Manchester United's Executive Vice-Chairman Ed Woodard hosted one of his quarterly conference calls with Manchester United's investors earlier today. Given that United are floated on the New York Stock Exchange, the transcript of the conference call has been published here.
It is an opportunity to get an interesting insight to the mood of the Old Trafford boardroom, although many United fans who do commit to reading the transcript will not be overwhelmed by its content.
Here are seven excerpts from the call that will leave United fans questioning the direction of their club. The time period under discussion in the call refers to United's 'second quarter', otherwise known as October, November and December. Woodward reflected that the quarter forecasts a revenue of £510 million. In contrast, this is a time period most known to United fans as being marked by their team's failure to score a first-half goal at Old Trafford.
It’s a very good quarter. So that’s great, congratulations. - Alexander Mees, JP Morgan.
This was a very good quarter in solely a financial sense. United's form was miserable in these months. In total, United played 17 games, winning just four, drawing eight and losing five. United scored just 14 goals in 17 games, conceding 15. The club also got knocked out of the Champions League group stages and the Capital One Cup, losing on penalties at home to Middlesbrough. Very little of the Q & A with Woodward touched upon the on-field performances and results.
With 8.6 million followers, we also are the biggest football club on Sina Weibo, which is Sina Corps platform similar to Twitter. - Ed Woodward.
While United slid down the league, this is the success Woodward trumpeted before the club's investors.
This week in conjunction with the launch of the movie Deadpool, we announced that we entered into partnership with 20th Century Fox as our official mentor for united feature film partner. The first partnership of its kind for Premier League club. - Ed Woodward
This is terrible news for everybody, as we will be forced to endure another series of inane tweets and Instagram posts from United players and staff positively reviewing a film they are not bothered about.
Lower player costs anticipated due primarily to no acquisitions in the January transfer window, together with lower than expected appearance fees for the season. - Ed Woodward
A reminder to United fans that, despite a miserable three months, the club decided not to reinforce in the January transfer window.
Leicester is a fantastic reference point for everybody this year. I think the philosophy that we have is, is to target quality of players based on huge amount of scouting that we do and analysis within the training ground, and then we do our best to do the best deal we can.
And some players are bought by other clubs with an eye to, to them developing into something special in a few years time, where there is a bit more pressure perhaps on some of the bigger clubs to bring in players that are going to be hitting the ground running and top players verging on world class almost immediately.
So there is a slightly different market perhaps in which people are buying.
-Ed Woodward's responding to question on how Leicester have assembled a team capable of winning the league on such a small budget
Whilst Leicester can afford to take a punt on N'Golo Kanté from the French second division, were Manchester United - or any other of the bigger clubs for that matter - to parachute such an unheralded name into the first team they would be accused of either a lack of ambition or being pointlessly miserly. Financially United can afford to take a risk on a player like Kante, reputation-wise they probably can't.
The academy continues to be in the heart of the club, giving you the chance is part of our philosophy, part of our DNA. We took the departure of Brian Mcclair last summer as an opportunity to do a root and branch review of the academy, that’s now complete and changes are underway. Announcements will follow in the coming days.
I think in terms of the future our key competitive advantages are still very strong and the T1s I’d call out are an unmatched track record of player development compared to any other team in particular, in England. And secondly the runway we deliver those first team opportunities to those players coming through, again very different to some of our competitors. - Ed Woodward
United fans would argue that few opportunities are afforded to youth team players, with the likes of Cameron Borthwick-Jackson and Paddy McNair only given a chance in the first-team owing to an injury crisis elsewhere among the senior players. Along with that, there is a feeling that the Manchester City academy are picking up the most promising players in Manchester. A recent Under-14 clash between the two sides ended 9-0 to City. The Guardian's Daniel Taylor has explored this in greater depth here.
I just want to get a sense of how the employee benefit expenses might change next season if you don't qualify for the Champions League. - Omar Sheikh, Credit Suisse
The fact that United are discussing this possibility at board level is indicative of the on-field failures of the club.
Most annoying for United fans will be the quotes discussing the performances and the future of Louis Van Gaal. Why? Because there were none. Despite United enduring one of the worst three months in their recent history during this quarter, Woodward escaped a grilling and Van Gaal's position was not discussed at any stage.
Whilst it is, of course, vital that United are a well-run enterprise, the fact that a comic book movie and United's performance on Sina Weibo came up for discussion ahead of the team's performances are telling of a boardroom view of United discordant with those of the supporters.
