Since the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson in 2013, Manchester United has looked like a completely different club. On the pitch as well as in the board room it has looked like a club without a plan. The Red Devils are enduring their worst campaign since the Premier League came into existence in 1992. There is a lack of long-term vision and at the moment the club is a shell of its former self and mired in mediocrity.
Manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has been under pressure and faced heavy criticism, perhaps rightfully so. But the fault is not his alone. Manchester United's problems start at the top. The current squad is full of bang-average players, many of whom would have struggled to break into the United sides of old. Executive vice chairman Ed Woodward was put in charge of recruitment following Sir Alex's departure, and it is fair to say he has woefully underperformed. From the beginning of his tenure there were questions about the club's decision to give him that responsibility as his background is not in soccer, but in business. Woodward is an accountant by trade and spent several years working as an investment banker before coming into the fold at United.
Despite securing the signature of Sporting's Bruno Fernandes, doubt still lingers over Woodward's ability to do the job. The deal dragged on for most of January and looked in doubt at times due to the club's seeming unwillingness to budge on the offered price. United supporters' frustration reached a boiling point this week when several of them threw flares at his home and spray-painted his property.
During Woodward's tenure the club has looked almost laughably adrift in the market, most recently being rebuffed by Norwegian starlet Erling Håland in favor of a move to Dortmund. While he has set the Westfalionstadion alight, scoring five goals in under an hour of playing time, United has been linked with such players as Fenerbahce's Vedat Muriqi, Bournemouth's Josh King and ex-Watford striker Odion Ighalo on a loan from China. Muriqi has also been linked to Burnley; in the past the thought of Manchester United competing with the Turf Moor side for a player's signature would have been unthinkable.
From Woodward's first transfer window in charge, the club has continually failed to get its targeted players over the line. David Moyes had hoped to sign Barcelona's Cesc Fabregas or Thiago Alcantara. When the window closed, the club had brought in only Marouane Fellaini from Moyes' former club, Everton, having also seen a deal for Athletic Bilbao's Ander Herrera fall through. After failing in a bid for Everton left back Leighton Baines thanks to what the Merseyside club deemed an "insulting" offer, United scrambled to complete a last-minute loan deal for Real Madrid's Fabio Coentrao. According to current Real Madrid midfielder and German World Cup winner Toni Kroos, he had agreed to move to Manchester in 2014 before the dismissal of Moyes seemingly put the brakes on any transfer. After moving to the Bernabeu, Kroos told GQ, "I am not somebody who worries about contingencies. Yes, it was close. I almost went to Manchester United. But it did not happen that way."
While Moyes left the club after less than a year, his successors have all faced similar frustrations in the transfer market. Louis Van Gaal had hoped to sign Mats Hummels in 2014 and nearly got the deal over the line, but in the end wound up with Sporting Lisbon's Marcos Rojo on the back of the Argentine's strong World Cup performance. Rojo just this month departed United to return to Argentina on a loan move to Estudiantes. The Red Devils have managed to bring in some high profile signings, such as Angel Di Maria, who signed from Real Madrid in a deal worth $85.5 million. Di Maria started off well at Old Trafford before losing form badly and just 12 months later he was moved on to Paris Saint-Germain at a loss of $15 million for United.
Woodward and Van Gaal were unable to tempt Bayern Munich to sell Robert Lewandowksi in 2015, as the former Netherlands national team manager explained to Bild:"I wanted to train Lewandwowski and bring him to Manchester United. He's currently the best striker in the world. The price was not a problem for Manchester United, but Bayern did not want to let him go." Bayern also resisted all efforts to pry Thomas Muller loose. Woodward did manage to bring in Bastian Schweinsteiger from Bavaria, though the midfielder was past his prime at that point and eventually moved to MLS with the Chicago Fire.
Van Gaal's succesor Jose Mourinho, also struggled to bring in the targets he wanted, despite the marquee signings of players such as Paul Pogba, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Mourinho expressed frustration at the club's seeming inability to deal with the transfer market, exclaiming: "One thing is what I want and another is what is going to happen." The Red Devils were either rejected by or beaten by other clubs in the pursuit of Raphael Varane, N'Golo Kanté, Renato Sanches and Alvaro Morata. When any hopes the club had of signing Morata died, Mourinho said, "Morata is a Real Madrid player. Madrid made a decision and we didn't reach an agreement with them. It is simple. It is a shame."
While several managers have come and gone since Sir Alex's departure, all of whom missed out on several transfer targets, the one constant has been Ed Woodward. The club has looked into installing a Director of Football several times over the years but has never taken the plunge, and some say this is in part due to Woodward's reluctance to diminish his own responsibilities. He has proven himself unable to handle the rough environment of the transfer market and should step out of the firing line to let a more experienced director with a proven record and background take over.
Solskjaer has also struggled to bring in players but that may be in part due to his lack of pulling power as a manager. He is a bona fide club legend, but his CV prior to taking over as interim boss was far from inspiring. He was initially successful in his home country of Norway with Molde, winning back-to-back league titles before taking over Cardiff City, recently promoted to the Premier League at the time and struggling near the bottom of the table.
Having taken over in January, Solskjaer oversaw Cardiff's relegation straight back to the Championship and left the job after just eight months. He soon returned to Molde but was unable to match his prior success there, guiding the club to a sixth-place finish in his first term back. He then managed the club to two second-place finishes before leaving to take the interim United gig. He was quite successful during that period, marshaling the side to 14 wins out of 19 matches, including the defeat of PSG in the last 16 of the Champions League in which few pundits gave them a chance.
Since then, however, the club has struggled for results and consistency. The Red Devils currently sit six points behind Chelsea in fifth place, on 34 points. A 2-0 loss to Liverpool, despite a decent performance, was followed up by a loss to Burnley by an identical scoreline. Supporters were so fed up they started streaming out of the stadium several minutes before the full-time whistle. Solskjaer has tried to defend his players, but this has veered into the embarrassing at times given how far he must stretch to point out positives. He received backlash after the 3-1 defeat to Manchester City earlier this month following his claim that, "You know, when you play Man City in the Carabao Cup and they put their strongest team out, you know you've gone places."
Solskjaer has had to rely heavily on players from United's youth sides such as Mason Greenwood and Brandon Williams this season. While they have performed admirably given the circumstances, the need for them to play so often highlights the lack of depth in Manchester United's squad and its inability to use the market to address that problem. Solskjaer says the board wants him to stay on and forge a team in his own vision, but at present it is tough to see that happening — frankly due to the fact that there is no vision at the club, as proven by Woodward's misadventures in the transfer market coupled with successive managers' inability to consistently earn results and make progress.
