Why was Herrera's contract let run out then.
Who is to blame for our appalling/shambolic transfer decisions?
- Thread starter Wumminator
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What do you mean? You're disagreeing with me saying that the club are letting players run their contracts down by providing an example of a player who the club let run his contract down?
And what role, to your understanding, does he currently play in all of those areas?
What I mean is why extend Jones, Smalling, and other players contracts and not Herrera's.
Well it seems that he played all these roles as Mourinho pointed out when he was here.
" Sometimes the manager of a Club has only the team to manage" is what he quoted when falling out with him over transfers.
They have tried renewing Herrera’s, but unlike the others he has other options.
Because we agreed extensions with some players and not others?
Yea, it doesn’t.
By the sounds of it, they're trying but he has a better offer. Who'd have thought when you let one of your best players' contract go into the last few months that other clubs want to take him on a free?
Yes, but he should not have let it go that far. Herrera was disappointed that negotiations didn't start sooner and thought he was no longer wanted.
Agree completely, which was my original point.
If they want to keep him now they'll have to pay him far more than if they wrapped this up 18 months ago. It is absolute incompetence.
He's been a massive loss over the last few weeks. He is one of the few players with energy and leadership in a squad completely devoid of both. Allowing him to leave the club for free is mind boggling.
A stupid decision that the Glazers have enforced where they allow the existing contract to run down as much as possible before renewing to save a money.
We are now seeing the result of this stupid money saving exercise back fire on us with multiple players.
Was it to save money though? If anything it will cost more money. I can only think of 2 reasons why they did it.
Either it's because they hadn't got a structure in place, knew Jose was on the outer and wanted to wait until they had a new manager in before committing to new long term contracts. Or they are utter cretins.
This is quite correct and also the answer to the OP.
The responsibilty of our transfers in and out has always laid with the manager. It still does. You can see it by the transfers.
This idea that Woodward meddles in which players we will go for is bordering to idiotic if one by that do not mean that he is utmost responsible for setting our wage and transfer budget. That is true. Woodward is not even involved in the contract negotiations anymore and have not been for many a years. Its a lazy cliche.
Its not Woodwards fault that Mourinho blew the major part of that summers transfer budget on the Sanchez transfer in January. There is no evidence whatsoever that the Board or Woodward has had any input on footballing decisions other than to set the budgets for the manager to operate within.
That Woodward and the board will be utmost responsible for transfer and wage budget will not change with the appointment of a DoF or a technical director (which I think the club will call it).
What an appointment of a technical director will do is to allocate power of transfer policy and footballing decisions away from the manager and to the technical director. It will do nothing to Woodwards role. This is a major misconception.
Its also true that our scouting organisation and youth setup were not up to par under Ferguson´s last years. The great man wanted to use his own contacts when it came to scouting and it is one of the major blames you can lie at his feet.
But its also true that since Moyes the club has invested major sums in addressing these two issues. We now have a scouting network that is of the size and level of other major clubs and a youth setup that is again back to one of the better in the country.
This has cost a lot of money and been executed under Woodward, which he of course never will get credit for on the Caf. Or this money spent.
This will not be effective immediately on the first team so IMO its unfair to say that we have a bad scouting and youth setup today. I really think we do, but it will not be visible for a few years because its the nature of the business.
What I blame Woodward for is the appointment of Mourinho, which he should have recognised would clash with the clubs new scouting setup, which we spent a lot of money on. Mourinho did not want to have anything to do with Lawlor and his scouts. He preferred to use his own "Mendesian" contacts. He was much like Ferguson in that regard.
It was never going to work and a stupid decision.
Otherwice Woodward has in principle overseen a critical remake of the clubs scouting system and youth setup as well as allowed us to have the biggest wage bill in the PL.
Glaziers need to get wise. Head hunt Edwin van der Saar as CEO of football. Move Woodward to CEO of business.
Who is to blame?
Solskjaer, apparently, given the amount of people on here who already want him sacked before he's had his own transfer window...
