John Murtough Sack Watch

devilish said:
Life is all about opportunities. Murtough came to United in a relatively minor role. He caught Woodward/Joel's eyes who in turn was enough for him to land such prestigious job. That was his winning national lottery for him. Ashworth had to work his way from the bottom which turned down to be a blessing but might have easily turned into a curse (ie he got stuck at WBA). Let us not forget that Ashworth has yet to work at a top club. If the roles were reversed then maybe things would be different for the two although I doubt that a half decent dof would treat saf the way Murtough did. That is plain stupid irrespective of experience

Ultimately as I said throughout the years the job is simply too big for a rookie with no previous experience to take it. United is the most scrutinised club in the world, our football structure was stuck in the 70s and our owners/Ceo were clueless. We needed a WC dof.

Experience does play a role though. I am pretty sure that Newcastle Ashworth is a different beast to wba Ashworth just as post treble SAF was a different beast to motherwell SAF. Experience change people and in roles like that such experience is necessary as it gives them the time needed to build their pool of contacts and learn how to deal with agents with less scrutiny. No one gives a feck if wba dof goes to sao Paolo only to come back with just a souvenir. However every man and his dog would laugh at united's dof going to turin and Barcelona only to come back with nothing especially if that was done at the back of weeks if not months of negotiations.
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I think much of this is correct. People here are railing on the incompetence of Murtough, and well, it is somewhat deserved. But really, I see Murtough as the ultimate opportunist. In addition, he was clearly good at some things, just not the things that make a great DoF. Really, he took advantage of the following:

1. Lack of experience by Woodward for managing football aspects of the club
2. Leadership vacuum / lack of leadership by the Glazers. The “black hole” was because of Murtough himself? Or he needed Glazer sign off? I feel the latter is more plausible.
3. Lack of a modern talent management and acquisition structure and personnel.
4. Organizational bloat. 1,000 employees seems like too much in this industry with a 600m revenue stream

Given how fecked up we are organizationally, it’s frankly a miracle we’ve made CL 5 years, won 3 trophies, and somewhat maintained an aura of being a big club. Can you imagine where we’d be if we had a well run organization? We may have had both Haaland and Bellingham!

I will say that I’ve been critical of ETH… I think he does deserve some blame for our on-field performance and our transfers. But, when SAF was in charge, he WAS the leadership. He made mistakes in the transfer market too, but he could always bully the board to sign off on his next transfer, and could fix the issues. Anyhow, Murtough is not forcing ETH to play a single DM in a 4-3-3. He’s not preparing the team tactically before every match. He’s not running training. He’s not making in game substitutions. Of course, the dysfunction affects all of this, but some of the responsibility lies on Ten Hag’s shoulders.
 
lex talionis said:
Given the absence of any credible alternatives to ETH at the moment, why not give ETH give a shot with a proper structure in place? It's not as though we're missing out on the next Ferguson, Guardiola or Klopp by not sacking him right now.
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This nonsense yet again.

If there is no alternative to a fifty year old manager who has never managed outside the Dutch league then we are truly doomed.
 
That Athletic piece on Murtough is not exactly painting the man in the best light. Based on what it says Murthough is the architect of our demise over the past 10 years. The most central figure on the footballing side since Moyes tenure ended, responsible for our recruitment system and our inability to sign players at value. It really is quite a damning piece about him.
 
The athletic piece quotes “Sources insist there is nobody at the club skilled at assessing a player’s worth who also has authority on spending and can take a holistic view of squad building.”

This is the single biggest problem at Utd. Previously Ferguson fulfilled this capacity, and judged when the fee no longer represented value for the relative ability. That is the one thing clearly missing. Solve that and Utd become relevant again. Until then, it’ll be sh*tshow after sh*tshow
 
Laurencio said:
That Athletic piece on Murtough is not exactly painting the man in the best light. Based on what it says Murthough is the architect of our demise over the past 10 years. The most central figure on the footballing side since Moyes tenure ended, responsible for our recruitment system and our inability to sign players at value. It really is quite a damning piece about him.
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Whats even more shocking is his willingness to stay. The article stated he had a meeting with his potential replacements which were going well. Anyone with sense of pride with their work would usually just leave.... maybe even he knows he is not that good and United remains the best possible place for him to work at. He would take demotion but where is the sense of responsibility?

