Unfair on Martinez
Manchester United name John Murtough as Football Director and Darren Fletcher as Technical Director
- Thread starter Tom Van Persie
- Start date
They have to have a clear plan and execution path. Otherwise, they would be foolish. And, I don’t think anyone believes they are.
I would expect them starting to put in a structure and it would take two seasons to figuring out the right way. So, more up and down is coming.
How so?
If you want to understand a company then you have to understand the owners. That's because the owners decide the vision and appoint people that share that vision. The Glazers are in real estate. They are the typical business people who buy an asset, they sit on it for as much time as possible while squeezing as much money out of it as possible, then they sell it for a profit because, well, its real estate. Such owners tend to hate change and to take decisions. For example when their favorite former PWC from the University of Bristol CEO left they appointed..........another former PWC from the University of Bristol guy. That's not a coincidence btw. Andy O'Boyle is basically Murtough. He's a former sports scientist who worked in the FA head of elite performance. Which is kind of hilarious when you consider that both our DOF (former sports scientist at Everton) and deputy DOF (Head of Sports Science at Coventry) are in sports science and yet our fitness regimen is probably the worst in the EPL. But hey, data analysts...
The DOF and the TD role didn't appear out of thin air. They were the result of years of pressure from the fans who wanted the club's structure to modernize itself. Both Murtough and Fletcher were inside appointments and had no previous experience in that role whatsoever. Fletcher's coaching career was a few months old when given the TD role. Years later and nothing has really changed. United still spend silly money on players and salaries, our fitness regime is horrible, we still rely heavily if not solely on the manager regarding transfer targets, we still leak information, short termism is still alive and kicking at the club (Sanchez, Falcao, Cavani, Ibra, Casemiro, Varane etc) and players seem to lose their form and descend into mediocrity months after signing with us.
So it really makes you wonder if Fletcher/Murtough are placeholders in jobs that are existent in all but name. Once again I am not blaming Fletcher at all. As Bout said, United are very slow in taking decisions and everything is political there. That's hardly the ideal environment to work with.
I agree especially if rumors that SJR is using his own money to buy the 25% stake + he's investing a further 300m on infrastructure are true.
Good post. You'd think this would give people a bit of humility. The maldini one is very funny... Imagine we saw a forum of Milan fans calling for fletcher to take over there, highlighting the good youngsters we have brought through as a reason.
I personally think maldini would be a staggering appointment by ineos. Same with Van Der Saar idea a few years ago. I can guarantee murtough knows a lot more about what is required for a premiership team than either of them.
The structure needs to be improved, but these threads always read like the entire structure at other clubs s just one head scout who just clicks a button and sign anyone he wants.
A lot of talk about getting the next Bellingham which I find interesting. To get Bellingham in stage one, you need to do what united are good at, offer a path to the first team. To get Bellingham at Dortmund stage, you literally need to be a feeder club - Dortmund take players with a clear understanding they will let them move on after a couple of seasons of proving themselves. Finally, to get Bellingham at Madrid stage, you need to be winning things.
It's as if murtough or whoever was at the top at the time of the Dortmund move looked at Bellingham and said 'no he isn't good'.
There are other models that we could adopt - what RR described for example, signing much younger hungrier players, that are suited physically to a high energy style. That type of model makes sense to me. But the idea that a better scout style director of football lands us Bellingham or haaland is a joke
Sorry the original post is wrong. We are one of world's top 5 or indeed top 3 clubs. We shouldnt be taking punts or promoting the likes of Fletcher even before he has his coaching badges. What has Fletcher achieved, seems noone including some former managers even know what his job is. McKenna and Carrick are doing exactly what they should have been doing, learning their trade at a lower level so they get the experience and knowledge to come to a club like United. McKenna was a youth coach who was overpromoted to first team coach. Its really not that hard to do it properly. I agree its not just one DoF and suddenly its all fine. Our data science is still massively behind the likes of City and Brentford. Our whole scouting is still a mess. But it starts from the top.
The gist of this post really highlights the reality that transforming this club into a winning club is a long term task. We simply cannot get the Bellinghams and Haalands at the moment.
