Club Sale | It’s done!

Status
Not open for further replies.

JohnnyKills

Full Member
Joined
Jan 8, 2016
Messages
7,099
As sad as it is to admit it, following along with the CEO appointment and looking forward to who comes in as DoF, head of recruitment etc. and the keeping up with the process of the Ratcliffe rebuild is all I have any interest in as a United fan at the moment.

Never before in my life have I been so completely detached from the first team. Genuinely aside from Martinez, Mainoo, Gsrnacho, and Hojlund I want rid of them all and am looking more forward to the mass culling of the squad and staff than the rest of the season.
Same
 

devilish

Juventus fan who used to support United
Joined
Sep 5, 2002
Messages
61,700
I'd love 2 DOFs TBH, one foreign based and one local based. My dream was Ashworth and Mitchell but I wouldn't mind Mitchell and someone like Berta
 

WouterWeghorst

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Apr 23, 2023
Messages
93
Supports
Bald Managers
I feel like you are confusing the roles. The CEO reports to the board, he is in a commercial role. What Manchester United and the Glazers have failed to realise in the past is that the commercial and Football side go hand in hand and ideally in modern structures you want a CEO that understands that and has experience there.

It's the job of the CEO to bring in money through sponsorships, connections and managing investments that benefit the club commercially, and to be fair in Woodward and to a lesser extent Arnold we had CEOs who could do this side very well, however that lack of understanding in the football side of things led to such thinking as "we are Manchester United, we can do things other clubs only dream of" and "Disneyland of football".

As we see, this line of thinking has come home to roost in recent years with regards to profit/loss, our financial position in world football, our reputation, and our FFP position. Berrada has been brought in as CEO because among other things he understands that success on the pitch is important to keep the club fruitful commercially. That does not make him a director of football.

The director of football is hired in this structure based on a vision of how they see the club growing on the field from a sporting perspective. They are below the CEO but hired by the CEO to implement a collective vision. Then below the director of football you would have a head of recruitment.

Head of recruitment would be hired by the CEO and Director of Football based on the collective vision and would lead the scouting team in finding and contacting talent that fits into the vision.

It's very likely that we will see a Director of Football like Ashworth above a head of recruitment like Mitchell/Freedman.

You can't do these structures in half measures such as your belief that we have a football minded ceo who can be our director of football. That's not how successful structures work.
Very good post, this. Also i'd like to add is that a DoF will set out principles for the youth academy as well, so that players will be signed based on what a future United player should be, as well as the coaching and style of play for those youth teams so they have the best trajectory towards the first team (or being sold for profits, of course).
 

Giggsy13

Full Member
Joined
Aug 27, 2016
Messages
4,343
Location
Toronto
Lots of positive news and it appears the club is headed in the right direction, but I for one cannot wait for the usual bunch to complain and moan when the club hasn’t been turned around instantaneously when we inevitably face bumps along the way. Just remember our climb back to relevancy and being title contenders won’t be linear and patience will be needed.
 

devilo

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Aug 16, 2019
Messages
153
Lots of positive news and it appears the club is headed in the right direction, but I for one cannot wait for the usual bunch to complain and moan when the club hasn’t been turned around instantaneously when we inevitably face bumps along the way. Just remember our climb back to relevancy and being title contenders won’t be linear and patience will be needed.
Far too much common sense in this post for this forum :rolleyes:
 

cowiered

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Jan 31, 2024
Messages
5
I have a couple of shares in United with through Plum. Got an offer from Trawlers Limited to buy my shares. The offer to purchase expires on the 10th. They have offered 33 dollars per share.
 

Berbaclass

Fallen Muppet. Lest we never forget
Joined
Jan 23, 2010
Messages
39,017
Location
Cooper Station
James saying no Paul Mitchell, no Julien Ward and probably not Dan Ashworth...

Says the ratification will come very soon after the NYSE vote on Monday. Then INEOS ready to make offers for appointments.

Mentions Potter again after hinting that Ten Hag is going.

 

Carrick_Red

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Oct 1, 2016
Messages
1
I have a couple of shares in United with through Plum. Got an offer from Trawlers Limited to buy my shares. The offer to purchase expires on the 10th. They have offered 33 dollars per share.
Nice. I have shares through Trading212 and have not had any tender offer. Does anyone have any knowledge about this?
 

Drz

Full Member
Joined
Sep 12, 2015
Messages
1,348
5th of February, it has been rumored to be the date
Would be hilarious if next week the league comes up with "There is a date set for that announcement. Unfortunately, I can't tell you when that is but it is progressing".
 

