Jason Wilcox - Director of Football

Bayern sources saying Vivell could leave as contract up in June 2027, the one smart person at club
 
davidmichael said:
This is exactly what I’ve said pretty much since Wilcox got the job based on his relationship with Berrada and that the similarities between Berrada and Wilcox and Woodward and Murtough are uncanny

Berrada and Woodward are both finances men who despite believing they’re qualified to make footballing decisions based on zero and have zero experience in doing so both specialise in commercial and sponsorship whilst Wilcox and Murtough are both youth academy men who were given the big job due to their relationship with the one above instead of being qualified for the role so both failed miserably due to the job being far too big for them and being massively inexperienced

We had on paper, qualifications and experience the right men for the CEO and Director Of Football roles already in place in Jean Claude Blanc and Dan Ashworth and let them both go for the fecking shambolic pairing we have now and I hope Ratcliffe is big enough to accept the titanic feck up he’s overseen in the past two years
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It's still insane to me we got rid of Ashworth mere months after paying loads of money for him. While this teams recruitment is definitely better than what we had before, Ashworth really feels like such a lost opportunity. Same with Rangnick before him, United's downfall over the last 13 years really has been a consistent case of constant missed opportunities. From the very get go when Moyes vetoes Thiago's signings, we just keep making the wrong decisions at every turn.
 
Zedd said:
It's still insane to me we got rid of Ashworth mere months after paying loads of money for him. While this teams recruitment is definitely better than what we had before, Ashworth really feels like such a lost opportunity. Same with Rangnick before him, United's downfall over the last 13 years really has been a consistent case of constant missed opportunities. From the very get go when Moyes vetoes Thiago's signings, we just keep making the wrong decisions at every turn.
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Yeah Ashworth and Ralf are missed opportunities particularly the latter as he had a real eye for talent
 
golden_blunder said:
I realise that there are restrictions on budget (for whatever reason I don’t know, one side says we had plenty of space to shop and the other side says they don’t want to increase credit debt)

BUT

If they knew this in advance why didn’t they look at the loan and free markets?

For example, don’t buy Santos at 50m if you’re buying Tielemans, Baleba and already have Mainoo. Investigate for example a loan for Camavinga. Use the 50m to buy Page and a left back.

Could have bought Welbeck for 5m

We’d all be sitting pretty thinking what a great window!
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What kind of loan would we have got a player like Camavinga on? Was he available? Did he want to move? According to AS he wanted to stay.

Neither of us know how the in's and out's of how transfers work, but one has to assume that if a club like Real are even considering letting a player like Camavinga leave, or go out on loan, then agents and intermediaries are informed, so that potentially interested clubs get informed.

It is not like a club thinks "oh, we may loan this player, but only if someone makes the call". If Real wanted to loan or sell Camavinga, they would have got word out. Anything else would be tantamount to wanting to sell, or rent, your house but not putting a sign outside or listing it wit an agent.

Didn't we hear the same happened with Ait-Nouri? Intermediaries informed United that City would consider a loan. United enquired and found that it wast only on the basis of an obligation with a large price to pay at the end of the loan.

I think there is a notion on here that United just sit on their hands and are not doing anything all summer. Im sure they are awaire of the situation of every player that may be a fit for United.
 
gaffs said:
What kind of loan would we have got a player like Camavinga on? Was he available? Did he want to move? According to AS he wanted to stay.

Neither of us know how the in's and out's of how transfers work, but one has to assume that if a club like Real are even considering letting a player like Camavinga leave, or go out on loan, then agents and intermediaries are informed, so that potentially interested clubs get informed.

It is not like a club thinks "oh, we may loan this player, but only if someone makes the call". If Real wanted to loan or sell Camavinga, they would have got word out.

Didn't we hear the same happened with Ait-Nouri? Intermediaries informed United that City would consider a loan. United enquired and found that it wast only on the basis of an obligation with a large price to pay at the end of the loan.

I think there is a notion on here that United just sit on their hands and are not doing anything all summer. Im sure they are awaire of the situation of every player that may be a fit for United.
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That was just an example as I said

You’re telling me that there’s nothing they they could have done? Nothing?
 
