For Manchester United fans, the 9-year-long "Woodward era" will finally end at the end of January. On January 6, Manchester United officially announced that Woodward would officially leave at the end of January, and Manchester United fans were full of joy, and the feeling of seeing the sun was overflowing the social network platform. For Manchester United fans, these 9 years can be called the nightmare of "three Germans", and the depression and pain brought to Manchester United people are too long. So much so that Woodward was beaten by angry fans at the hotel, just to get him to step down sooner. Now, the day is finally coming.
Looking back, Red Devils fans will feel deeply worthless for the 9 years that he completely delayed. For the first time since the 1980s, United went away with trophies in four consecutive seasons, and after Ferguson retired, Woodward fired four coaches without any change. On the contrary, Woodward also felt good about himself, even at the expense of using the European Premier League to "gamble", and the result was a full loss. On the surface, Woodward's departure is a scapegoat for the defeat of the European Super League, but it is also an inevitable choice for the Grizel family to get out of the crisis. Manchester United need a bigger change on top of the change of manager, and the time is right.
If he were just United's commercial director, Woodward might have become a club legend in the minds of United fans. Being able to raise Manchester United's commercial income from £40 million to £117 million shows his business skills. In fact, even though these 9 years in the business field are more in charge of the former PwC classmate Arnold, Woodward is also the mastermind behind Manchester United's continuous success in the business field, which no one can deny. But back in the business world of football, Woodward is really the "losing expert" of Manchester United fans who use planes to put up banners.
In 9 years, Woodward spent 1 billion pounds on the ball market, signing back Pogba, who was worth more than 100 million euros, and Maguire, who was 80 million pounds, did not play a matching performance, and the equally expensive Di Maria, Martial, Mkhitaryan, Lukaku, Sanchez, and Van der Beek all failed, not counting the trades that made fans sigh, such as Fred, Matic and Lindelof. In particular, there is the overly eye-catching performance and transfer trade comparison of manchester city rivals in the same city, which is even more unacceptable to Manchester United fans.
After the firing of Moyes in 2014, the Greszer family and Woodward consulted with celebrities such as Ferguson, Charlton and Robson to set the basic criteria for the future United manager's choice: attacking football, superstars, adherence to tradition and reliance on youth training. But by now, Woodward should know that he is far from meeting the standards set by celebrities. To the displeasure of Manchester United fans, he actually thinks that Manchester United is better than when Ferguson left: in his eyes, Manchester United only had a scouting and youth training system that was behind the times, lacked a perfect monitoring system for the health of players, and did not have more modern training facilities.
But the reality is this: today's more modern Manchester United continue to be in trouble, not winning the Premier League trophy and not even guaranteeing a stable participation in the Champions League. Woodward's work in football to restore The value of the Manchester United brand has been long, expensive and with little success. Even Louis van Gaal and Morinho could not reverse United's descent. Molinho only finished in the Europa League and the Second Place in the Premier League, but Woodward actually thinks the team is in the ascending channel – simply because the runner-up points are more than in the 1999 Ferguson Treble era!
The most deadly thing is that the star coaches who have been hugely successful in the Woodward era, such as Guardiola, Klopp, Pochettino, Tuchel and Conte, have almost coached Manchester United, but every time they have passed by, which is also the biggest regret of Manchester United in the Woodward era.
There is no doubt that the failure of the Europa League in April last year was a direct trigger for Woodward's downfall (at the same time that Manchester United announced its withdrawal from the European Premier League plan, Woodward had already said that he would resign for this matter, but the time is uncertain). But the real roots are also his arrogance in ignoring United's tradition. The long-standing greed of the American boss made Woodward misjudge the situation. In particular, the completely unexpected and strong opposition from UEFA, the Premier League, players and fans is enough to prove that Woodward does not understand United's values at all, nor does he understand the tradition of this century-old giant.
In a way, Woodward is just a scapegoat for the Grizel family, acting as the "villain" before being pushed onto stage, bearing the anger and humiliation of the fans. His home has been plagued by Manchester United fans for a year, his wife Isabel has received death threats from the Internet, and even his 4-year-old daughter has been bullied by classmates. When United are mired in a double crisis of football and PR, someone has to take responsibility. The Greszer family is unlikely to come forward, and Woodward, who has been running the club for the past 9 years, is a natural victim.
Including Neville, The United's attack on Woodward may have gone too far. For example, he has never raised the price of a season ticket like other Premier League giants, and he is not the real decider of many high-priced reinforcements. Woodward also truly values United's honours, such as when Moyes' side was beaten by Olympiacos in 2014, when he used his mobile phone to take a picture of the scoreboard of the result, which is still on his desk at Old Trafford, always reminding himself that the Red Devils must be ashamed. Unfortunately, he only did shame, but did not have the courage, especially after 3 years to sack the mediocre Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, but also fired him a few months ago to give the Norwegian a contract extension...
Woodward's misjudgment even stemmed from his misunderstanding of the British government's attitude towards the UEFA Premier League, which may have something to do with the fact that United's office in London is full of people who know more about business than football. Woodward also spent most of his time in London rather than Manchester, which was one of the root causes of his big mistake of "gambling". Woodward will most likely be a consultant to United when he steps down, and the Greszer family needs his business acumen to continue to make money for themselves, as well as a smooth transition from the club's management.
But for Woodward, he is more likely to reminisce about his 9 years of success and failure in Portugal's own wineries, the infamy of giving Ferguson 20 years of glory to Manchester United, and the infamy of gambling on the failure of the European Premier League and losing everything in an instant.