Sunny Jim

Full Member
Joined
May 8, 2007
Messages
29,383
Location
Warsaw...that's too far away from Edinburgh...
Lots of positive news and it appears the club is headed in the right direction, but I for one cannot wait for the usual bunch to complain and moan when the club hasn’t been turned around instantaneously when we inevitably face bumps along the way. Just remember our climb back to relevancy and being title contenders won’t be linear and patience will be needed.
True! No matter how it sounds it took us 10 years of mismanagement to be where are at this moment. Just like dont get obese overnight, you dont get into shape in no time.
 

devilish

Juventus fan who used to support United
Joined
Sep 5, 2002
Messages
61,700
It’s great that Mitchell isn’t a DoF then isn’t it!
While in theory each football role has a set of tasks, in reality things are far more fluid then that. Take for example SAF and Potter. Both were/are managers but their job couldn't be any different. SAF took care of almost everything football related like hiring football people, scouting, the academy and was even involved in contract renewals. Potter is essentially a head coach. Such dynamic meant that SAF didn't need people such as sporting directors, technical directors, DOFs but Potter does. An effective club needs a set of skillset to run effectively and no one really care who does what as long as they are done. For example VDS and Blanc were both CEOs yet their skillset varied greatly. VDS was a more football person having been a WC goalkeeper and is an Ajax legend. Blanc on the other hand no prior knowledge about football. He's a business person mostly around sales and marketing and is considered as the best in class in the football commercial branch. Ashworth (Brighton), Maldini (Milan) and Fletcher (Man Utd) are all technical directors however their role couldn't be any different. Fletcher's role is mostly as the guy who helps the transitioning between the academy and the first team. Maldini's role is more senior and was very involved in transfers and helping with the club long term strategy. `Ashworth on the other hand was essentially a sporting director thus the most senior of all.

I wasn't comfortable with Blanc becoming United's CEO. Don't take me wrong in terms of cutting costs, keeping infrastructure projects on track and bringing sponsors in, Blanc is a genius. Yet his football acumen isn't among the greatest. At Juventus he stuck to an underperforming DOF and fitness team which ended up costing him the role. He did so not because he's reactive but because as said his knowledge of football is not that great. Think of him as a Gill on steroids type of guy. Berrata is a more balanced type of CEO. He's been in football since forever, he understand the industry, what makes a club tick and will understand when things are going wrong and how to sort them up. He reminds me of Marotta TBH who essentially replaced Blanc at Juventus and brought great success there and at Inter.

Now on the next stage. I was never a fan of Murtough, a move that saw most of redcafe posters turn against me. I feel that the reason being that many misunderstood how important the role was and the skillset needed for it. Basically most of what SAF did in his later years was that of sporting director. Most of the tactical and training was delegated to Rene and Phelan. Thus you need the very best in the role especially at a struggling super club like United were the spotlights are always up, we have no money to waste and the role had never been covered before. On top of that to quote Varys from GOT you need as many little birds in as many rooms as possible. For example you would want to be the first to know that there's a goal machine in the Norwegian league or a top quality Norwegian CB in the Turkish league who could come for a bargain (I am referring to Ole and Johnsen). You'll also want to know if the 70m player you're aiming for have attitude problems or if he even want to play in the role you want him to play in. Finally when facing super agents like Mendes the club must have a person that know the industry inside out and is therefore not taken for a ride.

In my opinion we should go for two people at this point, a sporting director and an assistant (call it DOF/Technical director/Head of Recruitment whatsoever). As sporting I would want someone with huge experience in the role. Ashworth would be perfect TBH. Unfortunately I doubt we'll get him. Berta would be a great alternative having worked his way up first in Italy and then Spain. However there's a risk here that a foreign based person might not fully understand the characteristics a player need to succeed in the EPL and might lack the contacts at lower league levels to allow him to do bargains there/sent kids to effective loans there. Which leads us to Mitchell. Paul Mitchell had covered many roles which hover around the DOF level. He's been Director of Recruitment and Scouting Department at Southampton, Head of Recruitment at Spurs and Leipzig. He became Technical director at Red Bull and sporting director (his most senior role) at Monaco. That's quite impressive as he brings knowledge and contacts from England, France and Germany.
 