Solskjaer, apparently, given the amount of people on here who already want him sacked before he's had his own transfer window...
That Fellaini summer, with Moyes at the helm, straight after Fergie retired still gives me nightmares. Unbelievable.
Cretins mate.
Say a player is on £100k a week and has two years left on his contract rather than renewing at £200k a week the Glazers wanted to wait another year to save themselves a £100k a week over that year. This is a strategy that was being implemented even back in 2008.
That is the way I had it explained to me. A definite money saver, but very risky as you are assuming that these players will just re-sign rather than let their contracts lapse and leave on a free transfer.
It’s now starting to bite us in the arse with so many players either potentially leaving on free transfers or asking for ridiculous wages to re-sign.
I think, with all the media training and going through agents, it's getting harder and harder to scout players' personalities. When you're buying a player for who they're going to be in two or three years, personality of really important
The structure which allows the manager to guy whoever the feck they want.
Got it. When they have to fork out £50m to replace Herrera with an inferior player, I'm sure it will have been worth it!
I don't know who explained that to you but please slap him next time you see him. The club chooses when the terms of the future contract starts because the player is currently under a contract which as a predetermined termination. So the club and a player can sign an extension today for which the terms will only apply at the end of the current contract or at any date that they choose between now and the end of the contract. There is no money saving strategy involved here, there is mainly two obvious reasons, the first one is that players don't want to sign contract soon because currently there is an increase in wages and the last contracts are generally richer, the other option is sheer incompetence from the HR department, they badly schedule things and end up with too many negotiations at once which means that some players will end up negotiating at the last minute.
I personally think that it's a mix of both incompetence and players/agents playing their own game.
Yep, thats exactly it.
I dont know why everyone is complaining about this strategy though since its perfectly logical as long as it applies to older players or fringe squad players. Which it has done for United so far, We have been very good at renewing younger "talented" players as Lingard and Martial.
If we renewed contracts every two years for older players like Mata, Herrera, Smalling or Jones it would just limit ourselves in the transfer market since it would increase our wage bill prematurely. Because those renewals would not come for free.
Also, a player like Herrera on 200k a week is worth nothing in the transfer market so its not like we are losing money in asset value if we had renewed his contract. For example.
Like it or not; in todays football the wage bill is everything. And our is already the biggest in the Pl , we have needed to manage it and use the cashflow on other contracts. Rashford needs a new deal, as does De Gea as of right now. And we need to sign new players whose wage demands will be much, much higher than players signed 3-4 years ago.
We have been seeing down contracts to be able to afford other renewals and new signings. Thats the basics of it and its a good policy. Makes perfect financial and footballing sense.
Ed Woodward and co.
He unilaterally decides that your targets are not suited or good enough and then, he finds no alternatives.
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...united-veto-jose-mourinho-wishlist-cash-fears
It will take an incredibly lucky and brilliant manager to work successfully with Woodward if nothing changes.
He unilaterally decides that your targets are not suited or good enough and then, he finds no alternatives.
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...united-veto-jose-mourinho-wishlist-cash-fears
It will take an incredibly lucky and brilliant manager to work successfully with Woodward if nothing changes.
Exactly. The problem is that we don't have an overlying concept on how to build a great squad but instead hire a new manager and let them have more or less free reign on rebuilding the squad which means every new manager will require a new squad. That's the main reason why our squad seems such a bunch of misfits because they are.
The whole notion of finding an individual to blame is part of the problem. We’re obssessed with the idea of replacing a guy or a few guys and that being the solution to our problems.
If it’s the manager then replace the manager. If not the manager then blame Woodward and get a director of football to run things.
The problem is many many fold. The first 2 people to blame is Fergie and Gill for leaving us with a terrible squad and making us rebuild the team and the people who run the club.
