So did Anderson. I still don’t get your point except for the fact you’d love to have his babies.
He’s well over priced which was why I included him.
The ‘Deputy Football Director’ position | 31.05.2022 - Andy O’Boyle appointed
- Thread starter Chairman Steve
- Start date
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
He’s well over priced which was why I included him.
Matic - too slow
Pogba - not naturally aggressive
Mata - too slow, too weak
Lindelof - too slow, too passive, too timid
AWB - lacks confidence, lacks purpose
DvdB - lacks physical strength and stature (this one is debatable because he *could* maybe adapt with a bit of time in the gym and in the right system - I don't think he's good enough though)
Ronaldo - too slow, doesn't press
Cavani - too old
Fred - too lightweight
Pellistri - too lightweight
Amad - too lightweight
Sancho - too slow, not naturally aggressive
100%
Good break down. I think aggressive play (style)can adapt the naturally non aggressive players.
Anderson scored a penalty, not timed a brilliant run in behind one of the worlds best defences, then put one of the best goalkeepers in the world on his arse.
He’s still 22 years of age. He looks like that fee will end up being an absolute steal when you’re making him out to be Nicolas Pepe (who cost the exact same amount by the way)
Did it cost Brighton money? A club that is, correct by you, actually well run. A big difference between those two, and do I need to say that Brighton finished above them? haha, the reason they even bought Coutinho (another shit signing, mind you) is that Gerrard likes and knows him. They have no plan and structure for how they are going to get to the top. They are not well run. And no, Ings for £30m for a club like AV was clearly not brought as a backup. You think Ings is going to go to Aston Villa to be backup?!
Ole might have said the right things but I'm not really sure he understood exactly what he meant by them. Also, there's a big difference between 'passion', 'desire' and ensuring that players have the elite physical qualities required to play for Manchester United.
Take Fred as an example. Now, personally, I don't think you can question his attitude, he would run through brick walls for the club if he could. The problem is, not only is he not technically good enough, he's also far too lightweight. Unfortunately, if you just don't have that physical strength/stamina etc...it's hard to develop it at that level.
Case in point, I would run all day for United and I would describe myself as a very capable footballer at a low level....but I'd never get near the absolute monsters you see in professional football, even though when I did play regional semi-pro/Academy level football I was 6ft 1", 88KG and ran 100m in under 12s. No amount of 'passion', 'desire' or 'wanting it badly' would help me at all.
We're looking for the 0.001% who have the whole package...it's incredibly difficult to find, which is why Liverpool employ former rocket scientists to create Data models to find players who are the right profile before following up with the eye-test and character assessments
Pepe was a waste of money and so is Havertz. He’s not meant for this league. I hope they do put their trust in him. We will overtake them fairly quickly if they do.
Nice on the eye but not for me. You can see already he won’t be top tier. £85m. Can you imagine if he performed like that for us. Wouldn’t hear the last of it.
And from what I've read over the years, LVG and Mourinho were against a DoF type figure but Woodward notified Ole about installing a DoF, to which Ole agreed. But Woodward for some reason waited 3 years and until then it was too late for Solskjaer. And that was according to Rob Dawson (ESPN).
It was £72 million. I can see maths isn’t a strong point. Might explain your other nonsense about “well run clubs”
If he played for us the way he has for them we wouldn’t shut up about him, because he’s a very exciting young player.
Gerrard is still questionable. Graham Potter is a better manager. Brighton have also been in the league longer than Villa. It‘s not mad to assume Villa finish above them next season. There striking options was Watkins, Davies and some bloke they sold back after a season. Not to mention Wesley. I’m sure Ings made sense. However it was not t overtake Watkins.
They have the 9th highest net spend since 12/13 IN THE WORLD and are only climbing that latter. They spend extreme money and you think they are well run when what they show is 14th place? It's that bizarre because they are actually one of the WORST clubs in the league. They spend so much money so yes, they probably will finish in the top 10 but it's not impressive at all if they do. Leicester, Brighton, Liverpool, Brentford, to an extent even Norwich, are well run.
