Manchester United name John Murtough as Football Director and Darren Fletcher as Technical Director

Big Ben Foster

Correctly predicted Portugal to win Euro 2016
Joined
Mar 19, 2008
Messages
12,454
Location
BR -> MI -> TX
Supports
Also support Vasco da Gama
Clown. Surely the DDG news confirms our suspicions: it's just more of the same with Murtough in charge.

Can't wait for Qatar or INEOS to come in and clean house.
 

I’m loving my life

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Jan 22, 2022
Messages
1,350
How is renewing DDGs contract going to benefit Ten Hags revamp of the squad?

Once again the tone deaf imbecile who chanced his way into a job due to the Jobs for the boys policy this tragic regime operates is undermining our chances of success.
 

RedDevilQuebecois

Full Member
Joined
May 27, 2021
Messages
7,787
What a fecking cretin Murtough is. I also hope the Qataris will come in and ditch him in the most humiliating way too.
 

SirReginald

New Member
Joined
Oct 7, 2019
Messages
2,295
Supports
Chelsea
Clown. Surely the DDG news confirms our suspicions: it's just more of the same with Murtough in charge.

Can't wait for Qatar or INEOS to come in and clean house.
Camping all summer out in Barcelona wasn’t enough Woody vibes for you?
 

El Jefe

Full Member
Joined
Dec 28, 2012
Messages
4,855
Looks like we're making full use of our extended scouting network that we've spent two years building up just for our main targets to be Kane, Mount and Rice.

All eyes will be on Murtough this summer with the buys we choose to make this window and the prices we pay too.
 

Andycoleno9

matchday malcontent
Joined
Mar 4, 2017
Messages
28,576
Location
Croatia
Looks like we're making full use of our extended scouting network that we've spent two years building up just for our main targets to be Kane, Mount and Rice.

All eyes will be on Murtough this summer with the buys we choose to make this window and the prices we pay too.
We are fecked in that case
 

baskinginthesun

Full Member
Joined
Feb 5, 2014
Messages
1,102
Looks like we're making full use of our extended scouting network that we've spent two years building up just for our main targets to be Kane, Mount and Rice.

All eyes will be on Murtough this summer with the buys we choose to make this window and the prices we pay too.
I see your point but, in the Striker market is not going to be some unknown we've never heard of before because there are very few available. The ones we go after are going to be household names, unfortunately.

Keep in mind these are obvious links and not necessarily who we're going after. Every summer, we're buying 50 or 60 new players.
 

Big Ben Foster

Correctly predicted Portugal to win Euro 2016
Joined
Mar 19, 2008
Messages
12,454
Location
BR -> MI -> TX
Supports
Also support Vasco da Gama
Looks like we're making full use of our extended scouting network that we've spent two years building up just for our main targets to be Kane, Mount and Rice.

All eyes will be on Murtough this summer with the buys we choose to make this window and the prices we pay too.
I've noticed that too. Not looking good. It's also interesting how whenever we have an English transfer target, we're willing to spend years chasing him (usually without any success in driving the price down). Happened with Maguire, Sancho, and now Rice if the papers are to be believed.
 

bringbackbebe

Full Member
Joined
Dec 9, 2021
Messages
1,648
Looks like we're making full use of our extended scouting network that we've spent two years building up just for our main targets to be Kane, Mount and Rice.

All eyes will be on Murtough this summer with the buys we choose to make this window and the prices we pay too.
Last year, we got Martinez, Malacia, Casemiro, Eriksen, Antony. How many of these players were we linked with last May? It's not wise to give credibility to everything the gossip column writes about us.
 

croadyman

Full Member
Joined
Mar 9, 2018
Messages
34,327
Last year, we got Martinez, Malacia, Casemiro, Eriksen, Antony. How many of these players were we linked with last May? It's not wise to give credibility to everything the gossip column writes about us.
Yeah it's still very early days
 

Mainoldo

New Member
Joined
Sep 17, 2004
Messages
22,965
Looks like we're making full use of our extended scouting network that we've spent two years building up just for our main targets to be Kane, Mount and Rice.