The previous managers who failed all got sacked, including a club legend. I dont see why the club should keep him.
 
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lsd said:
This nonsense yet again.

If there is no alternative to a fifty year old manager who has never managed outside the Dutch league then we are truly doomed.
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Name another manager that would have done better. And give your reasons why?
 
Regardless to the article, the past few seasons have been absolutely terrible in terms of recruitment. Everything indicates that he has no idea what he's doing.
 
TrueRed79 said:
Name another manager that would have done better. And give your reasons why?
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Done better? Are you serious? He has been worse than Ole but he fluked a cup so fools his supporters.

No style of play, has not improved anyone, terrible man management no tactics whatsoever and is regularly outcoached by pretty much any manager we face.

Then the recruitment he is solely responsible for some of the worst transfers in our history.

There's not enough time to name managers who would do better than him. The tough task would be thinking of any who wouldn't.

When i look at the teams who bought in managers who instantly improved the squad with little recruitment while we got lumbered with this fraud it's just heart breaking.

Yet we have idiots all day long throwing every excuse , blaming everything bar the fraud and saying just needs time we can't keep sacking managers even though they are garbage.
 
TrueRed79 said:
Name another manager that would have done better. And give your reasons why?
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Don't waste your time mate, there's certain posters on here who absolutely hate EtH and no matter what logic you use it'll make no difference.
 
No wonder, we spent 80m on Antony.
I mean ETH was also at fault but his boss shouldn't be this daft. Murtough just wants someone to take the blame when things go wrong, instead of doing his fecking job. This club is full of parasites
 
tenpoless said:
Whats even more shocking is his willingness to stay. The article stated he had a meeting with his potential replacements which were going well. Anyone with sense of pride with their work would usually just leave.... maybe even he knows he is not that good and United remains the best possible place for him to work at. He would take demotion but where is the sense of responsibility?

The previous managers who failed all got sacked, including a club legend. I dont see why the club should keep him.
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Why would he leave when he would probably never have it so good? He was given the keys to arguably the second or third largest club in the world, certainly the largest in Britain! He has an ownership structure that literally doesn’t understand the game and an executive structure dominanted by investment bankers. He realised pretty quickly that he can be the yes-man that gives the “football” justification for the decisions they want rather than challenge them. Like many in the corporate world, he rose to the top by navigating the internal politics of the entity rather than mastering the technical elements. Even at a club like Spurs under Levy where the owner knows a thing or two about football Murtough wouldn’t last or at the very least he would be reduced to administerial tasks rather than shaping the club.
 
'Open Heart Surgery' is what Rangnick said. Maybe he was referring to Murtough and not the squad.
 
Laurencio said:
That Athletic piece on Murtough is not exactly painting the man in the best light. Based on what it says Murthough is the architect of our demise over the past 10 years. The most central figure on the footballing side since Moyes tenure ended, responsible for our recruitment system and our inability to sign players at value. It really is quite a damning piece about him.
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We’re basically Everton in disguise.
 
JPRouve said:
It doesn't. I challenge you to find any corrolation at the highest level between a DOF level of experience when he first took a job and his level of success. The simple fact that a very large amount of DOFs are internal appointments defies the point that you are trying to make.
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That's the same argument many Murtough supporters used to do to justify why Murtough ended up at United's head of football pyramid. God knows how many time I argued against that

a- More and more clubs are acknowledging the need to have someone good and experienced in the role. Guintoli (Juventus), Ashworth (Newcastle), Txiki (City), Campos (PSG), Berta (Atletico Madrid) are classic examples of that and the list of clubs appointing people with experience keep growing.

b- United is not a normal club. We're the most scrutinized club in football in the most competitive league in the world, who is owned by incompetent owners and at a time when we're competing with clubs who have state level transfer budgets.

c- Unlike legacy clubs whose been dabbling with Sporting directors etc since at least the 90s. They had a proven structure in place and could therefore hire people internally. United's structure was non existent. We needed someone experienced to come in and build it from scratch. That requires a hell of a more experience/skill.

