You said Murtough?
So who's responsible for transfers/recruitment - and are they any good?
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
I actually said 'Murtough and his team' the scouts on the transfer committee represent Murtough.
All this committee stuff is crap. Nobody can tell me that somebody gives Jurgen Klopp players and says go coach them. The manager has to have final say on transfers.
Bit of a stretch lumping the opinion of a team onto one man though no?
Not when the 'team' also involves him. Murtough's the one who created the conditions for Lawlor, Bout and Court to sit on the transfer committee.
Stop being a dinosaur. Of course managers have an input, but many clubs now they dont have the final say or are given a short list. Should we go back to LVG, Mou and Ole signing whoever they want? Look how well that went, over £1bn wasted and highest earners in league, and yet the squad is a dysfunctional mess. THe idea that one big name manager solves all our problems is actually why we are in such a mess.
Nobody has said what you're insinuating.
Jurgen Klopp does have input in who is signed at Liverpool. But he himself according to the Liverpool media wanted Edwards and the team working under Edwards to control recruitment. And the recruitment straregy was centred around recruiting for Klopp's ideas on the pitch.
It's why when Klopp wanted to sign Julien Brandt, Edwards and the Liverpool recruitment staff sold him the idea of signing Salah instead. And that was because Edwards and his team, had conducted a thorough process in identifying Salah as the better fit for Klopp's style. And to Klopp's credit, he accepted the findings of the Liverpool recruitment team, which had the capability to be much more thorough in their process than Klopp could ever, whilst training the team.
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I think I'm gonna take a break very soon. I might have to ask @golden_blunder to temporarily ban me from posting in the football section. He's done that before and I came back refreshed.I wonder if he'll get sick of posting about our club structure at some point
We should seriously consider stickying some of his comments at the top and use that as a baseline for discussion rather than rehashing the same arguments and counter arguments over and over.
I don’t blame you, I get tired of people who don’t understand that Fletcher is not a deputy DoF or anything related. Read the bloody press releasesI think I'm gonna take a break very soon. I might have to ask @golden_blunder to temporarily ban me from posting in the football section. He's done that before and I came back refreshed.
Scouts weren’t wrong about his propensity to give the ball away. Luckily for us the rest come off
From what I've read, we have a lot of scouts and working units for the recruitment.
1. What I don't know is how much we use data science and statistics when it comes to select the right player for playing in the team in this league. I tend to believe Liverpool use this kind of method efficiently. Players with high rating and working hard always went there. I don't know when Ralf Rangnick is going to be technical consultant in the summer. He could transform this thing or not.
2. When it comes to contract negotiation, this is even worse. The club give salary like £350,000 per week for Sancho and Varane make me think our problem will continue long-term. No matter our players perform well or not they still got the best payment in the league. The responsibility has been transferred from Woodward to Richard Arnold, but they're all accountants who can't evaluate things in football side.
3. Finally, it maybe out of topic, but I do hope one day we'll see our team use sport science & AI technology more in the training. I've seen Dortmund/Bayern use AI practise indoor specifically for each player. I've seen Liverpool use heartbeat and breath pad on player's body
which provide data for their analysis. But I have never seen such things in Man United team. It's the fact that we're far away behind.
1. What I don't know is how much we use data science and statistics when it comes to select the right player for playing in the team in this league. I tend to believe Liverpool use this kind of method efficiently. Players with high rating and working hard always went there. I don't know when Ralf Rangnick is going to be technical consultant in the summer. He could transform this thing or not.
2. When it comes to contract negotiation, this is even worse. The club give salary like £350,000 per week for Sancho and Varane make me think our problem will continue long-term. No matter our players perform well or not they still got the best payment in the league. The responsibility has been transferred from Woodward to Richard Arnold, but they're all accountants who can't evaluate things in football side.