All eyes will be on Murtough this summer with the buys we choose to make this window and the prices we pay too.
It’s true. If only we had City’s scouting network we could have unearthed players like Kalvin Phillips and Haaland.
 
Last edited:

UnitedSofa

You'll Never Walk Away
Joined
Jul 12, 2013
Messages
6,725
Every time I open this thread I’m met with pure disillusioned meltdowns over things that haven’t happened yet!

We want to unearth some gems! *signs amad and pellistri & for a long time “they’re both shite!” - Now Amad playing well everyone is excited.

Why can’t we sign ready made players! *linked with mount, rice and Kane* “why can’t we get gems!”

Guarantee if we were to sign some unknown kid, alot of people would shit on it because no one knows who he is
 

ty09cali

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Jun 24, 2013
Messages
27
Every time I open this thread I’m met with pure disillusioned meltdowns over things that haven’t happened yet!

We want to unearth some gems! *signs amad and pellistri & for a long time “they’re both shite!” - Now Amad playing well everyone is excited.

Why can’t we sign ready made players! *linked with mount, rice and Kane* “why can’t we get gems!”

Guarantee if we were to sign some unknown kid, alot of people would shit on it because no one knows who he is
100% Agree… Last summer and probably this summer it will be more along the 4-5 ready made players. Once ETH get’s the squad he wants, we will need 2 ready made players replacing existing ones each season with 2-3 kids/gems boosting our academy.
 

Yakuza_devils

Full Member
Joined
Oct 30, 2016
Messages
2,840
It will be mostly ETH signings again. This year theme will be again either scouting department not ready, restructure need more time or Murtough just took over the helm and whatnot. We have been in perpetual restructuring and Murtough has been here all this while.
 

edcunited1878

Full Member
Joined
Sep 3, 2014
Messages
8,935
Location
San Diego, CA
It will be mostly ETH signings again. This year theme will be again either scouting department not ready, restructure need more time or Murtough just took over the helm and whatnot. We have been in perpetual restructuring and Murtough has been here all this while.
We don't know what has been going on behind the scenes and how integrated EtH has been.

Murtough has done a good restructuring with the youth teams ans academy for years, before he took over all football matters. Go read posts from @Adnan and get yourself enlightened before spouting irrational nonsense.

and have some patiece under EtH.
 

wolvored

Full Member
Joined
Jul 6, 2016
Messages
9,871
We could have (insert names here), the best CEO, DOF etc and we would still be in the same boat I reckon. The parasites control everything and instead of agreeing a budget and letting them get on with it, the CEO and DOF have to run it through the parasites in Florida and await them to decide if they can make money by signing player A/B/C, then days later they get the answer. This has been documented a number of times over the years. Even happened in Fergies day, remember no value in the market, yet other teams seem to do fine?
 

Adnan

Talent Spotter
Joined
Oct 5, 2013
Messages
29,861
Location
England
We don't know what has been going on behind the scenes and how integrated EtH has been.

Murtough has done a good restructuring with the youth teams ans academy for years, before he took over all football matters. Go read posts from @Adnan and get yourself enlightened before spouting irrational nonsense.

and have some patiece under EtH.
What we first have to understand is that the DoF doesn't identify the players to sign but rather he empowers people at the top of the recruitment chain to go out there and do the recruitment work. The DoF's job is to connect the football departments so they're all in-sync with each other. And that's his main job to oversee the mens/Womens first team, reserve/academy, sports science, data science, scouting etc, so the people heading the aforementioned departments have the tools and support to do their work. And the owners and the board of directors have to then empower the DoF, so he can do his job to provide the support for the the heads of departments on the football side of the club.

The media will hype up the work of a successful DoF and give him the full credit for both scouting and then signing the players. But the reality is that the heads of recruitment should take credit along with a DoF for signing players who are successful. Garnacho is a signing that was made under the scouting team Murtough put in place at youth level but we don't hear about how the likes of David Harrison or Gerardo Guzman played a key role in identifying the player and hence alerted Murtough who was the director of football at youth level at the time and hence he got a deal done for the young 16 year old for £100k according to some reports. And if Garnacho was on the market right now he'd cost around £30m to £40m imo.

