WHY SAY ANYTHING?

So Manchester United have paid the agent of Edinson Cavani €10 million to get the deal done. Granted there was no transfer fee as he was a free agent but the fact remains that if they had added that €10 million to their original offer for Jadon Sancho then he would now be a United player. So what was the thought process of Ed Woodward when making this deal?

The answer is pretty simple in that there wasn’t one. This was another panic signing to try and make it look as though the club had achieved something during this transfer window.

Taken in isolation the signing of Donny van de Beek was a good move by United and was applauded by the fans but, in actual fact, he was United’s only signing to date and their business was the lowest of all Premier League clubs. At that stage van de Beek WAS the famous “rebuild”!

Now, Cavani could turn out to be as useful for United as Olivier Giroud has been for Chelsea in which case he will have been worth the punt, (probably). Then again, he could turn out to be as useless as Radamel Falcao was for Louis van Gaal, who knows? Only time will tell.

His new manager currently wears the face of a kid who has just been told that Father Christmas doesn’t exist and all the presents he was promised won’t now be arriving. The 1-6 home defeat won’t have helped to improve his disposition either and both his team’s reaction and his own just add fuel to the fire of those who think he is not the right man for the job!

Maybe, by now, he’s realised that his boss is a banker with little to no knowledge about football who tends to make rash statements which prove, not too long afterwards, to be totally inaccurate. In fairness, if he has just realised this then he is about seven years behind the vast majority of supporters!

Maybe he has also realised that his boss relies on another banker and ex-university of Bristol chum to assist him with business during the transfer windows or, as they are now known at Old Trafford, banker’s holidays.

It is also possible that the size of the job has finally overwhelmed him. After all José Mourinho who is the polar opposite to Solskjær both in experience and trophies won, couldn’t wait to get out of the Lowry and back to his house in London. In the end he didn’t want the job and, in our humble opinion, was virtually begging to be sacked.

So if Mourinho, who can never be accused of being a yes-man, couldn’t get to grips with the United job then how can Solskjær, despite being an obvious yes-man, be expected to?

Bear in mind he was appointed on the strength of a goal he scored for United 21 years ago, not on the strength of his “achievements” as a manager with Cardiff!

Accusations of him being a Glazer puppet are way wide of the mark because he certainly is not that, he is a Woodward puppet. The title of Glazer puppet belongs exclusively to Woodward who, unfortunately, appears to have virtual carte-blanche in the running of United. This is for two reasons.

Firstly, he knows a smidgeon more about “soccer” than the owners do. Secondly, the Glazers are only interested in United when they want money, which they manage to take without ever moving from their Florida base.

So this is how it has been for the seven years since Alex Ferguson and David Gill left their roles at the club. Ed decided he was omnipotent, (others would probably use a different word, such as megalomaniacal), and should take charge of everything except training and team selection!

This has seen the club win such exalted trophies as the Europa League, the FA Cup and the Carabao Cup, (not to forget José’s Community Shield), and, with a little luck, this success will continue under the current regime.

Only when there is a regime change will the club get back to winning the real trophies, you know, the ones that matter!