What, he was pushed into the DoF position against his will, and has no responsibility for his performance? In any case. None of that has any bearing on his being useless as a DoF, or on his departure being a case of good riddance. So that's really not much of a point.
John Murtough Sack Watch
- Thread starter luke511
- Start date
What, he was pushed into the DoF position against his will, and has no responsibility for his performance? In any case. None of that has any bearing on his being useless as a DoF, or on his departure being a case of good riddance. So that's really not much of a point.
Time to change thread title
I think you misdiagnose the issues a bit, he could have been a success as he has led the club in identifying and signing some of the best young players who are making impressions at first team level. Even the thought process behind signing ETH was correct, under Woodward we would have gone for Pochettino and be as fecked as Chelsea are.
Where he went wrong, in my view, was in abdicating his responsibilities for first team recruitment to ETH and not trusted his scouts more. He should have been firmer with ETH and told him no on the Antony deal for example. ETH didn't run recruitment at Ajax, we took him up several levels from the Dutch League to the PL and then gave him more responsibility than he had at Ajax! Who does that? If he had avoided the Antony mistake most probably the Casemiro one doesn't look as bad because he'd have had funds to bolster the team in other areas.
This job is not as tough as its being made out to be if one exercises good judgement and is cautious. You have scouts working across the globe bringing you a variety of options, you immediately get many contacts on appointment and all you need to do is make the right calls to protect your club. It's a huge missed opportunity for him, he was over promoted beyond his track record but he can only blame himself for failing.
The funny thing is, all staff received an email asking for a contribution for him leaving, I'm sure he's not short of a few quid!
Crazy to think that the FA Youth Cup winning team he put together, just delivered us 2 goalscorers in the final today.
As Utd work simultaneously on about 7 deals, can’t help but spare a thought for big John.
Sat at home ruefully shaking his head at all this activity, muttering “one does not simply submit bids for more than one player at a time….amateurs. Anyway, it’s about that time of the evening to send my customary saucy pictures to Veronique Rabiot - I’ll show her a Murtough madness”
Sat at home ruefully shaking his head at all this activity, muttering “one does not simply submit bids for more than one player at a time….amateurs. Anyway, it’s about that time of the evening to send my customary saucy pictures to Veronique Rabiot - I’ll show her a Murtough madness”
With state of our team and talk about another rebuilding, this thread is worth bumping for reminder how much long term damage one wrong appointment can do and how well we did our last "rebuilding".
As being responsible for our last rebuilding this guy spent 520 million pounds on 20 players (mostly on high wages).
Onana
Bayandir
Heaton
Dubravka
Butland
Reguilon
Varane
Lisandro
Evans
Malacia
Casemiro
Amrabat
Sabitzer
Eriksen
Mount
Sancho
Antony
Hojlund
Cristiano
Weghorst
9 players already left as flops, 11 who are still here are not good enough (or even worse) but we are stuck with them.
Anyway, well done John.
As being responsible for our last rebuilding this guy spent 520 million pounds on 20 players (mostly on high wages).
Onana
Bayandir
Heaton
Dubravka
Butland
Reguilon
Varane
Lisandro
Evans
Malacia
Casemiro
Amrabat
Sabitzer
Eriksen
Mount
Sancho
Antony
Hojlund
Cristiano
Weghorst
9 players already left as flops, 11 who are still here are not good enough (or even worse) but we are stuck with them.
Anyway, well done John.
Happy New Year, John
He was worse than Woodward. I will die on this hill. Woodward at least brought in world class players who without proper management would still carry us. This piece of shit with no credentials ran the club into the ground.
Who knew a mediocre football director from Everton would be a disaster?
What is there to die for? It is not even a contest between those two.
John Murtough, a man who'd been brought into the club in 2013 along with David Moyes and should have been sacked along with him.
Is he still here???
Ah well, if anyone bothered to argue otherwise
He has a new job
Does he want Hojlund back?
Hire Ten Hag and buy Hojlund immediately.
It's nice to see more and more english coaches, players and executives work outside of England.
Hojlund for Ederson swap deal incoming 
No choice since Brexit and the country going to shit.
From ALL our decisions in last decade, logic behind his appointment still strikes me the most.
1. What were Glazers and Arnold thinking there? You have 5 billion worth company and for one of most crucial positions you hire a guy who never worked on that job? While you have funds and reputation to hire basically every DoF in the world.
2. How on earth Murtough thought that giving manager 100% control in transfers is a way to be a DoF?
3. How any remotely competent person can think that paying double or triple current market price for players is a good business?
