Manchester United name John Murtough as Football Director and Darren Fletcher as Technical Director

[Stinkypete]

So in other words even Woodward didn't trust Murtough to do the job he himself hired him for. Quite damning actually

You can interpret from that whatever you wish, the truth is Woodward was getting players for Ole, and was involved in negotiations with Rangnick and Matt Judge after the announcement of Murtough as DOF and Fletcher as Technical Director. After the Super League fiasco Woodward needed to leave the spotlight and so until his official departure they continued down his path with Murtough as a front man.

All of that is irrelevant to the point, which I have seen repeatedly stated here which was that since Murtough took over we have continued to sign managers who don't offer continuation. This is a stupid statement because it is not seated in any level of fact. Murtough took over whilst Ole was in charge. Ole's style of football whatever that was, is irrelevant as are all signings made for that manager because they are tainted by Woodward interference, and regardless you do not sign a DOF to rebuild and force his hand by saying you have to do it with this squad. Murtough came in and said to Ole, we want to build towards a high pressing front foot style, which Ole did attempt, without a DM and upgrades through the spine of the team however this was always going to be a failure, that was Murtoughs first mistake, he should have had a refresh in the Summer of Oles last season, with targets the club under his watch scouted.

Ole was fired and we hired Rangnick in the Interim, I have no doubt that Murtough had a hand in this signing but believe the consultancy role and other nonsense like having his assistant give advice from Russia on match plans etc were not his decisions. Rangnick was influential in developing a Gegen press and front foot football, the manager fit the DOF philosophy.

After Rangnick we hired Ten Hag, another manager that fit what Murtough wanted.

So in answer to that statement repeated here, on paper no the club has not repeated that mistake since Murtough took over.

What should be questioned is the approach, our two best players Rashford and Bruno are never going to fit that tactical style, they could probably do a job if they had a best in class coaching system around them but paying them upwards of 300k to not fit into the spine of what your trying to achieve is massively detrimental no matter how good they have been.

 

[devilish]

A few points to unpack here. Player fitness is largely down to coaching, match management and squad management. That is almost entirely down to the manager and his coaching staff, and decisions made by them. Our pre-season schedule hasn't helped, but when it comes down to it, the manager is responsible for ensuring that players are fit and ready for the season, and to maintain their fitness throughout.

The leaks are what they are, they aren't really that easy to end, and have been an issue at the club for a very long time. The DOF has very little influence over what players tell their friends or their PR people tell the media. Unravelling that particular can of worms is largely a squad discipline issue, which the DOF has little to no control over. Not being pro-active enough in dealing with the media and having a good relationship with fleet-street is arguably a failure of the CEO and the communications department.

As for managers not working with the DOF, I don't think it's a case of not being willing, but not being given the structure for it to work effectively. Sometimes we give managers too much influence and power. We let them have their own scouts, and decide on transfer targets outside of our recruitment system. That is a silly thing to do in the modern game with data analytics being as advanced as it is. We have a badly implemented DOF system where the manager and DOF are equals in the system - and where direction of the team is largely decided by the manager - which again is enforced by the higher ups as part of the "United DNA" nonsense we've been hearing about.

Simultaneously the manager has to deal with being restricted in who he can keep in his squad and who he can replace based on financial arguments from higher ups. Maguire and Martial being the most obvious examples of mediocre players managers haven't been allowed to get rid of for financial reasons. Ten Hag's response to this system has been a rigid discipline and actively trying to blow up relationships to force players out - Ronaldo, Maguire and Sancho. The system that causes this behaviour has not been implemented by the DOF, but by the people higher up.



I agree with this. Unfortunately I think the club is stuck in the past and the remit to any new manager is basically to be Sir Alex 2.0. Data analysis was a shambles until our DOF started to deal with it, recruitment was largely based on the eye-test and managerial nous, and the idea of "United DNA" keeps being said like a mantra from upper management. We want to be "modern", but we want to do so with a SAF type manager at the helm, being "supported" by everyone around him. I think this is a very flawed strategy and one that is badly executed, but I think we've seen plenty of evidence to suggest that this is the approach we keep going for. I don't see it working unless you have a manager who works extraordinarily well with the rest of the system, gets the political aspect, the PR aspect, is an exceptional man manager and is competent enough to spot the right coaches for the right jobs - a unicorn manager basically.

As for Mourinho, the board gave up on him before that season - they just didn't want to sack him yet for whatever reason. When our board loses faith in a manager they just turn off the money and adapt a "wait and see how it goes" approach. They've been doing that for a decade now, and if the Glazers remain in charge of football operations through January and into the summer they will do the same with Ten Hag.

