Go on, tell him why he's wrong (if you can).
Arnold/Murtough would have an easier life under new owners.
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How so? Do you have inside information?
What’s a “proper” DOF?
They very well might but under new owners we should clear house and try poach the world's best in football if we want to compete again
He will IF we get ME owners because City showed they know about putting right people in place
Someone with more experience and a history of success.
....& yet again we're avoiding it.....right I see where we are going here....in circles.
Name me 5
CEO, DOF and manager. There'll be wholesale changes all around.
We cannot lose Erik that's for sure
Why? New owners will have their own vision.
They'll hire a DOF, who'll want to hire his own head coach to execute the vision of the new regime.
We simply cannot just flush away however many months of work from him when it happens
I don't know why this is such a bad thing.
That's what a CEO does, he runs the club on the basis of what the owner wants. In any business that is how things are run. The CEO could run the club how he wants but he is still at the behest of the owners and the owners wishes. So by effect, he is a 'frontman' for the owners. It's literally his job to be the frontman.
A few months is insignificant. We've got to think longer term.
Plus with the new ownership and structure, his role and anything he was promised goes out of the window.
He's had a lot of influence in the clubs transfer strategy so far, and if we're expecting a new owner to come in and invest 100s of millions of their own money it's perfectly fair of them to have people they trust in charge of spending their money.
Tough one, not going to waste time with all of it. But can I disprove it’s laughable to suggest Arnold worked closely with Woodward. Let’s see, he reported directly to Woodward, was a Board Member and the Managing Director. Also was a pal of Woodward’s since University, I would say it can be said with certainty they worked closely together. I cannot 100% guarantee it but is it laughable to say they did, I would suggest no and find hard to believe anyone would think otherwise.
Love that you mention Edwards. Edwards was NOT a director of football before taking the role at Liverpool and was vastly under qualified to do the job. If you had two CV's one being Edwards and one being Murtough's
Head of Analytics at Liverpool vs Head of Elite Development at the PL - I know who I'd pick every single time.
Mitchell is not a good footballing director by any stretch of the imagination and it's rather those above him that have done the ground work and those who he directly reports to that should be lauded for the DOF role. He is apparently having a shocker at his current club too.
@Adnan can give you more in depth reasons as to why Mitchell isn't all that he is cracked up to be. If you search their posts as to why Mitchell/Edwards are not the DOF's that we especially need.
No they fecking didn't
For a start Murtough worked with the women's team mostly and also worked on the youth development side under Moyes.
Richard Arnold you could make a case for as he worked on the commercial side, which has been very successful in the last decade plus.
Hmmmmm Picking and chosing what fits your narrative there are you mate?
THIS. Thank you for saving me the work.
How about we hear 5 good reasons to keep Murtough from @UnitedSofa.
Now we have got that out of the way,which of those would you appoint if putting yourself in the minds of new owners
First person to get the sack if we get new owners is going to be Arnold.
Yeh I agree with that. The incompetence is clear. Much smaller clubs have proved they're alot better than us with even less resources.
1. Edwards had no history of being a Sporting director before being made one at Liverpool much to the annoyance of the Liverpool fans who constantly ridiculed him.
2. Campos started out as a lead scout before working his way upto being a Sporting Director at stepping stone clubs where he had success signing players 16 to 21 years of age whilst being backed by the owners. And there's a team of scouts/analysts who identify talent for him and it's those 7 people who are just as important for him to function in his role as the Sporting director.
3. Paul Mitchell made his name as a head scout and hasn't pulled any trees as a Sporting director at Monaco. And the players he's said to have signed as a head scout are a mixed bag.
4. Monchi has done well at Sevilla but when he was given the gig at AS Roma he failed miserably whilst being backed by significant funds. What changed for him at Roma? What changed for him was a higher expectation and having to rely on scouts that he wasn't accustomed to working with and hence he made numerous mistakes in recruitment.