So one hand you've got this nobody who had little to no support on top (in terms of football experience) who was expected to come in, change the practices that SAF set in place and that had to be done while being scrutinized by the rest of the world. Murtough lacked the experience, the CV and quite frankly the tact to deal with that. I also believe that Murtough was appointed by design. The Glazers/Woodward were quite happy calling the shots and yet they had to bow to the pressure from the fans to restructure the football side of things. Here comes Murtough and Fletcher, two rookies with no experience in the role who would slot in the DOF/Technical director role and would take some of the pressure off the Glazers/Woodward's back from a PR perspective without rocking the boat too much. As I always said the proof was in the pudding. Murtough could hire a zillion people for all its worth but if United keep

a- buying players on silly money,
b-giving these players ridiculous salaries/long contracts
c- the fitness issue and the leaks are not resolved

Then its pretty evident that nothing had really changed at United.
 
devilish said:
That's the same argument many Murtough supporters used to do to justify why Murtough ended up at United's head of football pyramid. God knows how many time I argued against that

a- More and more clubs are acknowledging the need to have someone good and experienced in the role. Guintoli (Juventus), Ashworth (Newcastle), Txiki (City), Campos (PSG), Berta (Atletico Madrid) are classic examples of that and the list of clubs appointing people with experience keep growing.

b- United is not a normal club. We're the most scrutinized club in football in the most competitive league in the world, who is owned by incompetent owners and at a time when we're competing with clubs who have state level transfer budgets.

c- Unlike legacy clubs whose been dabbling with Sporting directors etc since at least the 90s. They had a proven structure in place and could therefore hire people internally. United's structure was non existent. We needed someone experienced to come in and build it from scratch. That requires a hell of a more experience/skill.

So one hand you've got this nobody who had little to no support on top (in terms of football experience) who was expected to come in, change the practices that SAF set in place and that had to be done while being scrutinized by the rest of the world. Murtough lacked the experience, the CV and quite frankly the tact to deal with that. I also believe that Murtough was appointed by design. The Glazers/Woodward were quite happy calling the shots and yet they had to bow to the pressure from the fans to restructure the football side of things. Here comes Murtough and Fletcher, two rookies with no experience in the role who would slot in the DOF/Technical director role and would take some of the pressure off the Glazers/Woodward's back from a PR perspective without rocking the boat too much. As I always said the proof was in the pudding. Murtough could hire a zillion people for all its worth but if United keep

a- buying players on silly money,
b-giving these players ridiculous salaries/long contracts
c- the fitness issue and the leaks are not resolved

Then its pretty evident that nothing had really changed at United.
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Your list includes Txiki who was not experienced when he got the job at Barcelona, he was a pundit and Barcelona is still the most successful part of his career. Berta was a banker before his first job as a DOF. Campos was also not an experienced DOF when he got Monaco's job which happens to be his first success and likely biggest success.

Your classic examples are people that had their success as DOF during their first job while coming from totally different roles or fields. You are basically making my point there is no corrolation between experience and success for DOFs.
 
THE ZOL said:
Yep. Not only that but he stayed after Moyes got sacked because he made himself useful to Woodward by, I kid you not, taking notes for him in meetings and talking him through technical aspects of football.
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This is now my image of Murtough:

blackadder1_m.jpg
 
JPRouve said:
It doesn't. I challenge you to find any corrolation at the highest level between a DOF level of experience when he first took a job and his level of success. The simple fact that a very large amount of DOFs are internal appointments defies the point that you are trying to make.
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I do agree that a DOF can do well without experience.

The problem at United is that I doubt we have anyone at the club right now who can look at an inexperienced man's skill set and be able to identify him as a potentially good DOF.

That's why we need to start with someone who does already have a good CV. Someone who will not only fill the role, but be able to build a department and identify & bring in other people with good skill sets, who may eventually be able to replace him with the time comes.

Right now, the decision makers at United are the blind leading the blind.
 
Amir said:
I do agree that a DOF can do well without experience.

The problem at United is that I doubt we have anyone at the club right now who can look at an inexperienced man's skill set and be able to identify him as a potentially good DOF.

That's why we need to start with someone who does already have a good CV. Someone who will not only fill the role, but be able to build a department and identify & bring in other people with good skill sets, who may eventually be able to replace him with the time comes.

