It clearly indicates that there is going to be a good harvest in 2020 and that Trump will be re-elected.
Seriously, this is no indication of Poch joining in the summer. It does however create the basis for that narrative if we find that he is manager in the summer. There will be people in this forum stating, and perhaps even the club briefing, that this was an intentional decision to save funds.
All of these ideas, rumours, etc and be written down and walked through. You can even assign probabilities to each of the possible choices/decisions along the way and come up with detailed models for how things play out. These don't factor in key unknowns: what's actually in Ed's head, what's happening in the boardroom, what our results are, what the players are actually thinking, etc.
If this is anything like a major corporation, which is what Manchester United is, since it's no longer the Manchester United Football Club we once had, then the following is happening:
- The board will be reviewing multiple options. Included will be multiple versions of Ole staying in charge (versions outlined by Ole and variations based on what board members think) and there will be multiple replacement options discussed. We have to imagine that Poch is going to be option number one, but they'll have other options included for context.
- Ed and team are talking to Poch's representatives to get a feel for how a deal would go. They want to know what things he wants and what is flexible, if we somehow get better results under Ole this season then they'll also want to know if he'll start to renege.
- Multiple transfer discussions will be ongoing directly and through proxies. The people having the real discussions will maintain confidence, but other parties looking to get leverage will selectively break confidence and leak details to the press.
- Ed and Ole will have computer models showing what happens when results go certain ways, forecasts of injuries, how the return of certain players will work out, etc. These models work similarly to those used by doctors. We don't want to believe it, but these models can perform analyses which are as good as, or better than doctors. The same applies to football decisions. It's very likely that the models predict any over the odds signing being a financial loss which eats into summer budget with insignificant performance given the price. Buying Fernandes wouldn't get us more points than some other change that is possibly out-of-sight to the public being made.
All of this is super depressing, but it's the reality of the corporation. There is no major change and no revolution. Things plod along and most bets than fans would like to make are shown to be too risky, or proven by science to have negative consequences.
The only thing that can change is perception. If Ole's results on the field start becoming connected with poor financial performance, or other negative impacts on the corporation, then it'll be time for the board to change. Fan perception of the situation is only a small part of that, and corporations have built-in systems to ignore the general public. Just look at the behaviours of other corporations and you can get an idea of how much corporations care.
I wish things were different, but I also wish that other fans had some clue about the inner workings. That's going to be the only way to make Ed uncomfortable and eventually unseat the Glazers.