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In May 2018, Manchester United Executive Vice President Ed Woodward gave what he described as a “very simple and honest” answer to a question about whether success on the pitch made a difference to the club’s purchasing power: “The performance in the game does not. ” It really has a significant impact on what we can do on the commercial side of the business. “
Time will tell if Woodward’s claim about United’s business power, in the absence of success, is true. United announced a new five-year t-shirt sponsorship deal with TeamViewer last week worth £ 47 million a year, according to club sources, but the deal is £ 17 million a year below its expiring deal with Chevrolet. and, according to a Bloomberg report. Over the weekend, TeamViewer appears to have accounted for a 35 million euro (£ 30.02 million) increase in marketing spend by 2021, so only the final release of the club’s accounts will reveal the exact figure paid. to United.
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Still, let’s get back to football. After all, that’s what Manchester United is all about. Two days after Woodward’s comments in 2018, José Mourinho’s United lost the FA Cup final to Chelsea and the club has not come close to winning a trophy, or even reaching a final, in the three years since. ever since, so we’re certainly looking at the executive. -The vice president’s claims are being fully tested.
With Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s team losing 3-1 to Leicester City in Sunday’s FA Cup quarter-finals (air the replay on ESPN + in the US.), United’s only hope of silver this season is the Europa League, in which they will face Granada in the knockout stages next month before a possible semi-final against Ajax or Roma. The Europa League, the competition designed for those clubs that are not good enough to be considered among Europe’s elite, was the last trophy won by United, with Mourinho’s team defeating Ajax in Stockholm in 2017.
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Go back to the 1980s for the last time United went so long without winning a trophy, when the club endured a barren period marked by FA Cup victories in 1985 and 1990, but failed to win the Europa League this season. will ensure that five-year drought is matched by Solskjaer’s team, who would have to wait until 2022 to break the winless sequence.
But despite all the above, Solskjaer claimed last week that winning cup competitions is not necessarily a sign of tangible progress.
“In league position, you see if there is any progress. That’s always the bread and butter of the season, that you see how capable you are of coping with the ups and downs. Any cup competition can give you a trophy, but sometimes it’s more of an ego thing for other coaches and clubs to finally win something.
“But we need to see progress and if we do it well enough the trophies will end up at the club again. It’s not like a trophy says we’re back, no. Sometimes a cup competition can hide the fact that we still you’re struggling a bit. “
Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said winning the cup is “sometimes more a matter of the ego of other coaches.” Oli SCARFF / POOL / AFP via Getty Images
In a sense, Solskjaer is right. Arsenal won the FA Cup with Mikel Arteta last season, but the Gunners now languish in ninth place in the Premier League and are light years away from matching the club’s iconic former teams, including the “Invincibles” who won. the Premier League 2003-04. title without losing a game.
But the big clubs like United and Arsenal are ultimately measured in terms of trophies and Arsenal lifted their 14th FA Cup by beating Chelsea in the final. It was the club’s fourth FA Cup win in seven years and extended their record in competition, so even at a time when Arsenal have struggled to compete in the league, they at least did what the big clubs do. by winning something.
For Arsenal, those cup victories did not act as a catalyst for further success. Similarly, United’s victories in the Europa League and Carabao Cup in 2017 failed to trigger a return to competition for the title or the Champions League, but at least kept United in the conversation in terms of major clubs really win trophies.
MARK OGDEN
Read the latest news and reactions from ESPN FC Senior Writer Mark Ogden.
Yet success gives players, coaches and clubs the joy of winning, and that’s what United desperately lacks right now. His two decades of glory with Sir Alex Ferguson began with an FA Cup victory in 1990, while Mourinho’s Chelsea began their own period of dominance with the League Cup in 2005. As for Manchester City, they have barely left. to win since lifting the FA Cup in 2011.
Success has to start somewhere, but with comments from Woodward and Solskjaer, it’s hard to know precisely where that starting line is at United. Is it now acceptable for United to finish in the top four, qualify for the Champions League and enjoy the latter stages of the cups? Comparing league standings, year after year, is an undoubted measure of progress, but it’s not going to fill a trophy room.
But if both the manager and the executive vice president suggest that the basic premise of winning trophies is not the primary criteria for success at Old Trafford, it should come as no surprise that the message leaks out to the players and they fall short. in the quarter-finals and semi-finals, as he has become used to with Solskjaer.
The Norwegian United manager was one of Ferguson’s favorites during his 11-year playing career at Old Trafford and Solskjaer has rarely hidden the fact that many of his principles were shaped by his former boss. But Ferguson always tried to win. Every trophy mattered.
“Winning a trophy is good, I’m telling you,” Ferguson once said. “No matter what trophy it is, you have to carry it.”
Other clubs have taken that message, but it seems like he got lost at Manchester United.
Source: espn.co.uk
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