The Manchester United supporters taking their discontent for the club’s Executive Vice Chairman Ed Woodward to the skies with their planned protest may be on the right track. You can debate whether or not it’s time for Woodward to go just like it’s debatable whether or not now is the time to sack manager Jose Mourinho.
It’s very possible that the time has come for both men to be axed. What isn’t debatable is this- it’s a total toxic mess at Old Trafford right now. There’s blame to go around right now; because you can’t have a team this expensive performing this badly unless major errors were made by many different individuals.
For what it’s worth, the bookies have deemed Jose Mourinho the current favorite to be the first Premier League manager sacked this season, and after tonight’s 3-0 loss at home to Tottenham Hotspur, those bets are starting to look like smarter money.
As for Woodward, the club has been wildly successful from a commercial and corporate standpoint under his watch, but he has a very poor reputation for football matters.
Woodward did not give Mourinho the support he publicly clamored for in the summer transfer window, and that is almost criminal given how MUFC is basically printing money right now, but at the same time look at all the huge cash outlays that have gone towards acquiring players since June 2016: Mourinho – £310M, Chelsea – £145M, Klopp – £108M, Pochettino – £42M
Yes, he wanted another centre back, but how come the center backs he bought have flopped? That’s a tough question to answer, but here’s a query we do know the answer to- is Jose Mourinho miserable at the club right now?
Let’s analyze how he comes off in front of the camera.
Donald J. Trump is definitely the worst role model one can imagine when it comes to leadership, so it’s frightening to see just how many of Trump’s traits Mourinho is displaying with regularity right now:
going out of his way to pander to the base while ignoring all others that he serves, bragging about oneself at especially irrelevant times, blaming everyone else instead of taking responsibility himself for his problems, narcissism, actor-observer bias, self-affirmation bias, egocentrism, self-delusion, feuding with the media and branding stories about himself that he doesn’t like as lies.
(Yey bachelor of science in psychology degree, FINALLY coming in handy at work!)
Watch video of Mourinho’s postgame press conference (the one he walked out on) tonight and you’ll see a man who badly wants to be anywhere else:
As accomplished a manager as Zinedine Zidane is, bringing him in after you’ve sacked Mourinho still doesn’t fix the problem. The next manager will be the fourth since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013, and there has still been no major silverware added to the trophy case. If a proven winner like Mourinho can’t get it done, then what is the problem?
It’s not investment or transfer spending because United have been throwing the money around during the transfer windows. The issue is they have no true transfer strategy.
They have a great money making, corporate guy and a very accomplished field manager but nothing at all in between.
They need at least one true, real football mind, somebody to build a real roster identity and true club philosophy. Better yet, build a small team of brilliant football minds. Then you have to focus on finding the players who fit in to that identity.
Replacing the manager, and even Woodward too, won’t fix anything. The club will stay in the same rut until they realize that the solution is complex and multi-layered, not overnight.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, is currently a regular contributor to SB Nation, WGN CLTV and Chicago Now.
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