Right now, the decision makers at United are the blind leading the blind.
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The problem is that the solution that you are suggesting has proved to be wrong, I could give you the examples of Cordon, Monchi, Paratici, Antero Henrique and many others those had without a question some of the best CVs in Europe and also a lot of experience and yet they failed miserably away from the situation that saw them have success. The list of people with good CVs that have done a terrible job is pretty long.

But you are right about the ability to identify the adequate skillset and personality, that's the key point, which is something that should be under the responsibility of a competent COO or HR department. Now I believe that I mentioned it in the past but Manchester United has not replaced Bolingbroke since he left for Inter in 2013 or 2014, since that point the Vice-Chairman and someone else shared the responsibilities of the COO.

And none of what I'm saying is a defense of Murtough, it's a criticism of a logic that has proven to be wrong. You can't tell me that experience in a role is key and then list people that had success in that role with literally zero experience in it.
 
JPRouve said:
Your list includes Txiki who was not experienced when he got the job at Barcelona, he was a pundit and Barcelona is still the most successful part of his career. Berta was a banker before his first job as a DOF. Campos was also not an experienced DOF when he got Monaco's job which happens to be his first success and likely biggest success.

Your classic examples are people that had their success as DOF during their first job while coming from totally different roles or fields. You are basically making my point there is no corrolation between experience and success for DOFs.
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Fair enough. My point Is that DOFs at top clubs usually come from 2 main routes

A- they had made their bones as DOFs elsewhere usually starting from very small clubs and then progress to the top

B- they are internal appointments (usually former players) who are then integrated into a successful and proven football setup

United appointed murtough despite

A- he had zero experience in the role
B- They were aware that their football structure was non existent

That occurred following persistent reporting that proven DOFs had refused to work on the same terms that Murtough accepted. Fast forward to present time and the same issues which we struggled during Woodward's admin are still there
 
JPRouve said:
The problem is that the solution that you are suggesting has proved to be wrong, I could give you the examples of Cordon, Monchi, Paratici, Antero Henrique and many others those had without a question some of the best CVs in Europe and also a lot of experience and yet they failed miserably away from the situation that saw them have success. The list of people with good CVs that have done a terrible job is pretty long.

But you are right about the ability to identify the adequate skillset and personality, that's the key point, which is something that should be under the responsibility of a competent COO or HR department. Now I believe that I mentioned it in the past but Manchester United has not replaced Bolingbroke since he left for Inter in 2013 or 2014, since that point the Vice-Chairman and someone else shared the responsibilities of the COO.

And none of what I'm saying is a defense of Murtough, it's a criticism of a logic that has proven to be wrong. You can't tell me that experience in a role is key and then list people that had success in that role with literally zero experience in it.
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Monchi (Roma) and Paratici (Spurs) were placed in a very difficult situation ie with relatively small clubs with unrealistic expectations and a short time window/transfer budget to work in. There is a reason why roma and spurs have not won anything for a long time and it's definitely not the DOF

Experienced people can fail. The vast majority of top managers got sacked at one point in their career. That can't be used as an excuse to give a jesse lingard the manager's job right?
 
devilish said:
Fair enough. My point Is that DOFs at top clubs usually come from 2 main routes

A- they had made their bones as DOFs elsewhere usually starting from very small clubs and then progress to the top

B- they are internal appointments (usually former players) who are then integrated into a successful and proven football setup

United appointed murtough despite

A- he had zero experience in the role
B- They were aware that their football structure was non existent

That occurred following persistent reporting that proven DOFs had refused to work on the same terms that Murtough accepted. Fast forward to present time and the same issues which we struggled during Woodward's admin are still there
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Or they were pundits, scouts, analysts or anything else before getting their first DOF job. But most importantly Murtough on paper fit the bill, in practice he doesn't and his future sacking will be justified.

