Everything is the simple fact that Murtough wasn't that involved in the first team affairs until he was appointed as DoF.
The simple fact is that the club didn't have a transitional plan post SAF, and Woodward, for all of his feckups and stupidity, was given an impossible job of running a club like United, he probably was able to perform well in the commercial areas but he knew nothing about running a football club, Murtough was the one who helped with that, and it was obvious that Woodward was giving the managers he hired carte blanche in terms of first team recruitment, and the only time he pushed back was in summer 2018 when he said no to Mou who wanted to bring Persic and Boateng.
All I am saying is that even though Murtough was the guy who Woodward relied upon and eventually appointed him as DoF, Murtough is at least a football person who only got the full control of the football structure once Woodward himself departed in 2022 and since then things started to change bit by bit, and remember this is a football structure that was almost in it's infancy stage hence why Ten Hag was needed not only to train and coach the players but also to help with First team recruitment as well, hopefully in the future it will be an operation that runs in tendem with all its parts (head coach + DoF + Recruitment/scouting), and this winter window has shown an example of that, Sabitzer's acquisition was due to the fact that Eriksen was just confirmed to be injured which forced the folks at United to act quickly, the recruitment team suggested an option which Ten Hag liked and the club then initiated contact with BM and it was completed quickly, perhaps this the start of things getting better but again there is still same way to go and judgement should be reserved for now at least
Sorry I blabered hahhahaha but this is quite a great we are all having here