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

Ekeke

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That sounds like manager / Ole's job, doesn't it?
In the past the manager would do all these things yes. Now Ole would be more like a coach, picking the team and doing training I guess with other people having ultimate responsibility in the other areas
 

roseguy64

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I hope that Fletcher can be as good as Van de Saar is doing at Ajax.
I would imagine that Woodward is now freed up from daily problems and can gallivant up and down to London, which I think he prefers!
Why do people keep saying things like this?

Woodward hasn't been involved in the day to day of the football stuff for years.
 

RkkMan

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This is a very wrong way to think.
He had zero experience when he got the Barca job but that was 2003. It took them another 3 years before they started winning consistently again, then there was another bump in the road until he insisted on hiring Pep Guardiola.


Now, the same guy he's at Man City(our City rivals) competing for every trophy with us. Hiring a rookie to stop them is not a wise decision - his rookie position in 2003 does not apply in 2021. To even have any chance of competing with them, hiring a DOF with a similar wealth of experience is a great start.

Worst case scenario, If Murtough fails, Wooward could also as well cancel the role completely and argue life was better without a DOF than with a DOF. He would say he was reluctant to even create the role in the first place and only gave in when the fans won't stop moaning about it. It's Ed Woodward we are talking about here, he's a slithery creature.
What does the year have to do with anything? The role of a DOF has never changed over the years and as you`ve clearly stated there were bumps along the road for Barca and it was not smooth sailing but eventually Txiki got it right with time every role and decision will come with its risk but until you give it a proper chance its silly to immediately declare outright failure if anything it strengthens the belief that the appointments made today are not as bad as you make them out to be.
Have you factored in that it took Txiki like 3/4 years before he won the title with City?(with oil money a big reason why) They didn`t become an instant success the moment he came in you`re being very unrealistic if you think anyone will come in and make us title challengers in the space of a year or two it will take time regardless of who comes in. I should also add that City prior to oil money had no identity as a football club thats why hiring an outsider to instill something brand new has worked out better for them than it would for Utd who have a defined philosophy that dates back years and years ago even Pre Fergie thats why LVG and Jose failed here despite their pedigree and why despite his flaws Ole is more likely to succeed here than those two he understands Utd a lot more than his predecessors. Trusting people who actually know what the club is about coupled with competent footballing brains is a more sensible way and more likely to work than plucking outsiders who will have a completely different philosophy and as a result likely to fail here despite their pedigree like the DOFs I`ve talked about in my previous post
We`ve been trying to create this DOF role for years a lot of finances and strategy have been used to put it in place its EXTREMELY cynical to think even Woodward would cancel it altogether if it didn`t work out the first time even from a business point of view it would not be intelligent
 
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gajender

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But 2003 is not 2021.

We are now competing with Txiki in 2021 - If you put Man Utd in isolation, you may have a point. However, the rookie in 2021 is now in the Premier League competing with us in all fronts. How can a rookie DOF in 2021 beat him to any trophy? They have spent more money on players, they have a better structure already in place, they have the better manager and a more experienced DOF.......How do you expect us to compete with them with a rookie DOF and an inferior manager?
Liverpool just beat them last season to title with Rookie DOF who started as analyst with them
But I don't actually believe DOF are some mythical figures we have tendency to overstate their impact .
 

sullydnl

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The quotes from Solskjaer make Fletcher's role sound relatively limited if he's to continue coaching too, even in a more limited degree.

Or maybe "all-purpose" is more accurate than limited if he's floating between the coaching and recruitment sides of thing helping out.