What people need to pay more attention to is who are the people leading the recruitment department. Because there's a big interest in signing players via the transfer window amongst fans, but there's very little interest in trying to find out who the heads of recruitment are. And hence naively, people assume the DoF is the one who is in charge of identifying transfer targets. It's actually the heads of recruitment who are in charge of identifying transfer targets. And it's those heads of recruitment that will guide the DoF on recruitment. It's why I said around this time last year that it would be wise to go along with ten Hag targets due to the heads of recruitment (Bout/Lawlor) getting the sack around April. And both Lawlor and Bout along with Woodward and Judge, made up the recruitment/transfers structure at the club. And that was a structure created by Woodward at first team level by placing Matt Judge as the transfer/contract negotiator and having Lawlor and Bout to oversee the clubs recruitment department. And Bout and Lawlor were part of LVG and Fergie's recruitment (Lawlor) and backroom staff (Bout).

Why it's important to have a DoF is that he/she will be accompanied by a football structure. And it's that structure which is important and not the DoF on his or her own. And the advantage of having a DoF structure is that everyone will be working in tandem within the structure to support the development of the playing side at all levels. That was not happening before with Mourinho and Solskjaer, who were both allowed personal or independent scouts, which naturally created a problem with the club's existing football structure.

Ralf Rangnick was the popular choice among many fans. But if you remember, Rangnick had Elanga, McTominay and DDG as part of his future team. McTominay was a future captain according to Rangnick and he loved Elanga. But all three players could possibly be moved on come the summer window. And Mason Mount who we're strongly linked to is the type of player Rangnick loves to have in his team due to his ability to defend on the front foot high up the pitch. It's why it's important to have seasoned recruiters, running recruitment and not the likes of Rangnick who is a manager/DoF and not a seasoned recruiter.

I don't know how things will develop with the current football structure at the club. But I'm happy to see how things develop because a well run football club is one where everyone from the owners, board, football structure is working in tandem to develop the team. And without that sort of coordination and co-operation from everyone, we won't get back to the top. Now it's over to Jose Mayorga and Simon Wells who lead on recruitment whilst being backed up by Dominc Jordan and the 5 man video analysis team led by Mick Court.
 

Adnan

Talent Spotter
Joined
Oct 5, 2013
Messages
29,861
Location
England
We could have (insert names here), the best CEO, DOF etc and we would still be in the same boat I reckon. The parasites control everything and instead of agreeing a budget and letting them get on with it, the CEO and DOF have to run it through the parasites in Florida and await them to decide if they can make money by signing player A/B/C, then days later they get the answer. This has been documented a number of times over the years. Even happened in Fergies day, remember no value in the market, yet other teams seem to do fine?
Agreed. What happened in the previous summer window is down to the owners. You can't make extra funds available so late in the window and not expect to get burnt by the selling club. You have to make the whole transfer budget available to the people running the football structure in around April, so they can plan moves. The quoted post below is about Casemiro but also includes information about what I'm talking about here about the owners.

Without a player of his quality and leadership we wouldn't have made top 4 imo. Frenkie de Jong is a fantastic talent and I would've opted for de Jong ahead of Casemiro at the start of the season. But looking back at how the season panned out, and how ten Hag had to adapt and compromise on his principles. It's easy to see that after the debacle of last season, we needed a strong personality in the dressing room who could lead from the front. And Casemiro for me has been the player of the season and his contribution has been huge. He's repaid the price we paid for him imo and has helped us create a foundation that a new owner can use to propel the club further by empowering the football department.

And he was signed with only weeks left in the window after the scouts sold the idea to ten Hag about how Casemiro can help with both his leadership and ability on the pitch after the de Jong deal didn't come to fruition. And as the report linked below explains, the likes of Jose Mayorga mapped out how Casemiro would fit into the team and how he could be of benefit to both ten Hag and a dressing needing leadership and guidance. Ten Hag agreed with the recruitment department and we signed Casemiro.

https://theathletic.com/4071426/202...t-trackerman-ten-hags-influence-and-a-grades/

If the football department had been given the full transfer budget at the end of last season, rather than at the end of the transfer window, then I believe we possibly win our first two fixtures and record the highest points tally since Fergie. The problem was the Glazers and is still the Glazers.



