the talisman
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Tbilisi said:
They were asleep on the train?
You should have given the shitbags a slap.
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Ferran Soriano & Txiki Begiristain
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They were asleep on the train?
You should have given the shitbags a slap.
Tbilisi
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the talisman said:Tbilisi said:de niro said:Managed to grab a word with both of them last night. Told them they have done a brilliant job this summer. Whilst cautious about them at first I can see they mean business. Can't see them letting up any time soon either
Well done,sure they appreciate it.
They were sat next to me on the train going to Swansea New Years Day,they were getting zzzzs in all the way unfortunately....probably to avoid me.
They were asleep on the train?
You should have given the shitbags a slap.
Think they had been on a late night..........didnt have the heart
zabadabadoo1985
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<a class="postlink" href="http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/aug/20/glazers-thrive-manchester-united-flounder-ed-woodward" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.theguardian.com/football/blo ... d-woodward</a>
Some more compliments in this article - beautifully contrasting with the ripping apart of United! Always nice!
Some more compliments in this article - beautifully contrasting with the ripping apart of United! Always nice!
Re: Ferran Soriano & Txiki Begiristain
The Glazers continue to thrive while Manchester United flounder
David Conn
This summer the owners have boasted about how much they have increased ticket prices since their takeover – at the same time as Ed Woodward struggles to attract top names
• Glazers rule out selling United for at least five years
• Marcos Rojo set to complete £16m move to Old Trafford
Manchester United's shortcomings were evident in the opening-day defeat in the Premier League by Swansea.
Amid the reams of corporate boasting in the Glazer family’s pitch to make $200m from selling a small slice of Manchester United plc shares, a section trumpets to likely investors United’s concerted raising of Old Trafford ticket prices since the Americans bought the club in 2005 and loaded it with their own £525m debt.
The timing, following the £75m the family made selling shares when they floated United on the New York stock exchange in 2012, is painful. The thinness of the club’s squad was exposed by Swansea City’s 2-1 opening-day win at Old Trafford last Saturday and there is an unconvincing late transfer market scramble to shore it up.
Supporters are confronted with the legacy of £700m drained out in interest, fees and bank charges by the Glazers’ takeover, botched planning and underinvestment, which can be traced back to 2009. Then United reached the Champions League final, where they lost to Barcelona, then sold Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid for £80m, a windfall that was not reinvested in recruiting new players.
Edward Woodward was in 2005 a banker at JP Morgan and a senior architect of the Glazers’ debt-loading takeover, including the high-interest £265m “payments in kind” loaned by hedge funds, which has cost United so far that scarcely believable £700m. Woodward is now reinvented, installed by the Glazers as the club’s vice-chairman, charged with actually running the famous club. With #GlazersOut trending on Twitter for two days following the defeat by Swansea, Woodward is tasked with showing he can negotiate the thickets of football administration and, by extension, that the Glazers should be trusted.
He will point to this week’s signing of the Argentinian international defender Marcos Rojo from Sporting Lisbon, which was complicated by the endemic Portuguese spectacle of investors owning rights in the player, as evidence of sure-handedness. Supporters, however, will take much more convincing.
Manchester United vice-chairman Ed Woodward. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA
On 30 July, with the season about to start and player reinforcements clearly needed, the Glazers released their 167-page prospectus, tweaked a fortnight ago, to sell 12 million shares at $17 each in Manchester United plc – registered by them in the Cayman Islands tax haven and floated on the New York stock exchange. The document extols with familiar breathlessness the money made, the 659 million global “followers” for United and listing 29 of the club’s “global and regional” sponsors, from Chevrolet on the shirts, Japanese instant noodles company Nissin, to Cho-a Pharm, United’s “official pharmaceuticals partner in Korea and Vietnam”.
At Old Trafford, the Glazers’ prospectus explains they have increased matchday income “by restructuring the composition of our stadium”. A section has been coralled for some fans who still like to sing in the way they grew into as kids, when entry was cheap, but the prospectus does not mention that. Instead, it stresses modern Premier League reality: “A particular emphasis on developing premium seating and hospitality facilities to enhance our overall matchday profitability.” The Glazers have also “changed the composition of our general admission seats,” creating many different “options” for buying a ticket and introducing, like most Premier League clubs, “a categorised approach”.
