.

Hire Jose - give him money to spend and have players that are over paid and average.
Finish 2nd - give Jose a new contract and not back him in the transfer window, 6 months later sack him.

Hire Ole as temp - club comes out with a statement saying a DoF will be hired before another permanent manager is hired.

Ole does well and gets the job - DoF is forgotten about because Ole can fulfil both roles?

Ole is partially backed in his British FC and players have been got rid of and not replaced.

We are in January with a thin squad and injuries, no player has been targeted and we seem to be giving Young a extension because of interest elsewhere.

Why not come up with a plan and stick to it rather than changing minds every 6 months?

This is what i'm getting at really.

The plan seems to be made up as they go along, so is it actually a plan or just improvising? We should have having a list of players we are targeting already, the bids should be flying in.

Instead all we hear about is considering FC, new contracts for old players blah blah.

 

[TRUERED89]

We have been ”rebuilding” for over six years now. It’s time for someone to get fired.

It'll just be the manager as usual, what CEO or board member has ever been removed in football unless owners change ? Barca are the only one's that change their CEO often, but they're always challenging so it's not even a necessity.

 

[Bestietom]

We are interested in Napoli's CF Milik for 60million. Another injury prone player.

 

[Schmeichel's Cartwheel]

Their plan is to earn money. That's it. There is no plan/strategy for success on the pitch.

 

[b82REZ]

It'll just be the manager as usual, what CEO or board member has ever been removed in football unless owners change ? Barca are the only one's that change their CEO often, but they're always challenging so it's not even a necessity.

That's because the fans have a lot more sway, they are not simply replacing incompetent directors for the sake of it. They have regular presidential elections.

 

[TRUERED89]

That's because the fans have a lot more sway, they are not simply replacing incompetent directors for the sake of it. They have regular presidential elections.

Those so called "incompentent" directors look like Einstein's compared to Ed. They all achieved massive success during their tenure but still got moved on. Imagine Ed at Barca? Probably get sniper'd outside Nou Camp within a month!

 

[sunama]

Woodward's plan is to keep a yes-man manager as long as possible and maximize the profit for himself and the owners.

Ole's plan is to keep his 7.5M/yr job as long as possible and maintain a good relationship with his employer and his players.

Quite honestly, they're actually doing very well with their plans to date.

You nailed it.
Now, why do so many fans not want to accept that this is the case?

Ole and Woodward, together have succeeded in lowering the expectations of the fans to such a level that even when we are in the bottom half of the table and get spanked by MCFC, fans are quite happy with this and want to give Ole and Woodward's plan, more time.

The truth is that the master plan is to save as much money as possible and pass it onto the shareholders (The Glazers are major shareholders).
Ole is the "yes man" which Woodward has been searching for.

I will remind every fan, that they should not lower their standards, regardless of who is in charge and whatever ridiculous plan* Woodward has come up with.
2 years ago, many fans were unhappy that we were in 2nd place. That is the standard that we should all be aiming for. Hovering in 5th-8th should be unacceptable.

*the plan of dropping down the table now, so that we can rise up the table later, is ridiculous, because the further you fall, the more work you need to put in, to climb back up the table. It is far easier and cheaper to maintain a top 4 league ranking, with the aim of moving up, as opposed to falling down to 6-8th place, then fighting our way to the top.

 

[spiriticon]

We do need to ship the shite out but without leaving the squad decimated because as long as our awesome current physio team is here to steal a living, we will have at least 5-8 players out simultaneously at some point in the season.

Young, Jones, Lingard, Shaw and Mata have all probably reached the end of their time here but the likelihood of signing 5 established replacements in one summer very unlikely.

I think it will take some time to re-jig this squad unfortunately. Patience.

 

[ravi2]

It is a LONG TERM plan, that means it is not going to happen now, it is frustrating I get it, but there has been a lot of positives amongst the obvious negatives, the club has changed it's tact on sacking managers not getting top 4, Ole will be the manager next season, the only thing that will change that is poor body language on the pitch and that has not been the case, ride it out he will get the players he wants after giving those he was not certain about a chance, bear in mind you have a very intelligent guy who bleeds Manchester United and wants and knows what is best for us LONG TERM.

Hahaha, the glazers love sheep like you. Keep it up

 

[jem]

With the news that we are "considering' Van De Beek, it just screams of another press briefing.