Second level of blame should go to everyone, the club, the fans, the board everyone. Blame for expecting us to rebuild the team in a few seasons by signing big name players and going for a galactico style approach. No one thought most of our poor signings were poor at the time, people were going crazy over Di Maria, Falcao, Mikhitaryan, Schneiderlin, Schweinsteiger, Memphis etc Very few of these guys actually were hated on when we signed them. We also all wanted to sign a host of guys each summer and then expect a title challenge or at least some level of competitiveness the next season.
My point is no one was ready for a long term rebuild, no one was willing to aim for 3 bad seasons on purpose just so we could do the proper reshaping and rebuilding this entire club needed.
Honestly though I don’t blame anyone for that, no one knew the scale of the issues and it was pretty much an unprecedented situation. Replace a legendary manager of 25 years and an entire squad and oh btw if you don’t make champions league your biggest sponsor will give you less money. There’s no surprise we panick signed so many bad players.
This whole culture of blaming a person for our problems is pretty unfair and also not really helpful. The reality is after 2 failed managers and a failed rebuild we should now understand where we went wrong. We should realise it takes more than a summer or 2 to implement a long term vision, proper rebuild with a healthy and competitive culture in the club. Signing overpaid prima donnas doesn’t work and should be stopped immediately.
Thankfully all the signs coming out of the club seem to be the right ones. Ole saying we need a rebuild but it will be slow and won’t happen in one summer is the right attitude, no more panic buys and no more getting mediocre players because we got bodies for the sake of getting bodies.
People give Woody a lot of shit but honestly since last summer he’s not done anything wrong. He (in my opinion) cleverly vetoed a lot of Mous short term demands like signing more 29 year olds like Perisic and Willian. He wouldn’t spend 70m on Aldeweriald (overpaid 29 year old) and wouldn’t spend 50m on Magure (mediocre guy to fill bodies). He sacked Mou and got in our first attacking focused manager, someone who wants to bring the right style and show patience with the rebuild. He also wouldn’t give a ridiculous contract to Herrera (again overpaid also getting older too).
So I would say hold up on pointing fingers at any indivuals. Look at the culture of the club and see whether the state is getting better and whether we are learning from our mistakes. We all got it wrong these last 6 years but right now is do or die, if we continue to sign overpaid players who don’t fit a long term vision then we can say the club isn’t learning from our mistakes and people need to be fired.
If it’s the manager then replace the manager. If not the manager then blame Woodward and get a director of football to run things.
The problem is many many fold. The first 2 people to blame is Fergie and Gill for leaving us with a terrible squad and making us rebuild the team and the people who run the club.
Second level of blame should go to everyone, the club, the fans, the board everyone. Blame for expecting us to rebuild the team in a few seasons by signing big name players and going for a galactico style approach. No one thought most of our poor signings were poor at the time, people were going crazy over Di Maria, Falcao, Mikhitaryan, Schneiderlin, Schweinsteiger, Memphis etc Very few of these guys actually were hated on when we signed them. We also all wanted to sign a host of guys each summer and then expect a title challenge or at least some level of competitiveness the next season.
My point is no one was ready for a long term rebuild, no one was willing to aim for 3 bad seasons on purpose just so we could do the proper reshaping and rebuilding this entire club needed.
Honestly though I don’t blame anyone for that, no one knew the scale of the issues and it was pretty much an unprecedented situation. Replace a legendary manager of 25 years and an entire squad and oh btw if you don’t make champions league your biggest sponsor will give you less money. There’s no surprise we panick signed so many bad players.
This whole culture of blaming a person for our problems is pretty unfair and also not really helpful. The reality is after 2 failed managers and a failed rebuild we should now understand where we went wrong. We should realise it takes more than a summer or 2 to implement a long term vision, proper rebuild with a healthy and competitive culture in the club. Signing overpaid prima donnas doesn’t work and should be stopped immediately.
Thankfully all the signs coming out of the club seem to be the right ones. Ole saying we need a rebuild but it will be slow and won’t happen in one summer is the right attitude, no more panic buys and no more getting mediocre players because we got bodies for the sake of getting bodies.