This, the Glazers assure investors, means fans are now paying significantly more. “Between the 2005-06 season [the first after their takeover] and the 2013-14 season,” the prospectus says, “the weighted average general admission ticket prices for our Premier League matches played at Old Trafford increased at a compound annual growth rate of 4.4%.”
That has been over nine years with inflation at historic lows, through the banking collapses and recession, which increased the strain on football supporters and lent leveraged financial buyouts such as the one orchestrated at United a toxic reputation. Now the fans paying the big money in their socially re-engineered football ground are looking down with dismay on the team United are fielding and increasingly questioning the Glazers’ and Woodward’s competence as well as their money-making motives.
The prospectus shows that while huge money has been taken out of the club to pay takeover debt, United were steered through potentially rocky years by the force of Sir Alex Ferguson and the sale of Ronaldo. That can be seen as the watershed, when United floundered in football’s dramatically inflating transfer market, first underspending, then turning to the comfort zone of promising Premier League performers, while allowing galácticos to go elsewhere.
Robin van Persie, Ferguson’s pre-leaving indulgence, and the hurried January signing of Juan Mata for a suffering David Moyes, were late exceptions. At the same time United’s youth team cadre, the Class of 92, were reaching the end of their wondrous service. Yet replacements for world class players such as Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs remain theoretical.
United’s financial picture does not look quite as bright as the club paints it, despite income for the year ended 31 March 2014 – £111m made at Old Trafford, £183m reaped by the sponsorships and other commercial sweating, and an extraordinary £128m from broadcasting income – totalling £422m, by far an English football record.
Yet the Glazer debt for a club that had no borrowings before the takeover, is still about £342m and finance costs were another £53m, reducing pre-tax profits to £22m. United’s cash reserves – £34m – would still be the envy of most other clubs but are shrunk from the £151m in the vaults in 2009. Ronaldo’s £80m sale, according to investment analyst and United supporter Andy Green, was spent paying off the Glazer debt.
While United have declined dramatically since, failing even to qualify for this season’s Champions League, Ronaldo has raced on to win for Real Madrid a 10th European champions trophy. Sheikh Mansour’s Abu Dhabi multi-millions, combined with concerted professional planning and a top football chief executive, Ferran Soriano, have arrived to arm derby rivals Manchester City, while Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool have strengthened their squads and operations, concluding major signings early this summer.
United, once impregnable rulers of the Premier League era, look hollowed out by contrast. Ferguson’s retirement loomed as the one big decision the Glazers faced after they captured United, yet there was no evident succession planning. Ferguson seemed to shock the Glazers when he finally announced his leaving and they then compounded the error by allowing him to anoint his own successor, the unfortunate Moyes.
Manchester United fans protest against the Glazer family. Photograph: Julian Finney/Getty Images
Player recruitment planning looks years behind City, where the board developed a dedicated system after Mansour’s 2008 takeover, installing a director of football, now Txiki Begiristain, working with managers and directors to a stated aim of two world-class players in each position, backed by limitless cash.
Woodward would argue United’s system is sophisticated, too, with the chief scout, Jim Lawlor, researching players in depth, then managers, now Louis van Gaal – his arrival delayed until after the World Cup – deciding who he wants. Rojo, Ander Herrera and Luke Shaw are the fruits so far, and Woodward would emphatically reject the perception that he struggles to close deals, arguing that agreeing terms with a club willing to sell is the most straightforward element of a transfer.
It is, though, baffling that United allowed three champion defenders – Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic and Patrice Evra – to leave together this summer, with no replacements signed except Shaw, the £27m 19-year-old left-back. Woodward now has less than two weeks to shore up the squad, with the season already started.