3. Finally, it maybe out of topic, but I do hope one day we'll see our team use sport science & AI technology more in the training. I've seen Dortmund/Bayern use AI practise indoor specifically for each player. I've seen Liverpool use heartbeat and breath pad on player's body
which provide data for their analysis. But I have never seen such things in Man United team. It's the fact that we're far away behind.
Thank you for taking the time to explain this to me. I will look into Murtough when I get time off work. I also take encouragement from whatever I (vaguely) remember from @Adnan’s posts about the current structure and our future.
We have made some progress. But we need a CEO that will not fold under pressure from teh next manager, which also means Joel Glazer keeps his idiot views to himself. I remain unconvinced that Fletcher should be anywhere near the role he has, he should have been given a more junior role to learn and estatblish himself. Time till tell.
I see the club’s appointment of Fletcher as technical director, despite his relative inexperience, at a club of United’s size and reputation, as a sign that he has the potential to perhaps move up the ladder, potentially as a future DoF? It would be great any way for Fletcher to learn from Rangnick, as well as Murtough.
Honestly, I have paid little attention to the club’s structure up till now. My apologies. I only started paying more attention when I read some of Adnan’s posts a while back about the Maguire transfer, although I can’t remember which thread that was.
Shout out to Adnan, by the way, and I agree with the poster who suggested some of Adnan’s posts, especially those in here, should be stickied for others to read. I’ve always enjoyed Adnan’s player analyses and have learned a lot from his (and a few others) posts in this thread.
What role do you think Fletcher has? There is a misconception that he has more power than what he has. He’s not a DoF, not even a jnr one, hence we are advertising for a deputy DoF. His role (aside from a bit of coaching to keep his badges relevant) is to oversee the pathway from reserves to first team squad and advise accordingly. That’s it. He may be asked his opinion but first team decisions are Ralph and Murtoughs baby. Murtough from a DoF point of view and Ralph from the manager point of view
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Below are the relevant quotes from the Laurie Whitwell article explaining what I've said above.
Laurie Whitwell: 'The sports science department that had been cultivated under Ferguson was largely dismantled by Mourinho, whose strategy instead leant heavily on interpreting player fitness for himself. Mourinho did not want “the tail wagging the dog” with support staff using data to advise on player fitness. He was determined to lead on appropriate selections".
"A special monitoring area used to conduct various tests in a non-clinical way, situated next to the first-team dressing room at Carrington and refurbished at the end of Ferguson’s tenure, was changed by Mourinho into a massage bay, with masseurs empowered more than the sports scientists were. A turnover in staff followed."
"Mourinho’s strategy is built around the tactical periodisation theory of Portuguese countryman Vitor Frade, who believed all training should be done with the ball, to replicate actions on the pitch. Long-time Mourinho assistant Rui Faria was a devout advocate of the model and as a key architect of United’s training he seriously limited gym sessions, reduced the input from strength and conditioning coaches and eschewed GPS tracking technology."
"At United, that shift away from statistical monitoring of player physiology meant gaps began to appear in the individual profiles that had been accumulated over time. This “performance intelligence database,” which could be used to study the development of key markers for endurance or speed, for example, took a number of months of successor Solskjaer’s reign to be properly replenished."
"After a dip towards the end of Mourinho’s reign, Solskjaer has gradually improved United’s ability to press their opponents further up the pitch, with high turnovers — defined as those within 40 metres of the other team’s goal — increasing."
We had a sports Science department that was cultivated under Fergie and developed further by John Murtough, who has a back ground in Sports Science and developing clubs to collate data to improve Sports performance in the modern game. But unfortunately for us, Mourinho was allowed to dismantle the setup, which set us back until Solskjaer arrived. But I don't think it'll take long for someone of Murtough's background to redevelop the department if he hasn't already. There's a reason they call him 'The Fixer'
Below are the relevant quotes from the Laurie Whitwell article explaining what I've said above.
Laurie Whitwell: 'The sports science department that had been cultivated under Ferguson was largely dismantled by Mourinho, whose strategy instead leant heavily on interpreting player fitness for himself. Mourinho did not want “the tail wagging the dog” with support staff using data to advise on player fitness. He was determined to lead on appropriate selections".
