Ed needs help of director to get the right players
ON the table of Ed Woodward’s office sits an unusual photo. It’s a little pixelated, given that it was taken on a camera phone, but you can easily make out the neon score line: Olympiacos 2-0 Manchester United.
It was the last-16 of the Champions League and Joel Campbell had just doubled the Greek giants’ advantage in one of the many low points of the Moyes era.
As Sir Bobby Charlton and non-executive director Michael Edelson shrieked and squirmed beside him, Woodward whipped out his phone. To take a photo of the scoreboard at the Karaiskakis Stadium.
This, he felt, would prove the nadir in his reign as United’s executive vice-chairman. Ghosts he could bury when the titles and trophies came back to Old Trafford.
While United have certainly progressed since then, they are still suffering embarrassing defeats to teams like Olympiacos.
Defeats that do not reflect the commercial profile Woodward has helped build, which still bills United as the biggest club in the world ahead of Real Madrid and Barcelona.
Woodward has been a constant in those five years post-Ferguson and had the unenviable task of filling David Gill’s shoes without a proven track record in the role.
The 46-year-old will always be seen as a Glazer man by supporters. The former investment banker who helped broker the Americans’ controversial takeover in 2006. Who has effectively reduced United’s minimum on the field ambitions to just qualifying for the Champions League.
While Woodward has slowly gotten to grips with dealing with agents – ‘collegiate’ is how one former colleague describes him – United’s summer is already in danger of costing them.
Let’s make one thing clear: Mourinho has been backed. At times. Since taking charge in June, 2016, he has spent more than £370m and more besides on Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Alexis Sanchez’s huge salaries.
Those two centre-backs who floundered at Brighton? Mourinho signings.
But, like every manager, he always wants more in the transfer market. Fred was the only summer signing sanctioned who was going to go straight into that starting line-up so it fell to Mourinho to get more out of his under performing superstars.
The early signs are that is going to be tricky and Woodward appears prepared to take himself out of the firing line at a time when the manager has not been shy in airing his concerns to the press.
Now, he plans to appoint a director of football – something many United fans have been crying out for following the club’s patchy transfer record with Woodward at the helm.
Since Woodward’s promotion in 2013, he has overseen 10 transfer windows. Angel Di Maria, Victor Valdes, Morgan Schneiderlin, Memphis Depay Bastian Schweinsteiger, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Ibrahimovic have all been and gone.
Whether it is jaded Galacticos or opportunistic purchases, there is no tangible strategy and that is what a director of football would bring to the table: targeting players who reflect the mythical ‘United way’ regardless of who is in the dug out.
What that means for Mourinho remains to be seen. The Portuguese has not got the best record with go betweens and will that appointment really ease tensions?
M.E.N. Sport revealed last week Luis Campos, a long-time ally of Mourinho’s, has not been sounded out despite fitting the Glazers’ profile as a sporting director who has previously performed miracles on a frugal budget at Monaco.
Already, you can tell the first director of football in United’s 140-year history will be a Woodward man.