Murtough playing 3D chess, making sure we never win so that he can never get criticized.
Manchester United name John Murtough as Football Director and Darren Fletcher as Technical Director
- Thread starter Tom Van Persie
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) and Imran (@Annihilate Now!) are here to discuss United's last 3 games - two much-needed wins vs. Burnley in the Premier League and Palace in the League Cup, as well as a the 4-3 loss away at Bayern. They discuss the defence, new options in midfield with Hannibal and Amrabat now in contention and look forward to games vs. Palace (again!) and Galatasary.
There’s been several incidents where the manager has been undermined by poor communication from Murtough. Two I remember (but I’m sure there’s more I’ve seen) is 1) Murtough arranging time off with Lingard with Rangnick knowing nothing about it and 2) Shaw signing a new deal and ETH basically being told by the press. Not a good look.
It’s hard to know how good this guy really is but I think the ‘he hasn’t had time, he’s only just been given power’ argument is really flimsy.
It’s hard to know how good this guy really is but I think the ‘he hasn’t had time, he’s only just been given power’ argument is really flimsy.
Thought you guys want a DoF who had all the power and wanted the manager to be his lil bitch.
Basic communication between the DOF and the manager would be nice…
Thought you guys want a DoF who had all the power and wanted the manager to be his lil bitch.
You're having a nightmare in this thread.
The outputs of a good DoF are extremely easy to judge. Ultimately they are responsible for the end result on the football pitch. The manager is just a vessel to achieving the success.
He's been in the job for two years and fully operational in the post for over 18 months now. Of course he can be judged. The Rangnick debacle alone should have told us what we were in for. Sanctioning Antony at £84m is something he should definitely be judged on. Arsenal held an internal investigation on the Pepe transfer for £72m and heads rolled as a result of that. The same should hold true here. We're also actively negotiating a new contract for DDG. There is so much to judge him on and there is nothing kneejerk about analysing his tenure so far.
With all respect to Adnan he's a knowledge chap but I can tell he's being fed club propaganda.
I’m having a mare but you come out with this crap.
feck me sideways, this is a new low for the CAF.
Nah, competent Dof will do. One of the best parts about getting a new owner is that Murtough will be off
Thought you guys want a DoF who had all the power and wanted the manager to be his lil bitch.
Fun Fact: We completed our DoF structure in March this year when the head scouts got employed.
Before then Murtough was doing mostly everything. (He was doing things by himself until Andy O'Boyle got employed but even then our scouting network wasn't complete)
Here's a question for you. Do you know what a DoF does and what the network is like around him or do you think he does everything by himself?
I do. But obviously you don't.
Well clearly you don't if you think it's not working
Replacing one DoF with another will not fix issues.
first and foremost we need a new owner and need to know what resources we’re working with
first and foremost we need a new owner and need to know what resources we’re working with
Guarantee ambitious new owners will replace the lot them within a year. No more jobs for the boys
Identifying players isn't Ten Hag's area of expertise and Murtough and Fletcher are just typical lazy internal appointments by the Glazers to avoid investing in a best in class DoF. The first thing that the new owner needs to do is kick these two out and get Ten Hag a good partner to work with like he had with Overmars at Ajax.
Not sure about that. If we had competent people, we might have a different right winger (or two if you include Sancho) at a fraction of the price and Osihmen could have started the season for us.
If people put the blame of the recent results mostly on the players available to EtH, you have to look at the guy who's brought and kept these players at the club.
And while some of the clear-out (or lack thereof) can be explained by the leeches not signing off on removals at a fraction of the original investment, the incomings have continued the trend of expensive, overpaid and mostly duds (Fernandes and Martinez excepted, Casemiro and Varane obvious winning mentality from before).
This is no coincidence and I bloody hope that even if Brexit Jim gets the club, this Murtough guy is sacked off.
