What we first have to understand is that the DoF doesn't identify the players to sign but rather he empowers people at the top of the recruitment chain to go out there and do the recruitment work. The DoF's job is to connect the football departments so they're all in-sync with each other. And that's his main job to oversee the mens/Womens first team, reserve/academy, sports science, data science, scouting etc, so the people heading the aforementioned departments have the tools and support to do their work. And the owners and the board of directors have to then empower the DoF, so he can do his job to provide the support for the the heads of departments on the football side of the club.
The media will hype up the work of a successful DoF and give him the full credit for both scouting and then signing the players. But the reality is that the heads of recruitment should take credit along with a DoF for signing players who are successful. Garnacho is a signing that was made under the scouting team Murtough put in place at youth level but we don't hear about how the likes of David Harrison or Gerardo Guzman played a key role in identifying the player and hence alerted Murtough who was the director of football at youth level at the time and hence he got a deal done for the young 16 year old for £100k according to some reports. And if Garnacho was on the market right now he'd cost around £30m to £40m imo.
What people need to pay more attention to is who are the people leading the recruitment department. Because there's a big interest in signing players via the transfer window amongst fans, but there's very little interest in trying to find out who the heads of recruitment are. And hence naively, people assume the DoF is the one who is in charge of identifying transfer targets. It's actually the heads of recruitment who are in charge of identifying transfer targets. And it's those heads of recruitment that will guide the DoF on recruitment. It's why I said around this time last year that it would be wise to go along with ten Hag targets due to the heads of recruitment (Bout/Lawlor) getting the sack around April. And both Lawlor and Bout along with Woodward and Judge, made up the recruitment/transfers structure at the club. And that was a structure created by Woodward at first team level by placing Matt Judge as the transfer/contract negotiator and having Lawlor and Bout to oversee the clubs recruitment department. And Bout and Lawlor were part of LVG and Fergie's recruitment (Lawlor) and backroom staff (Bout).
Why it's important to have a DoF is that he/she will be accompanied by a football structure. And it's that structure which is important and not the DoF on his or her own. And the advantage of having a DoF structure is that everyone will be working in tandem within the structure to support the development of the playing side at all levels. That was not happening before with Mourinho and Solskjaer, who were both allowed personal or independent scouts, which naturally created a problem with the club's existing football structure.
Ralf Rangnick was the popular choice among many fans. But if you remember, Rangnick had Elanga, McTominay and DDG as part of his future team. McTominay was a future captain according to Rangnick and he loved Elanga. But all three players could possibly be moved on come the summer window. And Mason Mount who we're strongly linked to is the type of player Rangnick loves to have in his team due to his ability to defend on the front foot high up the pitch. It's why it's important to have seasoned recruiters, running recruitment and not the likes of Rangnick who is a manager/DoF and not a seasoned recruiter.
I don't know how things will develop with the current football structure at the club. But I'm happy to see how things develop because a well run football club is one where everyone from the owners, board, football structure is working in tandem to develop the team. And without that sort of coordination and co-operation from everyone, we won't get back to the top. Now it's over to Jose Mayorga and Simon Wells who lead on recruitment whilst being backed up by Dominic Jordan and the 5 man video analysis team led by Mick Court.