"A special monitoring area used to conduct various tests in a non-clinical way, situated next to the first-team dressing room at Carrington and refurbished at the end of Ferguson’s tenure, was changed by Mourinho into a massage bay, with masseurs empowered more than the sports scientists were. A turnover in staff followed."
"Mourinho’s strategy is built around the tactical periodisation theory of Portuguese countryman Vitor Frade, who believed all training should be done with the ball, to replicate actions on the pitch. Long-time Mourinho assistant Rui Faria was a devout advocate of the model and as a key architect of United’s training he seriously limited gym sessions, reduced the input from strength and conditioning coaches and eschewed GPS tracking technology."
"At United, that shift away from statistical monitoring of player physiology meant gaps began to appear in the individual profiles that had been accumulated over time. This “performance intelligence database,” which could be used to study the development of key markers for endurance or speed, for example, took a number of months of successor Solskjaer’s reign to be properly replenished."
"After a dip towards the end of Mourinho’s reign, Solskjaer has gradually improved United’s ability to press their opponents further up the pitch, with high turnovers — defined as those within 40 metres of the other team’s goal — increasing."
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Thanks for reading my posts, I appreciate the positive feedback, because it's normally not a positive response with fans being unhappy.
He still gets the final say and the manager should always get the final say on transfers
Great post but I am highly skeptical of that article. Surely the proof is in the pudding? Mourinho won trophies and Ole didn’t win anything. Not saying Mourinho had the correct approach but clearly Ole didn’t either. That article seems to credit winning the ball higher up the pitch to the extra data collected and analysed.
Ole did worst than Mourinho in terms of winning matches so it’s a poor comparison for me. Of course it’s possible poor performance was down to other factors such as tactics and the data monitoring still helped in spite of that.
I do agree with the premiss that the more data the better though. Surely having more information not less is helpful.
The article isn't comparing Ole and Mourinho on their on-field coaching credentials but rather their approach to the sports science aspect when it comes to fitness.
The head coach should absolutely have a say on who is signed. But when the head coach is preoccupied by managing/coaching the first team in preparation for match-days. Then the head coach can't possibly have the ability to run a thorough and detailed recruitment process on potential new recruits without relying on other people, like the scouts. So it's easy to see why Klopp backed down from wanting Julian Brandt and accepted the reasons for Liverpool's recruitment department preferring Salah.
I'm sure the head coach can set aside an hour or 2 each week to go over potential players. Besides, there's only 2 windows now and 1 of them lasts 2 months when there is no first team football. That's when he can really focus on signings.
I'm all for having a team of scouts but they should be working at the managers behest. The way it was under Fergie.
The guy at the top said the head coach won't be 'heavily involved with transfers' and I strongly disagree with that, because if the team loses the coach can justifiably say the players aren't good enough and he didn't select them. Let's keep the manager heavily involved please.
I won't repeat what @Adnan eloquently explained, but what is key I think is that we get a new Manager/Head Coach who can coach first and foremost, because I'm a firm believer that no top coach, be it Pep, Klopp, Tuchel, or any top coach has his preferred players all the time, even if a coach doesn't have his preferred players, said coach should still be able to get the best out the players they have at their disposal.
Hopefully Murtough finds the best possible coach that can coach the players available to him next season from whoever remains here next season and the new ones signed in the summer if any.
Hopefully Murtough finds the best possible coach that can coach the players available to him next season from whoever remains here next season and the new ones signed in the summer if any.
The head coach will be involved and that is normal at big clubs. But he shouldn't be given autonomy on the football side of the club like we've seen in the past where Solskjaer had Phelan and Simon Wells on his recruitment team.
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A manager should be to coach a team and implement a defined style of play first, which will make it easier for the scouts to identify targets that suits the manager's requirements.
and of course, it's obvious that the manager will give input on what type of players suits his style, and then scouts will try find the kind of players the manager wants.
