Man Utd set to appoint Director of Football (when hell freezes over)

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Adisa

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He hasn't just done mediocre analysis on Sky though, has he. He has been a very successful player, a coach with England and briefly a manager so at least understands the challenge. Also, judging him for failing at Valencia where he didn't speak the language and took over a club on its 3rd/4th manager of the season is pretty unfair.

He has also been involved in numerous investments in property, hotels, city centre redevelopment in Manchester, Hotel Football and of course Salford City. Those things at least suggest he has a head for the business aspect of the DOF role while also being the right sort to understand conversations around Training Ground plans etc.

We are looking for a person who can help navigate the club back to the top level in the 'United' way. A random DOF is not going to help with the identity crisis the club seems to be going through.
The club is not going to hire a novice as its first DoF.
 

Andycoleno9

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I don't know how dof and jose( or any top manager) can work together. I mean coach should be one and only who can decide what player he wants. How it looks with dof?
1. " Jose i will bring you xy player. You don't want him? That is shame because MY vision is that he is future of this club. "
2. " You want willian? Nope. He is not good. Perisic? Nope. I know better than you who is good or not."
 
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gajender

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I don't know how dof and jose( or any top manager can work together). I mean coach should be one and only who can decide what player he wants. How it looks with dof?
1. " Jose i will bring you xy player. You don't want him? That is shame because MY vision is that he is future of this club. "
2. " You want willian? Nope. He is not good. Perisic? Nope. I know better than you who is good or not."
Mourinho has worked with Dof at most of his jobs so it should not be an Issue.
 

Revan

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He hasn't just done mediocre analysis on Sky though, has he. He has been a very successful player, a coach with England and briefly a manager so at least understands the challenge. Also, judging him for failing at Valencia where he didn't speak the language and took over a club on its 3rd/4th manager of the season is pretty unfair.

He has also been involved in numerous investments in property, hotels, city centre redevelopment in Manchester, Hotel Football and of course Salford City. Those things at least suggest he has a head for the business aspect of the DOF role while also being the right sort to understand conversations around Training Ground plans etc.

We are looking for a person who can help navigate the club back to the top level in the 'United' way. A random DOF is not going to help with the identity crisis the club seems to be going through.
1) Being a successful player means nothing. A lot of successful players (including himself) try to become a manager and spectacularly fail. A DoF job is even a more dissimilar job to a player, so his experience is even less relevant. Being a coach under Hodgson, while England got crashed against Iceland, yeah, I am convinced that he is the right person for the job. And finally, why he needs to get a card blanche for his Valencia feck up? A lot of managers don't know the language and do well. Pocchetino for example came to England without speaking English. Ranieri originally at Chelsea. And so on... And if the language was such a big barrier, maybe he should have know it on the first place and don't take the job. Not saying that he won't ever make a good manager/DoF, just that at the moment he is unqualified, and he learnt the hard way that speaking shit on TV doesn't help you in the real job.

2) You are not qualified to become CEO of Google cause you had a successful IT business on your local city. Being a co-owner of Salford City doesn't help his cause to become a United DoF, similarly. We are in a far bigger scale.

3) Not sure that there is a United way, bar be shit for 3 decades and then find a great manager for 2-3 decades. We want to be back in top. When we are there, we can pretend that we did it on 'the United way' for PR and brand value, but top is top.

Giggs and especially Butt are ahead of him to having proven something. In fact, I wouldn't mind having Butt in a more senior position, considering that he has been doing it on the hard way, and doing quite well at it.
 

JPRouve

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I don't know how dof and jose( or any top manager can work together). I mean coach should be one and only who can decide what player he wants. How it looks with dof?
1. " Jose i will bring you xy player. You don't want him? That is shame because MY vision is that he is future of this club. "
2. " You want willian? Nope. He is not good. Perisic? Nope. I know better than you who is good or not."
Most managers have a DOF or someone with the same type of responsibilities, it's probably easier to find top managers that don't have one. If I'm not mistaken the list starts and ends with Mourinho.
 

Adisa

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I don't know how dof and jose( or any top manager can work together). I mean coach should be one and only who can decide what player he wants. How it looks with dof?
1. " Jose i will bring you xy player. You don't want him? That is shame because MY vision is that he is future of this club. "
2. " You want willian? Nope. He is not good. Perisic? Nope. I know better than you who is good or not."
Which top coach apart from Mourinho doesn't work with a DoF?
 

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I can't help wondering what would have happened if LvG had been appointed Director of Football instead of manager. We'd no doubt have had two or three managers sacked under him, but he'd still be here, still buying crap players, and still peddling his negative boring shite. Team not doing well, sack another manager.
 

Andycoleno9

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Most managers have a DOF or someone with the same type of responsibilities, it's probably easier to find top managers that don't have one. If I'm not mistaken the list starts and ends with Mourinho.
Which top coach apart from Mourinho doesn't work with a DoF?
I don't know. That is why i asked that questions. I always thought that dof undermines coach authority
 

Revan

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I think it might be a knee jerk reaction, to take away focus from the disastrous transfer window we just had.
At present, Woodward is effectively the DoF and I do expect it to stay that way for a while (which is fair enough because it takes time to get the right person in).
Personally, I think that this time next year, we will be in exactly same position.

