United set to revamp scouting network

KM

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This is from Charles Sale who's usually reliable so here it goes.
The root-and-branch revamp of Manchester United's scouting system will see up to 40 appointments around the globe in an initiative started by executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward.

The wholesale changes from the tight-knit Sir Alex Ferguson era will see the academy and first-team talent identification operations merged to create a more efficient approach in order to attract the best prospects in world football.

Sports headhunters Nolan Partners are working with United in recruiting fresh scouts in every territory.

Dutchman Henny de Regt has already been brought in to work with head of youth recruitment Derek Langley, while chief scout Jim Lawlor has been given admin support so he can concentrate fully on finding players.

United want to keep a greatly expanded scouting system in place whoever replaces current manager Louis van Gaal, so avoiding David Moyes' predicament of finding there was no accessible database of potential players when he took over from Ferguson.
 

Cee90

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Hopefully we can unearth a few gems like Mahrez, Alli, Kante etc.
 

Lentwood

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It's about time - ive argued for years that our scouting network is ridiculously poor for a club of our size. It always felt like an afterthought - pretty sure it used to be SAF's brother heading it all up!

You could easily argue that over the last 20 years our record in the transfer market has been very poor for a club with our resource
 

Jazz

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Finally! Good on Woodward to get this organised. Maybe he's not as 'incompetent' as some keep saying.
 

ti vu

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It's about time - ive argued for years that our scouting network is ridiculously poor for a club of our size. It always felt like an afterthought - pretty sure it used to be SAF's brother heading it all up!

You could easily argue that over the last 20 years our record in the transfer market has been very poor for a club with our resource
Agree. This is one weakness of SAF. The man simply untapped the players from Latin territory for most part of his career: Kleberson being first Brazillian, Chicharito first Mexican, Veron first Argentine, De Gea third Spanish after Ricardo and Pique, C.Ronaldo first Portuguese!!! from prominent Latin countries regarding producing footballers. So basically we left ourselves handicapped when Bayern pretty much owned the Germany and we only had Bastian as first German. We're left ourselves in tight corner. No wonder we got bullied for players and British quality players would be extremely expensive since the money were poured into.

We can say Latin players have been more miss than hit for us. Still the root of problem lies with we're kinda uneducated about Latin players and often get the wrong ones in that don't suit our style or simply we don't build platform to use their talents but force them to adapt.
 
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Norris

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The wholesale changes from the tight-knit Sir Alex Ferguson era will see the academy and first-team talent identification operations merged to create a more efficient approach in order to attract the best prospects in world football.
I thought the segregation of talent identification for First team and Academy was more efficient since the scouting requirements, staff recruitment, and other criteria's would be completely different at both the levels. Unifying the process just seems to add to more confusion imo.

David Moyes' predicament of finding there was no accessible database of potential players when he took over from Ferguson.
Erm, what ?? DM didn't have a database to access previously scouted players ? Really ? You would think a club of our stature would have such things well organized, encrypted and locked deep away in some server in Iceland.
Now I am starting to think the Fax gaffe for the De Gea transfer was from our end. :|
 

Rednotdead

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Confirms what we heard about Moyes' arrival at OT, thinking there would be a database of targets for that summer whereas there was nothing. It definitely explains why that window was a shambles.
 

Norris

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This is one weakness of SAF. The man simply untapped the players from Latin territory for most part of his career:
There's a very good reason for that. The UK visa formalities for Non EU nations are a pain the ass. We had tie-ups with Fluminense in the past and even invited many of their top players to OT to watch a game or two, but Regulations, mis-management all screwed that up and we had to severe that tie.
 

Maradona10

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I thought the segregation of talent identification for First team and Academy was more efficient since the scouting requirements, staff recruitment, and other criteria's would be completely different at both the levels. Unifying the process just seems to add to more confusion imo.


Erm, what ?? DM didn't have a database to access previously scouted players ? Really ? You would think a club of our stature would have such things well organized, encrypted and locked deep away in some server in Iceland.
Now I am starting to think the Fax gaffe for the De Gea transfer was from our end. :|
This may show we are moving away from the buying star players era that woodward wanted to start and are going back to buying young players again.
Wont be surprised if we see influx of some of the highly rated youngsters in the worl here.
 

ti vu

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Confirms what we heard about Moyes' arrival at OT, thinking there would be a database of targets for that summer whereas there was nothing. It definitely explains why that window was a shambles.
Moyes is not blameless. Took extended holiday when he should go to work right away and prepare himself. Just left it to last day to overspent on Fellaini.

Did we really scout C.Ronaldo before that friendly match or fate got us there? :wenger: Seeing evidently we gave no feck for Latin players.
 

RedDevil@84

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Even our negotiators seem to be really bad. We get robbed by most clubs on any talents and need to pay over the odds.
 