As you briefly mentioned, there may be a coherent, committed strategy that can move us in the right direction. We have to get the best young and hungry players and recruit sensibly from “Tier 2” pool of experienced players; this, in time, will see us progress towards being in the conversation for the top tier talent. It’s not hard to imagine that taking a number of years.
It’s hard to consistently challenge for the big prizes without at least some of those very top level players in the team. Creating an environment that is attractive to those players won’t be easy.
I don't think Milan fans even know that Fletcher even exist TBH.
All I said that he covered a more senior role at Milan then Fletcher does with us, that he did an excellent job as technical director at a cash strapped AC Milan lead by what is considered here as a nightmare (ie Elliott group owned club) and that he's a world stage name. The latter would come handy when trying to persuade kids to join us. All of which are true. I repeat if we're going for Maldini then we should sign him as a TD not a DOF. The latter role is, in my opinion, too senior for him just yet.
Regarding Murtough, with all due respect, what had changed since joining us? We still overspend massively in terms of salaries and fees, the manager still call the shots on signings, we still go in wild goose chases in Turin and Barcelona, we still can't plan for the long term and our fitness regimen is poor which is hilarious considering that Murtough and O'Boyle have a solid sport science background.
Other top clubs are fine with promoting former players and are successful. Salihamidzic was always ridiculed as "Hoeneß' intern", yet he oversaw Bayern winning the sextuple while he was their DoF. Surely he wasn't more experienced at his job than Fletcher is at his. So I disagree that you need to spend time away from a big club to learn your trade, lots of "football people" are doing well after being promoted in their own club.
While I agree upper management needs to be held accountable for failings, and Murtough will likely not be the DOF for long, I don't see how any of this is Murtough's fault. He isn't in charge of salary caps, he's not in charge of fees, he doesn't decide the power balance between himself and the manager (the people above him do), and he isn't in charge of fitness training.
The things you can hold against him is his poor decisions when it comes to hiring mangers - both Rangnick and Ten Hag have been poor choices performance wise - and how little he seemingly has used his veto in blocking the manager's decisions on players (Antony being the prime example).
Individually they don't make sense to veto either. On De Jong, the club was led to believe Ten Hag had assurances from the player that he wanted to join him - widely reported that Ten Hag kept pushing for it when others were questioning the deal. Malaccia was cheap and fit the profile. Casemiro is a great player, despite his recent failings. Mount is being let down by tactical choices and injuries - and likely will do well for us in the future. Centrebacks and forwards/right wing alternatives were reportedly vetoed by Ten Hag. Antony was also widely considered a very talented right winger on the cusp of becoming a top class player.
Arguably his biggest mistakes are in his recommendations for managerial appointments. Of which he should be rightly criticised. Neither of his appointments seemingly work well with others.
They really should, looking at the goals he scored or set up against them.
https://www.manutd.com/en/news/deta... to,strengthen the club's football operations.
" John will have overall leadership and responsibility for operations and strategy across all football functions, reinforcing the strong foundations already in place. This appointment builds on the work John has already undertaken in recent years, working closely with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and the rest of the football staff to create the structures, processes and culture to deliver sustained success on the pitch. This has included successful overhauls of the club’s Academy and recruitment department."
" As Football Director, John will work day-to-day with Ole to align recruitment and other strategies and to ensure that the first team has the best-in-class operational support it needs to succeed"
Matt Judge will also report to John, with a new title of Director of Football Negotiations."
That article was written in 2021. Can you please list any improvements done through the years?
Out of the many champions they had and they faced I am pretty sure that Fletcher isn't among the list of players they remember or feared.
That's why they lost.
The AC Milan team of the time was shocking. Most were in their late 30s and the result of the free transfer policy used by Berlusconi who had, since then, refused to properly financially help the club. I dare to say that even our present side would trash that side
Certainly
- Appointed the first director of data science in the club's history.
- Currently working on a restructuring of recruitment after removing a number of people who had been involved and lead the recruitment department for years - unfortunately an ongoing process
- Had a training complex built for the women's team
- Restructured academy recruitment and poached some of England's finest youth coaches to the academy
- Restructured the DOF role into three separate roles to better cover all the responsibilities
- Hired a deputy DOF to solve the issue of agents not being able to contact the right people. Which we saw work fine this summer really, we did our business fairly efficiently, if not all that sensibly.
