Open Letter to Ed Woodward September 3, 2013 Dear Ed, Difficult to know where to begin with this letter. I don’t like slagging the club or our players off as I truly believe everyone is doing their best to achieve what we all want them to. It’s felt that way under Fergie’s steady hand for the last quarter century but the club’s public dealings and perception over the last couple of month has been shambolic. (For those that don’t know you, Ed) – Woodward has been at the club since he helped the Glazer family leverage it with £500m, he was formerly a banker at JP Morgan. In 2005, when Woodward joined the club, one of his remits was to increase the clubs income from sponsors and partners, leverage the vast reach and our so-called 660m worldwide fan-base. It could be said Woodward achieved this seen as United’s commercial revenue was £48million when he started. It now stands at a whopping £117.6mililon. There is no doubting your ability in a commercial capacity. But signing deals bringing in revenue for Manchester United surely is one of the easiest jobs around. Who doesn’t want to be associated with one of the biggest, most recognisable companies in the world? Regardless of on field success, Manchester United have, and always will be a huge draw. But being the CEO of that company is different. It used to be the chairman. The local businessman made good. Think Jack Walker at Blackburn. Generally charismatic, they will have gambled their own money to make themselves a success. They don’t stand for bullshit and they know and love the game of football. Operating their own companies they understand the need to speculate. Football at the top-level is high stakes poker and the timid do not survive. Arsenal have struggled on the football front since David Dein left in 2007, yet commercially they are breaking records. Football clubs can’t be run like the rest of the FTSE 100. Football men like Gill and Dein know and understand the importance of fan confidence and the effect it can have on a team. Abramovich saw Chelsea spinning out of contention in the 2010-11 season and gambled £50m on one of the world’s top strikers in Fernando Torres. Fortunately for us it didn’t work out. Torres was not the player he was in the two to three seasons previous and his transfer now must go down as one of the all-time flops. But at least Abramovich had the swingers to put the cash down and try. I don’t think we have that sort of decisiveness in you Ed, which is evident in our drawn out capture of Fellaini. The day it was announced Moyes was taking over the talk began of Fellaini and Baines joining their old boss at Old Trafford. Essentially three months have past since that and we seemingly managed to pull it off with minutes to go! I must confess the whole methodology of target acquisition is a murky world to me, but if Moyes identified Fellaini as a player he wants, early in his tenure as manager how did it take so long? There was a very public release fee in place for the majority of the window. Yet we wait until the last moments of the window, lose out on Fellaini getting to know his team mates, potentially cost us defeat at Liverpool and paid £4m more for the privilege. Wow. Someone has to hold their hand up for this and Mr Woodward I think it’s you. For the record I think Fellaini is a fine signing. But we’ve been linked to players in the absolute top deck of world football and it is seemingly YOUR incompetence that has failed to bring them in. Left-back is a place I felt the club is pretty well stocked in. I love Paddy Evra. I love his attitude, I think he brings a lot to the team in terms of personality and leadership and although his days at the top are numbered I would still have him in any side against any team. Moyes clearly feels different. We bid for Baines, a quite derisory amount back in August. Then a joint bid roughly the amount we ended up paying for Fellaini alone. We didn’t get him although it’s pretty clear the player wanted the move. So out of nowhere there’s a loan signing or an attempted loan signing of Fabio Coentrao and you f#@ked that up too! So we are now left with Evra entering his final contract year knowing full well the club tried and failed to replace him in this window. TWICE. Which can only have negative implications for the squad. The Ronaldo saga was your opportunity to welcome yourself and the new manager into the club in real style. We KNOW that we’ve tried to negotiate the deal all summer and we think that Gill and Fergie have been involved since around the time of the Champions League games with Madrid. There was a big opportunity to blow Madrid out of the water with an £80m bid. Securing the player, who would have undoubtedly brought silverware with him, would have shown the sort of intent that gets the fans excited and would also have appeased sponsors and partners that we are a global attraction. We even had the chance to do so with Bale. I can understand baulking at the eye-watering fee but with Madrid’s widely known debt problems, we could have hijacked that deal and sorted ourselves another potential world star. Which brings me to Fabregas. MUFCLatest stated way back in May we’d heard Fabregas wanted the club and that we would bid. 2+2=4 right? Wrong. The club ended up looking pathetic, chasing a player that seemingly didn’t want to come and annoying a club with repeated bids when they obviously don’t want to sell. Again a decisive bid that would have forced Barcelona’s hand and we have our man. Instead of bidding tedious amounts call them up and ask them how much. Barca have money trouble and we have money. It’s easy to work this out. I’m not even getting started on the shambles that is Ander Herrera. You have a player with a release fee who is willing to take a pay cut to join and you still balls it up. Are you the CEO of Manchester United football club or are you some sort of bumbling, incompetent Ricky Gervais character? Moyes I think, bar the team selection on Sunday has done a decent job. I expected him to be less adventurous, see a lot of 4-5-1 maybe, but in the last two matches he’s had three strikers on the pitch and he’s looked for us to get goals. So I’m right behind the manager. He’s clearly identified that we need in terms of midfield and left back. He’s managed to keep hold of Rooney, which surprised me, and I think now we’ve got Fellaini we’ll probably do OK. But this season isn’t going to be fun and that’s down to you Ed. How I’d love to be going to the Council House in a couple of weeks to cheer on Ronaldo or Fabregas. Not wondering if we’ve been forced to see Giggs or Young again. I hope Sir Alex recovers from his hip operation and takes his place on the board and tears you a new arse. I’ve never seen a more farcical transfer window from United. At times I thought we’d recruited that mong Garry Cook. During a transfer window it Is absolutely imperative that we are able to secure the players the manager has identified he needs. Failure on the pitch leads to decreased revenue and sponsors turning to successful sides. So it all has a knock on effect. Did we really need to sign Apollo Tyres? What position do they play in? You had one job. You failed. We can judge Moyes in May. But you have royally cocked up your first assignment and I for one hope you don’t get the chance to repeat it. I know you are close to Uncle Malc, so I can’t see you getting sacked. So how about you do the decent thing and step down. By Stephen Howson
Posted on: Wed, 04 Sep 2013 07:23:30 +0000
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