It was definitely a selling point for Mourinho. It was why he was pining for the job while SAF was here.
Has hiring Ole permanently made finding a "Sporting Director" more difficult?
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No question. LVG and Jose may have had the leverage to keep a DOF out of the discussion, but I can’t see Ole having the same influence. Some person or persons are fulfilling the role behind the scenes and the club seems content with that.
Managers at the vast majority of football clubs will have a level of accountability within the recruitment process. Klopp, you expect, will have been fully involved in the process of buying that new lad. Much similar to the way Ole will have been involved in the decision to buy Dan James.
True. When someone is doing quite well at part of the job it’s hard to justify sacking them unless the failures in other areas dwarf the successes.
But again, last summer shows we didn’t have a budget more than 18 other clubs, we spent far less than that. 4th or 5th most based on net spend. If that is our net spend then we are in huge trouble as the rebuild will take another 2 summers at this rate for us to-even contemplate a solid run at top 4. If we continue to operate a spend of max 100mill, unless it’s James type signings we will be lucky to bring in 2 players. With a squad so thin, only one left of high value is Pogba, which looks to be a hard sell at the moment as well.
Woodward his hiding the planned spend for sponsor and ego purposes. Came into the role with a “we can do things in the market other clubs can only dream of” quote, continues similar to sponsors so they sign deals with us.
Proof is there. Jose’s last summer window we spent only 50mill on Fred and a youth signing in Dalot, not a lot of activity last summer either when you consider all the outgoings. Spending is drastically reduced and would be foolish to think things will drastically change with us struggling to make CL as it is.
A sporting director will help, but each season the kitty will only average 100mill and that’s a fact until we sneak back into too 4 for consecutive seasons.
If they are not against it themselves, then there is no logical argument left as to why they won't do this now, you can't just keep doing the same thing and expect a different result, or wait until someone happens to come along with some good ideas, as you alluded to with Nicky Butt in the U21's.
We are crying out for someone to put us back on the right path, sort out the mismatched and bloated squad, get the wages under control, and give us continuity when we change the manager, and I can't believe that Ole is the only one standing in the way of this happening.
There is a logical argument, they aren't actively involved, they weren't under SAF and aren't now. Under SAF all football related ideas came from him, he was the club and I suspect that they have no clue about what is not working and why. I personally think that they are distant and lack guts, they will avoid any sort of radical change or risks unless someone from the inside suggests it and since our board members are either old school or have zero experience in football outside of United, we aren't going to get any "new" ideas regarding the manager role. That's why I think that it can only come from the manager, Klopp wanted to work with a DOF and Liverpool formally created that role almost a year after his appointment.
If only the muppets running the club stuck to the original plan after sacking Jose. We wouldn't be in this much shit.
We've never wanted a DoF. Woodward confirmed thurs recently. Previous reports were to shut fans up and take heat off Woodward.
There is because it stops Woodward running things. Woodward prioritises commercial values over sporting ones. So do the Glazers.
A fantastic exemplification of the current fan base. I'm all for supporting managers but if one is underperoming as bad as Solskjaer is it becomes butt licking.
Safe of firing Woodward, the CEO will keep running things. And what do you mean by commercial values over sporting ones? Are you talking about our transfer activities, because most of our signings have clearly not been of the marketable type.
I can agree with all that, but what I struggle with is that are seemingly so passive towards an asset that has been so good to them, it seems so obvious what needs to be done, and they aren't idiots, so surely you can see why I struggle with the bulk of your 'nostagla' theory.
To me it's the loss of control they worry about, hence the clearly lacking, but trusted Woodward still ruling all.
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I was about to post this, an experienced DOF would rack up players and say 'there you go'. The neck of him to say its difficult for Manchester United to sign 3 players in a window is disgraceful and shows the mentality of the board. Its like the football gets in their way of running a football club
Having Fletcher and Rio in public consideration shows how serious it actually was, to then flip flop saying we don't need one now as we signed 2 England players all by ourselves (pats on back)
But they will never lose control, that's the part that makes no sense. You are saying something that has no possible reality, the owners and the CEO can't lose control to a subaltern, a DOF doesn't break the current hierarchy. If by lose control you mean delegate then it's worth noting that they already are delegating, the only difference is that the manager would lose a part of his current responsibilities.
This is also the way I interpret the DOF. They sit as a mediator between the manager and the owners / Woodward. They do not disrupt the hierarchy, merely restructure the responsibility.
The problem right now is Solskjaer is enacting the role of a DOF with no credible ability to back this level of risk. Less than 5% of managers in world football deserve the SAF treatment of ultimate directive responsibility governing the coaching, recruitment, long term vision of the club.