- Appointed a Head of women's football
- Changed reporting lines for recruitment so that targets could be identified and recommended quicker (which they are, they are just being rejected by board or vetoed by the manager)
I am aware that he had hired a ton of data analysts, data scientists and a couple of tea ladies as well. Everyone is aware of how many people Jon likes to appoint. However what had changed since those many appointments?
Do we still overspend in terms of salaries and fees?
Do we still follow the manager's shortlist to the letter?
Do we still hire managers whose style of football is completely different to the one before him which makes half of the squad redundant?
Do we still engage in wild goose chases in Turin and Barcelona?
Do we still have waves upon waves of injuries?
Do we still pursue a certain style of player only to go for a completely different style of player? (ex De Jong vs Casemiro)
Do we still promise staff one thing and then rescind that offer few months later which makes us look like utter prats?
Do we still buy short term players on silly money and end up giving them silly long term contracts?
Do we still leak information?
Are we still struggling to sell players?
Are we in a situation were players tend to have a serious dip of form a season after we sign them?
Also what sensible in buying another no 10 when we've already have 2 no 10s?. Is it bright to get rid of the golden glove keeper to spend 47m on a keeper whose a slight upgrade on what we had when there was so many positions that needed to be filled? Is it wise to spend 72m on Atalanta's reserve striker who scored 10 goals in total with Atalanta ie 7.2m per goal?
Let's face it mate. Jon might love hiring an army of people but it means jack shit unless it translate on the pitch
Yes, but let's assign blame where it is due. Most of what you outline here is the responsibility and result of decisions made by the ownership, the CEO and the Manager.
I'm not saying keep the man, because I think he's failed in the most crucial aspect of the job. I, like you, think replacing Murthough is a good idea, but mostly because I think his decisions on managers have been terrible and badly thought out. Rangnick was a joke, and the power distribution here, often refered to as "DNA - give the manager all authority" is enhancing the weaknesses in Ten Hag's managerial style and not giving his strengths room to develop and grow. Ten Hag wouldn't work well in this system, anyone who was aware of Ten Hag's style of management said so before he was appointed - and everyone was hoping we had learned to adapt a more modern system when it was announced a DOf would take over. After all it was the only way a manager like Ten Hag would work, but no, we still clung to an outdated system that makes everyone worse at their jobs than they should be. Large parts of that system has not been under the control of the DOf (which is fecking stupid).
Some of his decisions with the academy, analytics department and women's team have been very good, and have resulted in better performances of those departments though. I think it's only fair to acknowledge that while criticising his failures.
Last edited:
What experience do you think the 100s of ex players had before they took their recruitment, DoF jobs, or working with youth? Most of them, probably none or very little.
carrick and McKenna are showing exactly what United knew and fans didn’t, that actually they are both very good young coaches. Good luck to them, and I hope they never come back to our toxic fanbase.
A majority of those salaries were caused by Woodward and Judge, who were both still in post at the start of Murtoughs reign and still in position until around the January of Rangnicks tenure, at the very least they were the ones that negotiated with Rangnick and agreed a unspecified consultancy role for him to agree to the interim appointment. Whilst Murtough has continued the route of ridiculous salaries, those players expectations are inflated by an already existing structure that would be difficult to negotiate downwards and keep those worth keeping.
On managers shortlists, have we ever followed the manager's shortlist to the letter? Most certainly in first Windows we have accommodated, but for most of those managers post Ferguson, the common bug bear has been a lack of ambition to sign the players a manager has needed to take the team to the next level. Van Gaal listed players he requested that Woodward refused, as did Mourinho, Ole needed a DM and they signed Ronaldo instead, Rangnick listed 3 players the club could have signed that would have improved us. Even Ten Hag was told no in his first season to a package deal for Antony and Martinez which would have seen us save a lot of money that could have been spent elsewhere.
On the subject of manager changes, how many manager changes has Murtough solely been responsible for? Just the one, and that's Ten Hag. Murtough reportedly asked Ole to look at playing a high pressing front foot style, both Rangnick and Ten Hag fit that bill, now either Murtough changed his mind and asked Ten Hag to go for transitional football or Ten Hag hasn't got his primary targets to achieve that style and has had to do what he can to survive.
