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Yellow and Green

Ed Woodward vs Stuart Webber

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There has been a lot of talk about Man Utd's demise since Fergie left and what OGS needs to do over the summer to challenge for the top four again next season. They had a woeful end to the season and I couldn't help but think of the end of Alex Neil's reign with us - a talented squad of players whose performances clearly show that there are underlying problems within the club. 

I have to say that I'm surprised that Ed Woodward has escaped most of the criticism that I've read/heard - with the blame mostly falling directed towards the players and the four managers that have been appointed. The club has had a pretty dire time of it since Ferguson and David Gill left, and Woodward has been the man responsible throughout.

Whilst United are a much bigger club than we are and we don't know exactly what happens behind the scenes etc, we have seen firsthand how the leadership at the top makes a huge difference and really sets the standard for the whole club. 

So my question is, with what we have seen from Stuart Webber since he has arrived, can you see how United should go about making the changes necessary to help them challenge for the top four/title again?

Are the pundits right in saying that the cub needs a massive overhaul of the squad? Did they make a mistake in hiring OGS? Should they restructure their management structure like we did? 

 

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I think I’ve only heard criticism of Woodward for the last couple of seasons. He has targeted players that generate revenue through large commercial opportunities over building a cohesive squad. 

In fairness to him, he isn’t a sporting director etc. He is a business man and under him united have increased their commercial revenue massively, they turn a very healthy profit and allow their owners to skim off a huge chunk of cash every season. 

There is talk to Man U getting in a director of football, it was suppose to be done when Jose was sacked, but for whatever reason it hasn’t happened. The two most likely candidates so far have been Rio Ferdinand and Darren Fletcher  - which shows they aren’t taking it particularly seriously. 

Hiring OGS was a huge mistake. I get that he was doing well at the time, but there was no reason to give him a permanent contract when they did. Should have got in a proper DoF first and then let him choose the permanent head coach. Luckily for United it seems Real Madrid will be stupid enough to give them a very large sum of money for Pogba (who is an amazing footballer, but not what United need when trying to rebuild and progress). 

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Agree with most of that, Bethnal. 

Whilst he may have done well commercially, it's amazing that someone with next to no footballing qualifications can get to the top of the tree at a club like United.

Comparing their situation to ours, it's the equivalent of having Doomcaster as our CEO. Hiring OGS can also be compared to hiring Adams and Gunn.

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Think that Moyes was directly recommended by Fergie (heard/read it somewhere?), but after his disaster Van Gaal was brought in more as an interim while the club rebuilt. I think Van Gaal did well in very difficult circumstances to be fair.

Mourinho was the real disaster and again, to be fair to United's board, it wasn't expected to go as badly as it did. I certainly didn't think Jose would implode so spectacularly so quickly. He brought in the megabucks players he wanted and because it made commercial sense to so, Woodward franked the cheques.

Appointing OGS is a sentimental move, but not a smart one. Woodward and co. have eroded any sceric of patience the Man U fans had and now need to do something about the sorry state of affairs. I don't think it will be a quick fix and yes, I do think a broom is needed, just like one was needed here, not because of financial issues, but because there is a toxic atmosphere and any new manager needs to bring in players that fit a system, not because they are commercially driven purchases.

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In some ways Solskjaer seems to more fit what they want for the sporting director role (the main criteria seemingly being that they played for Ferguson). He hasn’t had much by way of managerial success but does know the club, does know the sort of players they need and has (presumably as manager) had dealings with directors etc on a fairly regular basis.

The comparison between Woodward/Utd and us with Webber is interesting. What we’ve had with Webber is a clearly defined plan - a structure to the club, a style of play, style of player we want to recruit, focus on youth etc. Utd had that with Ferguson (whose role by many accounts covered what nowadays would be he roles of manager and “sporting director”). They haven’t had it since. 

Lots of people could have a plan but it’s about implementing it (well). That Webber has implemented his plan so well and so quickly shows how good he is.

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When I was listening to a big discussion about this on 5 Live's Monday Night Club, and they were picking through all of the problems at Old Traffold, I couldn't help but think ... God, Webber is EXACTLY what they need!

Hopefully their ego is still too big to look at our humble nest for eggs.

 

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Watching Man Utd struggle has been a sheer pleasure. The ownership model is morally bancrupt and the owners are just in it for the money they can make from the club. And they lost the plot with the appointment of Mourinho who was never going to recreate the glory days and give them the kind of football the fans wanted.  Just another big club with no idea how to use the resources at their disposal well enough. 