People give Woody a lot of shit but honestly since last summer he’s not done anything wrong. He (in my opinion) cleverly vetoed a lot of Mous short term demands like signing more 29 year olds like Perisic and Willian. He wouldn’t spend 70m on Aldeweriald (overpaid 29 year old) and wouldn’t spend 50m on Magure (mediocre guy to fill bodies). He sacked Mou and got in our first attacking focused manager, someone who wants to bring the right style and show patience with the rebuild. He also wouldn’t give a ridiculous contract to Herrera (again overpaid also getting older too).
So I would say hold up on pointing fingers at any indivuals. Look at the culture of the club and see whether the state is getting better and whether we are learning from our mistakes. We all got it wrong these last 6 years but right now is do or die, if we continue to sign overpaid players who don’t fit a long term vision then we can say the club isn’t learning from our mistakes and people need to be fired.
I enjoy your posts normally, but this is simply incorrect. Of course the club can apply the strategy that we will not increase the terms of the contract until the pre-determined termination date. It will not work though.
There is one incitament from the player´s side to prolong his contract prematurely. Its to get a higher salary and even a sign-on fee executed at once. Otherwise there is no financial incitament for the player to prolong his contract. At all.
I dont feel that this is the case.
Moyes, van Gaal and Mourinho have said that they did not get the players they wanted. Ed Woodard even said that he vetoed Mourinho because
.
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...united-veto-jose-mourinho-wishlist-cash-fears
None of these managers are blameless and a lot of money as been spent but I am not sure at whose direction.
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Yeah the problem remains though that we have hired 3 managers with very different ideas about how football should be played and Woodward sure as hell isn't the guy who should make judgement calls on player quality. We need someone who is actually good at this.
Which is my point, the players are the ones refusing to sign prematurely because they are playing their own game while he suggested that the club was negotiating late because they wanted to avoid paying. Take Herrera as an example, he has been negotiating with the club since 2017, it was also reported that De Gea refused to start negotiations for a new contract.
It's fairly simple the club controls the current terms of contracts and it's better for the club to renegotiate soon because contracts values increase every years. But it's not in the interest of players to sign soon unless if they doubt about their market value and choose financial security. What he suggested makes no sense when you consider the financial trends, the existence of a contract and the fact that the club as no obligation to terminate the current contract.
Then we agree. I misunderstood. My bad.
the only constant is woodward who has spent a fortune without any plan. if we back ole to the hilt and then sack him in november then it has happened again. woodword needs replacing and it is really simple
I was wondering where he came from. Perhaps we should have had him.
Woodward needs to stay out of the footballing affairs and stick to what he's good at. Until this happens I can't see anything changing significantly.
I stand corrected tbh, we DID sign the younger M-S, he was a keeper in the youth ranks. That said, I didn’t know we were doing youth purchases.
There's been to many maybes come in, Depay was at the time considered a top buy, didn't turn out, took the money and ate it, played poor, poor attitude, some players think they made it as soon as they join top club, others want to improve be better be the leaders.
We have not signed any one like that. Zlatan was the only one who could drag us on , but he was at end of Career.
Poor acuasitions , have to be better. Who's to blame got knows but Woodward is in charge must be him
We have not signed any one like that. Zlatan was the only one who could drag us on , but he was at end of Career.
Poor acuasitions , have to be better. Who's to blame got knows but Woodward is in charge must be him
Did you just happen to miss Fosu Mensah right by him?
All the managers for picking those players and Woodward for appointing those managers.
Ed Woodward is culpable for the mess imo. Plays a big part in transfers. Has also chosen a series of managers who play totally contrasting styles of football because he doesn't know what he's doing. As a result we've got a squad that's not fit for purpose as it was picked for contrasting playing styles. He's also handed out grotesquely sized contracts and contract renewals to players who simply aren't at that level. Aside from the fact that Sanchez has failed here he was never one of the world's best anyway so why was he given such insane wages? Why was martial given 250k a week despite being so inconsistent? Why does he keep giving contract renewals to players who've already failed here? He's a total failure.