Do you say the same about clubs like Bayern that hire ex players or does this only count for United? Fletcher must be good at his job as anytime there's an interview with a youth player they always mention Fletch. He's clearly an influential figure at the club but people love to pretend that he doesn't do anything.
Darren Fletcher - Technical Director
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) and Imran (@Annihilate Now!) look forward to a new life under Ruben Amorim. What system will we be playing? What players will impress? and how will it all go? We also say goodbye to Ruud Van Nistelrooy and review United's 3-0 win at home against Leicester City.
Yeap, I'd also imagine most top football clubs having their former players in their organisations. But I guess that background automatically makes them shit at their jobs.
Don’t worry, the club will soon be run as a make-a-wish-by-Qatar foundation. And if they then ask and pay Beckham to do interviews and he then talks about his successes at United, or if they hire other ex players in some capacity I wonder if you will still moan.
Don’t forget he’s also British. Almost ticking all the boxes to piss off a certain group of the fan base.
I apologise for posting an interview of our technical director in a thread about our technical director.
yep
Not just Bayern. Basically every top club anywhere. It’s an absolutely normal thing to do. So it’s absolutely nuts that some people a) don’t seem to realise this and/or b) get upset about it.
Bet you’re fun at parties. Buzzkill
I’m not sure anyone knows what he’s responsible for in order to make any sort of judgement on how well or otherwise he’s doingI was thinking, he must be doing a fairly decent job if the thread hasn’t been bumped for six months. Not sure why anyone is expecting technical directors to be giving interviews on their roles
He's actually Scottish
We do know what he’s responsible for, it’s well documented but the problem is his job title and fans keep mixing up what his responsibilities are because of it
Hahahahha
so trueHaha imagine what a car crash that interview would be. Even if he described his role perfectly and has a faultless record you’d get posters on here immediately piling into him for being crap.I was thinking, he must be doing a fairly decent job if the thread hasn’t been bumped for six months. Not sure why anyone is expecting technical directors to be giving interviews on their roles
Fletcher coaches the first team and is also the link between the academy and first team, he’s heavily involved in deciding which academy players get a chance to step up.
Except he is more than qualified to do what he’s employed to do - I’d even go as far as saying that no one outside of United could even qualify to do his job.
It’s also to quantify any outside transfers and if they have the mentality to play for United & to be fair. He’s done an alright job thus far:
Martinez
Casemiro
Being two prime examples.
Coaching is sporadic (used to be just to get his badges) but I know ETH has asked him to be more involved.
the rest you’re spot on
Bayern, Real Madrid and Barca hire people on the basis of them being compatible with their structure hence hire ex players to oversee the football side of the club.
Just to give you one example, Luis Campos was twerking for the Real Madrid DoF role in 2021, and it was said that he kept briefing the media about being close to getting the role. Florentino Perez after sometime went public and said that Campos most definitely wouldn't be joining due to Campos not being a fit for how they're structured on the football side of the club. And Perez instead promoted a youth scout from within the setup to lead on recruitment in the form of Juni Calafat who has done very well.
And if someone wants to discuss what Perez meant when he said "Campos doesn't work for Real Madrid" then I can go into more detail about why Perez felt Campos was incompatible with Real Madrid's football structure.
And regarding Darren Fletcher, he's a technical director and his role is one where he provides 'technical direction' to the younger players making the step up to first team training. Why would anyone have a problem with that? Unless those same people confuse his role with one that involves technical direction overseeing the football side of the club.
And as far as a DoF is concerned, it's about creating a system (structure) that aligns the football side of the club to support the development of the football side of the club. Manchester United never had a DoF system in place until now. And Murtough is putting in place that structure from the head coach, heads of recruitment, data science team, transfer negotiator etc, which is what is needed and what wasn't being done under Woodward and the last two managers he appointed.
It's important to learn about the decision makers within the football structure and not only focus on the manager or DoF. Because for any club to be well run, they need very capable recruiters at the top of the recruitment department who will run the rule over the whole scouting network. Along with a data science lead who will help narrow down the search for players because 50 lead scouts can't possibly get their eyes on 200,000 players without being assisted by the data, which will point to where the eyes need to be focused on. We never had this sort of expertise (Dominic Jordan) when it came to crunching numbers on the football side of the club before.
So the likes of Mayorga and Wells will lead on recruitment backed up by a big group of scouts covering multiple regions around the world. Dominic Jordan will assist as the head of data science to help narrow down the search for the scouts which should help utilise the scouts on the ground more effectively. And then we will see Murtough, O'Boyle and Matt Hargreaves (transfer negotiations) getting involved. But if the support structure doesn't exist, like it didn't in the summer of 2022, then it has to be created and that will take time. That's what a lot of you never understood because you're so used to seeing other clubs with a modernised football structure, that you assumed we also were setup the same way.
I think everything looks set structurally and now we will judge their work. But judging their work isn't only judging what happens during a transfer window but also what happens during the course of the season as far as developing performance at all levels of the club. And we have a data scientist (Alex Kleyn) joining us at the end of the season who has a track record of developing player performance from the first team to the youth teams as far as aligning the stylistic approach from the first team to the youth teams.