Liverpool, Man City and Tottenham are showing how it should be done, even Arsenal may be on the right track despite them fleecing their supporters with ticket costs. 

Norwich will prove we are doing it right too next season, along with other well run clubs who have a better ethos than just having money as the main motivator.  It's never about how much money you have, but it is about how to best use what you do have. 

Man Utd will never be a Man City or a Liverpool or even a Norwich until they get the right kind of owners who set the right kind of tone in the club.  Just having money is never going to be enough when there are clubs that are so together on every level that just being able to spend big looks crass and becomes just posturing (as with the buying of Pogba) It is clear that money alone does not do it.  

 

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1 hour ago, Cantiaci Canary said:

When I was listening to a big discussion about this on 5 Live's Monday Night Club, and they were picking through all of the problems at Old Traffold, I couldn't help but think ... God, Webber is EXACTLY what they need!

Hopefully their ego is still too big to look at our humble nest for eggs.

 

We had better hope they did not watch the interview where Delia described him as a genius a couple of times. When she gave those comments regarding Webber i thought to myself that is some reference you are giving him should anybody be looking for a new DOF.

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Webber is exactly the type of person that they need. Thankfully he’s not yet a big name, so I don’t think they’ll come calling at the moment. He’s stated he’s very ambitious, I wouldn’t begrudge him the opportunity at some stage in the future. 

 

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If we are at the point where we are worried about the biggest boys looking at our director of football it's fair to say he must have some remarkable talent.

I must confess to some/a lot of ignorance here but I have to ask, what had he done to deserve so much praise?

I get that a DoF sets the long term strategy and does the hiring and firing, and I like what I have seen on  both, but has he contributed as much as it is said he has to the short to medium term decisions that got us where we are?

First instance, the focus on youth is great, but is our success here because of or despite webber, or is he an irrelevance to our successes this year and last ?

Are transfers solely down to him, or is he just the man in charge who has largely contributed in name only? Or is it somewhere in between?

We now have a distinct style.  Is this a result of farke relaying detaiked instructions from above or does he deserve maximum credit for turning a vague idea into a concrete plan? 

I'm happy to see credit given where it is due but I'm a bit ignorant as to who has done what.

Genuine question

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It's a simple & satisfying pleasure to sit back and watch Man United & their 'fans' struggle, squirm & underachieve, complaining, making excuses and generally grumbling. I wonder how many of their 'fans' now regret jumping on the Red Devil bandwagon during the Fergie era. Much quieter these days thankfully and it's noticeable how less visible Man U jerseys/jackets etc... are around the place. Nice. 

Despite having thrown unbelievably ridiculous amounts of money around over the last number of years to literally buy success, I've no beef or grudge with the blue half of Manchester. All my bitterness, ire & curmudgeonly leanings point to Old Trafford (with a healthy portion left over for Chelsea & Leeds too!) My schadenfreude is being well fed currently. Looking forward to their visit to the Carrow next year. 

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45 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

If we are at the point where we are worried about the biggest boys looking at our director of football it's fair to say he must have some remarkable talent.

I must confess to some/a lot of ignorance here but I have to ask, what had he done to deserve so much praise?

I get that a DoF sets the long term strategy and does the hiring and firing, and I like what I have seen on  both, but has he contributed as much as it is said he has to the short to medium term decisions that got us where we are?

First instance, the focus on youth is great, but is our success here because of or despite webber, or is he an irrelevance to our successes this year and last ?

Are transfers solely down to him, or is he just the man in charge who has largely contributed in name only? Or is it somewhere in between?

We now have a distinct style.  Is this a result of farke relaying detaiked instructions from above or does he deserve maximum credit for turning a vague idea into a concrete plan? 

I'm happy to see credit given where it is due but I'm a bit ignorant as to who has done what.

Genuine question

Webber sets the strategies and big picture. Then Farke has to implement it. Both deserve huge credit for what has happened at Norwich over the past season. Without Webber the club may have taken a quicker decision on Farke and fired him in the summer (not that there would be a Farke at Norwich without Webber identifying him). 

A large part of why the partnership between them works well is Farke is a coach who has been a Sporting Director, so he understands Webber’s role. Webber has UEFA Pro Coaching Licence, so he understands that side of the game well and could see the work being done on the training pitches. 