And I guarantee that there will be moaning about the next one too after a window or 2.
not sure in what world Osihmen would be at United this season. All bets were on ronaldo continuing
I don’t think you understand what Fletcher does
Pretty sure Napoli wanted 100m and Ronaldo IIRC. It was rumours but pretty compelling at the time.
It was essentially a feck off price but we could have paid it and be so much better for it, instead of having Sancho and Antony serving dross week in, week out.
As for complaining, if there's a reason to do so, nothing bad about that. The fans need to realise they should hold the club accountable, no matter how much they like or dislike the person doing the job
Any ambitious new owner will replace the core team (Ed, Arnold, Murtough) who was responsible for the unprecedented failure and mismanagement of one of the biggest football club in the world in history of football.
I think they are gonna get replaced regardless. Their stint will be defined by that farce in Barcelona and the Antony "negotiations".
You do understand that DoF is above manager? That DoF is in charge for entire football business? He doesn't do everything personally of course but he hires people to do certain job. From youth setup and scouting department to first team and transfer business.
Now, you mentioned how he hired scouts. That is great but what is the use of scouts when our DoF's transfer policy is "lets buy/sell players from manager's personal shortlist"? That is not how any club in the world works.
Then, his transfer business; he (or people who he delegated) managed to sell 1(!!) player whole summer. Also his incoming transfers were complete mess.
Dof must work with manager because those two are THE most important people in club, not being a servant of that manager.
He needs to go and i hope he will because he is completely out of depth.
My views about murtough and the guy who keeps getting promoted is well known. However that doesn't matter at this point. United's sale seem set to keep dragging up until mid Summer. Ineos/jassim would be mad to sack anyone associated to transfers during mid june/july
Ineos/Jassim should already have a structure in place and a transfer shopping list. It would be absurd if they spent 5 billion to buy the club and then let Murtough buy the players EtH says him to buy for double their value. If that is how they will run things, it would be same as under Glazers.
What we don't need to do is give the manager as much power.
Think he should have this summer, he has the right ideas and gone about doing the leg work to execute them so now his structure is complete then he can be fairly assessed. Even if we are taken over I want to see improvements in recruitment where vision takes precedence over big names, I want to see our club look at a player in Argentina and have the imagination of what such a player, after the right support and time to settle, can do in our midfield. We need more Caicedos and less Sanchos.
If Ten Hag and Murtough can do their homework then tell us, 'we genuinely believe that Hoiglund will be a superstar in two years, we have scouted him and trust his techniques and striker instinct so we are taking him over Kane', I would support them the same way I supported Van Gaal when he signed Martial out of the blue. That it eventually didn't work isn't the issue the issue was that there was a genuine thinking process on the signing and its been apparent why we shelled out the big money for him, even if he turned out to be lazy and unambitious before injuries finished him off.
Another thing is that he needs to be firm with his manager, tell him what is doable and what's impossible financially and technically. For example, we don't have any need to spend a limited budget on players like Frimpong before bringing in a striker, CM and GK. Tell ETH the consequences of blowing all your budget on favorites like Timber when the likes of Lindelof are still serviceable. Be firm and remind of an expensive mistake he dragged us into that could take us years to rectify.
If Ten Hag and Murtough can do their homework then tell us, 'we genuinely believe that Hoiglund will be a superstar in two years, we have scouted him and trust his techniques and striker instinct so we are taking him over Kane', I would support them the same way I supported Van Gaal when he signed Martial out of the blue. That it eventually didn't work isn't the issue the issue was that there was a genuine thinking process on the signing and its been apparent why we shelled out the big money for him, even if he turned out to be lazy and unambitious before injuries finished him off.
Another thing is that he needs to be firm with his manager, tell him what is doable and what's impossible financially and technically. For example, we don't have any need to spend a limited budget on players like Frimpong before bringing in a striker, CM and GK. Tell ETH the consequences of blowing all your budget on favorites like Timber when the likes of Lindelof are still serviceable. Be firm and remind of an expensive mistake he dragged us into that could take us years to rectify.