Norris

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Confirms what we heard about Moyes' arrival at OT, thinking there would be a database of targets for that summer whereas there was nothing. It definitely explains why that window was a shambles.
Would also explain the Rojo and Blind deals since van Gaal had first hand experience of them at the WC.
This might also mean Shaw and Herrera were Moyes's transfer targets unlike some who suggested that Shaw and Herrera were scouted in the SAF days.
Moyes is not blameless. Took extended holiday when he should go to work right away and prepare himself. Just left it to last day to overspent on Fellaini.
He was not allowed by Man Utd to start before July 1 even though he wanted to.
 

villain

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Excellent news. Good on Woodward for putting a plan in place.
 

Norris

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This may show we are moving away from the buying star players era that woodward wanted to start and are going back to buying young players again.
Wont be surprised if we see influx of some of the highly rated youngsters in the worl here.
It doesn't have to be. Really depends on the new manager. If it's Mourinho, you know he will buy some big name player who is available in the transfer window. But it's this unifying process I don't get. It just seems very archaic. I am not sure how efficiency will improve from such a move.
 

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Doesn't the likes of Fosu-Mensah and Januzaj show that our scouting system is doing ok? It seems to me that a scouting system is much more important when it comes to youth signings. Good players do not stay unknown for long especially these days. And will never do great in South America because of Work Permit regulations.
 

ti vu

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Would also explain the Rojo and Blind deals since van Gaal had first hand experience of them at the WC.
This might also mean Shaw and Herrera were Moyes's transfer targets unlike some who suggested that Shaw and Herrera were scouted in the SAF days.

He was not allowed by Man Utd to start before July 1 even though he wanted to.
It's the official day to start working as the boss, doesn't mean he's off limit getting info and start planning, does it? Pep after being announced by Bayern worked behind closed door planning even before Heykenc stepped down. Anyways, for Moyes to have absolutely no idea of anyone to buy except Fellaini and Baines was still mind boggling.

About the South America issue. I think with Mou and Mendes help, we can set up connection with a small Europe feeder clubs to get them EU Visa first. Mendes and Andrea Berta (if the report is true that he's coming with Mou) would be big help get us going. CAF next Messi dream is becoming more vivid now it seems.
 

Norris

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It's the official day to start working as the boss, doesn't mean he's off limit getting info and start planning, does it? Pep after being announced by Bayern worked behind closed door planning even before Heykenc stepped down. Anyways, for Moyes to have absolutely no idea of anyone to buy except Fellaini and Baines was still mind boggling.

About the South America issue. I think with Mou and Mendes help, we can set up connection with a small Europe feeder clubs to get them EU Visa first. Mendes and Andrea Berta (if the report is true that he's coming with Mou) would be big help get us going. CAF next Messi dream is becoming more vivid now it seems
But we don't know if he didn't start his pre planning or not. In all probability, he did because within 3-5 days of him officially joining, he removed the existing staff, despite SAF requesting him not to do so. Also, I am sure he would have spoken to SAF about transfer targets, but unfortunately, they were chasing the wrong targets. Fabregas, Bale were never going to join us.

It's possible. Chelsea had something similar set-up with a few European clubs, but it still won't matter, coz even those feeder clubs cannot sign latin players under 18 if I am not mistaken. And then the problem of that said player playing for us is still an issue since they have had to play 75% of their countries international games, else a case for the 'Special Talent' has to be presented. Even someone like Kagawa had to be presented as a Special Talent case for his visa to get approved. Imagine what chances an 18 or 19 year old have. It's possible though since the Kenedy deal by Chelsea was an example of that.
 

SteveW

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Moyes is not blameless. Took extended holiday when he should go to work right away and prepare himself. Just left it to last day to overspent on Fellaini.

Did we really scout C.Ronaldo before that friendly match or fate got us there? :wenger: Seeing evidently we gave no feck for Latin players.
Ha. We had been scouting him for years.
 

Mani

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We need a revamp and its finally happening,Good news.
 

amolbhatia50k

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United want to keep a greatly expanded scouting system in place whoever replaces current manager Louis van Gaal, so avoiding David Moyes' predicament of finding there was no accessible database of potential players when he took over from Ferguson.
This bit is pretty insane, and if true, one big downside of having a manager who has been at your club for 26 years. Noone would have it any other way of course, however it would suggest SAF was a lot more off the cuff than system oriented in his approach. And in this day and age you need the latter as other teams will, and it's hard to have a genius in charge.

At the same time, I do wonder if it's also upto someone like Gill to make sure that while the club enjoys the benefits of having such a legendary long serving manager, he ensures we move forward in every other aspect.

That would odd given noone bas taken a closer at Gill in all this. Is Woodward cleaning a bit of his mess as much as anything? Just an idea to ponder.