Having someone with a football background involved in negotiations (rather than the lawyers Evra was complaining about us sending to woo players) is a plus though. You can imagine how him being directly involved with the coaching team would help there too.
 

romufc

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Txiki himself had zero experience when he got the Barca job. BVB hired Zorc as DOF immediately he retired even though he had zero experience. Michael Edwards at Liverpool was hired from within. Also getting proven DOFs doesnt always come with success. Monchi was a catastrophic failure at Roma when everyone expected him to thrive there. Over the last years Paratici has been a disaster at Juve. Mislintat was a world class recruiter at BVB but failed miserably at Arsenal. Having the right structure is more important than a big name and thats what Utd are doing. Worst case scenario is if Murtough fails we can always hire another DOF as the role actually exists now but he has a CV thats at the very least worth gambling with it`s not a business man being thrown into a completely different role like with Woodward in 2013. Him being around the club for long means transition won`t be as drastic as hiring an outsider would be
Well said, these are the things fans don't research before making comments. Alot of organisations re-structure within too.

If you look at what Murtough has done at Everton and Manutd, you will realise why he is being promoted. The work he has done with the youth set up, the womens team etc has all proven to be really good.
 

AgentSmith

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You shouldn't google Darren Fletcher and "management experience", then.
I’ll just stick to hardcore pornography thanks.

At least that way the underwhelming disappointing only floods over me after I’m done with my google-ing.
 

Isotope

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In the past the manager would do all these things yes. Now Ole would be more like a coach, picking the team and doing training I guess with other people having ultimate responsibility in the other areas
Good thing, I guess. I'm just underwhelmed with the choice.
 

sullydnl

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Why do people keep saying things like this?

Woodward hasn't been involved in the day to day of the football stuff for years.
Not sure that's strictly true.

While that generally hasn't been his role, he has still had to step in on occasion. For example, as reported in MEN:

Ed Woodward took a step back from recruitment last season but had to muck in again, mainly due to the coronavirus pandemic, and met with Jude Bellingham and his parents before the midfielder decided to join Borussia Dortmund. The anticipation now is, should Wayne Rooney call again about taking a United player on loan at Derby County, he would contact Murtough rather than Wodoward. Murtough will report to Woodward.
So it is true that this re-structure should give him yet more distance from the football side of things, even in crisis situations.

And having another layer of management between him and the man negotiating the deals is presumably a bit more distance in that regard too.
 

HailtotheKing

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Did they actually interview anyone else for these roles? Pretty sure they said that was the original plan.
 

Fanta Stick

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Yeah it has. It's nowhere near as bad as you seem to say it is and also you've just listed the signings from our worst window under Ole where Ed made a complete mess.

That said the descriptions you provided aren't exactly awful, Telles is a positive overall. Van De Beek is a good squad addition for the bench (many of us called that at the time including me.) Cavani has largely been a success. Pellistri/Diallo are ones for the future, the latter is one of the most talented teenagers in Europe.
That's probably a fairer assessment/perspective. It's a squad game after all but of course we tend to focus on what we perceive to be our strongest starting 11.
At the very least we are recruiting players that are good overall additions to the squad.
I am very excited by the potential of some of the academy talent we have been hoovering up over the last couple of years.
 

JTW95

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Well at least we will finally stop getting "Woodward Out" threads. It will now be "Murtough Out" instead when we don't spend 250 million every transfer window!
 

united_99

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Disappointing, very disappointing.

I was looking forward to Amad being announced as our new DOF alongside his role as the future best player of all time.
 

Red_Orchestra

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As long Woodward is no longer in charge of all operations, I am absolutely satisfied.
 

Sandikan

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Ahh, it was a director of football we needed. Not a football director.
 

Kag

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I’ve just finished work and can’t be bothered to read all 13 pages.

Help me out. Is this thread full of screaming babies who are devastated that this magical ‘dof’ isn’t some jumped-up arsehole from Spain or Italy?

I’m so excited. All we ever needed to win football matches was a magical dof. I cant wait to dissect their ability to perform their role as a result of the next dreary point away to West Ham. When is the bus parade through the city? Our next title is a given now.
 

