Ed Woodward was employed by the Glazers. It was, in many ways, a thank you for the part he had played as an enabler when Malcolm Glazer bought United with very, very little of his own money and a lot of borrowed money. Unfortunately, the collateral for the borrowed money was Manchester United Football Club who, fairly soon afterwards, became plain old Manchester United.
Woodward soon became, in his own mind at least, the most important person at the club. Some good sponsorship deals and profitable alliances were coupled with shocking football decisions which, as he had never kicked a ball in his life, was hardly surprising.
When he eventually fell on his sword having wasted millions of pounds in failed transfers all United supporters were hopeful of a new dawn for the club.
Woodward was replaced by a virtual clone of himself. Richard Arnold was from the same town, went to the same university and had the same amount of football knowledge.
Not to worry though. Arnold wasn’t about to make the same mistakes as his predecessor. No, Arnold brought in a Director of Football, a position United supporters had been longing for for years! Enter John Murtough.
All well and good you might think. However, despite experience at Everton, Coventry, Fulham and even in women’s football, he also had never been a professional player and never been responsible for transfers before.
So, despite a slight improvement in the tree of the hierarchy, nothing really changed and the hope was that the club would fall over a good manager who would take all the attention away from the board as Sir Alex Ferguson had done from 2005 until 2013.
In appointing Erik ten Hag, this objective was achieved for a short while due to the success he brought to the club in his first season in charge but, as would often be the case, the focus was taken from the manager and placed firmly on the shoulders of the owners when they announced that they were seeking alternative ways forward for the club and may even be open to selling United.
Fast forward nearly one year and the club appears to be nowhere nearer any sale, investment, partial sale or anything else said to be under consideration. During this time there have been half-hearted protests by “supporters” who turn up at Old Trafford, march down Sir Matt Busby Way with banners proclaiming their hatred of the Glazers, then attend the match they have all bought tickets for, spend money in the megastore and buy merchandise online!
The detested family must sit in their mansions in Florida laughing at this joke of a fanbase.
It seems pretty obvious that the “protests” have achieved precisely nothing as all options are, reportedly, still being considered.
Erik ten Hag, again reportedly, was supposed to go into the summer transfer window with new owners backing him. He didn’t. The sale was, reportedly, going through during the transfer window. It didn’t. The sale was, reportedly, going through before the start of the new season. It didn’t. As we write the sale still hasn’t gone through and the club has struggled to buy players and is now struggling in the Premier League, currently sitting in ninth place. Nine points behind Manchester City after only six games is hardly the stuff of which dreams are made.
Because of the poor start and inability to sign certain players, the impatient and clueless members of the fanbase have been calling for the manager’s head, as though ANY manager would prosper more than ten Hag under the current circumstances.
The simple answer is that, as long as the parasitic owners still control the club, the supporters will have to be grateful for small mercies unless they intend to force them out. The problem is that, to force them out, then Old Trafford has to be empty on matchdays not full of hypocrites waving ‘Glazers Out’ banners with one hand whilst eating a hot dog with the other! As long as these people continue to pour money into the Glazer’s pockets there will be no incentive to sell the club. In fact, the exact opposite is the truth!
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 