 

wolvored

Full Member
Joined
Jul 6, 2016
Messages
9,871
Agreed. What happened in the previous summer window is down to the owners. You can't make extra funds available so late in the window and not expect to get burnt by the selling club. You have to make the whole transfer budget available to the people running the football structure in around April, so they can plan moves. The quoted post below is about Casemiro but also includes information about what I'm talking about here about the owners.
Yes and if we had have won those first 2 games unconvincingly, then the likes of Casemiro and Antony probably wouldnt have been sanctioned.
 

Adnan

Talent Spotter
Joined
Oct 5, 2013
Messages
29,861
Location
England
Yes and if we had have won those first 2 games unconvincingly, then the likes of Casemiro and Antony probably wouldnt have been sanctioned.
I agree.

Those two defeats saved our season and the pressure on the Glazers meant they released additional funds.
 

bringbackbebe

Full Member
Joined
Dec 9, 2021
Messages
1,648
I agree.

Those two defeats saved our season and the pressure on the Glazers meant they released additional funds.
Doubt it. We had a clear requirement for a midfielder and we moved for Casemiro when the FDJ deal collapsed early August. We had funds allocated for the FDJ deal already. Purchase of Casemiro was not a knee jerk reaction to fan pressure.
 

SAF is the GOAT

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Mar 27, 2021
Messages
2,766
What we first have to understand is that the DoF doesn't identify the players to sign but rather he empowers people at the top of the recruitment chain to go out there and do the recruitment work. The DoF's job is to connect the football departments so they're all in-sync with each other. And that's his main job to oversee the mens/Womens first team, reserve/academy, sports science, data science, scouting etc, so the people heading the aforementioned departments have the tools and support to do their work. And the owners and the board of directors have to then empower the DoF, so he can do his job to provide the support for the the heads of departments on the football side of the club.

The media will hype up the work of a successful DoF and give him the full credit for both scouting and then signing the players. But the reality is that the heads of recruitment should take credit along with a DoF for signing players who are successful. Garnacho is a signing that was made under the scouting team Murtough put in place at youth level but we don't hear about how the likes of David Harrison or Gerardo Guzman played a key role in identifying the player and hence alerted Murtough who was the director of football at youth level at the time and hence he got a deal done for the young 16 year old for £100k according to some reports. And if Garnacho was on the market right now he'd cost around £30m to £40m imo.

What people need to pay more attention to is who are the people leading the recruitment department. Because there's a big interest in signing players via the transfer window amongst fans, but there's very little interest in trying to find out who the heads of recruitment are. And hence naively, people assume the DoF is the one who is in charge of identifying transfer targets. It's actually the heads of recruitment who are in charge of identifying transfer targets. And it's those heads of recruitment that will guide the DoF on recruitment. It's why I said around this time last year that it would be wise to go along with ten Hag targets due to the heads of recruitment (Bout/Lawlor) getting the sack around April. And both Lawlor and Bout along with Woodward and Judge, made up the recruitment/transfers structure at the club. And that was a structure created by Woodward at first team level by placing Matt Judge as the transfer/contract negotiator and having Lawlor and Bout to oversee the clubs recruitment department. And Bout and Lawlor were part of LVG and Fergie's recruitment (Lawlor) and backroom staff (Bout).

Why it's important to have a DoF is that he/she will be accompanied by a football structure. And it's that structure which is important and not the DoF on his or her own. And the advantage of having a DoF structure is that everyone will be working in tandem within the structure to support the development of the playing side at all levels. That was not happening before with Mourinho and Solskjaer, who were both allowed personal or independent scouts, which naturally created a problem with the club's existing football structure.

Ralf Rangnick was the popular choice among many fans. But if you remember, Rangnick had Elanga, McTominay and DDG as part of his future team. McTominay was a future captain according to Rangnick and he loved Elanga. But all three players could possibly be moved on come the summer window. And Mason Mount who we're strongly linked to is the type of player Rangnick loves to have in his team due to his ability to defend on the front foot high up the pitch. It's why it's important to have seasoned recruiters, running recruitment and not the likes of Rangnick who is a manager/DoF and not a seasoned recruiter.