I just hope we can get rid of the Glazers in time because things look promising on the structural front.
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I love Fletcher
feck the haters
feck the haters
As usual an informative, well researched post about our structure @Adnan
which unfortunately will be completely ignored because it doesn’t fit the narrative of Fletcher just being “one of boys” who has been given a job he’s not capable of doing despite not knowing his capabilities
which unfortunately will be completely ignored because it doesn’t fit the narrative of Fletcher just being “one of boys” who has been given a job he’s not capable of doing despite not knowing his capabilities
I think it was Andy Mitten who said that Fletcher is also one of the people in recruitment who use their networks to do background checks on players to avoid bad apples who just want a fat contract and not coming here for the game or the league or the club.
it’s the same for mr. hemmsby, the geography teacher at my school. he just disappeared the day our parents got a big payout from the school.
never miss an opportunity to shit on our ex players based on nothing at all. You should get a room with devilish who, I'm sure, will reminds us Fletcher got promoted 2 times in 6 months.
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Yeah but forget about thoughts and reason. One guy said it's make-a-wish without any other knowledge of the situation so who's to say who is right?
Don't alot of businesses hire from within? Talented staff who get promoted into management and more?
I really do not get the hate for promoting within from our own fans.
I really do not get the hate for promoting within from our own fans.
Milan promoted Maldini, etc
Yup, alot of top football clubs do it tbh. Its just some of our fan base that are really upset by this.
The same people will cry out for external appointments and back that without even knowing their qualifications and expertise.
Fletcher has done a good job so far, see nothing wrong with his appointment.
The line bolded above plus the lack of trophies has caused the fanbase to hate on any and all recent internal promotions. Woodward limited the club in many ways post SAF, none more than the modern football structure. Getting Murtough in place as DOF with actual power to make changes (2022 onward), Fletcher to be a link between youth and first teams, and a proper manager in ETH have moved the club forward in many more ways than we can see. Last piece of puzzle is getting rid of the leaches.
The trouble is that we don't really have a history of having or developing people who understand football. All of SAF's players have been very average managers at best (and I am being ultra political correct here) and you only have to listen their punditry to understand that they aren't very bright. To compare United with let's say Milan is quite ridiculous. We're talking about a club who has a long history of producing the likes of Ancelotti and Capello all of whom had probably won far more as managers then all our former players did as managers since the club's very inception. It also doesn't help that Darren Fletcher got a job and 2 promotions in the space of 8 months and with Rangnick asking WTF Fletcher does at the club. That doesn't help dispelling the rumours about him being SAF's favourite pet.
I also lost hope in trying to stop people comparing Fletcher with Maldini. Fletcher doesn't share the experience Maldini has. The guy was literally raised at Milan as his father was a former AC Milan player, their technical director, assistant manager and manager. Paolo was a fantastic player and he now has a son whose playing for Milan. That's 3 generations of Maldinis there, 2 of whom were world class. The only time Fletcher was near to world class was when he sat alongside the likes of Scholes and Giggs.. Finally no one got as much scrutiny by the fans as Maldini did. We're talking about a guy who after winning everything with Milan was booed during his last game and reminded that he is not Baresi. Fletcher on the other hand is praised OTT for the CL final he lost with people actually thinking that he would somehow annihilated Pep's Barca on his own. So yes, you can say that Maldini is the anti Fletcher.
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So what you’re saying is that Maldini got one of the ‘jobs for the boys’ that you hate so much because his dad worked there
Rangnick.. many were asking wtf he did
What I am saying is that Paolo Maldini's experience is incomparable to anyone. His father was a former Milan player (and quite WC at that) who then covered multiple jobs at Milan including that of manager. That meant that his boy was born at AC Milan. Then Paolo turned out to be a child prodigy. He made his debut at age 16 only to end up playing in the finest defence the world had ever seen. Now he's got a son whose playing for AC Milan as well. If you want to do an equivalent to that would be if Charlton was a decent manager at United and beyond. He would then have a son who was an even better player then him, he would spend decades at United where he won nearly double the CLs this club had ever won (ie 5) and he would retire only to return and lead AC Milan to a very unlikely success. Finally his grandson would end up a Manchester United player as well. I think we can all agree that Darren is nowhere near to that.
I hate the jobs for the boys because we don't produce bright people who actually understand football beyond that of nodding at the manager. While Milan produce the likes of Ancelotti and Capello we produce, erm the Nevilles and Ole
Yep, that’s also true!
He’s there to see if they have the mentality to play for united and not just for money & who better to do that than an ex-player who was a great servant for the club!
Worth pointing out that Ancelotti played most of his playing career at Roma and had 4 different managers jobs before getting the Milan gig.
I hate posters banging on out about the individual talents of people they don't even know and passing judgement without any possible qualification.
You were probably one of those idiots who thought the club hired Tom Keane because his brother was in our youth team, or that we'd be better off without talented coaches like Carrick and Mckenna.
You've absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
Maybe you're right and maybe people like Mitten, who speak highly about Fletcher, are wrong. But his opinion is qualified, yours is parroting baseless nonsense you'd read on Twitter.
True. But the experience he got with AC Milan was nowhere near to what he got elsewhere.