It's just stated that ten Hag's job is expected to be safe as it's thought he has his admirers at INEOS so yeah a full review of the football side will take place but nobody is expecting them to suddenly change their minds and change managers. I'm guessing which ever director they look to hire (most likely Mitchell or Edwards) will be on the same page as INEOS and be willing to work with ten Hag and give him a chance under the new structure.
Manchester United name John Murtough as Football Director and Darren Fletcher as Technical Director
- Thread starter Tom Van Persie
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Well that is sound management policy, so I'm all for that.
Or they are replacing the executive management right away, but not the manager, and letting them determine what to do with the manager as the season progresses.
I prefer that tbh.
Exactly my thoughts.
I don't see how a minority shareholder gets to make key decisions about club structure and finance.
Maybe I'm wrong, or maybe Jimbo has made a serious error of judgement when dealing with the Glazers.
That is inherently wrong and presents a vastly different reality to what was truth. Could argue it’s an outright lie.
Murtough wasn’t around until the very end of Ole’s tenure, hired by Man Utd in March of 2021 (as the DoF) and Ole was let go in Nov 2021.
You can’t claim you were talking about the actual hiring of Murtough because before becoming DoF he was a part of the youth team set up & selecting targets for the youth team & I think he was also invovled with the women’s team. He was no where near the mens team.
So in a discussion around the DoF and that role specifically to claim he was a signing that Moyes demanded is an outright false statement. Especially when you’re including Judge/Woodward in your final paragraph.
You ever heard of Sir Matt Busby.
I think if I was Sir Jim, I would have a press conference on Friday, explaining what their strategic plans were to improve the footballing side of the club. Then I would pull a huge lever and Ivan Toney would appear from a hole in the table and he'll be wearing a gold chain with a diamond encrusted message across his chest. And it would read, "AM EAT GOALS"
Murtough spent all of the summer of 2022 chasing De Jong. He messed that up. Then he tried to get Rabiot, and messed that up. He then signed 30 year old Casemiro for 70m on a 4 year deal. That is already looking like a mistake. He signed Antony for 100m euros. Mason Mount only had 8 months left on his contract. Still paid 60m for him. 50m for Onana. Could have signed him on a free 12 months earlier. Hojlund for 74m. If Juventus or Bayern Munich made that deal it would be 45m tops.
Murtough has just been a continuation of Woodward making bad deals.
Paul Mitchell would come in and he'd have agents and scouts in Belgium, Germany, France and the UK. He'd be able to make deals for talented players that nobody else would even know about. Instead of trying to sign players that everybody knows about.
What has any of this got to do with the point I was making?
No, they don't. They own 69% as of this moment. After the first phase of the sale, they will own 44%.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe will be 2nd highest individual shareholder after that.
You've listed both legitimate and some nonsense criticism.
Namely on Casemiro, Mount, Rabiot and arguably Hojlund.
It’s pretty inconceivable that Murtough and Arnold will both continue in their current roles. INEOS are taking control to make changes and given how much of a disaster the club is you’d have to assume they will be quite drastic.
Likes of Murtough and Steve Brown will be extremely lucky to not be replaced given how bad recruitment has been. I would have thought one of first appointments has to be bringing in someone to sort out our recruitment.
Likes of Murtough and Steve Brown will be extremely lucky to not be replaced given how bad recruitment has been. I would have thought one of first appointments has to be bringing in someone to sort out our recruitment.
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Why do we need to buy unknown players? We need a DoF who can identify Rodri as a player we need. Not find the new Caicedo.
It never fails to amaze me how people speak with such certainty (and vitriol) about the likes of Murtough while clearly having no idea who they are.
Maybe he is bad or good at his job but when people are suggesting someone who has worked 30 years in coaching, sports science, player and coaching development, is going to be moved to the business side without having ever worked in a business role just suggests their posts are pointless and haven’t even bothered to google the guy they are demanding to be fired.
Maybe he is bad or good at his job but when people are suggesting someone who has worked 30 years in coaching, sports science, player and coaching development, is going to be moved to the business side without having ever worked in a business role just suggests their posts are pointless and haven’t even bothered to google the guy they are demanding to be fired.