The main problem IMO, is the Glazers not wanting to spend money to take us to the next level. What will a DoF resolve, if we are not willing to spend money or claim that there is no value in the market.
The Glazers want a setup, such that they can spend minimal amounts of cash on players, while still growing revenue (ie. the situation we had under SAF).
Unless the dividend increases (and we will know it cause United is a publicly traded company), what you're saying is bullshit. Glazers didn't get more money this summer cause we spent just a bit than last summer when we spent a lot. The dividend for a few years now (be it do well on pitch or not, qualify on UCL or not, spend a lot or not) has been around the sams value, circa 25m dollars. In fact, the dividend is so miniscule in comparison to both the revenue and club's evaluation (they own 2.5b pounds of United) that is more to tell to investors how profitable United is, rather then them getting rich from that 'pocket money'.

So what you were saying is the classic 'first get the conclusion, then make the facts to satisfy the conclusion' rather than the other way around.
 

JPRouve

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I can't help wondering what would have happened if LvG had been appointed Director of Football instead of manager. We'd no doubt have had two or three managers sacked under him, but he'd still be here, still buying crap players, and still peddling his negative boring shite. Team not doing well, sack another manager.
Why do you wonder that, his personality makes him unsuitable for the job? The best role for LVG was probably head of the academy.
 

Revan

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I can't help wondering what would have happened if LvG had been appointed Director of Football instead of manager. We'd no doubt have had two or three managers sacked under him, but he'd still be here, still buying crap players, and still peddling his negative boring shite. Team not doing well, sack another manager.
DoF can be sacked/made to leave too, as LVG found out when he was DoF of Ajax. It is not an untouchable position. It is more like having 2 positions for two related, though different needs. Similar to how companies have multiple positions for related jobs.
 

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Usually DoF hires the manager in an image and philosophy to mirror the clubs identity so yes indirectly a DoF dictates how the team plays.
Well based on that logic, the CEO also indirectly dictates the playing style, cos he is hiring the DoF isnt it?

Do you know he is the CEO of Ajax?
I do, but that does not earn him an automatic job at united! Ajax as a club is run totally different from united, Not saying VDS wont do a good job, but it should be based on merit and not because he was a ex united player!
 

Revan

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Because of the timing. Woodward fails to get transfers and all of a sudden, let's have a DOF!
Could be. I think is more plausible though that we didn't get signings cause Woodward wasn't convinced that a) Mourinho is targeting the right players, b) Mourinho will be here next season, c) we couldn't get the players Mourinho wanted and failed to propose to Mourinho similar players with greater value. All of these things get fixed (at least in principle) by a DoF position.

Contrary to people's beliefs here, Woodward cares about United. Likely not in the sense of 'loving United like fans' but this is his biggest job he has ever had. If we do bad, then he is doing a bad job too, can eventually be sacked (he is not an owner like Abramovich who can do whatever he wants) and/or makes difficult for himself to get a higher position be it on the club or somewhere else. If United fails, so does Woodward. Assuming that he is a rational and intelligent person, he wants the best for United, not just to save face.
 

TheFlagStaysDown

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after mourinho is out we can appoint Gaz and he can help to identify sign a new coach, maybe he's not a good coach himself but DoF would be ideal for him knows about football, what owuld suit us and he wouldnt intrude with transfers or anything just help to appoint a new manager if one fail to deliver..
 

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I don't understand why so many of you want Sir Alex! Don:t you like him? He is an old man, who needs ro stay away from all this, have a full recovery and enjoy life away from football.
Live the man alone.
 

Hernandez - BFA

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I don't understand why so many of you want Sir Alex! Don:t you like him? He is an old man, who needs ro stay away from all this, have a full recovery and enjoy life away from football.
Live the man alone.
You're talking as if people are knocking on his door, pleading for him to be our DOF :lol:
 

JPRouve

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I don't know. That is why i asked that questions. I always thought that dof undermines coach authority
Why have you always thought that? For almost 100% of clubs the head coach is simply an employee, in 100% of clubs he isn't the most powerful person, the owner or the board are since they are the ones writing the cheques. Most clubs realize that the board and the owners are generally not football people or competent managers and it's an everyday job, so they simply hire someone that knows football, is a good manager, is good at networking and fixing issues.

A good DOF, Technical director or sporting director, these are the same thing, will not force anything on the manager that is not effective in football and economic terms. Generally DOFs and coaches look at profiles not names, they want players that have certain tools and it's the job of the scouting and technical staff to create an exhaustive database, network in agents circles and understand who is a good fit financially, socially and tactically. The head coach is then presented the final list and he chooses who he wants from it.

Also when a head coach is interviewed for a job, the DOF will sell the project and red lines will be exposed, the candidate can take the job or not based on them but he can't complain afterwards.
 

steffyr2

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Could be. I think is more plausible though that we didn't get signings cause Woodward wasn't convinced that a) Mourinho is targeting the right players, b) Mourinho will be here next season, c) we couldn't get the players Mourinho wanted and failed to propose to Mourinho similar players with greater value. All of these things get fixed (at least in principle) by a DoF position.

