Why is Richard Arnold getting a free pass from the fans?

[Samid]

Murtough is getting criticised (righty so) but why is none of that directed to the guy directly above him?

Arnold and Woodward have been pals since the uni days. Both got key roles at the club at the same time in 2013. They are basically cut from the same cloth.

This guy is yet another PR merchant. "Secretly filmed" while talking to fans, the constant leaks about how there were going to be wholesale changes to everything at the club, new era etc. Fans fall for this nonsense every single time.

The only thing separating Arnold from Woodward is that the former has a lightning rod (DoF) which Woodward didn't have.

 

[crossy1686]

Free pass? He’s been in the job a short amount of time, made a bunch of change already that unfortunately takes time to see the merits of.

As shit as everything is right now, the damage was done in the last 8 years, not the last 6 months.

Screaming at the new guy and making life hard for him isn’t conducive to a successful environment.

 

[redcucumber]

Bet he won't meet with fans at his local boozer anytime soon. Does he have a fecking clue what he's doing? Feels like we're in dire straits with absolutely no sense of purpose and direction and it's one game in.

 

[OmarUnited4ever]

Because Arnold said he would not be involved in Football related decisions, and rightly so as he has zero experience there and what we always wanted.

What we wanted was for Murtough to be the man to make good football decisions, so far not that good aside from maybe hiring EtH.

 

[EngimaMK]

I don't understand why we didn't clear the decks and just promoted Woodward's number two instead. More of the same old shit and nobody seemed bothered...

This guy will get dogs abuse if we have a bad season, rightly so.

Another banker running the football club...

 

[rimaldo]

you don’t win the superbowl every year, you just stay marketable and profitable.

it doesn’t really matter who is where whilst the glazers are there. they don’t share the same goals as fans and other owners.

 

[Samid]

Free pass? He’s been in the job a short amount of time, made a bunch of change already that unfortunately takes time to see the merits of.

As shit as everything is right now, the damage was done in the last 8 years, not the last 6 months.

Screaming at the new guy and making life hard for him isn’t conducive to a successful environment.

Richard Arnold isn't a new guy. He has been at the club since 2008 and been group managing director since 2013 where we would’ve been working closely with Woodward.

If you want to clear up 8 years of damage you don’t promote a bloke to CEO who is mates with the guy largely responsible for those 8 years of damage.

 

[mu4c_20le]

Because the bloke sat down and had a pint with the fans. He's one of us.

 

[Abraxas]

I'm not sure he will be getting a free pass for his reign when all is said and done, but I don't think you can micro analyse what a CEO does during each passing week of one transfer window when most of that responsibility is with the Football Director as the allocated expert. He will ultimately be judged against what the Footballing Director comes up with over his tenure as presumably he has influence over that position and it's occupant, sure, but that's not the same as a blow by blow account which may be subject to individual deals.

The CEO's responsibilities are quite broad in terms of staff recruitment, creating a culture, commercial and should involve an element of longer term thinking across all these functions well. It's not just oh we haven't signed FDJ so the CEO is wank. I think I'll be more sensibly able to assess Arnold after a few seasons.

 

[KiD MoYeS]

His local looks like a lovely pub.

 

[VeevaVee]

He’s not going to fix a rotten club in a couple of months. What would you have expected him to have done differently so far? If it’s transfers, I imagine it’s quite difficult to make big changes in how those are dealt with when you only start your post this close to the window.

 

[TheGodsInRed]

I'm prepared to give him more rope because he is new to the role (and there is a lot of shit to sort) and I'm mentioning he doesn't want to get involved in football matters, which is reassuring considering Woodward. However he still needs to get the recruitment right with the staff below him, and patience won't last long.

 

[crossy1686]

Richard Arnold isn't a new guy. He has been at the club since 2008 and been group managing director since 2013 where we would’ve been working closely with Woodward.

If you want to clear up 8 years of damage you don’t promote a bloke to CEO who is mates with the guy largely responsible for those 8 years of damage.

What if he had no authority to make decisions over those 8 years? You can’t decide stuff if your role doesn’t allow you to.

Plus, he’s been pretty open about only working on the marketing side of things and allowing the football people to do their thing instead of telling them what to do.

 

[flappyjay]

Murtough is now the face of the football side of things. The problem seems to not be the lack of funds but once again avoiding the problem area's whilst also chasing 1 target in hope he would magically fix all out issues.