In another announcement to the New York stock exchange a fortnight ago, Manchester United plc said British investment firm Lansdowne has bought 7.5 million shares, half through two Cayman Islands funds, paying the Glazers $127m. This is what the family envisaged in 2005 when Woodward and his banking colleagues organised their high-interest takeover: that the great club itself would pay off the Glazers’ debts, and they would cash in.
There may be a #GlazersOut day eventually but it will more likely be selling to investors at a great profit than a chasing out by fans, outraged at what has been done to their beloved United.
Marcos Rojo joins Manchester United for £16m on five-year contract
13h Marcos Rojo joins Manchester United for £16m on five-year contract
zabadabadoo1985 said:http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/aug/20/glazers-thrive-manchester-united-flounder-ed-woodward
Some more compliments in this article - beautifully contrasting with the ripping apart of United! Always nice!
The Glazers continue to thrive while Manchester United flounder
David Conn
This summer the owners have boasted about how much they have increased ticket prices since their takeover – at the same time as Ed Woodward struggles to attract top names
• Glazers rule out selling United for at least five years
• Marcos Rojo set to complete £16m move to Old Trafford
Manchester United's shortcomings were evident in the opening-day defeat in the Premier League by Swansea.
Amid the reams of corporate boasting in the Glazer family’s pitch to make $200m from selling a small slice of Manchester United plc shares, a section trumpets to likely investors United’s concerted raising of Old Trafford ticket prices since the Americans bought the club in 2005 and loaded it with their own £525m debt.
The timing, following the £75m the family made selling shares when they floated United on the New York stock exchange in 2012, is painful. The thinness of the club’s squad was exposed by Swansea City’s 2-1 opening-day win at Old Trafford last Saturday and there is an unconvincing late transfer market scramble to shore it up.
Supporters are confronted with the legacy of £700m drained out in interest, fees and bank charges by the Glazers’ takeover, botched planning and underinvestment, which can be traced back to 2009. Then United reached the Champions League final, where they lost to Barcelona, then sold Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid for £80m, a windfall that was not reinvested in recruiting new players.
Edward Woodward was in 2005 a banker at JP Morgan and a senior architect of the Glazers’ debt-loading takeover, including the high-interest £265m “payments in kind” loaned by hedge funds, which has cost United so far that scarcely believable £700m. Woodward is now reinvented, installed by the Glazers as the club’s vice-chairman, charged with actually running the famous club. With #GlazersOut trending on Twitter for two days following the defeat by Swansea, Woodward is tasked with showing he can negotiate the thickets of football administration and, by extension, that the Glazers should be trusted.
He will point to this week’s signing of the Argentinian international defender Marcos Rojo from Sporting Lisbon, which was complicated by the endemic Portuguese spectacle of investors owning rights in the player, as evidence of sure-handedness. Supporters, however, will take much more convincing.
Manchester United vice-chairman Ed Woodward. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA
On 30 July, with the season about to start and player reinforcements clearly needed, the Glazers released their 167-page prospectus, tweaked a fortnight ago, to sell 12 million shares at $17 each in Manchester United plc – registered by them in the Cayman Islands tax haven and floated on the New York stock exchange. The document extols with familiar breathlessness the money made, the 659 million global “followers” for United and listing 29 of the club’s “global and regional” sponsors, from Chevrolet on the shirts, Japanese instant noodles company Nissin, to Cho-a Pharm, United’s “official pharmaceuticals partner in Korea and Vietnam”.
At Old Trafford, the Glazers’ prospectus explains they have increased matchday income “by restructuring the composition of our stadium”. A section has been coralled for some fans who still like to sing in the way they grew into as kids, when entry was cheap, but the prospectus does not mention that. Instead, it stresses modern Premier League reality: “A particular emphasis on developing premium seating and hospitality facilities to enhance our overall matchday profitability.” The Glazers have also “changed the composition of our general admission seats,” creating many different “options” for buying a ticket and introducing, like most Premier League clubs, “a categorised approach”.
This, the Glazers assure investors, means fans are now paying significantly more. “Between the 2005-06 season [the first after their takeover] and the 2013-14 season,” the prospectus says, “the weighted average general admission ticket prices for our Premier League matches played at Old Trafford increased at a compound annual growth rate of 4.4%.”
