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The ‘Deputy Football Director’ position | 31.05.2022 - Andy O’Boyle appointed

Castia

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We’ll end up with an ex player and Fletcher running the club won’t we….fecking shambles.
 

Mainoldo

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Who are the candidates? Didn’t the Brighton guy leave the other day or the Norwich guy? I can’t remember.
 

Roboc7

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Murtough is qualified as a director of football. He's been directing the football side of several clubs for almost 20 years. Directing the scouting and data science departments and creating roles for 100s of people on the football side of the club and also directing the revamp of the academy after it was neglected under David Gill/Fergie. But the issue with a lot of you chaps is that you have your own perceptions on what a DoFs role is in the game today and look at middling clubs like RB Leipzig, Sevilla etc which clouds your judgement.
Maybe he’s doing a good job behind the scenes maybe he isn’t. The reality is the recruitment at the club has been terrible post SAF and he’s been part of that, so whether it’s fair or not he is associated with failure. Until we start seeing some evidence of a plan and better decisions being made there is going to quite rightly be a lot of scepticism of him, Fletcher and everyone else involved.
 

Dante

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All those people who used to say that United were being held back by not having a DoF... well we've got about 6 now. Hope you're happy.
 

DanielofLeyland

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You would hope that United have made contact and have a good idea who our next manager is going to be next season. Any recruitment made higher up should align fully with whoever is coming in. United need a core identity that is based around football and not commercial interests. Anybody hired with footballing pedigree will always be useful and should hopefully help Murtough. A positive decision from the club IMO.
 
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roseguy64

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Maybe he’s doing a good job behind the scenes maybe he isn’t. The reality is the recruitment at the club has been terrible post SAF and he’s been part of that, so whether it’s fair or not he is associated with failure. Until we start seeing some evidence of a plan and better decisions being made there is going to quite rightly be a lot of scepticism of him, Fletcher and everyone else involved.
He's been a part of it but was only involved in youth recruitment for Utd previously. Also last summer was mainly Woodward pulling the strings as Murtough was new in the position so he wasn't given autonomy.

Hopefully this summer he'll get some sway to make things his way along with the new manager.
 

roseguy64

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Who are the candidates? Didn’t the Brighton guy leave the other day or the Norwich guy? I can’t remember.
I doubt it'll be anybody like that. It'll be some scout or analyst looking to get a promotion. Someone who's been a DoF before will want to run their own show.
 

MUFC OK

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Surely this is for Rangnick? Would rather he had a more active role than this advisory consultant stuff that has been mooted.
 

Roboc7

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He's been a part of it but was only involved in youth recruitment for Utd previously. Also last summer was mainly Woodward pulling the strings as Murtough was new in the position so he wasn't given autonomy.

Hopefully this summer he'll get some sway to make things his way along with the new manager.
It’s pushing it quite a lot to say Woodward was pulling the strings, he wasn’t the one identifying players. Woodward wasn’t competent and his record of hiring is really poor so I completely understand why there is a lot doubts about Murtough as he is associated to Woodward.

The club is full of people who have only been part of failure or lack experience in their role. Murtough and Fletcher have everything to prove, who knows what ‘their way’ is or if they are competent enough to do it, we’ll just have to wait and see. The way everyone at the club was so entrenched with the reboot and rebuild under Ole which was out dated and lacking in substance rings alarm bells.
 

devilish

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He's had 1. He came in as a coach last season and was moved up to technical director.

Agendas are running wild.
He started as U16 coach then he was promoted as first team coach and then again as a technical director. All in around 6 months
 

roseguy64

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It’s pushing it quite a lot to say Woodward was pulling the strings, he wasn’t the one identifying players. Woodward wasn’t competent and his record of hiring is really poor so I completely understand why there is a lot doubts about Murtough as he is associated to Woodward.

The club is full of people who have only been part of failure or lack experience in their role. Murtough and Fletcher have everything to prove, who knows what ‘their way’ is or if they are competent enough to do it, we’ll just have to wait and see. The way everyone at the club was so entrenched with the reboot and rebuild under Ole which was out dated and lacking in substance rings alarm bells.
Huh? Woodward was still the one in charge of transfers. I never said he was identifying players. I highly doubt he ever has.

It's either been the managers or the transfer committee. I was simply saying that Murtough wasn't in charge of transfers in the summer as Woodward still maintained the role he had previously.