What should not happen is that a manager to be allowed to sign whoever they want, without utilizing the existing recruitment structure within the club.
Worked for Fergie. He didn't need a load of bots with data analysts degrees to tell him who the best player was.
I'm told there's blokes coaching kids football with ipads in their hands nowadays. It's madness
SAF, despite his success, still signed duds like Obertan, Bebe, and others, however, SAF was an astute coach and tactician, and was able to get the best out of the players he had at his disposal, whether they were excellent signings like Evra, Vida, or Carrick to name a few, or others who weren't top class but SAF managed to squeeze as much from them like Chicharito, Anderson, and others.
And remember, SAF was not like any other manager, he was an institution, and had almost total control of the football side at the club, but when he departed, no other manager was able to succeed after him, despite the fact that they were given free reign to sign any players they wanted.
Yeah, I agree. Woodward had his faults, but the idea that he saw himself as some sort of DOF is wrong. I'm not saying he didn't interfere a little in decisions regarding players - for instance, when blocking Mourinho when he wanted to sell Martial. But I'd say that Woodward's fault here was that the club clearly doubted Mourinho at the time, in the summer of 2018, and still didn't let him go.
I don't think Woodward ever chose which player to sign.
Sorry both wrong. A lot of the well informed journos have called out Woodward for his role, it was very active in transfers, not a 'little'. He and his team were famous for calling around clubs just before transfer windows to ask about targets. One journo very aptly called out the fact that he fancied himself as the next Florentino Pérez , but he lacked the football knowledge, contacts or general business acumen of Perez, and he followed a pale imitation of Madrid's galactico strategy. His early comments about that there was nothign Utd couldnt do in transfer market underlined this. He also absolutely signed off all signings, and his motivation was all commercial, shirt sales, Twitter etc. Nothing to do with football or team structure/ style, which shouldnt be a surprise as he knew nothing of these. He was instrumental in Di Maria and Falcao and several others, including Ronnie. He also gave too much leeway to managers so likes of LVG, Mou and Ole were also allowed to pick players. Bottom line he is 100% responsible for the mess we are in.
That interview he gave was obviously silly, and he may have had commercial issues in mind, but the bottom line is: What did he do that other people in his role (expecially in clubs who did not have DOF's, like United during most of his tenure or David Gill's tenure) did not do?
He called clubs to ask about our targets? So what? Who else was supposed to do that?
He signed off on deals? Of course, the money men should always be the ones to do that as they know what we can and cannot afford.
You yourself wrote he gave a lot of power to the managers and allowed them to pick players. So did he do that or did he sign players whether they wanted them or not?
Was he the pushy CEO who saw himself of DOF or the leniet one who gave managers control?
I see Woodward as the man who chose managers badly, before anything else. That was the main issue.
The point was there would be panicked calls just before or during windows as we had no coherent plan. He was a joke across world football. He was intimately involved in all the big deals and helped initiate several or listened to a couple of big agents. He could both try and mimic the galatico strategy of RM/ Perez and give managers too much leeway. They are not contradictory points. In fact that reinforce each other, as both point to the complete absence of a proper DOF and a recruitment strategy/ decision making process ,rather a scatter gun approach driven by shirt sales or a specific manager's preferences. Hence why Ole was able to overrule the recruitment team to sign both Maguire and AWB
You seriously suggesting Woodward was not 100% all over our transfer strategy or that we had any kind of coherent recruitment decision making process? Really? Or you think the more than £1bn gross spend under his leadership went well.
I think the Glazers are the ones at fault the most as they gave Woodward the job, and then kept them at it.
I'm not saying Woodward was good at what he did. Obviously, he wasn't fit to run a football club, especially not of this size. I'm just saying that people seem to think he went and signed players because he wanted to, and I don't believe it was the case. His faults also ended up manifesting into us signing badly, but not because he evaluated players abilities himself.