It has been suggested before that Manchester United needs someone other than the manager to oversee the club’s transfers. MostSpanish, Italian, German and other European clubs have what’s called a sporting director, technical director, or director of football, etc. to oversee so-called “sporting operations.” Thisexecutive traditionally has a jack-of-all-trades role that cuts across the worlds of finance, operations, coaching, marketing and media, but their main area is recruiting new players and sellingunwanted ones.
Following the club’s last title success in 2012-13 and the subsequent departures of former coach Sir Alex Ferguson and former CEO David Gill, United had anew manager in David Moyes as well as a new operations chief in Ed Woodward. Between them, Moyes and Woodward would be the club’s technical director team, charged with bringing innew talent. However, in their first transfer window in the summer of 2013, the pair only managed to sign one player, Marouane Fellaini, who was followed in January by Juan Mata as theclub’s only two signings of the 2013-14 season. Of course, United would ultimately fail to qualify for either the UEFA Champions League or the Europa League, and Moyes would lose his job. Manythink the former Everton coach’s lack of international clout and understanding of the transfer market was a big factor in his firing.
Woodward, an accountant by trade, would keep his jobas executive vice-chairman and head of operations. As the ManchesterEvening News points out, through a combination of innovative sponsorship and commercial partner deals, as well as masterminding the club’s initial public offering on the New York StockExchange in 2012, Woodward has done a terrific job furthering the Manchester United brand worldwide and bringing in new revenue sources.
His work is part of the reason Louis van Gaalwas able to spend $240 million on the likes of Angel Di Maria, Radamel Falcao, Luke Shaw, Ander Herrera, Daley Blind and Marcos Rojo last summer, and another $120 million so far thissummer on the likes of Bastian Schweinsteiger, Morgan Schneiderlin, Matteo Darmian and Memphis Depay.
Whereas van Gaal, who has considerably more and more varied experience than Moyes, has been able to attract big names to United and get the dealsdone, $320 million (and growing) over three transfer windows is an awful lot of money to spend. Di Maria and Falcao, who returned at the end of his loan to AS Monaco and is now at Chelsea, are nowboth gone, too, with the club having lost some $43.8 million on the pair.
The Di Maria and Falcao experiments may not have gone well, but at least the case is now closed on them. As forthe rest of LVG’s signings, the jury is still out, really. Shaw, Blind and Rojo may be promising young players, but they each endured an injury-hit campaign last season. But the center ofmidfield, in particular, now looks awfully crowded after arrivals of center midfielders Schweinsteiger and Schneiderlin, while Fellaini and Michael Carrick also play that position, so it lookslike Herrera, a $45 million signing last summer, could be left out in the cold.
It’s obviously way too early to judge LVG’s four newest signings, but United’s owners, theGlazer family, and Woodward, who keeps the finances in order, will certainly want to see better results from his transfers this season. With Di Maria only just gone, United’s spending isdefinitely not done: the Red Devils may yet add another defender and they definitely need a speedy, crafty winger (possibly Pedro) to replace the Argentine. Beyond that,
If his summer signings do not turn into results on the field, United might consider axing its spendthrift coach, andhiring a technical director to assist the next one.