The reason United are struggling in the transfer window

Dithering Ed Woodward summed up in the words of a song. Why is he still conducting transfer business?

Having overseen the signings of Angel Di Maria, (how successful was that?), at which time he overpaid for an average player by about £30 million, then Marouane Fellaini, whose buy-by clause he managed to miss, thus costing United a further £4 million and then letting Louis van Gaal loose with the United piggy bank, another mistake given that, other than an FA Cup win, no return was seen on any of the investments which had cost somewhere in the region of £250 million, doubts must once again be expressed about his suitability for the job.

In this transfer window he has managed to sign Victor Lindelof, (another which, similar to Ander Herrera, has actually taken two windows to complete), and Romelu Lukaku. There doesn’t appear to have been any competition for Lindelof  so the question is; why did it take so long?

The question with Lukaku is why, again, has Woodward vastly overpaid for a player when he wasn’t prepared to do the same for Alvaro Morata who was, reportedly, Mourinho’s number one target?

Poor old José has had to appear in press conferences over in the USA making excuses for his boss. “Clubs don’t need to sell their best players”, was one of his remarks. “Football clubs have so much money now that they can afford to say no to any offer” was another.

What he is saying is true, but it doesn’t appear to have prevented his two main rivals from signing players.

As of writing, Mancheser City have signed four players with a fifth, again reportedly, on the way. Chelsea have signed four players and will probably sign more.

So what is the difference? How come City and Chelsea seem to have no problems getting players but United do?

Michael Emenalo and Txiki Begiristain are the difference. They are, for want of a better description, Directors of Football. They know what they are doing and they have worldwide contacts. Dithering Ed fails on both these counts.

Excellent at making money for the club he is, probably logically, absolutely useless at spending it. His record shows that he always does one of two things. He either doesn’t manage to get the players wanted by the manager, or he drastically overpays for them when he does.

For how much longer can this go on? Surely even the Glazers, sat in their mansion in the States, are kept abreast of what is happening at Old Trafford. Do they even read/watch the news?

If so, then it is about time they acted by telling Dithering Ed to stick with what we know he is good at, which is making money for the club. The transfer business needs to be put in the hands of a Director of Football. Surely one of the myriad of ambassadors for the club, ex-players who are picking up oodles of cash for doing nothing other than travelling the world on expenses paid trips, is qualified to take on the job.

If this doesn’t happen, and soon, then United will fall further behind their rivals and less and less players will be attracted to the club. You have been warned.