Is that about €85m? Don’t get what that had to do with maths. Maybe my comprehension?
Yes I clearly said he’s good on the eye. But he hasn’t delivered for the money they payed. It would be hard to convince someone he’s better than Mason Mount. Ive never seen him be effective in a big game and he clearly hasn’t got Chelsea nowhere near the top 2.
He’s not a £72m player for me.
I think you have them confused for Everton. They clearly have high ambitions like Newcastle. However they are not a top 6 club so these things take time. Otherwise anyone with abit of money could do it. Their objectives are different to some of the clubs you mentioned so there approaches will be different. It doesn’t mean they are not well ran.
I did also explain what they are doing with their academy which went untouched as people now just want to focus on league position. If you want to see a poorly ran club look at them before there new owners.
And Kepa, and Drinkwater, and Bakayoko, and many more.
The list is long.
Yes and no. There were certainly spells under Ole when we showed plenty of desire; look at all those comebacks.
Ole also called out the players after one of the wretchedly limp performances following his permanent appointment. “United should always be able to work harder than every other team” or something like that. He was absolutely right, but our fitness under him never improved.
Whether we’ve been unlucky to sign so many apparently lazy players or they just get subsumed into an existing lazy culture is another question.
What the hell are you expecting? Which team massively changes their squad during the season? Only clubs fighting relegation make a lot of transfers in the winter window. Like Newcastle did.
Recalling all the news during the past 6-7 years, I concur with this statement. Mourinho basically wanted the DOF reports to him. Ole didn't have much say, perhaps would like to have a bigger say on players recruitment, like most did. It did take 3 years to finalise the DOF appointment, which should have happened during Ole's 1st half season. I also recall comment like we did finish 2nd, so current arrangement works OK. Murtough is appointed to sack Ole apparently.
Think it’s easy to view exotic names as wooow but in reality Leonardo was a bit of flop assuming you’re talking about the one that used to be at PSG.
All the good football and technical directors have one thing in common they succeed in the country that they built their careers in or the clubs they started off at.
Whether it’s Maldini at Milan, Petr Chech at Chelsea, VDS at Ajax or the none players who have risen to become DoF TD etc. only exceptions I can think of are the two at City and guess what, like you I couldn’t name them without googling
I’m not making a case for any of the established DoFs, I made a point about where I think the club is heading given who we have employed. FYI VDS is not a DoF, Cech candidly I’m not 100% on his role given how much power Granovskaia has (I remember he was the one who recommended Mendy as you’d suspect but unsure if he’s as involved in outfield player recruitment), Tixi is Barca through and through and given City are just trying to carbon copy them he’s been a good for for them.
There’s lots of info in this thread about lots of different DoFs and it’s a very hit and miss job, my point was I think we’re going to be focusing on monetising our academy given the new hire + Murtough’s background which is something we’ve seemed distinctly average at previously.
That's what I meant when I mentioned the current United board being uncharacteristically competent: They make hiring decisions based on due analyzing, not just following the "trendy" stuffs that we normal fans think of.
But I had specifically mentioned recruitment. Because that's what Murtough is gonna focus on now, its gonna be his squad building. And Mitchell has much more experience in recruitment.
And we have also spent an obscene amount of money, yet we are nowhere. Perhaps having an experienced man with a plan and a clear strategy helps.
Look I'm not saying Murtough is incompetent. I'm just saying there are people out there with much more experience in recruitment. And trusting Murtough to handle the squad building for the next few years is a big risk.
Murtough is going to focus on recruitment as the DoF, mate. And Mitchell's role in recruitment at Soton, Spurs and Leipzig was to head the recruitment in a head of scouting capacity. At Southampton it was Les Reed who led the overall strategy on the football side of the club, because he was the DoF, but strangely most are oblivious of his work as the DoF at Southampton but credit the head of scouting instead. At Ajax, the head of scouting is Henk Veldmate, but no one credits him but instead credit the DoF at the time, Marc Overmars. At Hoffenheim the head of scouting was Christian Mockel but everyone credits Ralf Rangnick when in-fact it was Mockel and the team working below him who were in-charge of recruitment. So if we want to compare the role Mitchell is said to have excelled in, then we have to look at who is in charge of the recruitment department at the club and hence reports to Murtough. So the direct comparison with Mitchell at the club is someone like Jose Mayorga.
