Mourinho Sacked.

A lot of the blame Woodward has got is misplaced. For starters, he hasn't been going around choosing who to sign, they have been manager led apart from on one single day (Deadline day in Moyes season, they were players Moyes was interested in but had wanted 6 months to personally scout despite in most cases United had already spent a year scouting and in some cases such as Herrera and Thiago just needed him to sign off but he wanted to personally scout first)

Woodward doesn't really decide who to buy, it's mainly dictated by the manager although the medical team's opinion is also a factor (as it should be) and it overall finances do play a factor if the managers being unreasonable. United's setup has always been and still is that the manager identifies the targets, him and the chief exec discuss it where the Chief Exec gets the football knowledge he needs to negotiate (Specifically the valuation so they have a window to bid between). People seem to think you need knowledge of football to do deals but that didn't stop Gill who knew about as much about football as I know about Ballet (Basically nothing) and even now his football expertise is on the business side of running football based companies. They just need the right information from experts to be able to negotiate from a strong position. For example, before joining United Woodward worked for JP Morgan in Asset acquisition, let's say BA wanted to buy new planes and went to JP Morgan to help them buy a new fleet of planes they wouldn't have expected Woodward or whoever was assigned the task to be an expert about planes, they would speak to an expert to get the information needed to frame any deal but it's the negotiation skills they are hired for not knowledge in the area.

The issue seems to be more the information he has been getting. Jose is renowed for basically feeling a players value is whatever it takes to get that player that he wants. If he wanted a 35 year old with 1 year on his contract and it was up to him he would spend £200mill without doubt if that's what it would take which doesn't really help anyone. A club that hires Jose really does need a DoF even if he hates having them and will freeze out many of the players the DoF buys (although he freezes out the players he chooses too) because otherwise the non-football person doing the negotiations are left high and dry

Pretty much every club he has ever managed must be full of sulky players as he losses the dressing room at club. The reality is he has no man management skills and when you couple that with an ego the size of the earth its always going to lose the dressing room as he won't adapt and will blame the players rather than take his share of the blame.

United's squad is as strong as anyone in England if they are used correctly and as with all modern footballers are man managed correctly. Jose was toxic in the dressing room and always has been which is why it always falls apart for him. Pogba is the perfect example of this, he isn't a defensive pivot, he has never had those qualities to do that, even in his first spell with us it was his weakness and was the reason he wasn't given more chances as he needed to develop that. Going to Italy meant he never needed to as they set up so he wasn't asked to do that and at this point its too later to really develop that. When it doesn't suit his style and Jose constantly criticises him its going to hit his moral, especially when for the last 12 months he hasn't been worse that Matic who has been the second defensive pivot yet Matic has been immune from criticism from Jose.

Behind the scenes its also right up there. We may not have the flashy training setup but its been constantly upgraded and has all the top level facilities. We have a professional scouting network of 54 full scouts which is more by a long way that the likes of City have and that doesn't count the part-time ones mainly focusing on the 8-16 age ranges.

The problem has been the manager

It actually makes perfect sense. The club were looking to bring a DoF in before appointing Jose. He insisted on not having one as he hates working under them. It made sense also simply because any style that fits United DNA doesn't fit with how Jose would want to play so they would have been butting heads left right and centre, after all Jose hates pretty much every signing that was his choice let alone when someone else is buying players for him to fit a style that doesn't fit his

This gives them time to get the DoF and have them involved in shaping the ongoing style and setup of which appointing the correct manager to fit that identify

 

While there is nothing wrong with playing defensive the problem with Jose and what makes him a dinosaur is that he doesn't adapt.

The way he sends his team out to play is a structured defensive setup designed to draw the opponent onto them so they over commit. They then try and force and hit them on a quick counter attack.

His preferred formation on paper looks like a 4-2-1-2-1 as shown below





However out of possession the winger with the higher work rate almost drops in as a FB, with that FB shifting inside to make a 3rd CB. This is why at Chelsea he loved Ivanovic as he could do the FB role but his natural position was CB so having him tuck in was ideal. So positionally it would be something like below




From there they would try and force a mistake and then get possession to quickly move it forward, usually to the striker via one of the two defensive pivots. The Striker would have a defender on him but due to over commitment forward couldn’t get too tight, the advanced winger can then run past the striker and the Attacking midfielder can go the other way, one of the pivots would step forward to offer a ball back while the winger who dropped to FB would start going forward. The defence which was already stretched because they had been lured into over committing get pulled all over the place creating even more space for the attackers to exploit




Managers started to work that out though during the second half of his league winning team at Chelsea. They would be more careful and ensure they kept more people back. That cut off the space for the players exploited on the break and more importantly they could commit to having a CB tight on striker. This not only cut off easy outballs for the striker but also made it much harder for the striker to keep hold of the ball so moves broke down more and the number of clear cut chances fell significantly. To create space it also means the AM and winger are more likely to come deeper to get the ball which would see the striker become more isolated

At Chelsea to offset that he pushed Cesc back to the DM Pivot to use his creativity to try and get the ball out of the defensive 3rd in a more effective way. At United he did the same with Pogba. Problem is they weren’t playing there in the first place as their defensive ability is lacking which actually makes the defensive unit weaker. And it doesn’t really create that many more chances. Especially as it usually see’s them replaced with a more high energy AM but who naturally finds themselves further up the pitch and creativity in the pass is less their wheelhouse, they are picked more to have the energy to shuttle between being a CM and almost a second sticker to try and prevent the striker becoming isolated






And that’s where Jose ends up struggling. And it’s a big part for his 3rd season implosion. Usually its not a problem because he gets sacked in the 3rd season and then jumps to a new country, a country where managers haven’t come up against him in person so he gets away with lining up as normal and having success until they have played him enough to also start working out how to counter it. He didn’t jump this time so when he was in the same country just at a new club everyone was wise.

A less stubborn manager would have adapted even if not to a completely different style, just adaptation to his defensive style but he won’t, it’s the exact same principles with the same issues and the same way to nullify it

The annoying thing is when Rui Faria left it was a perfect chance for him to push himself to evolve. What Fergie was great at doing was bringing in number 2’s who challenged him to evolve. Something Faria didn’t seem able to do, it seems his main quality was more at being the buffer between Jose and the players. Instead, he gave Carrick a job and promoted Mckenna from the academy who couldn’t ‘challenge’ him so now we had an assistant who wasn’t pushing him to be different and was a less effective firebreak for the players