Smudger22587 said:
What kind of budgets are you working with at that level?
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Very roughly, at the clubs I spent the most time at, the annual budgets for the season are around 100k +/- 30k, and you build the squad around that into per weeks for the players.

On top of that you'll have some allowance for transfer fees and scouting costs depending on the club.
 
croadyman said:
Yeah Ashworth and Ralf are missed opportunities particularly the latter as he had a real eye for talent
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Rangnick must come with the most superficially enhanced reputations in the game. He stated a bunch of players who we 'could' have moved for one time in a press conference and has been treated as a genius from then on. I think we can all list successful transfers after the fact.

I'm not sure Ashworth was everything he was cracked up to be either. The main plaudits came from the job he did at Brighton, but they just look like a very stable, well run club across the board. I don't think you can attribute that success to one man.

I don't have any great interest in advocating or defending Jason Wilcox, talking about executives in this way is pretty tedious to me. I think it's fair to say he could've done a better job in the time he's been here, but it's also quite clear we're operating under financial constraints that probably aren't set by him. With that being the case, I don't think it's as simple as saying x or y would've done better in the same role.
 
gaffs said:
Yes, we could have taken some punts on midfielders at a cheaper price point to allow us to spread our budget further. But with that comes an increased risk.
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There’s ran amount of risk with anyone you sign, tielemans is an international captain, highly experienced, yet I’m not sure about him the most.

Santos and Baleba are risks for different reasons.

If it were me (which it wasn’t obviously) I wouldn’t have bought Santos, especially not for £50m.
 
CM said:
Rangnick must come with the most superficially enhanced reputations in the game. He stated a bunch of players who we 'could' have moved for one time in a press conference and has been treated as a genius from then on. I think we can all list successful transfers after the fact.
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If you ignore his brilliant work with RB
 
croadyman said:
Well CB is tricky unless they went for maybe Senesi on a free although think he wanted to stay near London. So after not getting Hall at LB I would have gone for Ait-Nouri on that loan with obligation after Algeria KO'd from World Cup. I would have gone all out for Chema and Sangare instead of Santos and Tielemans. Finally I would have took Welbeck on a two year deal from Brighton. So there you go it wasn't that difficult
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The way you post mate, you would have signed a dead cat, as long as you got the dopamine hit on deadline day!

All very well saying we should have done this, or that, but you don’t know that we didn’t make enquires into Welbeck or Sangare, and they wanted to go elsewhere. Just because Laurie Whitwell didn’t write about it, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
 
gaffs said:
Yes, we could have taken some punts on midfielders at a cheaper price point to allow us to spread our budget further. But with that comes an increased risk.
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Said this in another thread, but why do they have to be punts if we've revamped our data team and they're backed by data? That's what we're told Lammens was, I'm unsure why that's not an option.
 
CM said:
I'm not sure Ashworth was everything he was cracked up to be either. The main plaudits came from the job he did at Brighton, but they just look like a very stable, well run club across the board. I don't think you can attribute that success to one man.
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The FA - England DNA project and centralisation.

Brighton didn't miss him. Newcastle didn't get on with him.

He sounds to me like a 'project manager' type director who doesn't really have much expertise of his own.
 
golden_blunder said:
There’s ran amount of risk with anyone you sign, tielemans is an international captain, highly experienced, yet I’m not sure about him the most.

Santos and Baleba are risks for different reasons.

If it were me (which it wasn’t obviously) I wouldn’t have bought Santos, especially not for £50m.
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Or course, and like most investments, risk is priced in. You buy a blue chip stock, or a proven player, the price is normally high.

Re Tielemans, interesting that we were the only ones to trigger the release clause. Maybe every club knew but didn’t fancy him? Or maybe we are a little better in the market than we are given credit for? Either way, I think Tielemans is a really astute buy, given the price and the need for some experience in midfield now Casemiro has left.
 
ron86 said:
If you ignore his brilliant work with RB
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Fair point, I had forgotten about some of the players signed during that period. There were 4 or 5 that did develop into good or very good players. Same thing as mentioned with Ashworth though - can all of that be attributed to one person? I don't really know.

Has he really done much work in that kind of role before and since either? If he's that good at it, it's difficult to believe there's not a club out there making him an offer he can't refuse because identifying the best talents in such a lucrative industry is the skillset everybody wants. I think there's more nuance there than him being this guru responsible for all of it.
 