5. Andrea Berta who is a lawyer by trade is the DoF at Atletico. And he's done a decent job, but I wouldn't want my DoF to promote the football that Atletico play under Simeone.
I would go Mitchell or Berta. We need a fresh perspective. It’s not as if the new owners are walking into a well run football operation, it’s been a failure for a decade.
OK will await your suggestions then
Like who?
I think his point is that DOF are overhyped by you guys. Murtough has done a steady job this season so it will be fair to judge him later. There is no guarantee with anyone doing that job under the same circumstances
They survive by giving fake links to the media to deflect from our failures.
The linked to/signed ratio is unrivaled.
The linked to/signed ratio is unrivaled.
Go to the Caicedo thread and see the reason we (or any other big club) didn’t take the plunge.
you all make it sound like it’s so easy and we’re just bad at doing it.
you neglect the 2 youngsters that we brought in, amad and pellestri.
It’s not really a narrative to say people who reported into Woodward, were part of the Senior Management Team, were on the Transfer Committee with him etc etc, worked closely with him. You claimed I could maybe make a case for Arnold (I did and it was extremely easy). You think that idea is laughable so you must have some ludicrous idea of what’s going on.
I could also answer very basic points like how do people in different Departments work closely together but I think that’s just common sense in all honesty. Like I said I don’t have interest in all of it so I am picking and choosing because so much of what you said makes no sense. You even confused yourself so not much else to say.
Christ, now we’re really scraping the barrel. I don’t know what age you are but millions of links to United have been around long before murtough, long before the current owners and even long before fergie. Even long before social media. Hint: United sell stories. United’s name gets used to get new contracts
Also Murtough as reported was Ragnicks choice for coaches. John's been a DOF for little to no time and has more questionable decisions then good ones. We will see come the new year (few months in) what the dynamic of the hierarchy will look like.
Edwards, Mitchell or Berta to name a few. What did Murtough do this summer that would convince anyone he’s suited for the job? He overpaid on every target and led a recruitment drive almost completely dictated by the manager. Wasn’t the list of targets presented to ten Hag essentially torn up? Not exactly a glowing review of the person who should be identifying players suited to the manager he hired.
I don't believe you need a DoF with a big name, because they all rely on their scouts to identify the players. Michael Edwards at Liverpool is a prime example of what I'm talking about.
The most important thing for a DoF is to have the best in class recruiters/ scouts and a head coach with a clear and defined way if playing the game. And if he has those, then it's about having the strategy that correlates to the modern game imo, and applying it when it comes to the coaching, scouting and also the data analytics side. Which over time will make the difference as long as the financial backing is there from the owners/board.
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Because we don't have any head scouts and our scouting system is incomplete!
Once the scouting system is in place I suspect Murtough to have a much easier job too and will get some of the criticism off his back.
If you’d read any of @Adnan very informative posts on the subject you probably wouldn’t ask me those questions.
btw Mitchell isn’t pulling up trees at Monaco and Berta has worked primarily with the very defensive simeone as head coach so not sure why you think he’s a fit for United.
The scouting system is in place according to James Ducker, with Jose Mayorga and Simon Wells replacing the out-going head scouts.
And as far as I'm concerned we should expect to see the influence of Mayorga and Simon Wells along with the data science team led by Dominic Jordan, by the time the summer window comes around. And at that time we have to expect a smoother running operation when it comes to signing players.
That’s interesting to know, I thought that those positions weren’t filled yet.
Keen to see what happens in the summer then, thanks for keeping me updated!
Yes, and that's rather the point...some owners may be quite likely to want their own man. Their own frontman. Handpicked by them, that they have faith in to do the job according to their parameters.
They've no reason to have any special affinity for these guys, especially when they're not best in class. You're saying they might do this, or may do that when they're not hamstrung by the Glazers, but is any billionaire really going to care about could, might, maybe? Relatively small change to dismiss these guys if required.
Was checking the wiki article on the “Stockholm Syndrome” and saw a link to this thread supposedly being a schoolbook example of it. Pretty cool.