(Football news) A consistent feature for Manchester United since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement has been their mediocre recruitment policies. The club have consistently shown time and again that they’re incapable of scouting, recruiting and identifying top talent both on and off the pitch. From Darren Fletcher as Technical Director to Phil Jones a new contract in 2019 and everything in between, the club has made one bad decision after another, ultimately resulting in a disappointing sixth place finish in the Premier League’s 2021/22 season.
Keeping the Glazer family aside, Ed Woodward was largely blamed for the club’s incompetence, with fans claiming that the focus was largely on the business side of the club and not the results on the pitch. In fact, Woodward had said in a shareholders meeting that “playing performance doesn't really have a meaningful impact on what we can do on the commercial side”, summing up Manchester United’s priorities of being a commercial business that also happens to have a football team.
Fast forward to the present day and things seem to remain largely the same under Chief Executive Richard Arnold, who replaced Ed Woodward earlier this year. His decision to sign Ralf Rangnick was primarily for his ability to guide the club behind the scenes, but with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s sacking, he also replaced the Norwegian as the new interim manager at the club. It’s fair to say that the German failed to have a meaningful impact on the results and performances continued to suffer on the pitch. To make matters worse, Rangnick decided to leave the club after his interim period was over this summer, which means utilising his expertise as a consultant is now beyond the realm of possibility.
Moreover, while the club have signed a competent manager in Erik ten Hag, it’s clear that Manchester United have no strategy in place approaching the summer transfer window. With the lack of Champions League football, Old Trafford is not an attractive destination anymore and the club seems fixated on players who are not interested in joining them such as Barcelona’s Frenkie De Jong. There have been many words such as ‘monitoring’, ‘interested’ and ‘keeping tabs on’ being in relation to prospective transfers but no offer has been made by the club. With pre-season set to begin just over a month away and the likes of Paul Pogba, Jesse Lingard, Nemanja Matic, Juan Mata, Edinson Cavani and Lee Grant already out of the club, the situation has never looked as depressing as it does now.
According to various sources, Erik ten Hag had made it clear to the Manchester United hierarchy that he wants all the transfers to be completed before the start of preseason in order to ensure that the new players have time to settle before the opening game in the Premier League. As things stand, even one signing would be an optimistic appraisal of the situation at a time when the club needs at least five new players. Moreover, only the players out of contract have left the club while ‘deadwood’ such as Phil Jones, Eric Bailly, Anthony Martial and Andreas Pereira continue to take their lucrative salaries despite little to no contribution to the team. It’s clear that the club needs to get their act together and fast, otherwise next season could quite possibly be worse than what we’ve all just witnessed.
Also read; Erik ten Hag makes Jurrien Timber a priority for Manchester United