It's not really difficult we both agree on the fact that Murtough seems to be an incompetent DOF but you don't have to make up some bogus main routes or set of requirements that are proven to be wrong and don't even apply to the ideal DOFs that you have in mind. Top clubs routinely make mistakes when it comes to these type of jobs, so we don't need to imagine a clear process that no one actually follows.
 
devilish said:
Monchi (Roma) and Paratici (Spurs) were placed in a very difficult situation ie with relatively small clubs with unrealistic expectations and a short time window/transfer budget to work in. There is a reason why roma and spurs have not won anything for a long time and it's definitely not the DOF

Experienced people can fail. The vast majority of top managers got sacked at one point in their career. That can't be used as an excuse to give a jesse lingard the manager's job right?
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They failed, that's it. They weren't in a more difficult situation than their previous jobs. Sevilla is a relatively small club with big expectations and the expectations on Spurs aren't unrealistic. Just be honest or we can stop that conversation, you keep writing things that make no sense and that aren't consistent with your initial point which is wrong.

And what has Lingard got to do with this? If that's the type of conversation that you want, just pretend that we never interacted, that level of stupidity is irritating.
 
JPRouve said:
They failed, that's it. They weren't in a more difficult situation than their previous jobs. Sevilla is a relatively small club with big expectations and the expectations on Spurs aren't unrealistic. Just be honest or we can stop that conversation, you keep writing things that make no sense and that aren't consistent with your initial point which is wrong.

And what has Lingard got to do with this? If that's the type of conversation that you want, just pretend that we never interacted, that level of stupidity is irritating.
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At sevilla monchi was given the time to succeed. At Roma he wasn't. He was forced to sell the top players, bring young ones to replace them at a fragment of the budget and do well in the short term. That's while settling in a new country and at a club with huge expectations and with little to back it up

And as I said people with a great cv can fail. However their success rate is often higher then rookies especially at clubs were their football structure is not as stellar as the one at legacy clubs ex Real. One also have to take competition in account. Would murtough fail at Bayern given its usually a one club league?
 
JPRouve said:
Or they were pundits, scouts, analysts or anything else before getting their first DOF job. But most importantly Murtough on paper fit the bill, in practice he doesn't and his future sacking will be justified.

It's not really difficult we both agree on the fact that Murtough seems to be an incompetent DOF but you don't have to make up some bogus main routes or set of requirements that are proven to be wrong and don't even apply to the ideal DOFs that you have in mind. Top clubs routinely make mistakes when it comes to these type of jobs, so we don't need to imagine a clear process that no one actually follows.
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How did he fit the bill exactly? What previous experience did he had that you would say this is a United DOF? What are the football credentials of those appointing him? What structures were oin place that could turn this rookie in a success? We are manutd not wba. Everything would be scrutinised, dofs is expected to deal with super agents and go toe to toe against the best.
 
devilish said:
At sevilla monchi was given the time to succeed. At Roma he wasn't. He was forced to sell the top players, bring young ones to replace them at a fragment of the budget and do well in the short term. That's while settling in a new country and at a club with huge expectations and with little to back it up

And as I said people with a great cv can fail. However their success rate is often higher then rookies especially at clubs were their football structure is not as stellar as the one at legacy clubs ex Real. One also have to take competition in account. Would murtough fail at Bayern given its usually a one club league?
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No Monchi was successful right away. He was appointed when Sevilla was relegated, they directly won the Segunda Division and finished in the top half of La Liga. They never went below 10th and fairly quickly became a juggernaut in the UEFA cup. Monchi is an example of someone that wasn't given time to success but still got successful quickly in a difficult context and on a budget.
 
So to sum up, some successful DoFs have had lots of previous experience, while others haven't. Same thing with unsuccessful ones. Time to move on?
 
JPRouve said:
No Monchi was successful right away. He was appointed when Sevilla was relegated, they directly won the Segunda Division and finished in the top half of La Liga. They never went below 10th and fairly quickly became a juggernaut in the UEFA cup. Monchi is an example of someone that wasn't given time to success but still got successful quickly in a difficult context and on a budget.
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If you think that the pressure at a relegated sevilla are the same to Roma at the brink of a financial meltdown then think again. Let me ask you a question. How many Netflix docs were made about a former sevilla's legend wife who caught her husband cheating her? That's roma for you ie a club who think it's bayern while working with a budget that is similar to a low mid table EPL club
 
devilish said:
If you think that the pressure at a relegated sevilla are the same to Roma at the brink of a financial meltdown then think again. Let me ask you a question. How many Netflix docs were made about a former sevilla's legend wife who caught her husband cheating her? That's roma for you ie a club who think it's bayern while working with a budget that is similar to a low mid table EPL club
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Was Monchi successful, yes or no? And was it based on his experience or his skills/personality?