I have no clue on the competency of Murtough. He has a lot of experience in football outside of Man Utd also so he has the CV for the role.
 

croadyman

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Would be happy IF appointing one ultimately leads to getting Ten Hag in the summer, however if it's still Pochettino will feel disappointed
 

BlueHaze

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You know it's the wild west when it's being spoken of the need of a deputy.
 

Lash

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Feel like I should quote @mazhar13 's post in here, just so people do actually realise this role exsists at lots of other clubs.

Several teams have multiple directors rather than just one. AC Milan, for example, have Frederic Massara as the top sporting director with Paolo Maldini working under him. Inter have Beppe Marotta with Piero Ausilio under him. Barcelona have a club sporting director in Rafa Yuste with two different directors under him: one for the men's team (Mateu Alemany) and one for the women's team (Xavier Puig).



Now that I think about it, I think the deputy can help with distributing the workload between the men's and women's team.



On Rangnick, I don't think he was ever going to have an active role in the club after this spell. As a consultant, he can focus on his own endeavours whilst being available to offer some expert advice when needed. If we needed him in a more active role, then we'd have made him a director alongside/under Murtough.
 

wolvored

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True, which was yet another example of this club absolutely horsefecking a transition. Why would any footballing organization do that during a transfer window?
I know its barmy, but lets hope its a new start.
 

wolvored

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Huh? Woodward was still the one in charge of transfers. I never said he was identifying players. I highly doubt he ever has.

It's either been the managers or the transfer committee. I was simply saying that Murtough wasn't in charge of transfers in the summer as Woodward still maintained the role he had previously.

I have no clue on the competency of Murtough. He has a lot of experience in football outside of Man Utd also so he has the CV for the role.
He was in charge of getting the youth players in we have signed, so does have some knowledge, even if its at youth level. I read he was sport scientist at Everton or something like that before, and head of elite performance for the Premier league. Dont know what that entailed as well.
 

wolvored

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He started as U16 coach then he was promoted as first team coach and then again as a technical director. All in around 6 months
Im wondering if its like an apprenticeship and he takes over from Murtough in say 4/5 years time? So he has an understanding and hands on of all the roles.
 

Greck

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He's had 1. He came in as a coach last season and was moved up to technical director.

Agendas are running wild.
He came in as U16 coach and was promoted to first team coach because in Ole's words he wanted more United DNA.
 

cyril C

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Every senior position will generally have a team of people working under them. Not sure there is much news here.
Worse, every senior director is paid in millions, 1/4 mi of expense and travel account, and you know what, the final decision making end up at you know who.

If this is a ploy to get rid of Murtough then just get on with it, stop wasting money on PR scheme.
 

Greck

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Murtough and Woodward work(ed) together. Woodward is the CEO equivalent, that's why he's being replaced by Arnold not Murtough. Murtough is the director of football (a subset of the overall structure), Woodward is the director presiding over the overall business above the other directors. He needs directors because one man can't have the expertise to direct an entire organisation alone. Murtough didn't just start work this month. He wasn't just sitting at a desk doing nothing for a whole year. This thing can never be mutually exclusive. We can't choose who we like or don't like to be held accountable. Instead put everyone under scrutiny.
 
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Tyrion

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We’ll end up with an ex player and Fletcher running the club won’t we….fecking shambles.
Having an ex player involved in the academy is fine and possibly a good thing. They know the club, the area, the culture and the sport. At the level of club director or DOF, having an ex player seems pointless. That's the position where you want someone with outside knowledge.
 

Adnan

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Maybe he’s doing a good job behind the scenes maybe he isn’t. The reality is the recruitment at the club has been terrible post SAF and he’s been part of that, so whether it’s fair or not he is associated with failure. Until we start seeing some evidence of a plan and better decisions being made there is going to quite rightly be a lot of scepticism of him, Fletcher and everyone else involved.
Murtough has not been involved with the recruitment at first team level until now. He's been involved with recruitment at youth team level and there's reports backing that up.

But to say that the head of youth development was involved with the recruitment at first team level is naive. Justice Cochrane is the current head of youth development and he isn't part of the recruitment staff at first team level.

The respective managers have always had control over recruitment at the club imo. And when you create departments with vast resources to improve recruitment and don't give those departments control over the direction going forward, then you're gonna have a problem.

