United's first system was rather simple. We had the CEO calling all financial shots and the manager calling all sports related shots. That worked because SAF was a superb man manager who knew every single aspect of football from transfer handling to appointing the right people in the right jobs (scouts, fitness people, coaches, assistant managers etc) and was a workaholic. Gaz recalls the time when the gaffer would quickly leave the dressing room after a game to fly across Europe to watch some kid playing the day after. Needless to say that the current managers lack that know how. Even if they did, managers are vulnerable to player power. iF a squad favorite loses his place then the manager risk to end up facing a revolt. This task is made more difficult since the manager is tasked to buy players as well. Thus if the manager brings in a dud on silly money then he better make sure that such player do well else he risks being sacked. That means that he'll be forced to play him more which in return tend to upset the dressing room which in turn has an impact on results.
United tried to adapt to that with a 4 men committee all of whom armed with a Veto (Joel, Woodward, Murtough and the manager). On paper it might had made sense and some people were in favor of it. However in reality it did not. First of all at least 2 of those people were incompetent in football. Secondly the former three were tightly linked with one another thus when a mistake is done by either one of them then they used to close ranks and blame the odd man out (the manager). Finally since Joel was the ring leader and the others were yes men then everything rotated on what Joel wanted. Thus it 'suddenly made sense' to spend all summer travelling continents during preseason training even though it left the squad knackered and filled with injuries.
I advocated to a system were each role is clearly defined and were every person was best in class. Back then Juventus had that system and since I kept highlighting it I earned this tagline. Such system had the advantage of quickly addressing were the flaws were. For example if the manager got tactics wrong then its the manager's fault, if the club bought duds then it was the Head of Recruitment/DOF fault, if the academy is not producing top talent then its the head of academy's fault and if the departments aren't cooperating with one another (imagine a situation were United buy a 30 year old midfielder even though it had a young Scholes and Beckham scoring shitloads of goals in the academy) then something is wrong with the sporting director. I still believe that this system is a clear upgrade to what we had so far and yet it had one clear flaw. Unsurprisingly the victim of that flaw happens to now sit on the United's board.
When Blanc joined Juventus he fount a mess. Juventus were relegated in the Serie B even though its wage bill was that of a Serie A serial winner. Sponsorships fled, the money well ran dry and Inter fans were celebrating the end of the vecchia signora. I don't blame them. It wasn't that long ago that Leeds imploded having failed to hit its financial targets. Juventus was facing an even steeper run since it was immediately relegated, it lost many sponsors and the Serie A was nowhere near as rich as the EPL. Blanc played a huge part in Juventus revival. Instead of taking a cautious approach by simply selling players and live on the spoils, Blanc took a bold move based not on mere survival but on Serie A dominance. Sure many players were sold but the core was kept (Del Piero, Chiellini and Buffon) while Blanc engaged himself into the idea of building a new stadium, fully owned by the club. That was incredible considering that years later Elliott group (guys everyone fear, the one who brought Argentina on their knees) would try and fail to do that at Milan due to Italian red tape. Blanc basically succeeded were Elliott group failed and with a team who was in much worse shape. Juventus flew past the Serie Bit immediately consolidated their role as a big team in the Serie A and Blanc was made CEO. Yet it was then that when the flaw was exposed. You see, Blanc is a great commercial person. He's basically a GIll on serious steroids. Yet football wise he's not great. Hence he failed to acknowledge that the sporting director and the fitness people Juve had at the time weren't good enough. Money was spent on wrong transfers, the squad was ravaged by injuries, Juventus's performance plummeted and Blanc was forced to resign from CEO. The system worked as it quickly identified the problem and made amends to it. Marotta was identified as Blanc's successor and Juventus dominated the Serie A for a decade. Yet this CEO centric system meant that when Marotta left and no adequate replacement was fount then Juventus struggled.
I believe that what INEOS is trying to implement at United is an upgrade to that system. Sure each role will be defined, the best in class mantra will be maintained and the CEO will probably have a final say yet he won't be on his own. If a big decision needs to be taken then people like Blanc, SAF, the manager and Brailsford could be consulted to give their professional input. In few words if Berrada and Ashworth clash on a certain decision then there will be people that both parties trust both at high level and lower level who can give their 2c and quickly break the deadlock without having to spend months going through and forth and concluding nothing in the process.