Director of Academy Nick Cox is leaving | Set to join Everton as Technical Director
- Thread starter Tom Van Persie
- Start date
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Nik (@Rood), Jamie (@Vault Dweller) and Ed (@That'sHernandez) give their end of season awards out! They celebrate the best players, goals and moments of the season (there were some, honestly) and also give out awards for the worst and most disappointing players/moments of the season.
They then discuss all the latest transfer rumours and get into the potential ins and outs this summer at Old Trafford.
We are going all in on our backroom recruitment. We recently signed up James Smith from City who was their director of scouting and recruitment.
Backroom transfers are always intriguing. They seem so very important to achieve overarching success, but I feel like they very rarely turn out like anticipated. It's not often a club signs a successful DoF (for example) and gets what they expected
They still need to convince players to join Everton, at the end of the day
We recently hired Jim Fraser from Chelsea. Always wondered if it would affect Cox.
Did this appointment ever get confirmed though? All articles I can see are regurgitated 'set to appoint' but nothing was confirmed IIRC.
He's done well for us. Might be a big loss.
It’s how the FFP cheats roll.
Stealer of penises.
Farewell to Nicholas Coxalas
A great move for him. Hope it works out.
Looks like you are right.
Cox out
Performer of circumcisions
Big loss
Well this is Wilcox area of expertise, wonder who he’s hot lined up
Oh I just noticed Cox, Wilcox
Too many Cox. Big Big Cox remains
Well this is Wilcox area of expertise, wonder who he’s hot lined up
Oh I just noticed Cox, Wilcox
Too many Cox. Big Big Cox remains
Shame - he has done some excellent work
The story of him trying to convince Garnacho on Zoom during covid times was great
The story of him trying to convince Garnacho on Zoom during covid times was great
Guess there wasn't enough room for 2 cox
By all accounts, he did a very good job so it's big boots to fill. Fair play to him though, moving on to a more senior job. If those are his ambitions, he probably wasn't getting that chance any time soon here.
No surprise he’d move considering it’s a massive promotion, going from Head of Academy to Technical Director.
Cox out
Hot take but my impression is that he's somewhat overrated. I saw him on the High Performance Podcast and formed a view that I feel has been confirmed through his track record and through noises of how INEOS and he might have clashed.
My view is that he's a modern thinker in terms of emotional intelligence, making players feel supported and creating a positive, nurturing environment in the academy. Great. There's a lot to be said for that. His two most famous graduates from his previous roles were Sancho and Watford and Calvert-Lewin at Sheffield United. Both are very talented but have big issues mentally and physically. Our academy has done well in their leagues in recent years. Cox and his team deserve credit for that, of course. However, there's been a lot of talk about how the players are not particularly physically developed.
United's academy was lauded for having patience with someone like Scholes, for example, who was tiny into his early 20s and had problems with asthma. That patience paid dividends. But I do sometimes feel that our academy players look so thin compared to their peers at Arsenal, Chelsea, City etc.
I might be being really harsh. I think Cox has done really well to create a nurturing and kind environment. But youth development also requires instilling a strong mentality and a strong body. I just wonder if Cox is a little too soft, and the reports about him and Wilcox being a bit at odds (and Amorim's comments about the academy) might reflect this.
I firmly believe Cox was told that he isn't the guy and was told to find another job. He leaves with a lot of credit but my sense is that he isn't the elite talent developer we might want to think he is. I hope Wilcox, from his days as City's academy director, has the ideal replacement in mind. Someone with Cox's emotional intelligence but maybe a little more ruthlessness where it is needed.
My view is that he's a modern thinker in terms of emotional intelligence, making players feel supported and creating a positive, nurturing environment in the academy. Great. There's a lot to be said for that. His two most famous graduates from his previous roles were Sancho and Watford and Calvert-Lewin at Sheffield United. Both are very talented but have big issues mentally and physically. Our academy has done well in their leagues in recent years. Cox and his team deserve credit for that, of course. However, there's been a lot of talk about how the players are not particularly physically developed.
United's academy was lauded for having patience with someone like Scholes, for example, who was tiny into his early 20s and had problems with asthma. That patience paid dividends. But I do sometimes feel that our academy players look so thin compared to their peers at Arsenal, Chelsea, City etc.
I might be being really harsh. I think Cox has done really well to create a nurturing and kind environment. But youth development also requires instilling a strong mentality and a strong body. I just wonder if Cox is a little too soft, and the reports about him and Wilcox being a bit at odds (and Amorim's comments about the academy) might reflect this.
I firmly believe Cox was told that he isn't the guy and was told to find another job. He leaves with a lot of credit but my sense is that he isn't the elite talent developer we might want to think he is. I hope Wilcox, from his days as City's academy director, has the ideal replacement in mind. Someone with Cox's emotional intelligence but maybe a little more ruthlessness where it is needed.