 

[Cascarino]

you don’t win the superbowl every year, you just stay marketable and profitable.

it doesn’t really matter who is where whilst the glazers are there. they don’t share the same goals as fans and other owners.

So weird seeing you post sincerely

 

[Pexbo]

I’ll judge him at the end of the window to be honest.

It’s clear we have finite resources and the team are working out how we best distribute them with the coach currently pushing for FDJ.

 

[rimaldo]

So weird seeing you post sincerely

if it helps, you can take out some of the letters it spells “glazer farts”

 

[Samid]

Interesting tweet from the Arnautovic thread. Further proves how these cnuts in charge are nothing more than PR propaganda machines.

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

So much for that...

 

[UnitedSofa]

This fecking thread

The man is barely been in the job for christ sakes.

Football fans are incredibly fickle and want instant success at the flick or a switch, funny thing is, real life isn’t like that.

I don’t think many of you could be Liverpool fans. You’d have given up with football long before the 30 year wait for a title came about.

 

[Kag]

Because lots of numpties had convinced themselves that Ed Woodward was the devil incarnate, and that he alone was to blame for all of our problems.

 

[bond19821982]

Everyone gets a free pass and poor ETH gets all the blame at the end.

We had fecking 1 year knowing we need a midfielder and a striker, yet we are scrambling with the likes of Arna and Rabiot in the last minute.

 

[Suedesi]

Saving money from January window not backing Rangnick saying it’s to invest this summer then getting linked to cheap mediocre cnuts because they are panicking now is peak Richard Arnold

 

[ayushreddevil9]

Interesting tweet from the Arnautovic thread. Further proves how these cnuts in charge are nothing more than PR propaganda machines.

That bar thing with fans was all a PR stunt confirmed.

 

[DWelbz19]

Had a few pints with the lads

 

[NK86]

This fecking thread

The man is barely been in the job for christ sakes.

Football fans are incredibly fickle and want instant success at the flick or a switch, funny thing is, real life isn’t like that.

I don’t think many of you could be Liverpool fans. You’d have given up with football long before the 30 year wait for a title came about.

We are a third in already. Funny thing is no matter what or against whom the criticism is, you always tend to be there to criticize the posters instead of adding anything to the conversation. If everything is as good at the club as you say, you'd think we would be in a much better place than getting schooled by BHA at OT barely months after being thrashed by them 4-0.

 

[SmallCaine]

I would say mostly because he's really not responsible for every single transfer or target, we had agreed a deal with barca for fdj for 85mn, so clearly 85mn are there to be spent. It's not the ceo's job to pick which players to target.

 

[BuzzKillington]

This fecking thread

The man is barely been in the job for christ sakes.

Football fans are incredibly fickle and want instant success at the flick or a switch, funny thing is, real life isn’t like that.

I don’t think many of you could be Liverpool fans. You’d have given up with football long before the 30 year wait for a title came about.

Now I’ve read that, most of your posts now read like the kind of thing a closet Liverpool fan on the wum would say.

 

[UnitedSofa]

We are a third in already. Funny thing is no matter what or against whom the criticism is, you always tend to be there to criticize the posters instead of adding anything to the conversation. If everything is as good at the club as you say, you'd think we would be in a much better place than getting schooled by BHA at OT barely months after being thrashed by them 4-0.

To continue to overly criticise the club which usually falls into a conspiracy theory about why the club isn’t doing as well as it should about something made up in the fans head? No, I’m sorry but I can’t do it.

I’ll criticise it when needed, overly inflated contracts to fringe players, I’m not overly excited, if at all by Arnaoutovic/Rabiot but I’m not gonna over react and call the club officials or thr manager a fecking “fraud” over it.

 

[UnitedSofa]

Now I’ve read that, most of your posts now read like the kind of thing a closet Liverpool fan on the wum would say.

Farrrrr from it.

I’ve used lower league examples too.

Why would I waste my time blindly defending Ole when the issues were clear to see. Defend Murtough/Arnold too.

When I could gloat about how good they are?

I’m sick of seeing City/Liverpool at the top and the sheer state of our club but I’m not gonna overly cuss out or criticise the club either when this is a time when we should unite rather than tear the club down from the inside.

 

[BuzzKillington]

He’s pretty much done all he can to separate himself from the football decisions side of things. If the people he’s appointed end up being massive disasters then yes, it’ll rebound back onto him, but we’re not at that stage yet.

