Six Years Of Ed - Part 7
Who Is At The Wheel?
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is the current manager of Manchester United. Whilst his initial appointment yielded an excellent run of form, a miraculous victory at PSG in the Champion’s League marked the start of the now-too-familiar downing of tools by the squad, presumably as a protest against actually having to put some effort in on the pitch. We went from high-flying to insipid, uninspiring and downright dreadful performances in the space of around a week, so dramatic was the dip in form, and stayed there until the end of the season. Rumours began to once again creep in about players not being happy, once again with Paul Pogba being at the centre of it all.
Like his predecessors, he has identified that the squad has no cohesion and is bloated beyond repair. He has publicly stated that his intention is to remove some of the deadwood. He knows that United needs to be rebuilt – and has done since 2013 at the latest. Just as has been the case in every transfer window, another big outlay is needed, but not on one single player that Woodward hopes will be the answer to all of our problems – a real transfer strategy is needed, starting with an effective scouting network to find and recruit young, hungry players who are not distracted by fame and social media.
Galactico-style players are not the answer, but smart spending is. United need to spend better, not bigger. Buy players for what they bring to the squad, not what they bring to the marketing department. The attitude shouldn’t be “we can do things in the transfer market that other clubs can only dream of” but instead “we can do things in the transfer market that this club needs.”
If Ole is our manager, then he needs to be installed at United long term – at the very least until he has had a chance to rebuild the squad and try and bring in some players with chemistry. His relative lack of experience makes some fans uneasy, and that’s fair enough. But the biggest problem at United post-Fergie is not the manager, nor has it ever been. It’s Ed Woodward and the Glazer ownership that sees United not as a sports team, but as a business. Why else put an investment banker in charge of running a football club?
The only way we will ever return to being a competitive team under this ownership is if Ole is given complete autonomy over the club’s football affairs or a competent Director of Football is appointed.
Ed Woodward has just announced that he will continue to oversee all transfer dealings by the club. Solskjaer is yet to move on any of the players he has identified as deadwood.
Sections of United's support don’t think he’ll last until Christmas. It should be Woodward whose head is on the chopping block.
