Depends on the money I guess. I would imagine the deputy position at United will probably still pay a lot more than the main job at other clubs.
Paul Mitchell - Sporting Director
- Thread starter altodevil
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Ten Hag, Paul Mitchell. We'd be the Fraud Squad for sure.
Would not surprise me
Wasn’t he a lot of peoples 1st choice on here as DoF before Murrough was announced?
Bloody hell, did not know that.
I do know he is raw chicken licking bellend.
Is this all true?
What a strange post.
More footballing people the better.
Murtough seems to want to delegate so I could see someone like Mitchell coming in. Rangnick is only a consultant so not really part of formal structures. He can just be asked for a 2nd opinion.
If it's not Mitchell then there's many other candidates both in the UK and abroad who would potentially be just as capable.
Also to the people talking about 'too many cooks'. It's not too many cooks but rather what a DoF structure looks like. A basic comparison of both United and Liverpool's recruitment structure below.
Man United
John Murtough (DoF)
Deputy (DoF)?
Mick Court (Head of data science)
Marcel Bout (Head of recruitment)
Jim Lawlor (Chief Scout)
David Harrison (Head of Youth recruitment)
Liverpool
Michael Edwards (DoF)
Julian Ward (assistant DoF)
Ian Graham (Head of data science)
Dave Fallows (Head of recruitment)
Barry Hunter (Chief Scout)
David Moss (Head of Youth recruitment)
Also to the people talking about 'too many cooks'. It's not too many cooks but rather what a DoF structure looks like. A basic comparison of both United and Liverpool's recruitment structure below.
Man United
John Murtough (DoF)
Deputy (DoF)?
Mick Court (Head of data science)
Marcel Bout (Head of recruitment)
Jim Lawlor (Chief Scout)
David Harrison (Head of Youth recruitment)
Liverpool
Michael Edwards (DoF)
Julian Ward (assistant DoF)
Ian Graham (Head of data science)
Dave Fallows (Head of recruitment)
Barry Hunter (Chief Scout)
David Moss (Head of Youth recruitment)
Was he lad who wasted the Bale money, hopefully it wasn't if he coming to utd,
Don’t think so. Bale left 2013 and Mitchell arrived December 14. They probably brought him in because of how they spent that money.
Slightly off topic, but thinking about it, our scouting team haven't exactly covered themselves in glory over the last decade or so.
The only real successful acquisition has been Bruno, whereas most our signings have been expensive duds (Maguire, AWB, DvB, etc), or just obvious signings that don't really require a scouting network (Pogba, Ibra, Ronaldo, Varane, etc). From what I remember we haven't really unearthed any gems at all.
Maybe Mitchell coming in, along with Rangnick's expertise of German/Austrian football hopefully changes our fortunes for the better as far as recruitment goes.
Would be a great appointment. With him and Ralf in control of football matters then this club may finally get back on track after nearly 10 years of mismanagement.
Mitchell joined Spurs in 2014 just after Poch arrived. He was at Southampton with Poch before that.
If Mitchell comes to United then it's most likely in a deputy director role. Rangnick as a consultant and Murtough as football director.
If this is the case then the same issues of people hiring their “friends” continues at the club. Just replacing the old guard (United DNA crowd) with a new bunch of buddies.
If that were the case I would be very annoyed cause aint shit changing but the smell.
Our scouting network was against signings like Maguire and Bruno according to reports. But when the club recruitment structure is led by the manager who is also the director of football and has his own personal recruitment staff, then it's very easy to see why we've had the issues we've had.
Liverpool's recruitment structure was also ridiculed and criticized after Rodgers was sacked. And the below article from 2015, citing the Liverpool Echo as the original source, paints a very different picture of the current much lauded Liverpool recruitment structure of the same people.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/who-liverpool-transfer-committee-key-6576059
Brendan Rodgers: "I always think the manager is the technical director. He is the man who oversees the football development of the club, and I believe you should take on that responsibility when you are manager".
From the above link:
"With the director of football model ditched, the transfer committee was formed".
"During his three years at Anfield, Rodgers always had the final say on signings and no player was brought in without him giving the deal the green light"
"However, there have been occasions when the manager hasn’t been able to convince other committee members that a particular transfer has been worth pursuing due to the cost involved"
Brendan Rodgers: "We will never bring in a player here who the manager doesn’t want in. That’s a great credit to the owners and the other people at the club.”
"Rodgers now appears to have taken the fall for some of the committee's mistakes".