Lash said:
Said this in another thread, but why do they have to be punts if we've revamped our data team and they're backed by data? That's what we're told Lammens was, I'm unsure why that's not an option.
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Maybe the same data team looked at Santos and felt he was a good buy? Same for Baleba.

Data can tell you a lot, but it’s not the only indicator of success. It would seem that “Prem proven” is the strongest indicator or future success, which comes at a cost.

We all know how it goes at United. We expect our players to come in and perform from day one. If that doesn’t happen, game time becomes very limited. We’re not Brentford or Brighton, where they can afford to bed a player in, over time.
 
CM said:
Fair point, I had forgotten about some of the players signed during that period. There were 4 or 5 that did develop into good or very good players. Same thing as mentioned with Ashworth though - can all of that be attributed to one person? I don't really know.

Has he really done much work in that kind of role before and since either? If he's that good at it, it's difficult to believe there's not a club out there making him an offer he can't refuse because identifying the best talents in such a lucrative industry is the skillset everybody wants. I think there's more nuance there than him being this guru responsible for all of it.
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We honestly don't know, we can't say for certain either way and we never will know. He does seem more suited to the role than Jason Wilcox though, who's good work was as a head of academy. We will never really know what goes on though, unless this amazon documentary gets good
 
gaffs said:
Maybe the same data team looked at Santos and felt he was a good buy? Same for Baleba.

Data can tell you a lot, but it’s not the only indicator of success. It would seem that “Prem proven” is the strongest indicator or future success, which comes at a cost.

We all know how it goes at United. We expect our players to come in and perform from day one. If that doesn’t happen, game time becomes very limited. We’re not Brentford or Brighton, where they can afford to bed a player in, over time.
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I definitely think they did, but that's not what I was asking. I don't know why cheap = punt when you use data well. Obviously there's risk in any transfer, but that's the point of investing in data.

Is it though? There's plenty of prem-proven flops - I don't have the data on it, so would be interesting to see!

I know, but that doesn't change because they've come from the prem. I just don't like the claim that not buying from the prem, suddenly sky rockets your risk. That seems like a massive overcorrection and our signing of the season and best bang for buck, was a "cheap punt".
 
Posh Red said:
Has Ashworth ever worked as a director of football before?
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He was sporting or technical director at his other clubs (google), so as a title, then no, but he was in charge at Newcastle and the Baggies.
 
Posh Red said:
Has Ashworth ever worked as a director of football before?
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Yes he has, and he has demonstrated a proven ability to create a team that is proactive with and without the ball. Brighton to this day are following his blueprint.

A DoF ideally isn't one who should be identifying players to sign but rather it's the job of the heads of scouting to identify the players to sign. The DoF in his role should implement the vision and create the structure beneath him so that can then be carried through. Ashworth was never given that opportunity contrary to the bull spewed by INEOS via the media.

It's also important not to get lost in the semantics of the role as far as the title is concerned. Because football director, technical director etc can mean the same thing at different clubs.
 
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croadyman said:
Thing is we still have those players above bar Tielemans and Santos however academic now anyway. I know it will never happen but I don't understand not trying to sign a Guerriero or Zinchenko who are free agents. Obviously wages and age would kibosh any move for Benzema.
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I think I prefer Dorgu to Zinchenko as LB option myself at this point. Guerriero I don’t know so much.
 
Grande said:
I think I prefer Dorgu to Zinchenko as LB option myself at this point. Guerriero I don’t know so much.
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Looked quality at Dortmund but that was few years back, really hope we don't end up losing Vivell because this guy throwing his weight around
 
croadyman said:
Looked quality at Dortmund but that was few years back, really hope we don't end up losing Vivell because this guy throwing his weight around
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For all we know Vivell and Wilcox are best mates and work amazingly well together. Like where are ye getting this out of the Vivell isn't being listened to? None of us have a clue. As I said in the Vivell thread for all we know they are doing a really good job actually getting us 3rd cutting costs, lower the age in the squad and on a strict/tight budget

None of us have a clue what goes on behind the scenes at this club. We know the job titles but we don't know how much 'power' any of them really have. Maybe they have to run everything past Jim? We don't have a clue. I haven't seen any reports that Vivell is feeling passed over. Have you? Why would Bayern be after him if he's not been allowed to work for the last 2/3 years here? Why would he stick about if he's so highly rated?
 