As for recruitment it is hard as an outsider to say who does what. Kerian Scott has said in his recent interviews that Webber is ‘primarily still a scout’ which suggests he is very hands on in that area. He obviously has the ability to make good judgements on players. Where Webber does better than some of his contemporaries is he is more ‘holistic’. He looks at things that can get sidelined by some recruitment teams, such as character and temperament. But is flexible enough to make smart decisions. Scott talked about how when scouting Buendia that his temperament wasn’t great, Buendia was involved in a fairly high profile spitting incident in Spain last season. Webber still went for the player and got it done very quickly by the sounds of things.

I’d also add that Webber is a great communicator. He speaks incredibly well at press conferences and you’d expect this to also be the case in the club. Having someone like that is invaluable, it brings everything together and makes people believe in what is going on. He is also savvy with the press and uses them well. Firstly there was the stuff with Maddison. He picked up a bit of a reputation for being difficult and it was putting his prospective transfer value down. So Webber organised a bunch of interviews with Maddison in the national press for what Webber described as a PR campaign. 

Around Easter there were suddenly a bunch of national press pieces this season. They were all glowing about how smart Norwich are, how well run the club is, how the players are being improved and having a great time etc etc. These were all arranged by Webber, knowing that they would be shopping with the big boys this summer and needed to get the word out that Norwich could be a good place to play football. It is also for the parents of prospective academy players to see that Norwich will do their sons well and look after them. 

This bigger picture stuff is why someone like Webber is invaluable. There are plenty of others who can do the recruitment stuff, or the football vision, or the communication. But not too many who do all of them. Webber just ‘gets’ it. 

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32 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

If we are at the point where we are worried about the biggest boys looking at our director of football it's fair to say he must have some remarkable talent.

I must confess to some/a lot of ignorance here but I have to ask, what had he done to deserve so much praise?

I get that a DoF sets the long term strategy and does the hiring and firing, and I like what I have seen on  both, but has he contributed as much as it is said he has to the short to medium term decisions that got us where we are?

First instance, the focus on youth is great, but is our success here because of or despite webber, or is he an irrelevance to our successes this year and last ?

Are transfers solely down to him, or is he just the man in charge who has largely contributed in name only? Or is it somewhere in between?

We now have a distinct style.  Is this a result of farke relaying detaiked instructions from above or does he deserve maximum credit for turning a vague idea into a concrete plan? 

I'm happy to see credit given where it is due but I'm a bit ignorant as to who has done what.

Genuine question

A good question and one that is, in some ways, difficult to answer when you aren't behind the scenes witnessing it firsthand. 

Essentially he has led the restructuring of the club, ensured that the NCFC has a clear playing philosophy and generally changed the culture of the club.

Whilst promotion has certainly been a team effort, he has led it - hiring the right people, trusting them to do their jobs and providing the best foundations for them to excel. 

"Are transfers solely down to him?" Not at all. The club use a combination of a scouting team, video and data analysts to identify potential targets. SW and DF then look at players recommended by Kerian Scott and begin to negotiate with their preferred targets and their respective clubs. 

"We now have a distinct style. Is this a result of Farke relaying detailed instructions from above or does he deserve maximum credit for turning a vague idea into a concrete plan?" SW knew that he wanted NCFC to have an attractive style of football, whereby our teams played possession based, attacking football. He identified Farke to be a talented coach who shared those beliefs. Farke deserves all of the credit for getting the team to play the way that they have this season, however Webber deserves huge credit for a) finding him, and b) sticking with him when the going got tough.  

You mentioned the emphasis on youth - SW may have been quite fortunate in the sense that he had x2 Murphys, Maddison, Lewis, Godfrey, Aarons and Cantwell (possibly Idah?) sitting in the academy. However many managers wouldn't have had the nads to play them. Webber again cited the academy as a realistic source of players and encouraged Farke to use it. Full credit to Farke, who has done an incredible job with those guys.

 

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Webber might not be a fit for any top six side. Some people work better with constraints and this is where he has excelled. 

As for ManU I'm loving their dilemma. I am happy for ManC fans and this goes back to my experiences from the early 70s. I hate them more than 1p5wich. 

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Good leaders are priceless but are they always at the top?   Could there be some walks of life where the one talent the top guy needs is to let those that know get on with it?

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