Fitness is a very complex argument. It starts with recruitment. For example if you sign Jones, Saha, Ronaldo (Brazilian) and Varane then they will probably get injured no matter how good your fitness people are. Then there's an army of fitness people and sports scientists most of whom are independent from the manager. Finally there's the club structure which is often slightly differ for one another. For example at United both the DOF and the Deputy football director are qualified sports scientists with experience in the job. (O'Boyle was even a head of sports science at Coventry). I very much doubt that they wouldn't stress on that section considering their experience in the field. Day to day training is within the manager's domain of course. However ask yourself, why managers come and go and yet our fitness is still in the pits? Why we're constantly plagued by the second season syndrome? Are Moyes, LVG, Mou, Ole and ETH so shit on that matter? The same persistence is seen on a number of other issues as well. Leaks are one of them for example (staff come and go yet we still leak info), then there's the issue of us overpaying. That was blamed on Woodward, then Judge, sometimes Ole and ETH (they insisted so much on Sancho and Anthony) etc, not to forget the manager's stubbornness of wanting to control everything. Which seem to be exclusive to Manchester United really. Mou hasn't kicked a fuss with having to work with Tiago Pinto, ETH/Overmars partnership made a name at Ajax and I seriously can't see Ole throwing chairs at the Glazers the moment they asked him to work with the DOF. Which really makes you wonder. Is it really the case of the manager not wanting to work with the DOF or is it more the case that its convenient for the club to just pin all the responsibility and therefore the fault on one person who can easily be replaced?

Then there's the argument of how antiquated our system was as opposed to Murtough's army of data analysts. Yet, guess what? We still sign the players the manager wants often on silly fees and by giving them silly money. Also how many data analysts does Murtough needs to understand that signing a 30 year old DM on a long term contract and on hilarious money doesn't really make sense? How many data analysts did he need to acknowledge that De Jong wasn't interest to join the club and that Casemiro has a totally different skillset to him?

The Athletic states that Woodward had once called Murtough, United's fixer. That + the fact that Murtough got the promotion by him show that he is Woodward's favorite and by extension the Glazers (Woodward was the Glazers pet). Maybe that's the reason why managers, coaches and chief scouts came and went yet Murtough stayed. It might be the same reason why the same problems persisted despite so many people has come and gone.

 

[roseguy64]

Not concerned about Fletcher's role at all, but it is amusing how the "trust the plan" crew is still out there in full force trying to persuade us that Murtough is actually a misunderstood genius who knew what he was doing all along, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

I don't think anyone's saying that. Those same people have no problem with him going. They're just not wanting to assign all the blame to him while ignoring the roles Ten Hag and ownership have played and also certain things are because of Woodward and Judge's contract issues.

 

[AneRu]

It's been three summer windows since Murtough was made Football Director and in each of those we have made a catastrophic and expensive mistake whilst ignoring the team's major weaknesses or applying an expensive bandaid on those positions. It's too much for him not to have a hand in those failures.

Maybe he can point at Woodward, Ole and Ten Hag as the forces that forced his hand or were dominant in the clubaking those decisions but it only betrays his weakness and inability to take control when his role should be about that.

That until last year we were still signing players in their thirties on big money just shows how its more of the same from the Woodward heydays. He was supposed to be the change, the voice of reason and the man with the long term plan but either way he is either central to our poor recruitment or too ineffectual to push his ideas through.

 

[Laurencio]

Fitness is a very complex argument. It starts with recruitment. For example if you sign Jones, Saha, Ronaldo (Brazilian) and Varane then they will probably get injured no matter how good your fitness people are. Then there's an army of fitness people and sports scientists most of whom are independent from the manager. Finally there's the club structure which is often slightly differ for one another. For example at United both the DOF and the Deputy football director are qualified sports scientists with experience in the job. (O'Boyle was even a head of sports science at Coventry). I very much doubt that they wouldn't stress on that section considering their experience in the field. Day to day training is within the manager's domain of course. However ask yourself, why managers come and go and yet our fitness is still in the pits? Why we're constantly plagued by the second season syndrome? Are Moyes, LVG, Mou, Ole and ETH so shit on that matter? The same persistence is seen on a number of other issues as well. Leaks are one of them for example (staff come and go yet we still leak info), then there's the issue of us overpaying. That was blamed on Woodward, then Judge, sometimes Ole and ETH (they insisted so much on Sancho and Anthony) etc, not to forget the manager's stubbornness of wanting to control everything. Which seem to be exclusive to Manchester United really. Mou hasn't kicked a fuss with having to work with Tiago Pinto, ETH/Overmars partnership made a name at Ajax and I seriously can't see Ole throwing chairs at the Glazers the moment they asked him to work with the DOF. Which really makes you wonder. Is it really the case of the manager not wanting to work with the DOF or is it more the case that its convenient for the club to just pin all the responsibility and therefore the fault on one person who can easily be replaced?