Contrary to people's beliefs here, Woodward cares about United. Likely not in the sense of 'loving United like fans' but this is his biggest job he has ever had. If we do bad, then he is doing a bad job too, can eventually be sacked (he is not an owner like Abramovich who can do whatever he wants) and/or makes difficult for himself to get a higher position be it on the club or somewhere else. If United fails, so does Woodward. Assuming that he is a rational and intelligent person, he wants the best for United, not just to save face.
All of what you wrote can be true, and none of them would be fixed by having another person in another job if Woodward doesn't want to spend money. Mourinho has a contract with Utd -- as much as some people hope he will leave and hope that his legs are being cut out from under him to make him fail, what would that say to the next prospective manager? That Utd is a place where your reputation comes to die.
 

steffyr2

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after mourinho is out we can appoint Gaz and he can help to identify sign a new coach, maybe he's not a good coach himself but DoF would be ideal for him knows about football, what owuld suit us and he wouldnt intrude with transfers or anything just help to appoint a new manager if one fail to deliver..
So that means 3 years from now....
 

YouOnlyLiveTwice

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No, he won't really. Most will blame the manager and just have another person to aim a portion of the blame on.
The fans have nothing to do with this. Hopefully the competent people in charge, can figure out the weak link between a manager and a dof.
 

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Why Gary Neville? He's an ideologist and too high up the "United way" for me. We need someone from outside to break things up a bit
 

Revan

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All of what you wrote can be true, and none of them would be fixed by having another person in another job if Woodward doesn't want to spend money.
That is obviously true. While Ed can be accused for a lot of things, not spending money is not one of those things. Cause since Ed became executive vice director, we have spent more money in transfers than any other club in the world bar City (oil state backed). I think that we have also spent a shitload on agent fees, and we have the highest wage bill in England.

So no one can accuse Ed for not willing to spend.
 

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Why Gary Neville? He's an ideologist and too high up the "United way" for me. We need someone from outside to break things up a bit
Agreed, need someone far more impartial and not attached to the club.
 

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Why Gary Neville? He's an ideologist and too high up the "United way" for me. We need someone from outside to break things up a bit
Agreed, need someone far more impartial and not attached to the club.
There needs to be a balance. Ideally someone with enough distance that they have no particular sense of loyalty or duty towards any factions or individuals currently at the club, but who also understands what the club is about.
 

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Why Gary Neville? He's an ideologist and too high up the "United way" for me. We need someone from outside to break things up a bit
Agreed, need someone far more impartial and not attached to the club.
I actually disagree following what be said pre Leicester. He basically said forget about the SAF philosophy. That's done now, it's in the past. You have a new philosophy and should back the managers ideas because you employed him.

If we were to entertain him as an option you'd at least know he'd be more pragmatic in pulling strings to favour the managers style, whoever it may be.
 

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It is hard to find a worse choice than Sir Alex. Try hard, and you still probably cannot think of someone worse than him.
To be honest any of the class of 92 would be worse, I hope we don’t go the sentimental route and instead hire the best possible person for the job.
 
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Lash

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I actually disagree following what be said pre Leicester. He basically said forget about the SAF philosophy. That's done now, it's in the past. You have a new philosophy and should back the managers ideas because you employed him.

If we were to entertain him as an option you'd at least know he'd be more pragmatic in pulling strings to favour the managers style, whoever it may be.
Ah, I wasn't in the country so didn't see the pre-match stuff. That is interesting.

I think the publicity he'd get would be unbearable too. May as well get someone who can just go about his business, without the same level of scrutiny Gaz would get.
 

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We need somebody with European experience, and no ties to the club IMO.

Being an old member of the club just makes it too romantic, you don't want them making decisions based on emotions.
 

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We need somebody with European experience, and no ties to the club IMO.

Being an old member of the club just makes it too romantic, you don't want them making decisions based on emotions.
What?

Emotions? The one damn thing that ties every thread of the United DNA?
 

Revan

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To be honest any of the class of 92 would be worse, I hope we don’t go the sentimental route and instead hire the best possible person for the job.
Nah, Fergie among other things is old and just had a life-threatening issue. DoFs travel a lot, which he cannot do at this age. DoFs have contacts, he probably doesn't after 5 years of being retired. DoFs do negotiations for players, he never did (it was Edwards, Kenyon and Gill who did most of negotiations). DoFs work with agents, SAF despises them. Then SAF found no value in market 5 years ago, prices of players have quadrupled since then. He thought that you must always back the manager, that isn't what you want from a DoF (otherwise why hire him in the first place). Essentially, he does the opposite of everything you want from a DoF.
 

Adam-Utd

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What?

Emotions? The one damn thing that ties every thread of the United DNA?
Not in a business appointment no.

the DOF has nothing to do with on pitch / coaching, so why would that matter?
 

Revan

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It differs, some clubs have a DoF who reports directly to the owner so the business side and sporting side are run separate from each other.
Is that only Chelsea (but then Roman is very active and behaves like CEO, to be fair, he probably is)? No idea about oil clubs.
 
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