That has been over nine years with inflation at historic lows, through the banking collapses and recession, which increased the strain on football supporters and lent leveraged financial buyouts such as the one orchestrated at United a toxic reputation. Now the fans paying the big money in their socially re-engineered football ground are looking down with dismay on the team United are fielding and increasingly questioning the Glazers’ and Woodward’s competence as well as their money-making motives.
The prospectus shows that while huge money has been taken out of the club to pay takeover debt, United were steered through potentially rocky years by the force of Sir Alex Ferguson and the sale of Ronaldo. That can be seen as the watershed, when United floundered in football’s dramatically inflating transfer market, first underspending, then turning to the comfort zone of promising Premier League performers, while allowing galácticos to go elsewhere.
Robin van Persie, Ferguson’s pre-leaving indulgence, and the hurried January signing of Juan Mata for a suffering David Moyes, were late exceptions. At the same time United’s youth team cadre, the Class of 92, were reaching the end of their wondrous service. Yet replacements for world class players such as Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs remain theoretical.
United’s financial picture does not look quite as bright as the club paints it, despite income for the year ended 31 March 2014 – £111m made at Old Trafford, £183m reaped by the sponsorships and other commercial sweating, and an extraordinary £128m from broadcasting income – totalling £422m, by far an English football record.
Yet the Glazer debt for a club that had no borrowings before the takeover, is still about £342m and finance costs were another £53m, reducing pre-tax profits to £22m. United’s cash reserves – £34m – would still be the envy of most other clubs but are shrunk from the £151m in the vaults in 2009. Ronaldo’s £80m sale, according to investment analyst and United supporter Andy Green, was spent paying off the Glazer debt.
While United have declined dramatically since, failing even to qualify for this season’s Champions League, Ronaldo has raced on to win for Real Madrid a 10th European champions trophy. Sheikh Mansour’s Abu Dhabi multi-millions, combined with concerted professional planning and a top football chief executive, Ferran Soriano, have arrived to arm derby rivals Manchester City, while Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool have strengthened their squads and operations, concluding major signings early this summer.
United, once impregnable rulers of the Premier League era, look hollowed out by contrast. Ferguson’s retirement loomed as the one big decision the Glazers faced after they captured United, yet there was no evident succession planning. Ferguson seemed to shock the Glazers when he finally announced his leaving and they then compounded the error by allowing him to anoint his own successor, the unfortunate Moyes.
Manchester United fans protest against the Glazer family. Photograph: Julian Finney/Getty Images
Player recruitment planning looks years behind City, where the board developed a dedicated system after Mansour’s 2008 takeover, installing a director of football, now Txiki Begiristain, working with managers and directors to a stated aim of two world-class players in each position, backed by limitless cash.
Woodward would argue United’s system is sophisticated, too, with the chief scout, Jim Lawlor, researching players in depth, then managers, now Louis van Gaal – his arrival delayed until after the World Cup – deciding who he wants. Rojo, Ander Herrera and Luke Shaw are the fruits so far, and Woodward would emphatically reject the perception that he struggles to close deals, arguing that agreeing terms with a club willing to sell is the most straightforward element of a transfer.
It is, though, baffling that United allowed three champion defenders – Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic and Patrice Evra – to leave together this summer, with no replacements signed except Shaw, the £27m 19-year-old left-back. Woodward now has less than two weeks to shore up the squad, with the season already started.
In another announcement to the New York stock exchange a fortnight ago, Manchester United plc said British investment firm Lansdowne has bought 7.5 million shares, half through two Cayman Islands funds, paying the Glazers $127m. This is what the family envisaged in 2005 when Woodward and his banking colleagues organised their high-interest takeover: that the great club itself would pay off the Glazers’ debts, and they would cash in.
There may be a #GlazersOut day eventually but it will more likely be selling to investors at a great profit than a chasing out by fans, outraged at what has been done to their beloved United.