Agree here, the De Jong saga was ridiculous and wasted so much time.
Feel like the injuries are more likely caused by so many fixtures, a winter world cup and the worst short pre season schedule I have ever seen.
De Jong not being signed was a god send in my opinion, we needed a proper DM, and whilst De Jong can do a job I worried he lacked the physicals to do the role at a world class level in the Premier league. However, Ten Hag did say he would develop his own player in that style, and I think he will be looking at Mainoo in the long term.
Not sure what you mean on the staff promises thing.
Agree with your other points, but would argue the selling of players is a by product of what came before and not something easily fixed.
The keeper situation needed to be addressed, and the money De Gea was asking for to continue his decline was ridiculous. Mount as a signing works if he is a long term replacement for Bruno, alongside him he doesn't fit the profile we need for sure. Hojlund will be a beast in the coming years as things start coming together for him, it was expensive but the striker market lacks value and we were going to get fleeced regardless of the target.
Despite any of my arguments supporting Murtough, he just is not good enough. If a director of football is employing Ten Hag, he isn't employing him to reinvent the wheel, he surely wants to see that beautiful football that a lesser quality Ajax side were playing against some of the best clubs in Europe. This best transitional side in the world stinks of a deeper rooted problem in being scared to sell highly rated players that have done well for us historically despite them not fitting the vision. Also despite all these technical director appointments in specific departments, we fail to learn from the top clubs of the world that a manager is only as good as the coaches around him in developing players and making a philosophy work.
Oh I do blame the Glazers a lot. They are undecisive owners who hate change and can't care less of the football side. The very fact that they keep insisting on promoting from within when its evident that the present structure hasn't been working for a decade is almost criminal.
But let's be honest here. The Glazers don't manage the football side on a day to day basis. They don't approach clubs and give contracts to players, they don't interview managers and follow their gameplay and they certainly don't supervise the player's fitness or are responsible to end the leaks. Murtough is largely at the top of that particular football pyramid. And let's cut the crap about managers not wanting interference from the DOF. The DOF role has been around for at least 15 years. Most managers today depend on the role and ETH was successful at Ajax also thanks to a DOF (Overmars). So why would Mou, Ole and ETH refuse to work with Murtough?
The Glazers are legendary in not being able to take a decision. We replaced Woodward (former PWC and Uni of Bristol) with Arnold (former PWC and Uni of Bristol) which basically is the closest thing you could have to human cloning. Now the DOF and TD roles were created as a result of years of pressure from the fans who believed that the club needed to modernize its structure. Considering that neither Fletcher nor Murtough had any experience in the role, that nothing really changed with their arrival and that so many people seem to struggle to describe Fletcher's role (including Rangnick and well, himself) then I won't be surprised if they are simple placeholders meant to force the fans to shut their gob and not bother the Glazers in their pursuit for money. Its basically hey you wanted a DOF and a technical director? Here they are.
Which ties nicely to the relationship between the manager and the DOF and why our managers seems to want to emulate SAF the moment they step into Carrington even though they lack the skills and the time to actually get involved into unearthing talent and persuading them to sign with us. Quite frankly Mou tried to do that once (he said he gave the club a list and went for a holiday). He ended up with the Brazilian McT bought on crazy money, a young Portuguese full back and a geriatric Goalkeeper who barely ever played.
After March 2021 Judge reported to Murtough. Thus all deals done after that point were Murtough's responsibility. You might not notice but Murtough was also Woodward's man. I was always fascinated that we would trust Murtough so much considering the horrible track record Woodward had in terms of assigning football people and taking football decisions as a whole especially considering that Jon had no prior experience in the job whatsoever.
Murtough fecked up when he hired Rangnick. The German hasn't managed for quite some time, his style of football clearly contrasted our squad's strengths. we gave him no financial backup, little external staff support and we promised to keep him afterwards and we didn't. Yet Murtough's job goes way beyond appointing managers. He has over all leadership and responsibility for operations and strategy across all football functions. He is responsible for creating structures, processes and a culture for sustainable success and had been appointed because of his 'successful' overhaul of recruitment. I repeat Judge answered to him as well. That's not me saying it but the official site. After 2 years please tell me what had improved and how that translated on the pitch. Not only that but we still have a huge problem not only with injuries but also with form. Players form tend to dip a year after they sign with us. Considering that both Murtough and O'Boyle are responsible of the football pyramid and both have a solid background in sports science than how is that even possible? Why every manager we get (including ETH who was chosen by Murtough) want full control over transfers? After all ETH had worked with a DOF before.