4. Which goes very under the radar; What was Arnold doing/thinking back then? Guy who said that United were burning money on bad signings gave green light for Antony, Hojlund and Mount.
Even average football fans knew back then that those are bad transfers.
I simply can't understand all this.
1. What were Glazers and Arnold thinking there? You have 5 billion worth company and for one of most crucial positions you hire a guy who never worked on that job? While you have funds and reputation to hire basically every DoF in the world.
2. How on earth Murtough thought that giving manager 100% control in transfers is a way to be a DoF?
3. How any remotely competent person can think that paying double or triple current market price for players is a good business?
4. Which goes very under the radar; What was Arnold doing/thinking back then? Guy who said that United were burning money on bad signings gave green light for Antony, Hojlund and Mount.
Even average football fans knew back then that those are bad transfers.
I simply can't understand all this.
Hojlund for Ederson swap deal incoming
We should be looking at swapping players more. For instances, Garnacho (plus a bit of cash) for Osimhen. Hojlund for Ederson. Antony for someone good in Spain or Portugal etc.
>>Garantisco di avere la possibilità di estrarre il massimo delle commissioni di trasferimento dal Manchester United. Sono lì per essere presi ed è imperativo mungere i soldi il più rapidamente possibile. Ecco perché sono stato assunto e prenderò una percentuale dei profitti.<<
If anyone speaks Italian, this was the statement. Mentioned us, assume he said we're shit just like McT said.
If anyone speaks Italian, this was the statement. Mentioned us, assume he said we're shit just like McT said.
Never really bothered learning much about him but I can't imagine any director of football has ever made the number of terrible signings in such a condensed period of time.
Made Woodward look like a transfer guru.
Made Woodward look like a transfer guru.
Top marks for effort.
Presumably this is his commission form the Hojlund deal.
We should be looking to sue Woodward, Arnold and Murtough on court for negligence and sheer incompetency.
Even a random football idiot fan can't make so many mistakes they did on signing shit players on enormous wages.
Unbelievable incompetency or corruption?
Even a random football idiot fan can't make so many mistakes they did on signing shit players on enormous wages.
Unbelievable incompetency or corruption?
I am curious: why didn't you include ETH? Most of the players were his former players, and he knew better than everyone how good they were!
How anyone thinking about employing that smug faced fraud has obviously not not the chaos he left behind at OT
To be fair, if you read half the posts in the football forum here, the random idiot fan wouldn’t be any better. But I take your point.
Condolences to Atalanta and their fans. If i were one of them id be very worried after watching how this man concluded the Hojlund's deal.
Probably the most meak football man ever. Never put a challenge to his superior (Woodward) and inferior (ETH). No wonder they loved him.
Probably the most meak football man ever. Never put a challenge to his superior (Woodward) and inferior (ETH). No wonder they loved him.
Because manager doesn't call the shots. His job is to demand or ask what he wants but DoF is the one whos primary job is to decide who to buy and CEO's primary job is to take care for financial aspect. So, Murtough and Arnold were in fault there.
Erik's crime is that he sucks in recruitment which is not his fault only. If you give monkey to drive your car, it is your fault not monkey's.
For months before I read an article about him, I thought he was Richard Arnold and vice versa. Which didn't seem right to me. Then I saw him on the paper and yeah that's a face that fits the name "John".
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I wouldn't put Ed there, tbh. Not saying that he did good job as "DoF" but scroll through transfer threads of his signings. Nearly all fans were on the same page with him regarding signings.
Zlatan, Pogba, Mikhi, Bailly, Martial, Schneiderlin, Herrera, Di Maria, Falcao.....fans were delighted when we signed them.
And tbf, lots of Ed's signings were logical at that moment. And some of them even proved as good signings (Herrera, Zlatan, Bruno, Shaw (?)). Unlike Murtough's where it was obvious from the start that it is a bad call. Murtough signed 20 players and only Varane maybe was a solid signing.
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Yes, Woodward lacked the understanding how to coherently build a team and have a real strategy (which becomes really obvious when you look at his manager signings), but in itself most player signings looked like good ideas at least.
This. Surprised he got another job at all.
Well Atalanta benefited greatly out of the man first with Amad (19m for a player whom, at the time, had barely played any first team football) and then Hojlund. According to transfermarkt Hojlund is 1 and Diallo is 11 in terms of record transfers received by Atalanta.
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But then, Amad could very well become a 70mil+ player, Hojlund sold maybe for 20mil+, so it'd would make it 50/50. Like a swap deal with neither club paying any money on top.