Marcos Rojo joins Manchester United for £16m on five-year contract
13h Marcos Rojo joins Manchester United for £16m on five-year contract
its a Barm
Well-Known Member
but but the rags have Woodward..............laugh my fucking great arse off.zabadabadoo1985 said:http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/aug/20/glazers-thrive-manchester-united-flounder-ed-woodward
Some more compliments in this article - beautifully contrasting with the ripping apart of United! Always nice!
dennishasdoneit
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aguero93:20 said:r.soleofsalford said:Imo he's also far worse at reading the game and weaker in the air. Could be a great addition and I trust txiki so I'm hardly worried but I don't think he's going to take us to the next level.aguero93:20 said:Marwood, tbf, had about a 50% success rate with signings, so far Txiki is 100% and is getting great prices for outgoings (although I'm far from sold on Fernando). Time will tell, but looks like the two Catalan boys are doing a fantastic job.[
imo fernando is a better, more tenacious and more mobile replacement for garcia, we all know, or should know, that when toure is released from his defencive duties that he become more effective
just out of interest , what did you think of Silva and Yaya after their debuts at spurs, the 0-0 draw..?
Did you think they would take us to the next level?
aguero93:20
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Yep, I was a massive fan of Spanish Dave and thought De Jong and Barry were far too flat in midfield and Yaya a great antidote to that problem.dennishasdoneit said:aguero93:20 said:r.soleofsalford said:Imo he's also far worse at reading the game and weaker in the air. Could be a great addition and I trust txiki so I'm hardly worried but I don't think he's going to take us to the next level.
just out of interest , what did you think of Silva and Yaya after their debuts at spurs, the 0-0 draw..?
Did you think they would take us to the next level?
Quite impressed with Fernando on Sunday although I think there's some obvious areas he could improve his game.
I hope you took the opportunity to apologize to them in person for calling them a pair of dodgy geezersde niro said:Managed to grab a word with both of them last night. Told them they have done a brilliant job this summer. Whilst cautious about them at first I can see they mean business. Can't see them letting up any time soon either
BluessinceHydeRoad
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I think these two were just as important a part of the Sheikh's building of the club as any player. The Sheikh promised a self-sustaining club capable of competing with Europe's elite out of its own resources. Involved in this were, quite clearly, the work done on increasing revenue streams, which has been so obviously successful. The on-the-pitch resources had to be developed and both Ferran and Txiki have played massive roles in this and roles which are continuous. I don't wish to decry the purchases made by our competitors this summer, but I doubt they are the product of the same massive professional competence that City show. I was impressed by two comments , one from our chairman and one from Ferran, this summer. Khaldoon said that it wasn't likely that we'd win every season, but we would go on getting better, and Ferran said that we didn't buy players on a season by season basis, but that we bought in cycles, some cycles were 3 years, some 4 and some 5. The last 2 windows have illustrated this perfectly. No "stellar" names have been bought, but big money has been spent to remedy what the manager considers to be weaknesses or gaps in the squad. The players are from the level below the stellar. Key to this is the process of identification, with Manuel and Txiki looking, not at who is "stellar", but at who plays football "the City way" better than anyone else. Then it's enter Ferran and the work on the transfer begins, not in August but rather in January so that if a deal is unlikely we can move on in plenty of time. City will not buy a player who does not strengthen the squad. So, last season Fernandinho and Navas came in very early in the window, Negredo and Jovetic not much later, and only MDM on the last day of the window. This season was world cup year but the players have been brought in well before the start of the season. Even Mangala, whose transfer involved very complicated third party ownership issues, was completed before the start of the domestic season. This completes one cycle - the squad is complete and may last for five years, but the process of renewal - the next cycle - is already well under way. City's is a smooth, efficient and competent operation in every aspect of the club's work because it has recruited top quality people to do that work.
remember arthur mann
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Have you proof of this comment ?Keeper! said:I hope you took the opportunity to apologize to them in person for calling them a pair of dodgy geezersde niro said:Managed to grab a word with both of them last night. Told them they have done a brilliant job this summer. Whilst cautious about them at first I can see they mean business. Can't see them letting up any time soon either
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