Manchester United haven’t been the same footballing force since Sir Alex Ferguson departed Old Trafford in 2013.

The Red Devils haven’t won a Premier League title since the fiery Scotsman left the United hot-seat. Three managers have since taken on the gauntlet, David Moyes and Louis van Gaal both tried but soon vanished without much success. Even serial winner Jose Mourinho has failed to turn Man Utd back into a footballing super team.

In the most part United have continually announced profits, even if they aren’t competing for the major trophies.

According to Forbes, only the Dallas Cowboys are valued as a higher commodity when it comes to being a sports franchise. That report has United valued at $4.12 billion, more than Real Madrid and FC Barcelona.

The Premier League giants have fans all over the world, selling merchandise in every continent.

It’s recently been reported that Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammad bin Salman wants to make a $4 billion offer for the club.

United executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward is known to be a smart businessman when it comes to dealing with sponsorship opportunities but alas he isn’t a canny negotiator when it comes to transfers or player’s contracts.

If you can’t bring in the right players or keep your best talent, then you’ll fail on the football pitch.

Without success and without footballing heroes, United will eventually suffer from a financial point of view.

Today in his press conference, Jose Mourinho discussed David de Gea’s contract situation:

“I am not confident,”

“Only the club, David and his people can answer that. My comment is only that everyone knows how good he is, how important he is for Manchester United and, if the club want to be better than it is and not worse, obviously it would be very important to keep David.”

Now the De Gea saga isn’t an isolated one at United in this new era. But it’s very strange to see Man United struggle to tie down their best performer.

At the moment David, Anthony Martial, Chris Smalling, Juan Mata, Ander Herrera, Phil Jones, Matteo Darmian, Antonio Valencia Andreas Pereira and Ashley Young are all out of contract in the summer of 2019. Only five of those players have an extra year option on their current deals.

That’s a ridiculous position for United to find themselves in. Players are usually at their best when they’re settled. You can’t be settled if you have no idea where your future lies. That uncertainty must’ve crept into the rest of the squad too.

Another problem is that other team’s stars will see that happening and won’t consider going to Man United ahead of other top teams if they think they’ll be mismanaged on and off the park.

Manchester United can see that they need to change things up on the football administrative side of things. It was decided that the club needed to bring in a director of football. Yet even with that the club haven’t really made strides in appointing someone quickly.

With Woodward in one corner and Mourinho in another corner, you’ll probably find that neither one really wants to let go of certain responsibilities making the director of football job not as irresistible as it should be!

Man United are a very wealthy business but they are struggling to work as a football club and ultimately the two are very much connected and if you don’t fix the issues on the footballing side of your business then you might see a decline in your financial spreadsheets too.

Posted on October 26th, 2018 by scott
Filed under: Article