So the squad building at the big clubs is led by people running the recruitment department who identify transfer targets. The DoF will come into play when those targets have been compiled by the head scouts and data analytics teams. Man Utd's recruitment team is led by Simon Wells, Jose Mayorga and Mick Court who is the head of data analytics. And it's going to be the aforementioned three who will be tasked with collating the information of 50 to 60 full scouts and around 300 casual scouts around the globe. Dominic Jordan who is the data scientist is another member who will be involved in recruitment amongst other things, but his role is yet to be defined.
The head of youth recruitment is David Harrison who was nabbed from City and he has his own team working on recruitment at youth level. And it's Harrison and his team who run recruitment at youth level with Murtough coming into play when targets have been identified. Hannibal Mejbri for example was signed after Murtough sold the club to him and his family and made several trips to France to beat off competition from rival clubs.
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VDS has never been DoF. He’s the CEO
And that's the thing. It will be his first time in a role like this. Now you can argue that others have also done well in their first time in different clubs, but for every Pep, you get a Ole, Lampard or Neville.
I dont understand the faith some have on Murtough, since he is yet to deliver anything yet. But lets hope for the best, because he is firmly in the driving seat now, and calling all the shots. If we feck up in the market this time(again), we all know who to look at.
Pep, Ole, Lampard and Neville were either first team managers or Head Coaches at their respective clubs. Their role is different to what is required from the head of football operations overseeing the entire strategy on the football side of the club.
It's not about having faith in one man, but rather wanting to see the 80 or so people working on the football side of the club, to come together from different departments to aid the first team head coach. That hasn't been happening at the club with the respective managers utilising their own personal scouts. It's about aligning/streamlining the approach, which will potentially empower the football departments and ultimately benefit the head coach and the club.
You are completely missing the point.
No one argued their role is the same. The point was about how inexperienced hires are hit and miss.
We need to minimize risks, by getting the most competent people we can identify.
Sounds cool in theory, but it all comes down to the major decisions the main decision makers(Murtough and ETH) will make. I have faith in ETH because of his CV. I cannot say that about Murtough.
Name me some DoFs at big clubs (not financially doped up ones) that were hired due to their experience in the role? Bayern, Barca, Real Madrid, Liverpool etc, have all won the champions league in the last 5 to 6 years, so i'm assuming they trawled the globe to bring in the best in class DoF.
Like I said, our situation is not the same as other clubs. Mourinho and LVG enjoyed far more success at other clubs, but didnt at ours. Its not always that black/white.
You seem to have a lot of confidence about Murtough, although yet we have yet to see much of anything from him as a DOF. Lets see how he fares in the transfer market this season and we will have some idea about how competent he really is.
Our situation is the same as it was at Liverpool, who were running with the manager model pre Jurgen Klopp. And Van Gaal and Mourinho both paid the price due to their desire to work without a DoF, similar to Brendan Rodgers.
You're also making stuff up here and attributing things to me that I haven't said. I'm always going to give someone like a Murtough a chance before criticising him. Liverpool, Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern have hired from within, and these clubs have been very successful. The chap that's the DoF at City currently, was made the Barca DoF in 2003, straight from a commentary role at Catalunya tv. He was a ex player that was friendly with Laporta the President.
I don't know how things will evolve in the next few years, but it's clear to me from reading posts on here regarding a DoF, that many posters can't look past one individual when assessing the structure surrounding a DoF setup.
I thought he wasTD (technical director) my point was about DoF and TD’s because let’s face it the roles are not set in stone and vary at each club.
How can getting someone from the PL be an internal appointment?
The state of our fanbase
‘Cos he used to work at United.How can getting someone from the PL be an internal appointment?
The state of our fanbase
Sixteen years ago…
Do you know what an internal promotion is? Seemingly not
For 7 months as an academy coach...
#MatesFC #JobsForTheBoys