Brophs

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Whether people like what we’ve ended up or not, we have clearly put someone between Woodward and OGS when we it comes to recruitment which is basically what people wanted.
 

ivaldo

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It's basically repackaging what's already here instead of getting a proven DOF in.
For me, it shows that people had absolutely no idea what the role of DOF actually entails. We already had people in place doing the vast majority of the job, but at times it seemed fans thought the club was a rudderless ship captained by a catatonic Woodward, when that hasn't been the place for a number of years. The structure and the direction the club is looking to take has been apparent for a while now. When you look at the investment made in the youth set up, the type of players we've targeted and even the age demographic of our squad compared to two/three years ago, it's obvious the foundations are already in place, and now we appointed someone to oversee the development of that blueprint.
 

sullydnl

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Surprised at how many people are saying it's more of the same, as if the actual structure of the club doesn't matter at all.

In any organisation, introducing a new layer of management and oversight over a given position should impact that position, which is what has happened with the recruitment side. Matt Judge now has a new layer of management and oversight to answer to in his role as the person who negotiates deals, as opposed to reporting directly to an old university friend.

Meanwhile our negotiation team now has an ex-player and member of the coaching staff directly involved. Again, the lack of that presence was something people like Evra (and then fans) have publicly complained about. So if you believed him when he spoke about the difficulties in us just sending in lawyers then the introduction of this role should be a positive. As indeed it should be if you believed him when he said he had to act as an intermediary between other clubs/agents and our recruitment staff.

If all businesses took the the POV that restructuring without outside recruitment was pointless then a lot of businesses would be a lot less productive.
 

laughtersassassin

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It's official. Man United fans will moan about anything.
There are more people complaining about the people who have reservations than there are people complaining.

Might be good might not. Might be a real change, might be a change to just try appease some people.

I'm skeptical. We will see fairly quick if things are different.
 
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RUCK4444

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That's probably a fairer assessment/perspective. It's a squad game after all but of course we tend to focus on what we perceive to be our strongest starting 11.
At the very least we are recruiting players that are good overall additions to the squad.
I am very excited by the potential of some of the academy talent we have been hoovering up over the last couple of years.
Yeah totally agree as fans we tend to focus on the starting 11, rightly so when we do have areas we need to improve on.

We just had a poor window after failing to get Sancho but at the same time it wasn’t a complete failure, I’m excited to see more of Diallo in particular.

If we can have a good window this summer and address some of our weaknesses we could be a totally different animal next season imo.
 

Tom Van Persie

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I’ve just finished work and can’t be bothered to read all 13 pages.

Help me out. Is this thread full of screaming babies who are devastated that this magical ‘dof’ isn’t some jumped-up arsehole from Spain or Italy?

I’m so excited. All we ever needed to win football matches was a magical dof. I cant wait to dissect their ability to perform their role as a result of the next dreary point away to West Ham. When is the bus parade through the city? Our next title is a given now.
Apparently we needed to hire somebody with 15+ years of experience like all the other well run clubs do i.e Ajax and Liverpool. Because VDS had tons of experience as a CEO before being hired by Ajax, Overmars also a director of football with years of experience and let's not forget Martin Edwards...
 

AltiUn

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For me, it shows that people had absolutely no idea what the role of DOF actually entails. We already had people in place doing the vast majority of the job, but at times it seemed fans thought the club was a rudderless ship captained by a catatonic Woodward, when that hasn't been the place for a number of years. The structure and the direction the club is looking to take has been apparent for a while now. When you look at the investment made in the youth set up, the type of players we've targeted and even the age demographic of our squad compared to two/three years ago, it's obvious the foundations are already in place, and now we appointed someone to oversee the development of that blueprint.
Well said.
 

Gopher Brown

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Ha. Ffs, years of people clamouring for a DoF and you get 3 in one day!

But wait, despite none of us having the first idea what they do, these are the wrong appointments! People banging on for years about wanting VDS despite him never having been a DoF before. People wanting Monchi because they read an article about how well he did to sign Justin Kluivert.

Careful what you wish for.
 

laughtersassassin

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The most promising thing is hearing Murtough was a major part of overhauling our academy which was in a similar bad way.

Let's hope he can do it for the first team now.