Then there's the argument of how antiquated our system was as opposed to Murtough's army of data analysts. Yet, guess what? We still sign the players the manager wants often on silly fees and by giving them silly money. Also how many data analysts does Murtough needs to understand that signing a 30 year old DM on a long term contract and on hilarious money doesn't really make sense? How many data analysts did he need to acknowledge that De Jong wasn't interest to join the club and that Casemiro has a totally different skillset to him?

The Athletic states that Woodward had once called Murtough, United's fixer. That + the fact that Murtough got the promotion by him show that he is Woodward's favorite and by extension the Glazers (Woodward was the Glazers pet). Maybe that's the reason why managers, coaches and chief scouts came and went yet Murtough stayed. It might be the same reason why the same problems persisted despite so many people has come and gone.

A small point on the fitness issue. We keep overplaying players, and keep holding onto players our managers do not trust, causing our squad to be ill equipped to handle the demands of a full season. The numerous muscle injuries we've had, and the spike we've seen in the premier league this season with more players playing more minutes, suggests as much. Better squad management and ensuring that the squad is filled with players the manager actually trusts, would alleviate a lot of these issues.

I don't think we disagree on much, except for how this logically ties into what Murthough in particular is doing. I believe these issues are mainly systemic, caused by poor organisation and structuring higher up than the DOF, and that the manager has to bear a fair share of responsibility. While you believe the DOF is central to the fault in structuring and arguably to be blamed for the larger failings of the club. Either way the end result is that both of us want a structure change and would like to see a different DOF with a different remit in charge, but for different reasons.

 

[devilish]

A small point on the fitness issue. We keep overplaying players, and keep holding onto players our managers do not trust, causing our squad to be ill equipped to handle the demands of a full season. The numerous muscle injuries we've had, and the spike we've seen in the premier league this season with more players playing more minutes, suggests as much. Better squad management and ensuring that the squad is filled with players the manager actually trusts, would alleviate a lot of these issues.

I don't think we disagree on much, except for how this logically ties into what Murthough in particular is doing. I believe these issues are mainly systemic, caused by poor organisation and structuring higher up than the DOF, and that the manager has to bear a fair share of responsibility. While you believe the DOF is central to the fault in structuring and arguably to be blamed for the larger failings of the club. Either way the end result is that both of us want a structure change and would like to see a different DOF with a different remit in charge, but for different reasons.

Oh I do believe that the Glazers is the problem. They are completely geared of making money and they neglect the football side of things. What I find frustrating is that the same people who point their finger at the infrastructure as clear proof of that tend to struggle in terms of doing the same with the very people they (or Woodward) employed. Murtough, Judge, Woodward and Arnold follow a very similar path. They are all Glazers men (which explain why they had survived for so long), they had no prior experience in the job and their impact was negligible. Murtough is not the root of the problem, he's another consequence of it

 

[Nytram Shakes]

Which ever way you spin it, The Murtough appointment has been an unmitigated disaster.

• Either he is the lame duck appointment that some are claiming who has never had control over squad building decisions. In which case appointing a jumped up yes man to the position of DOF when the club had desperately needed some one component in that role since Fergie left (an arguably before to prepare for his departure) is criminal.
• Or he is utterly useless at his job and has spent over half billion on the squad and for it to still be a complete mess.

Either way he has to go down as one of the worst appointments in united history.

 

[golden_blunder]

Which ever way you spin it, The Murtough appointment has been an unmitigated disaster.

• Either he is the lame duck appointment that some are claiming who has never had control over squad building decisions. In which case appointing a jumped up yes man to the position of DOF when the club had desperately needed some one component in that role since Fergie left (an arguably before to prepare for his departure) is criminal.
• Or he is utterly useless at his job and has spent over half billion on the squad and for it to still be a complete mess.

Either way he has to go down as one of the worst appointments in united history.

One of the worst? Bit of an over exaggeration I think. Needs replacing? Yes I think he has had his chance. Will next person be any better under same structure? Remains to be seen

 

[MadDogg]

Which ever way you spin it, The Murtough appointment has been an unmitigated disaster.

• Either he is the lame duck appointment that some are claiming who has never had control over squad building decisions. In which case appointing a jumped up yes man to the position of DOF when the club had desperately needed some one component in that role since Fergie left (an arguably before to prepare for his departure) is criminal.
• Or he is utterly useless at his job and has spent over half billion on the squad and for it to still be a complete mess.

Either way he has to go down as one of the worst appointments in united history.

I don't think any DoF could have walked in and actually succeeded immediately. There was just way too much staff turnover that needed to happen throughout the club, getting the scouting system and data analysis in place, etc. It was always going to take a couple of years to really turn things around. Murtough has at least attempted to do that as we know he replaced a lot of people, but it will take time to know whether the people and background system he bought in are actually good enough or whether we're going to have to rip it all up and start again.