In my honest opinion a manager should directly influence the present, here and now process of a teams function. The long term aspirations should come from the DOF which liaises with the manager so they can compromise a collective path to success.
It means if the manager fails with his responsibility, the club can find a replacement and stay on the same track without deviating into varying degrees of a sustained direction. This explains why we have gone from possession based LVG providing resources and failing, to pragmatic Mourinho providing resources and failing, to pragmatic / counter attacking Solskjaer where we are in the process of providing resources and look to inevitably be failing.
Ole is simply added weight to a load that is of no use.
Its clear that football isnt the first priority of this club and hasnt been since the Glazers took over and nothing will truly change until they go.
I think when we do buy, which is less and less, we tend to either purchase young players who have a good resale value on long contracts, or we buy in old guys with big names, big salaries and bad legs on frees. Yes there are exceptions but that's the general pattern.
That strategy is more important than team coherence. Meanwhile the Glazers give every indication that they would be happy just to hit fourth place every season - the financial sweet spot of highest return on investment.
A sporting director would have to challenge these things or else what's the point of being there? He would be a long term appointment, not a weak transitional figure who owes his position to Ed's generosity. Ed would not be running many of the things he currently is running.
Judge does the detailed contractual stuff, but surely the agents’ initial sales pitch will be direct to Woodward. Along the lines of what a great strategy Ed’s put in place and how the agent has just the player to fit in with it.
No it's not the general pattern, you somehow managed to take the exceptions, turned them into a pattern and also made up a negative narrative around the two categories that you picked. Like almost every clubs we have mainly signed players that are between 18 and 30 with a majority of them betwee 20 and 26 which is fairly normal. We haven't purchased a single player with the idea of selling him, so the resale value argument is strange. As for the older players, we signed them because the managers wanted them Schweinsteiger had history with LVG while Ibrahimovic and Matic were Mourinho's men while Sanchez was the "juicest orange", that's four signings out of at least two dozens and only one was free.
The strategy that doesn't exist, since the profile of our signings has always been linked to our managers, it also has nothing to do with financial sweet spot and that's probably the most ridiculous argument possible because, we have overspent massively, when your wage bill is at 330m in 2019 you spend almost twice as much as CL finalists Spurs, spend far more than Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal, we have extremely inefficient spendings and it's not close to the highest return on investment, we are also not even able to make top 4 most years.
As for the sporting director, he challenges nothing, when he is hired he is given a mission, if it was to be a Europa League team and sometimes reach top 4 then that's exactly what he would work for, like all the other sporting directors with the same mission.
Maybe loss of control is the wrong turn of phrase then, perhaps if I say hiring a top DOF, one who is independent, and who has a reputation as a top performer, (which would surely be the point of getting one), will maybe force them to do things they are uncomfortable with, as his reputation is on the line to make things work for us finally, and this is why we are not seeing it.
I'm not saying that the Glazers, or Woodward as CEO, can't veto the DOF's plans, of course they can, but that's the point, they know before they hire one that they are going to have to do things they don't want to, and hiring a yes man as a DOF is utterly pointless, and will cause more trouble than it's worth, as people will expect them to get results quickly, when in reality they are just a middle man with very little power.
To me this makes far more sense, than our owners just sitting back, and playing the nostalgia card, whilst we continue to slide further down the hill, why would they be so passive to their prime assets reputation been slowly eroded, other than fear of anyone other than Woodward at least in part running things, and he clearly doesn't want it.
At best they are flaying around desperate for something to finally work without implementing major change, but it's not going to happen.
Tbh I'm not sure anything makes sense as to why we are still doing what we are.
I don't see how that is any different to signing big personalities like say LVG or Mourinho as managers without a DoF.
There are several issues with your post. First a DOF is never independent, their work is actually made difficult by the existence of dependencies, geographical, financial and football related, a good DOF knows that and works around/with it and adapt. The second point is probably the most important it's about the "reputation as a top performer" that's not really a thing for DOFs, if you look around you will notice that currently successful DOFs don't move and that most of them come from the inside or weren't doing that job before, you need to look at the person's skills and its fit with your club in particular, that's why Monchi works at Sevilla but not at Roma, why Leonardo who had less experience and success than Antero Enrique works at PSG while Antero didn't, that's why you see Abidal, Zorc, Overmars, Edwards in their current clubs as DOFs.
One of the reasons we are not seeing it is that a club that has never had this role won't know where to start because it's one of those football jobs that aren't based on a CV, it's based on picking someone for his skills in relation to your particular needs.