But it looks like that's going to change now with Murtough being in a position of power on the football side of the club. And it'll come down to him acting upon the information, which will be provided by the heads of departments who he created positions for, by restructuring a archaic structre under Gill/Fergie (according to Stuart Mathieson), where we went from one full-time scout/non existent data analysis departments to about 20-25 departments, which has modernised the club.
 

Seij

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I remain to be convinced on Murtough given he's been in the job for a year, and in that time recruitment still a joke. No central midfielder in summer but suddenly £25m in wages for OAP Ronnie. Nothing in during Jan window, then we read that Arnold is reviewing our transfer strategy as Jan window viewed as a bit of a mistake. So he and Murtough are reviewing themselves...? And consultant role or Ralf is a joke, give him a proper permanent job. He is far, far more qualified for DoF than Murtough ever was. Why he continue to appoint under qualified staff to such key roles is beyond me. REmember Ed interiewing Rio for DoF...?
A bit huh?
 

Adnan

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Feel like I should quote @mazhar13 's post in here, just so people do actually realise this role exsists at lots of other clubs.

It's normal to have a assistant helping the DoF run the football side of the club. Ajax had Gerry Hamstra in a technical director's role helping Overmars. Kehl is assisting Zorc at BvB. Marco Neppe is assisting Salihamidzic at Bayern after being promoted from a head of recruitment role.

There's many good candidates at home and abroad. But I have a gut feeling it's gonna be someone like Christian Vivell or Christian Mockel, who have both worked under Rangnick. Mockel is currently heading the scouting department at Lokomotiv Moscow, and Vivell is in a role at RB Leipzig which is similar to the role we're looking for, where he's assisting the Sporting Director, Markus Krösche.
 

Daengophile

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It would be very useful to understand who is responsible for what.

Otherwise it's just a random collection of misfits
 

dpansheth

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All those people who used to say that United were being held back by not having a DoF... well we've got about 6 now. Hope you're happy.
We have been also complaining about midfield, can we get 6 in the summer?
 

Pexbo

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I don’t think there will be any other candidates other than Ralf. They made this position for him.
I hope this is true. For the single reason that he seems to be a massive advocate of ETH and hopefully we are trying to put a really solid and supportive structure in place for him.
 

izak

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I like the idea of this because our CEO isn't a footballing man, we need someone with experience to run things behind the sense, someone who has done a good job at a big club and is ready to help resturture our future with smart moves on the footballing department.
 

Lash

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It's normal to have a assistant helping the DoF run the football side of the club. Ajax had Gerry Hamstra in a technical director's role helping Overmars. Kehl is assisting Zorc at BvB. Marco Neppe is assisting Salihamidzic at Bayern after being promoted from a head of recruitment role.

There's many good candidates at home and abroad. But I have a gut feeling it's gonna be someone like Christian Vivell or Christian Mockel, who have both worked under Rangnick. Mockel is currently heading the scouting department at Lokomotiv Moscow, and Vivell is in a role at RB Leipzig which is similar to the role we're looking for, where he's assisting the Sporting Director, Markus Krösche.
Yeah, I think the DoF has to be that bridge between the business and football - which means you can't actually fully focus on DoF tasks on the footballing side. Im beginning to like the structure we're creating a lot and think Fletcher's role will be the one I watch the closest - it would be interesting to see what his goals/targets are.
 

romufc

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He started as U16 coach then he was promoted as first team coach and then again as a technical director. All in around 6 months
I mean this happens all the time, Chelsea have their former players in the board room too. If you actually listen to people, Fletcher was actually even being looked at for DoF so he must have something about him.

Fans will want an external person just for the sake of it.
 

devilish

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I mean this happens all the time, Chelsea have their former players in the board room too. If you actually listen to people, Fletcher was actually even being looked at for DoF so he must have something about him.

Fans will want an external person just for the sake of it.
That post was quite clear. You said that he had 1 promotions. I showed you that he had more.

Fans usually want external people when the club keeps messing up year after year. In such circumstances you expect them to hire people who know what they are doing rather then someone whose on the job learning
 

Maticmaker

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Yet another 'good idea'... (probably), but personally I think there are already too many 'Cooks'....!
Would love to see a management chart for United, how many levels of management and what are they responsible for:-
(fill in the blanks please)

OWNERS -controlling the purse strings
I
I
I
I
PLAYERS- winning football matches