It could obviously also be propaganda from Woodward to make what stood before him appear worse but the way things have unfolded under two managers suggests otherwise to me.
 

Norris

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This bit is pretty insane, and if true, one big downside of having a manager who has been at your club for 26 years. Noone would have it any other way of course, however it would suggest SAF was a lot more off the cuff than system oriented in his approach. And in this day and age you need the latter as other teams will, and it's hard to have a genius in charge.

At the same time, I do wonder if it's also upto someone like Gill to make sure that while the club enjoys the benefits of having such a legendary long serving manager, he ensures we move forward in every other aspect.

That would odd given noone bas taken a closer at Gill in all this. Is Woodward cleaning a bit of his mess as much as anything? Just an idea to ponder.

It could obviously also be propaganda from Woodward to make what stood before him appear worse but the way things have unfolded under two managers suggests otherwise to me.
There's no doubt Ferguson and Gill were set in their ways, but on numerous occasions SAF has stressed the importance of keeping up with the times and he has displayed that too in his selection process, recruitment's etc. Could he really make such a huge oversight in this ? My thinking is he trusted the people he put in place for such activities, in this case, I think it was his brother and didn't really micromanage the administrative side of it. So he (Ferguson's brother) wouldn't have been too bothered about our lack of more organizational cohesiveness as long as the results were getting delivered, which they were.

Woodward does seem to be cleaning up some of that mess, but then why wait 3 years after those legends left ? The timing doesn't feel right. A problem like that would have been identified much earlier on (If Moyes pointed it out in his first season, how on earth is it logical for such a huge club to only recently take action for it now?) and there would have been attempts to rectify it. So I am guessing a bit of both.
 

ti vu

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There's no doubt Ferguson and Gill were set in their ways, but on numerous occasions SAF has stressed the importance of keeping up with the times and he has displayed that too in his selection process, recruitment's etc. Could he really make such a huge oversight in this ? My thinking is he trusted the people he put in place for such activities, in this case, I think it was his brother and didn't really micromanage the administrative side of it. So he (Ferguson's brother) wouldn't have been too bothered about our lack of more organizational cohesiveness as long as the results were getting delivered, which they were.

Woodward does seem to be cleaning up some of that mess, but then why wait 3 years after those legends left ? The timing doesn't feel right. A problem like that would have been identified much earlier on (If Moyes pointed it out in his first season, how on earth is it logical for such a huge club to only recently take action for it now?) and there would have been attempts to rectify it. So I am guessing a bit of both.
Perhaps power struggle? 2 Sirs want continuity by inserting Giggs and let him learn on job running the whole gig like old days? Only recently, as LVG time is numbered and Giggs has little chance of getting the gig, the 2 Sirs loosen up and Woodward finally has his way with a new manager and DoF coming.

Honestly, we don't have enough info. The above is just hypothetical and that makes the most sense than this whole 3 years we just waited for everything fall down before starting the rebuild.
 

ti vu

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...whoever replaces current manager Louis van Gaal...
Only realized this part :eek: So LVG definitely walk this summer?

I've been working long enough that this simple addition usually brings fantastic returns.
Can you explain more? How big is the difference when full admin support is given? An example would help. Thanks
 
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newgiz

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Good news indeed.I wouldn't be surprised if we appoint a Sporting Director to oversee the changes. Probably someone who would work under Woodward.

We have been hearing the Andrea Berta rumours. So its possible that we have set the wheels in motion for his impending appointment.
 

Rednotdead

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Can you explain more? How big is the difference when full admin support is given? An example would help. Thanks
Can be huge. Example : He goes to watch a player. Instead of making notes or using a Dictaphone then compiling a report when he returns to base, he could make his notes on a Dictaphone then give that to his admin support who would then compile the report while he's off watching another player instead of sitting in the office typing out the report.
 

devilish

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If only I had a good command of the this beautiful language. Jeez 'tight knit SAF's era' - that's the smart way to say that we basically handled our scouting net to the previously sacked Hiberian coach whose only prestigious achievement was to be SAF's brother.
 

Perrick Dubois

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I really do think that we are starting to move toward an independent academy structure where the primary objective is to train/groom young players while keeping them secure in our establishment. It feels to me like we are starting to move toward the Chelsea/City style of structure where we suck in as much talent as we can and sell it off properly if it doesn't make the first team.

We have to start to look to the 18-24 bracket and start to find young and hungry talented players who want to come in on a base wage level (I am not talking about throwing suitcases full of cash at the best young players on the market, similar to Martial god love him) and start to grow a crop of really good and talented young players who make up a solid core. We lost that I think in the last couple of seasons. Winning the FA cup will galvanize a lot of these young players which will certainly help and be a starting point.
 

LawCharltonBest

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Does this mean Manchester United will have 50+ scouts on Football Manager 2017?

Feck renewing all their contracts