Don't worry, once Dave gets bored I'm sure Astro will take over to keep things "interesting". Maybe UIR will show up as well just to really keep things ticking over.
Without wanting to get my skull cracked by wading into this most ferocious of pillow fights ... I think any reasonable unbiased person involved in commercial activities would say that United are doing well corporately. They have massively increased their sponsorship deals to something like 30-40 (dont know the exact number) and the very big deals have also increased in value. The one with Adidas (or was it Nike?) has tripled their revenue from that specific source alone and is the biggest with any football club. Most of these big deals do carry some targets but most do do anyway. May be with Ferguson around it was taken for granted that United would get into the CL, but without him, it cannot and therfore it made sense to include this. But that does not mean that the deals are rubbish and that organisation is crumbling. It may well do but the signs are not there yet. Corporately there is no doubt they are doing well, but on the football front they are rubbish. The executives who have helped them do deals have gone and now it looks like the nearly blind are leading the blind. They may well get the players but they will pay well over the odds. They may get their act together but I think it will take 2-3 years before they get rid of the dead wood.
The deals that United currently have were negotiated before Gill and Ferguson left and the Moyes debacle transpired. My argument is that the level of corporate performance is unlikely to be maintained as United have to come to terms with a changing environment both internally and externally. My comment surrounding the sponsorship deal was not that there were clauses attached (as you said that would be standard) but relates to the fact the contents of those caveats were made so public. At the hight of United's dominance those details would not have been released. I'm not saying that the deals themselves are rubbish - far from it. At times it does appear from the statements made on behalf of United like "the nearly blind leading the blind" but that is too simple. The United executives are only now becoming aware that major cultural changes have happened but that a new 'style' has yet to be created. On the pitch they rested on the power of the myth of The United Way. That myth has now failed them both on the pitch and in the boardroom. It is probably not terminal (unfortunately) but my experience of other organisations in similar situations is that 2-3 years is probably too short a time. If you take a myopic bean counter view of United's situation then everythnig is fine. If that were so then they would already have bought all of the players that they need to totally re-build. That they haven't makes you want to understand why. It's as simple and complex as that.