No idea how good or smart he is. But I do think it is a position where it makes sense to make changes every few years. New eyes, new ideas to build on what is already good. Hard to be innovative and creative after some time in this type of job.
(I’m also not sure how good Man Utds acadamy actually are. Seems like we are behind Arsenal, Chelsea and Man City.)
I agree. We still do a great job of promoting youngsters and our ethos is still better than most of our rivals. But you look at the England young teams and they are dominated by City, Chelsea and increasingly Arsenal. We're lucky if we have 1 player in each of the underage squads. We're very prone to overrating our youngsters.
To me there are 2 key aspects to this role - Talent Management and Pastoral care.
Finding and nurturing young talents is what the club has always strived to do since Sir Matt. I do think however that questions need to asked bout the quality of Pastoral care our younger players are getting in recent years.
In the Fergie era as well as the high profile "class of 92" we also produced a huge volume of good professional players that went on to have productive careers in a variety of Premier league and championship teams. United academy players had a positive reputation as being "well brought up" professional in their attitudes and having high standards of behavior.
However in recent years we have seen our young players acting in ways that stretch from unprofessional to outright criminal and reprehensible. I'm not laying all of this at the door of one person, but questions have to be asked about how did we get to a point where you have former academy players playing in the first team that the fans no longer have any trust in their dedication to the club, their work-rate or how they respond to criticism.
Finding and nurturing young talents is what the club has always strived to do since Sir Matt. I do think however that questions need to asked bout the quality of Pastoral care our younger players are getting in recent years.
In the Fergie era as well as the high profile "class of 92" we also produced a huge volume of good professional players that went on to have productive careers in a variety of Premier league and championship teams. United academy players had a positive reputation as being "well brought up" professional in their attitudes and having high standards of behavior.
However in recent years we have seen our young players acting in ways that stretch from unprofessional to outright criminal and reprehensible. I'm not laying all of this at the door of one person, but questions have to be asked about how did we get to a point where you have former academy players playing in the first team that the fans no longer have any trust in their dedication to the club, their work-rate or how they respond to criticism.
Gardening leave, means Cox can only start at EFC next summer or/and they have to pay hefty compensation to Ineos. To the tune of what Newcastle recieved for letting Ashworth go.
There used to be a clothing store here called Rex Cox Menswear.
Most of their stuff was too tight around the groin.
Everything I heard about him pointed to him being excellent at his job here, so it's a big loss. Hope we replace him adequately.
My feeling is if Mainoo was coming off the back of another strong season more people on here would be freaking out. Also look! Club promotes promising candidate into important role they haven't done before. I’m sure we will have our pick of outstanding candidates to replace Cox. I think we will probably see a more ruthless shift to the youth being used as another main revenue stream. As in players being brought in with the almost sole purpose of flipping them after a few loans for a big profit and reinvesting that money to sign the best available players in the world. We can sign these 16 year olds from 95% of the clubs around us and offer better training, wages and a bigger shop window and the fees are nearly always very low
From things I've read up it seems like a good appointment. We have completely revamped the backroom staff and part of that has been purchasing an analytics company and appointing their director at the club. I'm just glad that it appears as if we have a clear plan for the future of the club.
Its good to see that fans of other clubs can appreciate change and understand it.
Not like United fans then... if someone like that was appointed the whole forum would be like who is this person, he has only ever worked in an academy and has no technical director experience.
When you are working at high level, most of the skills are transferable and its also about the contacts he has made right, which will come to good use for you guys.
I think we are coming from two different angles though. You're coming from a position where you were the best in class in the country and have slowly deteriorated in the past decade to a point where you're still (just) in that zone where you're wanting the best in class again so there is a bit more scrutiny attached. You're also still one of the biggest clubs in the world. We are in a zone where it's been c. 40 years since we were one of the best teams in the league and 30 years since we last won a trophy so our sense of rebuilding and appreciation of change is a tad different.
Yeah I get that but appointing someone who has had the position is also different to appointing someone who can step up and shares your vision.
When you appoint a ready made CEO / DoF like Ashworth, they have been successful their way, those might not suit what the owners direction?
So whilst you have the "best in class" in name, in practice its a shit show. A bit like how we have signed players who have been top class but poor on the pitch.
In comparison to teams that do well, they buy players with potential who can become best in class.
Everton sure pulled our pants down on this one .......
This is Big news. A Black mark for INEOS, starting with Cox moving out from the backdoor.
So United broke his passion for football, hence going to Everton...
I don't get the big deal?
Its not like Cox has been producing amazing players for us... in the last 9 years since he became director or the academy... we haven't produced PL ready players.