Lash said:
I definitely think they did, but that's not what I was asking. I don't know why cheap = punt when you use data well. Obviously there's risk in any transfer, but that's the point of investing in data.

Is it though? There's plenty of prem-proven flops - I don't have the data on it, so would be interesting to see!

I know, but that doesn't change because they've come from the prem. I just don't like the claim that not buying from the prem, suddenly sky rockets your risk. That seems like a massive overcorrection and our signing of the season and best bang for buck, was a "cheap punt".
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None of us know the discussions that have taken place to come up with the signings they did. There may well have identified players outside of the Premier League who look great when the data is analysed, but when the lack of Prem football is overlaid on top, as well as the fact at United they are expected to perform from near day one, it it felts that it is better to go with players who are Prem proven.

The biggest factor is signing the right player, of course, but being proven in the Prem and settled in England is a massive factor. Especially at a time when we are in a massive hole due to the fact that we have almost nothing to sell. That's why i think, for now, we are taking a conservative strategy in the market. We cant afford any more busts that we have to loan year after year.

Data is great, but we have had players under Ten Hag, for example, that the manager can personally vouch for, that have shown they cant play in this league.
 
Andycoleno9 said:
If you look at them one by one, none of those players is a bad player, and it makes sense why they were bought — each of them has their own qualities. But none of them is top quality. The fact is, not one of them is the type of signing who is a nailed-on starter and someone you can say will be a central figure in the team.

We sacrificed quality for squad depth.

Kobbie Mainoo is a class above any of them.
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Agreed. I wanted Kobbie to be challenged but he's easily the best CM at the club.
 
CM said:
Fair point, I had forgotten about some of the players signed during that period. There were 4 or 5 that did develop into good or very good players. Same thing as mentioned with Ashworth though - can all of that be attributed to one person? I don't really know.

Has he really done much work in that kind of role before and since either? If he's that good at it, it's difficult to believe there's not a club out there making him an offer he can't refuse because identifying the best talents in such a lucrative industry is the skillset everybody wants. I think there's more nuance there than him being this guru responsible for all of it.
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Rangnick went into international management after his stint at Utd so not much to glean there. And he got lots of praise prior to that.
 
Overhaul FC said:
As I said to another poster earlier in the window, I've worked as a head coach and assistant coach for over 20 years. I've had my experience with recruitment and created great teams at different levels of the game.

Recruitment is key. Football coaching is there regardless to develop players to their max potential but the easiest, quickest and most proven way to improve a starting 11 is to replace poor players with others that are better or have higher potential to work with.

The way the financial rules have changed now means academy players are just more likely to be sold anyway. So you sell them to make money, rather than realising the savings by growing them for your own first teams.

In the Premier League, and other European Leagues you've seen time and time again a new club come in with investment and very quickly get to the top 4 or challenge for the league in the country. In more recent years we've also seen clubs buy cheaper but well using data and analytics, the only issue for the smaller clubs is knowing that one day they have to realise the profit and sell the player to keep their club going.

The big clubs have no excuse. They can buy smarter with more money, and one player at a time they can make their starting 11 better. Liverpool did it to win the League and Champions League. PSG ditched the Madrid style galactico model to prove they can do it without the very biggest names.

Manchester United can buy smart and still spend money to improve the starting 11. They didn't do it this summer and that's why I criticise them. Expectations are way too low in our fan base. We should expect them to spend well if not big.
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What money? I've asked a number of posters this question and haven't got an answer. If your reply is similar to the other guy who said 'i don't know that's for management to figure out'. Then you don't have an argument.
 
Drainy said:
3rd if you exclude the 'sporting rivalries' like Arsenal

Liverpool
Leeds
City

Its only since Abu Dhabi they became relevant, and its an advertisement of a country now not a football club. Man City is dead and gone. Just a flesh suit being worn by something else
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Not for me, and most I grew up knowing Manchester. They're number 1. I think they are for either Scholes or Neville, too. Think it was Scholes. Depends on where you grew up in Manchester.
 
gaffs said:
None of us know the discussions that have taken place to come up with the signings they did. There may well have identified players outside of the Premier League who look great when the data is analysed, but when the lack of Prem football is overlaid on top, as well as the fact at United they are expected to perform from near day one, it it felts that it is better to go with players who are Prem proven.