I doubt that they are spending 5 billion and not having everything set for work from day one. I think/hope that their potential DoFs are already making contacts with agents.
The thing is and this has been said before, that every little thing Utd do has to have the yay or nay from the parasites, so if Murtough has the best idea ever, it has to be fed to the scum and the answer boils down to pound notes and if it doesnt suit, then it will make whoever is DOF look like a prick. So until were run properly and the DOF is given a kitty where he makes the final decision on the playing side, you really cant judge him fairly.
Hopefully they do but heard nothing yet
Yeah just remains to be seem if either of these shopping lists actually come to fruition
Your tagline is really fitting.
Let say that this whole thing gets dragged to mid June (probably till August but anyway). So the new owners come in, they have no idea what is wrong inside the club, what the new manager want and the deals that had since been negotiated. Meanwhile the clock is ticking and the transfer window will close in 1-2 months time. Do you think that it's a bright idea to uproot everything at that point in time?
I dare to say that the answer is no. In my opinion they should Murtough do his thing during the summer and then they should start pushing for changes once the summer window closes. I dare to say that we should have a parallel process going on with the old administration helping the new administration settle. This can easily be achievable with INEOS were United's old guard can be moved to Nice FC once their services are no longer required at United.
So DoFs associated, not employed by, someone who may or may not win a bid to takeover a massive club, should work on potential deals despite never having spoken to the manager of said club. Sounds totally logical
If there's an investigation into the Antony transfer, surely that's not going to come out well for Ten Hag! Sure, Murtough may have ultimately sanctioned the deal but it's a player Erik knew inside-out and back-to-front. You'd imagine at some stage, Erik was asked "is this guy worth this amount of money?" and said "yes, go for it"!
[EDIT]
I've just read your earlier posts where you say Murtough is not a good DoF because he cedes too much transfer decision-making to the manager. In which case, the Antony transfer is the perfect case in point!
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Who said that they didn't contact manager?
And the manager speaks about transfer targets to a person alien to our club? Nah I’m not buying that narrativeWho said that they didn't contact manager?
Both Ineos and Jassim have requested control over transfers if their bids are to be accepted (the entire formalization might take another month or two, but they want control in this aspect immediately), in which time they can contact the manager and the scouts.
The manager should also not have much input (except some recommendation) on the players they want, only on the style of play he wants. The specific player purchases should be decided by DoF and the scouts. Like it is done in pretty much any other club.
Yes because they’ve proven to be more interested in feeding the media about how much the club’s structure have improved since they’ve taken over while actual results are still pretty damning.
Manager must work with DoF regarding transfer. While DoF is in charge. Not manager. After we spent over 1 billion in that way, our fanbase (and ex players) still think that "backing a manager" is buy everything from his shortlist.
DoF is in charge for football stuff. DoF is the one who MUST say to manager word NO.
I don't mind giving a manager specific player then and there but i expect from competent DoF to say no for stupid transfers.
In general, transfer policy should be that manager asks for new right winger and DoF's job is to give him a RW. They sit together, DoF gives him a list of RWs and then manager picks one. That is backing of a manager.
This what we do is just plain stupidity.
I do not think the manager choosing the player is the way to go (and most clubs do not do so, unless there is a freak manager like Pep who has more say).
Club decides how we want to play and pick a manager that suits that play. Then when there is some weakness in the team the club (DoF and the scouts) make a list of suitable players for that position. The manager can obviously propose some other player and can have their preference on the shortlist made by the DoF, but it is the club (DoF and co) who choose the player to sign.
In other words, the manager works for DoF, not the other way around. Of course, having a good collaboration between them is crucial and of course nothing is set on stone (a good DoF would give a much higher weight to manager’s preferences if that manager is let’s say Pep or Klopp compared to Moyes or Ole).
Carvajal lucky he avoided a booking first half