The United chief doesn't have the greatest of reputations for his moves in the market, but which signings have been a success and which have failed?
He has overseen 30 senior signings at a cost of almost £750 million over the last six years, but Ed Woodward is still struggling to prove he has what it takes to be a successful football administrator at Manchester United.
The executive vice-chair has been widely pilloried for some of his transfer market moves since taking over from David Gill in 2013 as United’s boardroom chief, even attracting the criticism of former manager Louis van Gaal recently.
“At Manchester United, Ed Woodward was installed as CEO – somebody with zero understanding of football who was previously an investment banker,” Van Gaal told . “It cannot be a good thing when a club is run solely from a commercially-driven perspective.”
So what has Woodward added in the way of positives in the transfer market and what have been his biggest failures? Here, Goal ranks all of United’s signings since the summer of 2013.Getty Images30. ALEXIS SANCHEZ – from Arsenal (swap deal)
Five goals in 45 appearances was not the kind of return United had in mind when they swapped £35m-rated Henrikh Mkhitaryan for Alexis Sanchez in January 2018 and handed the Chilean a record £390,000 weekly wage plus significant appearance bonuses.
Not only has Sanchez failed to deliver on the pitch in his 18 months at Old Trafford, but his unprecedented pay packet has boxed United into a corner with the rest of the first-team squad. The decision to break the back for the 30-year-old has created disharmony and conjecture at every level of the club and the sooner they get him off the bill and start from scratch once more, the better.
Rating: 1/10
AdvertisementGetty Images29. ANGEL DI MARIA – from Real Madrid (£60m)
Angel di Maria was not Louis van Gaal’s choice in the summer of 2014. But with Real Madrid offloading the misfiring Argentine, Woodward found the chance to sign a notable world star to be too big a chance to turn down, whatever the footballing fallout. His £59.7m signing was a British transfer record.
"I was satisfied, because he was a creative player, but I had other players on the list,” Van Gaal told . “Di María had a problem with the English football culture and the climate. You cannot buy players and know, for sure, that they can deliver.”
Di Maria didn’t deliver, and within a year he had engineered a move to Paris Saint-Germain at a £15m loss to United having netted four goals in 32 games.
Rating: 1/10
Getty Images28. MEMPHIS DEPAY – from PSV (31m)
Memphis Depay was the marquee signing of the summer of 2015 as Louis van Gaal looked to push his side on to the next level after Champions League qualification the previous season. But the Dutch attacker would instead become a symbol of a failed era.
The £30.6m signing was a perennial substitute within six months of his arrival, with the emergence of Jesse Lingard squeezing him out of Van Gaal’s favoured XI. And a dramatic fall from grace was completed in January 2017 when Jose Mourinho allowed him to leave for Lyon having made only one start – in the League Cup – in half a season under the new manager.
Rating: 2/10
Getty27. RADAMEL FALCAO – from Monaco (£6m loan)
Only strictly a loan addition, the entire package of Radamel Falcao’s one-year spell at Manchester United is well worth a closer look. United paid Monaco £6m for his temporary addition and the player earned in excess of £260,000 a week as part of the deal.
It didn’t go altogether well. Falcao made just 14 league starts and scored only four goals in 29 total appearances before United turned down the opportunity to pay £43.5m for his permanent transfer and the striker headed out on loan to Chelsea instead.
Rating: 2/10