So the board at Manchester United which, effectively, appears to be Ed Woodward, have decided to reward Anthony Martial’s poor performances, petulance and disobedience by offering him a new contract until 2023 with the usual raise in pay.
This is despite manager José Mourinho wishing to sell him and the player expressing a desire to leave the club.
Either Ed Woodward himself or the Glazers seem to have bestowed upon the diminutive marketing man from Chelmsford, a power of attorney which gives him the final say over everything at the club. He has proven on several occasions that his knowledge of football is, at best, dodgy, when he has preferred to look at transfer targets with a high marketing value rather than their potential benefit to the team.
Always wishing to buy the likes of Gareth Bale, Cristiano Ronaldo, Paul Pogba and other top name players, the latter has proven not to be a good fit on the pitch since his return from Juventus and anybody wondering why Sir Alex Ferguson allowed him to run his contract down and leave for “free” will now surely understand his reasons.
Reports state that the board expect Mourinho will be amenable to the new contract offer for Martial and do not foresee any problem. That pre-supposes, of course, that Mourinho has even been consulted which, it appears, is not the case.
He has again been undermined by his CEO. Firstly in the transfer market when his attempts to sign a new centre back were thwarted by Woodward and now this with his under-performing winger.
Do the board think that Mourinho will be gone by next season? He could be because if he wins nothing he will be sacked. If decisions are repeatedly made about players without any input from him then he will walk. Either way, the likes of Pogba and Martial who, again reportedly, are only sticking around because they think the manager has a limited future at the club, would appear to be winning their war of attrition.
Never mind player power, this is an example of CEO power going completely to a man’s head.
Meanwhile, sulking somewhere in London…..
Mesut Özil ponders who he can have dinner with now his contacts list is empty
Poor little Mesut Özil. What does he have to do to be appreciated? After posing for a snapshot with the Turkish prime minister, (something İlkay Gündoğan managed to do without half of the fuss and furoré), he now finds himself thinking that the world is racist and everybody is against him.
Joachim Löw, his Germany coach until he recently retired from international football, has been unable to get a reply from him to either his phone calls or his text messages. This does give the distinct impression that Özil doesn’t feel he has anything to say to his former boss.
Unai Emery, his coach at Arsenal, has been unable to get a decent performance out of him since arriving at the club. Since asking him to actually do a bit of running and work for the team it would seem that the German has contracted a mystery illness which kept him out of the squad for the last game against West Ham, coincidentally Arsenal’s first win of the season.
It will be interesting to see how this one pans out and one thing’s for sure. Little Mesut will be ecstatic that he recently signed a new contract with The Gunners!
And finally…..
A couple of average players have retired from international football. Gary Cahill, who was quite good in his day and Jamie Vardy, who didn’t make that many appearances have decided to call it a day and concentrate on club football.
In other England related news it would appear that Ashley Young, (proof that even England don’t have many good players), will be left out of the squad for the upcoming waste of time against Spain at Wembley and then the game against Switzerland at Leicester three days later and that his place will go to Luke Shaw, who has also replaced him, for the moment anyway, in the Manchester United team.
Now, as far as United goes, we just need Mourinho to get his new signing, Diogo Dalot, match fit and replacing the other neanderthal full back, Antonio Valencia. Then maybe, once the addition of a new centre back is complete, we can start looking at why the team isn’t scoring goals!
What a refreshing change!
When Luke Shaw last played for England they weren’t very good. He will now find that absolutely nothing has changed
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 