He’s not responsible for the final say in what our transfer budget is each year, that would be the American parasites. So he can’t really be blamed for our lack of spending power either.

He can only really be judged on keeping the business profitable, keeping those noodle partners rolling in, and also making some high level footballing decisions when required, such as replacing the DoF.

 

[tenpoless]

Because he cant trap a ball even if he puts 100% effort, need to give him the easy pass

 

[studs]

When you think your one of the lads and you think your doing great things by mixing business with pleasure, when all you have done is poke the fire.

 

[AngeloHenriquez]

A lot of people don't understand the hierarchy and who is responsible for what but answer me this:

Why don't you fail a high level employee if they genuinely perform badly?

Answer: They aren't performing badly according to their employer's wishes, they want to save money and not spend a lot, only reason I can think of

 

[tenpoless]

Also things would have been better had the fans in pub meeting asked and confronted him about things that actually matter like how many targets we had and if we are going to see them at the start of next season because the team from last season had been subpar and we need a lot of refreshment.

But instead we have Marge Simpson crossing his arms trying to look hard and intimidating while secretly recording.

 

[Neil_Buchanan]

Murtough is doing the shit job and deserves the criticism. If this continues and Arnold doesn’t fire him then he gets the criticism too but not yet.

 

[Yakuza_devils]

He is ultimately responsible to appoint a competent DOF and make sure the football side of things are running smoothly which is the major part of the business.

Murtough has fecked up the window so badly that it already caused us 3 points. Still no proper head scouts in place. No proper football structure. Most importantly, nothing has really changed.

At the end of the window, depending on the signings, he has a major decision to make on Murtough. He needs to get people with proven track records for the job.

 

[pascell]

Murtough is getting criticised (righty so) but why is none of that directed to the guy directly above him?

Arnold and Woodward have been pals since the uni days. Both got key roles at the club at the same time in 2013. They are basically cut from the same cloth.

This guy is yet another PR merchant. "Secretly filmed" while talking to fans, the constant leaks about how there were going to be wholesale changes to everything at the club, new era etc. Fans fall for this nonsense every single time.

The only thing separating Arnold from Woodward is that the former has a lightning rod (DoF) which Woodward didn't have.

Arnold has rightfully distanced himself from the footballing side of the club, none of this is his doing. Well, maybe not convincing the Glazers to offer more money for transfers.

 

[Chief123]

Murtough is getting criticised (righty so) but why is none of that directed to the guy directly above him?

Arnold and Woodward have been pals since the uni days. Both got key roles at the club at the same time in 2013. They are basically cut from the same cloth.

This guy is yet another PR merchant. "Secretly filmed" while talking to fans, the constant leaks about how there were going to be wholesale changes to everything at the club, new era etc. Fans fall for this nonsense every single time.

The only thing separating Arnold from Woodward is that the former has a lightning rod (DoF) which Woodward didn't have.

Cause Arnold had a couple of drinks with the lads.

 

[#07]

I agree with the OP.

When you are CEO of a business, if a key department head or division chief is failing, everything that happens is on you.

Just picture this: Imagine Microsoft's Head of Software development was doing a poor job. Do you think the Microsoft Board would let the situation drift?

The main skill a CEO is expected to have is judgement. Most CEOs are not qualified to run every aspect of their business. Some are but a lot of them are not. They can be CEO of one type of company one minute, leave and become CEO of a completely different type of company the next. However, what they're meant to be able to do is lead, evaluate situations, make decisions.

When Arnold came into his job he could've looked at Murtough's CV, looked at the past eight years that Murtough had supported Woodward for and said: 'Sorry John, given where we are I think this job is too big for you. I'm either going to need to hire someone above you or need you to leave.'

You see this in a lot of companies. A new CEO will get appointed and there will be a corporate bloodbath. People will get fired, people will get replaced, new positions will be created, internal reorganisations will happen.

Arnold chose not to change course. He allowed the failing structure to continue more or less as is. We got a couple of token firings but that's all that's changed.

Arnold might not be a football expert but he should have the judgement to know United needed one heading their recruitment this summer. If he felt Murtough was expert enough that says a lot about his decision making. No amount of rounds down his local is going to change that.

 

[Tarrou]

I’m sort of past caring until the Glazers feck off

but I guess he should get some time before we put the boot in