The biggest factor is signing the right player, of course, but being proven in the Prem and settled in England is a massive factor. Especially at a time when we are in a massive hole due to the fact that we have almost nothing to sell. That's why i think, for now, we are taking a conservative strategy in the market. We cant afford any more busts that we have to loan year after year.

Data is great, but we have had players under Ten Hag, for example, that the manager can personally vouch for, that have shown they cant play in this league.
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No, I know, but you understand what I'm saying right? I know someone with prem experience is likely going to come top of the pile, because we obviously value it high. But say Hall scored 96 (just for arguments sake they generate a /100 score), taking into all the key metrics for a premier league full back. We knew he's likely cost £50m+. Are we saying there is no one even close to that score, that wouldn't cost £50m+ and adjusted to premier league standard?

Lammens would have likely scored less than Martinez, but his price and age obvioulsy would have come into the thinking. I don't quite understand why we've gone so conservative.

I'm not really sure what that has to do with the point I'm making, because the work done on data revamp should be in part creating or using a data model, that creates the metrics we want people to score high in. You then have to adjust the metrics in other leagues to account for your assumptions (prem is more physical, vertical, etc). As a Lammens example (quite proud of that pun), he scored extremely high in claiming crosses in the Belgian league. In raw numbers, probably better than Martinez, but you obviously have to account for the fact that it's the Belgian league. Taking that into account, I bet it still had him close to Martinez levels. I still don't quite see how we can praise the team for the Lammens signing and how they did it, but say it's not the right approach for the LB, that's all.
 
davidmichael said:
This is exactly what I’ve said pretty much since Wilcox got the job based on his relationship with Berrada and that the similarities between Berrada and Wilcox and Woodward and Murtough are uncanny

Berrada and Woodward are both finances men who despite believing they’re qualified to make footballing decisions based on zero and have zero experience in doing so both specialise in commercial and sponsorship whilst Wilcox and Murtough are both youth academy men who were given the big job due to their relationship with the one above instead of being qualified for the role so both failed miserably due to the job being far too big for them and being massively inexperienced

We had on paper, qualifications and experience the right men for the CEO and Director Of Football roles already in place in Jean Claude Blanc and Dan Ashworth and let them both go for the fecking shambolic pairing we have now and I hope Ratcliffe is big enough to accept the titanic feck up he’s overseen in the past two years
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Still CEO of Ineos Sport last I checked? Did something change
 
I've said a similar thing in the Christopher Vivell thread but frankly, the scathing criticisms of Jason Wilcox I so often see here seem to me to be fairly vacuous because nobody here actually has any meaningful knowledge of what goes on behind the scenes.

It's especially frustrating to me when I see decisions that were made under his watch that seem to have turned out well (Lammens' signing, Carrick's interim appointment) dismissed as "flukes" which he had nothing to do with. At that point, I really have to assume that people are just starting from the conclusion that Wilcox is an idiot and moulding the facts around that.

I'm not even trying to argue that Wilcox has a brilliant track record here but the way some people talk about him, you'd never assume that we had a reasonably good season last season off the back of a strong transfer window and a successful course correction with the manager.
 
Eleven-Eighteen said:
Still CEO of Ineos Sport last I checked? Did something change
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I’m not sure on whether he left that role too but he was initially on our board of directors when Ratcliffe first came in and all the talk then was that Blanc was a certainty for that job based on his qualifications, experience and prior success yet was overlooked in favour of Berrada who’s never been a CEO and had been a sponsorship guy at Barca and a commercial guy at City, when he became COO it was of City Football Group as a whole rather than City themselves

I’ve never taken over a multi billion company that was struggling financially and practically but I’d imagine if I did the first thing I’d do is put experienced people who had a proven track record of success into the top roles so there would be a solid foundation to build from, Blanc as CEO and Ashworth as Director Of Football overseeing all just made perfect sense and so much so that United being United obviously didn’t do it
 
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