That's not to say that a more experienced DoF wouldn't have had some more success than Murtough has had, or that we shouldn't have seen more improvement over time (especially in the last transfer window) than we have. So I'm certainly not saying that he's done a good job. But the hope is that Murtough actually improved some aspects of the club enough that another DoF can come in and have more immediate success, something that I don't think would have been possible a few years ago.

 

[Frank Grimes]

One of the worst? Bit of an over exaggeration I think. Needs replacing? Yes I think he has had his chance. Will next person be any better under same structure? Remains to be seen

It won't be the same structure though, he is a part of the current failing one and the Ratcliffe minority ownership comes with structural change as a key point.

 

[golden_blunder]

It won't be the same structure though, he is a part of the current failing one and the Ratcliffe minority ownership comes with structural change as a key point.

Let’s see if it does first

 

[Yakuza_devils]

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/football/man-utd-tracked-804-right-20586281

We have a team of data guys to study 804 right backs before we decided to sign AWB with 50M which many agree that it's an average signing considering the price. The question is how many players Murtough's team studied before we signed Onana, Antony, Mount, Amrabat, Sabitzer, Weghorst, Malacia, Casemeiro and the likes because we don't seem to learn anything?

 

[the chameleon]

Has this turd been flushed yet?

 

[Escobar]

Lets hope these positions are changed very soon now that we have made first steps

 

[Freak]

He won’t last long. The wheels must already be in motion seeing as how INEOS did not take long to find a new CEO.

 

[SAF is the GOAT]

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[golden_blunder]

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Interesting. Could just as easily be sacked by Bayern too for fiddling with the coffee maker

 

[IrishRedDevil]

Shocked to remember its Fletcher.

 

[crossy1686]

The day this bloke gets sacked is the day we take a massive step closer to being an actual fecking football club.

 

[crossy1686]

Interesting. Could just as easily be sacked by Bayern too for fiddling with the coffee maker

They have just signed Dier and are trying to get Trippier so it could be that he’s just completely thrown the towel in and they’ve had enough of it.

 

[Ali Dia]

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Bayern have the best and most sensible recruitment going. They are up there with city the feckers. We were the Bayern of England before the glazers messed us up. The likes of Musiala and Davies? Finding players who will one day be worth 100 million quid, yes please.

 

[stefan92]

They have just signed Dier and are trying to get Trippier so it could be that he’s just completely thrown the towel in and they’ve had enough of it.

He was already pushed aside before these transfers. This news is essentially a formality, not a real change at this point in time. He lost his influence over transfers already in the summer.

 

[crossy1686]

He was already pushed aside before these transfers. This news is essentially a formality, not a real change at this point in time. He lost his influence over transfers already in the summer.

For any particular reason? Why would they marginalise someone who’s been doing a good job for 10 years?

 

[stefan92]

For any particular reason? Why would they marginalise someone who’s been doing a good job for 10 years?

He did a good job as a scout, became technical director, didn't impress in that role and especially not as a stand in for Salihamidzic once he was sacked. Also allegedly didn't have the best relationship to the campus staff. Sounds a lot like a typical case of someone being promoted beyond what's good for him.

 

[crossy1686]

He did a good job as a scout, became technical director, didn't impress in that role and especially not as a stand in for Salihamidzic once he was sacked. Also allegedly didn't have the best relationship to the campus staff. Sounds a lot like a typical case of someone being promoted beyond what's good for him.

Makes sense, thanks.

 

[Fr. Todd Unctious]

So more likely looking at Head of Scouting then and reporting to Ashworth or whoever gets it if it's a thing he was coming here

 

[Frank Grimes]

Murtough has to go. Guy is at best unlucky and at worst just really bad at his job.

 

[dutchred]

Murtough has to go. Guy is at best unlucky and at worst just really bad at his job.

Wasn't he reponsible for the improvement in our youth recruitment?

 

[dubplate warrior]

Murtough has to go. Guy is at best unlucky and at worst just really bad at his job.

He's your typical company man. The academy should be his responsibility, but beyond that, he shouldn't have anything to do with running the club.

Not sure what the point of Darren Fletcher is, and I don't think anyone ever has.

I think we are in a new era and you'll see many of the old establishment leave.

 

[roseguy64]

He's your typical company man. The academy should be his responsibility, but beyond that, he shouldn't have anything to do with running the club.

Not sure what the point of Darren Fletcher is, and I don't think anyone ever has.

I think we are in a new era and you'll see many of the old establishment leave.

Fletcher's role has been explained numerous times. If you cared, you'd know.