The 7 parts of Ed Woodward’s brain contemplate Manchester United’s future

WOODWARD: [Visibly irritated.] F---ks ake. Another mine! This so-called “intermediate” level is hard!

The telephone rings, and he picks up.

WOODWARD: Hello? Ah, hello! No, no, let me guess. Joel? No. Avram? Yes! Avram! How are you? ... No, it wasn’t very good ... That’s right ... No, he didn’t. I don’t know where the papers got that from ... Yes ... Yes ... Absolutely ... Sorry? What to do? Well, I’ve been thinking ...

A large and well-appointed committee room. Six identical Ed Woodwards sit around an oval table, which is covered in the usual detritus of meetings: papers, coffee cups, a couple of laptops. Nothing is visible beyond the windows beyond a pale grey; the room appears to be the only thing that exists.

ONE: Gentlemen, I call this emergency meeting of the Edward Woodward Steering Committee to order.

[General greetings from TWO, THREE, FOUR and FIVE. SEVEN is silent.]

Is Number Six not here? Damn him.

TWO: He’s at home, I think. A man’s coming round about the internet.

ONE: Fine. Fine. We’ll do this without him. [Shuffles his papers.] Right, you all heard the question. Tell me your answers.

FOUR: We do nothing. [Murmurs from around the table.] No, really. Think about it. We’re probably not going to win the league. We might not make the Champions League. Neither of those things are good. But also: neither of these things are disastrous. Chevrolet are tied down. Adidas are tied down. The players that matter are tied down. We ride this out until the summer, we give our manager the time that we’ve promised him, and then we’ll have time after the season is over to take stock and make an informed, considered decision.

TWO: Well—

FIVE: [Irritated at being interrupted.] What?

TWO: I mean ... it’s just, we’ve spent a lot of money. A lot. And we’re not much better for it. And I’ve been thinking, right, that when we got the job, we — us, that is, us around this table — hadn’t got much experience in buying footballers or appointing managers, and Louis hadn’t always been in charge of buying footballers in his previous jobs, and yet we set this system up where we do all the business. Maybe ... maybe we — us, that is — shouldn’t be making this decision at all.

FOUR: Whether we should or shouldn’t be isn’t the point at the moment. The point is: we are.

ONE: And we got given the job, remember? We earned it. Business is business, my friends, and we are good at it. Look, I think our fans are, broadly speaking, correct. The results are bad, the football is bad, and we’ve got a manager overseeing everything who’s already tried to resign once. He’s done. And one of the greatest managers of this generation is out of a job and desperate for this one!

FOUR: Now, rather than the summer?

ONE: Now. We know that some of the other directors are ... concerned that Mourinho might not be right for the club. That is fear, gentlemen. Fear that he might not be [clicks his fingers, trying to think of the right word] controllable. Biddable. Pliable. But remember: he wants us. He needs this job just as much as we need him. We can handle him.

THREE: No. No, no, no. Not Mourinho. He feels wrong. [General laughter.] I’m serious! He’s not ... right, for the club. Look at the plan, people. Think about the plan. Van Gaal for three seasons, then Giggs. A guru, then our Guardiola. We all thought it made sense two years ago, and though we might have to move things along a bit, the idea is still there. And it’s just too perfect to abandon now.

TWO: But what if we were wrong?

FIVE: No. We were wrong. We’ve been drifting ever since December, we’ve missed out on any chance of getting the actual Guardiola [holds up a finger to silence FOUR] — no, we have — and now we’ve let most of the transfer window slip away. And have you heard some of the voicemails? Read the emails? Listened to the crowd? We spend. Now. We get Mourinho. Now.

TWO: And what if we’re wrong, again?

FOUR: Even if Giggs was ready to take over — and he said he was overwhelmed by it last time — we’re forgetting the other problem. We’ve already had to tolerate the Class of ‘92 parking that ridiculous hotel just across the forecourt. Now we’re going to hand them the keys to the dugout as well?

ONE: If we can handle Mourinho, then we can handle a couple of pundits, a coach and the manager of Valencia. And Sir Alex too, if it comes to that.

SEVEN: It smells of death.

[Everybody looks at SEVEN.]

It all smells of death. Can’t you smell it? It is rotting. It has died. It is not dead yet, but it has died. It is falling apart. And when you build your empire around one man, and that man goes, what else can happen? As well suck the air from the sky. As well dam the rivers. This is the price, the cost, of all that came before. This is what must happen. Every person is the wrong person, every appointment is the wrong appointment. There is no right man. There could not be a right man. All is muddled. All is broken. Nothing joins up. The left hand doesn’t even know where the right hand is, the feet are facing the wrong way, and the head has fallen off. It smells of death. [He stands and shouts.] It smells of death! [He falls back into his seat.] All that we can do is watch it die.

[Pause. Then everybody else speaks at the same time.]

ONE: Let me speak to Mendes—

TWO: Pochettino works well with a Director—

THREE: I still think we should stick to the plan—

FOUR: Is Guardiola definitely going—

FIVE: Somebody contact Bale’s people—

Back in WOODWARD’s office. The telephone receiver has dropped to the floor; we can hear an angry voice squeaking at the other end. WOODWARD sits slumped in his chair, hands limp, eyes vacant, staring into space.

WOODWARD: [Quietly, to himself.] Mines. They’re all mines. Everywhere. Every square. Wherever I click. A mine. Mines. My mines. Click. Click. Click. Boom.