Someone here decided to write Murtough's hagiography and people bought into it in droves. The guy was never more than a Glazer minion, who is highly unsuitable for the job. The same is true for the hagiographies of Marco Rose, Rangnick, Ten Hag, Arnold, "Our football revolution" etc. etc. Every couple of years someone takes up the mantle and writes long essays with buzz words impressing posters in tons and sells the forum duds. It is phenomenon that started in the Van Gaal days, when hipster managers decided that they are going to impress everyone with their deep understanding of football by writing horseshit. When in reality football is a fairly simple game.
What we need is a decent recruitment team which can identify the needs of the team and search for players that fill those needs based on a criteria. This clown along with Arnold are so incapable, it's not even funny. They found us a manager which seem like was based of a fan poll and then went ahead and recruited every mediocre plodder he wanted for huge sums of money and on insane wages. It is beyond belief that this oaf is still hanging around.
What we need is a decent recruitment team which can identify the needs of the team and search for players that fill those needs based on a criteria. This clown along with Arnold are so incapable, it's not even funny. They found us a manager which seem like was based of a fan poll and then went ahead and recruited every mediocre plodder he wanted for huge sums of money and on insane wages. It is beyond belief that this oaf is still hanging around.
A few points to unpack here. Player fitness is largely down to coaching, match management and squad management. That is almost entirely down to the manager and his coaching staff, and decisions made by them. Our pre-season schedule hasn't helped, but when it comes down to it, the manager is responsible for ensuring that players are fit and ready for the season, and to maintain their fitness throughout.
The leaks are what they are, they aren't really that easy to end, and have been an issue at the club for a very long time. The DOF has very little influence over what players tell their friends or their PR people tell the media. Unravelling that particular can of worms is largely a squad discipline issue, which the DOF has little to no control over. Not being pro-active enough in dealing with the media and having a good relationship with fleet-street is arguably a failure of the CEO and the communications department.
As for managers not working with the DOF, I don't think it's a case of not being willing, but not being given the structure for it to work effectively. Sometimes we give managers too much influence and power. We let them have their own scouts, and decide on transfer targets outside of our recruitment system. That is a silly thing to do in the modern game with data analytics being as advanced as it is. We have a badly implemented DOF system where the manager and DOF are equals in the system - and where direction of the team is largely decided by the manager - which again is enforced by the higher ups as part of the "United DNA" nonsense we've been hearing about.
Simultaneously the manager has to deal with being restricted in who he can keep in his squad and who he can replace based on financial arguments from higher ups. Maguire and Martial being the most obvious examples of mediocre players managers haven't been allowed to get rid of for financial reasons. Ten Hag's response to this system has been a rigid discipline and actively trying to blow up relationships to force players out - Ronaldo, Maguire and Sancho. The system that causes this behaviour has not been implemented by the DOF, but by the people higher up.
I agree with this. Unfortunately I think the club is stuck in the past and the remit to any new manager is basically to be Sir Alex 2.0. Data analysis was a shambles until our DOF started to deal with it, recruitment was largely based on the eye-test and managerial nous, and the idea of "United DNA" keeps being said like a mantra from upper management. We want to be "modern", but we want to do so with a SAF type manager at the helm, being "supported" by everyone around him. I think this is a very flawed strategy and one that is badly executed, but I think we've seen plenty of evidence to suggest that this is the approach we keep going for. I don't see it working unless you have a manager who works extraordinarily well with the rest of the system, gets the political aspect, the PR aspect, is an exceptional man manager and is competent enough to spot the right coaches for the right jobs - a unicorn manager basically.
As for Mourinho, the board gave up on him before that season - they just didn't want to sack him yet for whatever reason. When our board loses faith in a manager they just turn off the money and adapt a "wait and see how it goes" approach. They've been doing that for a decade now, and if the Glazers remain in charge of football operations through January and into the summer they will do the same with Ten Hag.
