Apr 12, 2022
Gabriele Marcotti
Mark Ogden
Dear Richard Arnold and Joel Glazer: Another summer of change is approaching at your club, Manchester United, and with it, you hope, another period of introspection searching for the answer to this basic question: “How do we go back to being what we were on the pitch?”
We don’t claim to have answers, we simply have suggestions based on our analysis of the club from the outside and what we’ve observed around the Premier League and the rest of Europe.
Richard, this is aimed primarily at you because right now, you’re the freshest set of eyes at the club with any real power. You’ve taken over from your longtime friend Ed Woodward as CEO of the club, and early indications are that you will delegate more than he did, at least on the football side. This may be wise since your expertise lies on the commercial side, but it also makes it all the more important that the right decisions be made by those you put in charge.
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Woodward may have made mistakes — and plenty of them — but he was also a lightning rod for more than a decade. He took the flak when things went wrong (and they did go wrong … often). If you’re not going to be as involved as he is, there must be somebody who is accountable for the football side the way Woodward was. It can’t just be the manager.
Look at those clubs that have been successful over the past decade, like Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Liverpool, Real Madrid and Manchester City. There is a blueprint to success which goes beyond money and signings. Some have had seemingly near-omnipotent, transformational managers (Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp are the obvious examples). Others have had a strong internal structure with clearly defined roles, plus experienced, capable people in those roles who could weather managerial changes or mistakes in the transfer window and correct things quickly.
Your next manager won’t be of the caliber of…
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