MadDogg

Full Member
Joined
Apr 24, 2002
Messages
15,964
Location
Manchester Utd never lose, just run out of time
In my opinion we should go for two people at this point, a sporting director and an assistant (call it DOF/Technical director/Head of Recruitment whatsoever). As sporting I would want someone with huge experience in the role. Ashworth would be perfect TBH. Unfortunately I doubt we'll get him. Berta would be a great alternative having worked his way up first in Italy and then Spain. However there's a risk here that a foreign based person might not fully understand the characteristics a player need to succeed in the EPL and might lack the contacts at lower league levels to allow him to do bargains there/sent kids to effective loans there. Which leads us to Mitchell. Paul Mitchell had covered many roles which hover around the DOF level. He's been Director of Recruitment and Scouting Department at Southampton, Head of Recruitment at Spurs and Leipzig. He became Technical director at Red Bull and sporting director (his most senior role) at Monaco. That's quite impressive as he brings knowledge and contacts from England, France and Germany.
From what I've heard, Mitchell's time at Monaco was probably the least successful period of his career. He had previous success as the Head of Recruitment at different clubs, but perhaps he doesn't have the ability to step up to that bigger role. The good old example of someone being promoted past their level of competence (Murtough being an example for us, although obviously his previous experience was very different than Mitchell's). Of course that may not be the case; there may have been other issues at Monaco which stopped him being as successful as he could be at a different club. Or maybe he just needed more experience in the role, something that he's now got to some extent. In our situation I would prefer somebody with proven success in that role though.

While different clubs use different terminology and delegate responsibilities differently, generally a Sporting Director and DoF are the same thing. I don't think there are any clubs which have both roles. Indeed, Mitchell's successor at Monaco took the DoF title instead. So I expect we'll have somebody in that DoF or Sporting Director role, and that person (perhaps along with Berrada, Brailsford and Blanc) would then set up the staffing pyramid below them which would likely include a Head of Recruitment. My preference would be for Mitchel to be in that latter role, rather than the former.

Oh, and Ashworth's title at Newcastle actually was Sporting Director, not Technical Director.
 

devilish

Juventus fan who used to support United
Joined
Sep 5, 2002
Messages
61,700
From what I've heard, Mitchell's time at Monaco was probably the least successful period of his career. He had previous success as the Head of Recruitment at different clubs, but perhaps he doesn't have the ability to step up to that bigger role. The good old example of someone being promoted past their level of competence (Murtough being an example for us, although obviously his previous experience was very different than Mitchell's). Of course that may not be the case; there may have been other issues at Monaco which stopped him being as successful as he could be at a different club. Or maybe he just needed more experience in the role, something that he's now got to some extent. In our situation I would prefer somebody with proven success in that role though.

While different clubs use different terminology and delegate responsibilities differently, generally a Sporting Director and DoF are the same thing. I don't think there are any clubs which have both roles. Indeed, Mitchell's successor at Monaco took the DoF title instead. So I expect we'll have somebody in that DoF or Sporting Director role, and that person (perhaps along with Berrada, Brailsford and Blanc) would then set up the staffing pyramid below them which would likely include a Head of Recruitment. My preference would be for Mitchel to be in that latter role, rather than the former.

Oh, and Ashworth's title at Newcastle actually was Sporting Director, not Technical Director.
Reg Mitchell - I was thinking as him being an assistant Sporting director which essentially it will be the same job he had at Spurs, Southampton etc
Reg Ashworth - At Newcastle he is sporting director but at Brighton he was technical director. However when one goes in the nitty gritty of what he did etc then you'll notice that he was sporting director at both clubs
 

LordSpud

Full Member
Joined
May 22, 2017
Messages
2,418
Reg Mitchell - I was thinking as him being an assistant Sporting director which essentially it will be the same job he had at Spurs, Southampton etc
Reg Ashworth - At Newcastle he is sporting director but at Brighton he was technical director. However when one goes in the nitty gritty of what he did etc then you'll notice that he was sporting director at both clubs
Who are these Reg fellas?
 

pascell

Full Member
Joined
Aug 3, 2012
Messages
14,181
Location
Sir Alex Ferguson Stand
What he said..

"To any United fans listening, I am not trying to steer it in any particular way — that’s not my job.

Your club needs to decide what it wants.

All I am saying is, we are absolutely standing behind the club in saying whatever it is they want, we will facilitate. We will be there to make sure that the club is set up for the future.

I think there is an exciting potential here, I am talking to the club. I may well be seeing them next week.

Sir Jim has really brought a lot of energy to the situation, Sir Dave Brailsford is a brilliant person and is the architect of British cycling success over the last couple of decades and the velodrome in Manchester — he was very much involved in the building of the velodrome and he is bringing that expertise now to Manchester United"
 

Waynne

Full Member
Joined
Aug 21, 2014
Messages
1,880
As sad as it is to admit it, following along with the CEO appointment and looking forward to who comes in as DoF, head of recruitment etc. and the keeping up with the process of the Ratcliffe rebuild is all I have any interest in as a United fan at the moment.

Never before in my life have I been so completely detached from the first team. Genuinely aside from Martinez, Mainoo, Gsrnacho, and Hojlund I want rid of them all and am looking more forward to the mass culling of the squad and staff than the rest of the season.
I'm in the same boat.

Getting Berrada on board is like signing Halaand or a prime Messi. So much to look forward to from this point.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.