For the love of god will you give over about “technical director”. Every man and his dog knows that the job Fletcher is doing isn’t a technical director. Let’s get a technical director IF that’s what the new crowd want (if they ever complete the deal) and leave Fletcher doing the job in peace. This title they gave him doesn’t fit the job and it’s caused nothing but grief from fans like yourself
At this point the argument is not on whether Fletcher should be kept or not. I feel we're discussing the Glazers reasoning as of why the two roles were filled with people who had no experience in the role whatsoever and the changes that happened following their appointment. I said it a million times. I can't see Fletcher getting sacked and if I was the new owner of Manchester United I would probably not sack him at least in the short-mid term. I would have him say that devilish is the best poster in redcafe on MUTV though.
The crux of my argument is that you keep referring to it and thinking of it as a technical director role when the reality is that it’s not. They should give that role a different job title and clear it all upAt this point the argument is not on whether Fletcher should be kept or not. I feel we're discussing the Glazers reasoning as of why the two roles were filled with people who had no experience in the role whatsoever and the changes that happened following their appointment. I said it a million times. I can't see Fletcher getting sacked and if I was the new owner of Manchester United I would probably not sack him at least in the short-mid term. I would have him say that devilish is the best poster in redcafe on MUTV though.
I do love reading these posts of get Maldini in and everything will be great because his name is not Darren Fletcher, its always the same posters as well which shouldnt be a surprise.
As much as i dont think things are great at the club now people have this cockeyed view that get a new DoF and everything will be great all while missing some big name DoF have moved into new clubs and failed massively and a failure of a DoF can and will set a club back further than say a bad manager will.
As much as i dont think things are great at the club now people have this cockeyed view that get a new DoF and everything will be great all while missing some big name DoF have moved into new clubs and failed massively and a failure of a DoF can and will set a club back further than say a bad manager will.
"Darren Fletcher - Fergie's son - Youth advisor for transition into the first team"
Could you imagine it, they’d be worse than now
What was Salihamidzic experience before becoming director at Bayern?
What was Maldini’s experience before Milan « took a punt » on him?
Zidane was also Technical Director of Madrid before being manager. Nedved was appointed Vice President at Juventus. Deco has been appointed DoF at Barca almost 10 years after he retired with little to no working experience in between.
So yes, even the « top clubs » take punts on inexperienced ex players that played for them.
And no Mckenna and Carrick are not doing as expected in here. The Caf expected to be quickly forgotten by the world of football because of how utterly shite they are.
Everyone knows that Fletcher’s role is to coordinate between youth teams and senior team, to develop career paths into the first team for our youth players.
Cech was technical director or something similar at Chelsea
Slightly off topic but you expected Carrick and Mckenna to go off and be a manager somewhere and come back to be a 1st team coach at United?
Not concerned about Fletcher's role at all, but it is amusing how the "trust the plan" crew is still out there in full force trying to persuade us that Murtough is actually a misunderstood genius who knew what he was doing all along, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
The club website can say what it wants mate, Ed Woodward was in Gary Linekers back garden when HE not Murtough agreed a deal over the phone with Cristiano Ronaldo, a deal which was agreed on the 27th August 2021, some 5 months after the club made that claim. The truth being that Murtough did not carry the can until Woodward left his role in December 2021.
The rest of your post is just a nonsense in reply to me because I agreed Murtough isn't good enough.
So in other words even Woodward didn't trust Murtough to do the job he himself hired him for. Quite damning actually
we're clearly closer into agreement than you think. As said, why was he given that role if he wasn't covering that role? Could it be the case that the Glazers simply wanted the fans off their back by giving them the 'DOF' and the 'technical director' they wanted?
I hope you're not referring to me. I don't think any person can single handedly bring United back to his feet. Quite frankly I have doubts that INEOS can do it on its own let alone tied to the hip with the Glazers.
Not quite yet, we clearly don’t have a technical director role so I don’t know why people keep saying “let’s get X for that role” or when they lump Fletcher into discussions around DoF stuff. He’s got nothing to do with whatever decisions are taken. This is why I don’t think we will bring Maldini in unless it’s as deputy DoF to someone more experienced. We do not have a TD role in practice.