I don't know how things will develop with the current football structure at the club. But I'm happy to see how things develop because a well run football club is one where everyone from the owners, board, football structure is working in tandem to develop the team. And without that sort of coordination and co-operation from everyone, we won't get back to the top. Now it's over to Jose Mayorga and Simon Wells who lead on recruitment whilst being backed up by Dominic Jordan and the 5 man video analysis team led by Mick Court.
The amount of times I've read that we pass on players that were unknown then because of our incompetent board is mind boggling.
Names like Alphonso Davies, Frenkie De Jong, De Ligt, Vinicious Junior, Caicedo etc

I really hope that we'll do that again. We have the resources and a great scouting network(the biggest in Europe from what I have heard)
 

Adnan

Talent Spotter
Joined
Oct 5, 2013
Messages
29,861
Location
England
Doubt it. We had a clear requirement for a midfielder and we moved for Casemiro when the FDJ deal collapsed early August. We had funds allocated for the FDJ deal already. Purchase of Casemiro was not a knee jerk reaction to fan pressure.
Yes we had clear requirements and had already signed Eriksen, and were coming off a preseason tour where the performances were positive. And we'd moved on from the Frenkie deal and had started making moves for Martinez and Malacia. With a few weeks of the transfer window remaining more funds were made available after the opening day defeat to Brighton. It was the Glazers who came under pressure from both fans and pundits alike. Gary Neville in particular called them out on Sky.


Joel Glazer panicked.




 

golden_blunder

Site admin. Manchester United fan
Staff
Joined
Jun 1, 2000
Messages
119,437
Location
Dublin, Ireland
It’s been said before, even by Casemiro himself that he was in talks with United as far away as the Christmas before we purchased him & that he’d come to the conclusion that he wanted a new challenge. We had him lined up ready to go
 

Buster15

Go on Didier
Joined
Aug 28, 2018
Messages
13,295
Location
Bristol
Supports
Bristol Rovers
Bit depressing that there is not 1 Manchester United player in the England U21 squad.
 

RC89

Full Member
Joined
Oct 12, 2010
Messages
2,967
I've noticed that too. Not looking good. It's also interesting how whenever we have an English transfer target, we're willing to spend years chasing him (usually without any success in driving the price down). Happened with Maguire, Sancho, and now Rice if the papers are to be believed.
Didn't the Sancho fee come down quite a bit? We paid 73m in the end where the previous year all the talks were around 90+. Also, we definitely do seem to still be big on looking domestically, but we're also very strongly linked to Hojlund.
 

RC89

Full Member
Joined
Oct 12, 2010
Messages
2,967
Last year, we got Martinez, Malacia, Casemiro, Eriksen, Antony. How many of these players were we linked with last May? It's not wise to give credibility to everything the gossip column writes about us.
That's a good point.
 

Devil You Know

New Member
Joined
Mar 21, 2023
Messages
1,225
Location
bed
I've noticed that too. Not looking good. It's also interesting how whenever we have an English transfer target, we're willing to spend years chasing him (usually without any success in driving the price down). Happened with Maguire, Sancho, and now Rice if the papers are to be believed.
We did the same thing with Hererra and Bruno before ending up signing them. The Rabiot, Diogo Costa, De Jong and Amrabat chases are currently stretching across multiple transfer windows. Not to mention the long running reported interest in the past for players like Felix, Coman, Dembele, Dybala, Koulibaly, Milinkovic-Savic, Sneider, Gaitan, etc.
 

Pexbo

Winner of the 'I'm not reading that' medal.
Joined
Jun 2, 2009
Messages
68,412
Location
Brizzle
Supports
Big Days
Bit depressing that there is not 1 Manchester United player in the England U21 squad.
I might be wrong but I don’t really remember us always having a bunch of players in the England u21. I always think about Chelsea, Liverpool, West Ham and Southampton when I think about that team.

We generally have a few young players in the full England squad though and I’m not sure that’s the case at the moment.