Was Begiristain successful at Barcelona, yes or no? And was it based on his experience or his skills/personality.

Was Antero Henrique successful at PSG, yes or no? And was it based on his lack of experience?


It amazes me that you are totally unable to correlate experience and success to the point that you have to use environmental context in order to justify failures of previously good DOFs but still insist on pushing forward with your bogus experience argument. Take everything you wrote and think carefully, you listed DOFs that didn't have previous experience in the job and yet found success, you also made excuses(good ones) for experienced DOFs who failed due to landing in less than ideal circumstances or simply different circumstances. If you stop wearing blinkers it should tell you that experience isn't the key factor for success, the key factors seem to lean more toward context, skills and personality.

Your argument is that Murtough lacked experience which is not only BS, since he shares the same level of experience than some of the people you listed and more than others, but also not a key factor. My argument is that he probably lacks skills and has the wrong personality for that particular job.

It was my last response to you.
 
Hate the bloke, an absolute cretin who is clueless and should be nowhere near the elite level. Hope Ratcliffe being a legit businessman sees right through this goblin.
 
FootyGirl88 said:
This part is just insane and to think people have been blaming ETH for paying £80mil for Anthony
:lol:
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The way I see it, the fact that ETH asked for Antony shows he's as bad as Murtough. I said last summer during the transfer saga that the problem with this signing wasn't the price but going for the wrong player, and I'm just a random fan. The fact that two professionals couldn't see it coming shows they don't belong here, none of them.

Both Murtough and ETH are both responsible for the current mess. The club decided to import the Ajax model and relied on ETH to call the shots (mistake). ETH makes awful choices, and fails at developing something on the field with those signings.

At mid way he just gives up and says that "we'll never play like Ajax" and something about becoming a transition team, invalidating his own transfers who were brought to develop a different approach, and not to cross the ball to McTominay. What we're seeing now from ten Hag is just a farce with the manager improvising and just trying to get results somehow to survive.

This is like the films where the ship is sinking and everyone just tries to save himself. I can expect everyone at the club just blaming each other and so on. As far as I'm concerned the ship can sink with everyone inside. The DoF, the manager and half the squad (at minimum) should be shown the door ASAP.
 
lsd said:
Done better? Are you serious? He has been worse than Ole but he fluked a cup so fools his supporters.

No style of play, has not improved anyone, terrible man management no tactics whatsoever and is regularly outcoached by pretty much any manager we face.

Then the recruitment he is solely responsible for some of the worst transfers in our history.

There's not enough time to name managers who would do better than him. The tough task would be thinking of any who wouldn't.

When i look at the teams who bought in managers who instantly improved the squad with little recruitment while we got lumbered with this fraud it's just heart breaking.

Yet we have idiots all day long throwing every excuse , blaming everything bar the fraud and saying just needs time we can't keep sacking managers even though they are garbage.
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Jeez man. Slightly irrational post in fairness. Sorry I asked now.
 
JPRouve said:
But you are right about the ability to identify the adequate skillset and personality, that's the key point, which is something that should be under the responsibility of a competent COO or HR department. Now I believe that I mentioned it in the past but Manchester United has not replaced Bolingbroke since he left for Inter in 2013 or 2014, since that point the Vice-Chairman and someone else shared the responsibilities of the COO.
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Agreed. Getting that one right would dwarf the issue of the experience of the DOF.
 
Maybe he is good at certain things but a clean break is best for the club.
 
TrueRed79 said:
He's not entirely wrong though. Laugh all you want, but way more successful managers than ETH have failed to bring any semblance of a title challenge in the last ten years either. Every manager since Ferguson has been part of the circus. You can go ahead and name a few managers that you think would manage the club better right now?
I predict INEOS will keep ETH.
And the plus side is whatever happens, the circus is nearly over.
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:lol: :lol:
 
I never thought United could have a worse squad than the one at the end of 21/22 but here we are.
 
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