Surely by now, Ole had the whole summer window to think of players he wants, what has Woodward/Judge and the scouting team been doing since then?

We've had 4/5 months since the summer and now we're still only "considering" players? we should know exactly who we want and going at them with everything we have.

We desperately need new players but we will be fed the usual BS about it being hard to get people in January.

It feels pretty clear we are working on a cost cut budget recently, and the Glazers are trying to find miracles on the cheap.

If this "plan' is try to sign one Sancho / Maddison / Grealish in the summer and hope for the best, then god help us.

To me, the Minamino story is very telling. I have no idea how he will turn out, but if the press is to believed (I know that's a tricky thing, but it was reported by multiple outlets,) and Woodward indeed had no idea about his release clause despite being interested in the player, then that speaks volumes about the amateurish nature of our approach.

 

[Chesterlestreet]

Anyone complaining about cost cutting or lack of spend, clearly hasn’t been paying attention. We have absolutely spunked money over the last 6 seasons. We have the second highest wage bill in the league, and in terms of quality we barely have the players for a top 6 finish. With a better manager we could scrape top 4.

I completely agree with the massive purge going on of playing staff. To change the culture, a lot of overpaid shit has to be moved on. It’s the only way to put the club back on a sustainable path and then recruit effectively. It’s literally the only area where Solskjær has performed well. Every transfer out and every transfer in has been good so far. We need some additions, but after the last 6 years we should ONLY be signing players that adhere to clearly defined recruitment parameters. There is evidence that these finally exist.

For the record, this is absolutely not an endorsement of the management/leadership on any level. But when something is being done right, you still have to acknowledge it.

Young, Jones, Rojo, Bailly, Matic, Lingard, Mata all have to go as they are not of the required quality to even be squad players.

Lindelof, Shaw, Pereira, Fred, James are squad player quality. Not starters. I would sell Shaw if a good offer came in.

The Pogba circus has to leave town. It’s detrimental to the club and culture.

Smalling has thrived under a new challenge and should be allowed to leave. People forget how poor he’s been the last 2 years. I’m delighted it’s working out for him elsewhere. But it didn’t work here.

Greenwood and Williams have earned spots challenging for first team places over the next couple of years. Tuanzebe is a player I highly rate, but has to stay injury free.

Martial is starting quality but is still on the fence between that and rotational roles due to his inconsistency and injury record.

We need a starting CB, LB, CDM, AM, and RW. We need another CF for depth. That’s 6 players, 5 of very high quality. This squad is desperately lacking leadership and experience of players in their prime. Lots of young, developing, high potential players, and a few over the hill (Mata, Matic, Young) Players in their peak years are mostly extremely mediocre at best (Rojo, Jones, Lingard etc). We need a few players in their peak years (Eriksen, Koulibaly for example) or about to enter their peak years (Van Dee Beek, Fernandes). This squad has the worst blend of experience since the 80s.

Very good post.

 

[Josep Dowling]

The Ashley Young situation (if all true) shows we don’t plan ahead.

We must know his contract expires at the end of the season and that from January he is free to talk to other clubs. Other clubs then show an interest and we then decide to offer him a new contract.

If we want to keep him, shouldn’t we have offered a new contract earlier so other teams couldn’t approach him?

I said before we could have extended Herrera's contract way before we did and that's why we lost him. The same could be said for Shaw, Martial and De Gea which were all allowed to get their contracts down to less than a year, then we panicked into giving them a massive contract they did not deserve. Matt Judge is an incompetent cnut.

 

[JoaquinJoaquin]

I think it was back in Novemeber (I could be wrong on the month) that Woodward hosted the conference call with investors, after reading up on that, I knew we weren't signing anyone in January and Ole has dropped it in a few press conferences too.

If we're sticking by Ole (most likely scenario) I hope to god we have started to make inroads with signings for summer because we have a very narrow window to sign players between them going to the Euros and the window closing.

You know for a fact they haven't.

 

[Fosu-Mens]

When you have owners that would rather finish 2nd than 1st because then you would not have to pay out certain bonuses, that says a lot about the owners. Woodward is appointed by the owners, so he works on their behalf and interests.

That being said, the club has spent enough £££ to be in a much better position than we currently are.