Probably pretty safe to assume that Woodward's bragging was, as usual, arrant nonsense.
This. We have a DOF, it just isn’t one guy. It’s a group of people doing all the functions of a DOF. As long as they’re doing the job well it shouldn’t matter since as you say, decisions are made at the top at every club.
I believe that was done, but purely focussing on scouting and not necessarily data driven. It does sound like a big over though.
That just means we have collected a lot of data, this new team will be responsible for developing the algorithms that process and analyse that data (and data on our own players) so we make properly informed decisions on recruitment and retention, plus other things like injury prevention.
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I was waiting for someone to post this all morning. I doubt anyone cares anymore seeing as things aren’t going so badly. Was always fashionable nonsense to me personally.
They like the way Ajax pass and move.
100% agree
And do you think a manager would have a higher or lower chance of bombing with a squad he built or one someone else did?
Pretty much. A Sporting Director is only as good as... the Sporting Director you employ. There are people within the fanbase, and on this forum, who seem to think that hiring one is a panacea for all of our problems. Muppets who genuinely believe that bringing in some fancy Dan from Italy and Spain (who might never have stepped foot in Manchester, let alone understand the fabric of the club) will solve everything, simply because they’ve been in charge of a club when they brought in some exciting kid from River Plate or Santos.
Of course building the squad should be down to the manager, why put him in an environment having to manage players he doesn't want or need to implement his style? You're setting him up fail. You use Liverpool as an example but do you really think Klopp would put up being given players he doesn't want? He'd be straight out of the door, the same with Pep
I don't really follow this.
Unless you are proposing that the manager should have no say/veto in the players we bring in, then that is no different to the model we have currently, just with a DoF being replaced in the process by a bunch of guys with a less fashionable title.
You just re-emphasise my point, the need for a DOF is to hire the right manager rather than the players
Outside of the owner no one should have a veto. And the problem with our current model is the lack of continuity, one of the good thing with having a competent director of football is that you don't end up with a succession such as Moyes to LVG to Mourinho to Ole, there is no logic in that it has led to a lot of wasted money due to continuously chopping and changing the team to fit with the new manager. That's highly inefficient from a football and money standpoint. But in all situations everyone needs to work together and find a common ground, no one should purposely ignore the other.
No, it's to do both.
But you don't need to do the players if you have the right manager
You always need to do the players for two reasons, the first reason is that your scope is limited to the length of currently signed contracts, the current manager and players may want to leave at the end of their contracts which means that you need to have a plan on how to replace them and know which type of players you will have or which type of managers will fit with it, you don't start with a blank page. So you have to take decisions that are to some extent independent to the current manager.
Shame on you, Ole won't need replacing!
United have divested responsibility into the football management side, led by Solskjaer and Mike Phelan, and the recruitment side, headed by Marcel Bout (head of global scouting), Mick Court (technical chief scout) & Jim Lawlor (chief scout). Stephen Brown links the scouts and science & data.
I'd say it's more stupid than dangerous, but yes, you are right.
It’s not that simple. How do you discern? And what even qualifies you to discern? You have referenced Liverpool. What if signings like Milner, Robertson, Salah and other less heralded players simply didn’t work? Does an exec say ‘well, we have clearly bought top players for the manager, so he has to go’. That model makes a little sense if you are Madrid and you give your manager Benzema, Ronaldo and Kaka in one summer. But for most teams, a good and bad player is determined by how he is integrated in a team. The difference is harder to spot. You could just as easily blame a director for buying a rubbish LB from a relegated Hull City instead of a proven top one. If you sacked him because of that, you may never know that Klopp could have turned that same player into one of the best.
Yes.
On your first paragraph, you simply make a judgement call, there is no absolute truth. And the second paragraph, there isn't a moment where I suggested that the head coach has no say, you quoted a post where I wrote this:
There isn't a point where I told you that a DOF was a necessity, the first post that you quoted literally makes that point in the last sentence but you just want to ignore everything and go into an argument with an extreme view that I haven't expressed.
Not even, my initial post asked you whether you thought a manager should have a veto in recruitment, and you replied that outside of the owner, nobody should. So I was responding to that.