With all due respect my point was obviously that a DOF worth his salt is going to exert pressure for major change, as that is something we so clearly need, and perhaps that is going to be something the Glazers/Woodward are going to be uncomfortable with, for whatever reasons. If they hire one and nothing much changes then that will just make things worse, which I'm sure they are aware of.
You are saying they are just sat back and waiting to see what is going happen, are worried about doing things differently for fear of going against our tradition, etc, and will not force change on grounds of nostalgia, to me that just seems a crazy approach now for such successful businessmen, on the back of what we have seen since SAF left, but I don't know, perhaps simple explanation like that is actually right.
I'm sorry if I'm misread your point. But again it's a confusing point because why would you assume that they wouldn't support the DOF in his attempt to reach the goals that they set him? That's exactly what they did with Butt and what they did with our managers allowing them to overhaul their staffs and the scouting teams.
Surely you understand my surprise? Fundamentally we are on the same side, we both have an issue with the Glazers and Woodward but your points don't match with recent history, it doesn't match with what the club has done when someone actually tried to do his job for the benefit of the club, the example being Butt. That's why I put it on the managers because I look at what Butt was allowed to do, I look at what Moyes, Mourinho and LVG were allowed to do with for example LVG requesting actual changes on the training ground. I look at Liverpool and I see a club that didn't had a DOF but had a manager that wanted one and it simply happened, that's why I think that the managers that we have picked didn't want one and for that reason we didn't try to bring one. If a manager say, "we absolutely need a DOF, I'm only a head coach" then I'm pretty sure that we will have one quickly whether he is good or not.
Also I don't really understand why some think that a DOF would be the first actual example of a club employee that isn't listened or supported in a job that they gave him. My only worry about a DOF is that I don't trust our lot to appoint one that fits the club though it may be a misplaced distrust because they did hire Butt.
Likewise you can surely understand my issue with your idea behind what's going on? To just say they are sticking to our traditions whist watching us disappear down the drain does seem a little far fetched, as does them just waiting for a manager to come in to tell them 'we absolutely need a DOF' for them to just then do it. We have now had four managers since SAF, three have failed badly, and Ole is clearly struggling, all of which has been done on the back of unprecedented spending, would it not be sensible to now try something different, and not just wait for something to happen? The 'nostalgia' bit is also hard to swallow given the sort of people they seemingly are, I just don't see them caring about that.
I agree there are also major holes in what I say, but outside looking in it looks like Woodward is totally untouchable, and we are holding off getting someone who can at least try to genuinely change things, for reasons I can't understand.
In many ways it isn't, but LvG ,and Initially Jose were hired when we went on our mad spending binge, I'm sure Woodward thought it was going to be easy. All they had to do was hire a 'top manager', and spend a load of cash, I'm not sure much due diligence was done with many of the decisions at all, we just took the lazy, battering ram approach.
On the back of all that failure you'd think we would do things differently, but for reasons unknown there just seems to no appetite at all to do it, no matter what spin they want to put on what's going on now.
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I hate to say it, but it’s clear that someone in the organization has done the calculations and concluded winning the PL is bad business. There’s more return in spending the minimum necessary to keep the fans. That’s what this season has been all about. Club hero manager (cheap, fans extra patient), academy players (cheap, fans extra patient for academy products), selling off expensive players (revenue), staying with range of Top 4 (keeps fans hoping), talking about a long term plan and DOF and the other right things (free, keeps fans hoping). You don’t need a DOF if the goal is CL football once in a while and mounting a title run isn’t even on the radar.
This theory fall flat when you consider our wage bill and the actual amount of money spent on players registrations and we don't sell players for profit. We are just very bad at the football management thing.
I feel this is very likely, we all know that money is the main priority for the owners. I've said quite a few times that the owners aren't willing to invest to get us back to the absolute top. I honestly believe that the second we establish ourselves back in the top 4 the transfer funds will be minimal. There's no ambition beyond making money.
Wouldn’t surprise me if the PL eventually turned into Ligue 1 once Liverpool inevitably fade away; City playing the role of PSG and no one else able (or willing) to compete with them financially.
Hiring Ole has made EVERYTHING more difficult.
Playing good progressive football.
Attracting players.
Getting results.
Firing a visibly mediocre manager
Having anyone in the media comment on these things
Feck a DOF. Everything else is screwed due to hiring a sentimental strategic choice of manager.
Playing good progressive football.
Attracting players.
Getting results.
Firing a visibly mediocre manager
Having anyone in the media comment on these things
Feck a DOF. Everything else is screwed due to hiring a sentimental strategic choice of manager.