My own thoughts: So what changed? What changed was that the Liverpool board hired Klopp as the manager and he understood his role as the Head Coach and not the manager. That then created a DoF/Head Coach structure, and everything else is history.
Are we the first football club from having no director for football at all to having one of the most directors for football in a club?
Or surely it'd be a case of getting two people who have worked well together previously back together??
His main problem seemed to be his refusal to delegate to people who were properly qualified. He seemed to enjoy playing the role of Director of Football, despite it being obvious from early on that he was hopeless at it. Almost certainly a vain idiot, but not necessarily a cnut.
I doubt it, we’ve been linked with Mitchell for years.
He delegated loads to his staff, he had barely anything to do with the football side by the time he left. There’s just loads of shit decision makers at the club.
He’s the best and only option imho.
He actually kept trusting the managers to fix everything. Which tbf to him was normal at the club. And those managers were afforded their personal recruitment staff and they made a mess of recruitment.
It's really not the same thing.
This would be an experienced football person (Mitchell) bringing in somebody who, from all accounts, is already one of our top two choices. Hardly the same situation as now where we've been bringing in inexperienced people with the sole reason that they have 'United DNA'.
People saying if go we go Mitchell, it's a certainty Poch will follow. Nonsense.
Mitchell was hired by Leipzig whilst Ralf was their manager - it's got nothing to do with Poch.
Mitchell was hired by Leipzig whilst Ralf was their manager - it's got nothing to do with Poch.
Indeed. Presumably appointed by Woodward? Let’s hope Murtough isn’t one of them.
I’m not holding my breath…
Well I'll be hoping for the best, at least it seems like we plan on building a modern football club structure at long last. If he is the right one to help in that regard, only time will tell.
Should people not have friends at work?
It's not a certainty, but it certainly swings things Poch's way. If we did hire Mitchell he would be high up in the pecking order and have a loud voice for managerial appointments (in fact he probably should be the main decision maker rather than the non-football people above him), so his history of working well with Poch will surely play some part.
Hold on, I completely missed that. Were there actually rumours like that?
Although there is a great point about working well together, i think we should try to do better then who has worked well together (Mitchell and Poch) their successful tenure together would not qualify as success at United no matter how dire the current situation seems.
That being said I do like what i have seen from Mitchell and, admittedly this is more about bringing in Poch-I do not want him near the club
I suppose, but as I mentioned above, I don’t want Poch here and if the club is looking to hire everyone who would make Poch enjoy as seamless transition as possible, I’d rather not.
Absolutely they should have, but not hiring people based on friendships.
There was a fair bit of talk that they were unsure on Bruno because of how often he gave the ball away. That being one of the reasons we didn't buy him originally and then had to go back 6 months later. Not necessarily against him, but not completely on board either.
I don't remember rumours of that type about Maguire.
To the bolded part ...I second that motion.Although there is a great point about working well together, i think we should try to do better then who has worked well together (Mitchell and Poch) their successful tenure together would not qualify as success at United no matter how dire the current situation seems.
That being said I do like what i have seen from Mitchell and, admittedly this is more about bringing in Poch-I do not want him near the club
I suppose, but as I mentioned above, I don’t want Poch here and if the club is looking to hire everyone who would make Poch enjoy as seamless transition as possible, I’d rather not.
Absolutely they should have, but not hiring people based on friendships.
Daniel Taylor formerly of the Guardian and currently working for The Athletic, reported in 2018, that United had vetoed Mourinho's wish of signing Maguire and Alderweired etc because the decision makers felt the players weren't of a high enough level to improve on what they already had.
It was well documented that the transfer committee was created in 2018, and Bout, Lawlor and Court were the 3 representatives from the recruitment department that had the power to veto Mourinho.
There was also reports about the United decision makers not being happy with Bruno Fernandes giving the ball away too much, which didn't suit a team that wanted to look after possession better.
People were losing their minds about how the scouts could think that Maguire at 80m was a worse proposition than Smalling or Lindelof.
The scouts were right.
This please
I agree mate. It was the likes of Gary Neville on Sky TV and the United fan channels on YouTube who were incensed by how Woodward could veto a football man like Mourinho. That then filtered through to the masses and a false narrative was created. But it was clear it wasn't Woodward acting on his own whim but acting upon the reports provided by the recruitment staff that had been placed on a newly formed transfer committee. Woodward actually confirmed this in a interview with Andy Mitten a year later.People were losing their minds about how the scouts could think that Maguire at 80m was a worse proposition than Smalling or Lindelof.
The scouts were right.
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Bloody hell, Patrice.