A sporting director has never really been considered, clearly Ed Woodward thinks he can do the role, what David Gill was to Fergie. The problem is Ole is no Fergie & Woodward is no Gill...
Its an outdated concept, as Fergie ran the club with an iron fist, but no one can be allowed that much control anymore, as managers don't stay as long as Fergie did. When one manager goes, the next one has been allowed to go in another direction, and it's left us with a disjointed squad, with the likes of crocks Messrs Bailly, Rojo & Jones stuck on high wages and long term deals, stinking up the treatment room. The only continuity we have had is Woodward, it say's it all...
A sporting director should oversee the sporting side of the club, and support the manager, agree transfer targets and work with the clubs legal people to bring those players in, sell the club and the sporting vision of the club, not just the history of it. Someone like Darren Fletcher is a candidate for me speaks very well, clearly articulate and understands the problems as the club. He would have to be given control overall sporting decisions, including pre-agreed transfer budgets etc, but he mustn't be a Woodward fall guy or puppet.
In terms of Ole, he has the right sentiments, and I have been firmly Ole In until now.
The team selection and general management of the squad and the club overall seems flawed. This is compounded by the fact, that a very average but yet very experienced player in Ashley Young turns down a Man Utd contract extension, when we the squad is ridiculously short of senior pro's - like him or not, he always played for the badge.
I am wavering, although Im not calling for Ole's head just yet... The ultimate blame has to be with Ed Woodward, we have not learned from our mistakes. We have spent a fortune, we owe clubs £100m's in transfer fees still and our wage bill is as high as its ever has been, all overseen in Woodwards tenure.
I wouldnt be surprised if we didnt have the money to do the business that's needed. We are 5th but still seem a million miles away from being a Champions League club again, which we really need to get the revenues and sponsorship deal to keep rolling in.
Its a real mess folks, somehow we need to get 4th this year to give us platform to attract the right calibre of players in the summer, I just dont see how we get there though and if we do, do we have the money and the guile without a sporting director to make a difference with recruitment?
Its an outdated concept, as Fergie ran the club with an iron fist, but no one can be allowed that much control anymore, as managers don't stay as long as Fergie did. When one manager goes, the next one has been allowed to go in another direction, and it's left us with a disjointed squad, with the likes of crocks Messrs Bailly, Rojo & Jones stuck on high wages and long term deals, stinking up the treatment room. The only continuity we have had is Woodward, it say's it all...
A sporting director should oversee the sporting side of the club, and support the manager, agree transfer targets and work with the clubs legal people to bring those players in, sell the club and the sporting vision of the club, not just the history of it. Someone like Darren Fletcher is a candidate for me speaks very well, clearly articulate and understands the problems as the club. He would have to be given control overall sporting decisions, including pre-agreed transfer budgets etc, but he mustn't be a Woodward fall guy or puppet.
In terms of Ole, he has the right sentiments, and I have been firmly Ole In until now.
The team selection and general management of the squad and the club overall seems flawed. This is compounded by the fact, that a very average but yet very experienced player in Ashley Young turns down a Man Utd contract extension, when we the squad is ridiculously short of senior pro's - like him or not, he always played for the badge.
I am wavering, although Im not calling for Ole's head just yet... The ultimate blame has to be with Ed Woodward, we have not learned from our mistakes. We have spent a fortune, we owe clubs £100m's in transfer fees still and our wage bill is as high as its ever has been, all overseen in Woodwards tenure.
I wouldnt be surprised if we didnt have the money to do the business that's needed. We are 5th but still seem a million miles away from being a Champions League club again, which we really need to get the revenues and sponsorship deal to keep rolling in.
Its a real mess folks, somehow we need to get 4th this year to give us platform to attract the right calibre of players in the summer, I just dont see how we get there though and if we do, do we have the money and the guile without a sporting director to make a difference with recruitment?
While it’s not something I’d particularly like to see, I can envisage a situation where Ole is “promoted” to DOF in order to make room for a new manager.
As daft as it might sound, it’d probably fit the current regime better than any other option right now:
As daft as it might sound, it’d probably fit the current regime better than any other option right now:
- Saves them from the PR fiasco of having to fire a club legend
- They know Ole isn’t going to ruffle too many feathers or push back against Woodward/the board
- Ole knows and loves the club, has a clear vision of “the Man Utd way” and a philosophy that - on paper - is sound. Execution has been the letdown, which could be improved with a better manager taking care of what happens on the field
- Probably avoids having to pay a settlement for firing Ole as manager before the end of his contract
- If things don’t work out, it’ll be less of a circus if Ole moves on from the DOF role than the manager role