It’s a myth he was not involved with the first team, was stated at time he was appointed he was already working on 1st team recruitment and had helped overhaul the clubs recruitment structure. He’s been part of repeated failure and not been held accountable just like Woodward and others.
Someone has to be accountable for that failure now though, INEOS need to make changes because who and what is in place is failing. The status quo cannot continue and that needs to be demonstrated quickly.
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Fair point.
I thought they increased their ownership to 75.7% in the summer and will end up on 50.7%?
You're right, but they ultimately will want the football club to do well. So they won't rock the boat with the manager or anything directly affecting the team. Not yet, but soon they will. If things don't pick up then I'm sure they'll have other managers in mind.
Do you ever read posts properly?
Why was it a “discussion around the DOF”? I was responding to a post that suggested that Murtough was unsackable owing to being a “Glazer boy”.
I think you’re just looking for things to get cross about. As is sadly the case with lots of posters on here these days.
Edit: I’ve just noticed that @Adnan agrees with me. Now he does know something about the way United operates behind the scenes. Though I daresay some believe him to be nothing more than a deluded stooge
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I don't think it matters if he's good or bad, or if he's been held back by incompetent upper management. He was, on paper, in charge of our wasteful recruitment, the hiring of Ragnick and gave the manager authority to overrule him on DOF responsibilities such as recruitment and strategy.
Whatever the reason for those poor decisions, he's likely to be out the door because of them.
I agree with this. Would be very surprised if Murtough keeps his job.
Not sure, don't think they went through with it.
But that doesn't change things, Sir Jim Ratcliffe would still be 2nd highest shareholder.
And of course, this first phase of the sale surely has contract stipulations about further sale down the road and control of the club, including control of hiring and firing of staff. That was first reported. It's highly doubtful that Ineos would agree on a deal without that.
If that's how they intend to do it I can get behind it. It makes sense to start the overhaul from the top and only later act on the manager level (if necessary), but not as part of the first round of restructure.
I love how people presume first of all that the bid will be successful, secondly that a 25% investor will be given all this power. Let’s wait and see eh
I thought the whole thing was that it's being put through? But I guess if anyone can screw up something like this, it's us. Agree on the scepticism about major footballing control, though, will believe it when I see it with the parasites still around.
Agreed that arnold’s role would be reduced. But Glazers wouldn’t want to lose their puppet that bring them success, commercially.
Most likely that your wish comes true, fletcher will be gone though.
I’m curious why you think Fletcher will be gone considering the recent conveyor belt of talent breaking through
Man Utd is the laughing stock of the world football for the last decade. If I'm the new owner, I won't trust the trio (Ed, Arnold and Murtough) that responsible for the unprecedented failure in the last decade.
Arnold is Ed's university pal and Murtough have been Ed's right hand man for football matters for very long.
We need total revamp to modernize the club. We have been talking about this for a decade. For a start, Arnold and Murtough need to follow Ed out of the door.
Arnold is Ed's university pal and Murtough have been Ed's right hand man for football matters for very long.
We need total revamp to modernize the club. We have been talking about this for a decade. For a start, Arnold and Murtough need to follow Ed out of the door.
Like devilish said, there might be a need for sacrificed lambt o look like there's a change, and INEOS to have their men inside. The one that Glazer would be less resistance on "high-level" position is removal of Fletcher as "Technical Director". Murtough and Fletcher as the sacrificed lambs.
They might give him a less "high-profile" role in name, if they think he's been doing a great job. ALthough like all of us here, it's just speculation. Like you said, we don't know if Glazers will allow INEOS to have much involvement.
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It’s not generally a role where you see a specialist employed, usually players. So if Fletcher is removed for another former player I wouldn’t see the point, particularly when things are going good from that role at the moment
I really have mixed feelings on whether Fletcher will stay or go. On one hand INEOS would want to make their influence felt at sporting level thus they'll probably would want huge changes there. Rumors say that they were hugely critical on how United operated at sporting level which explains why INEOS made full control on that aspect as one of its very few red lines. The arrival of Mitchell might make things even worse for Fletcher considering that the guy is very close to Rangnick (ideologically and in terms of friendship). Rangnick had no clue what Fletcher did and he wasn't shy to out him in the public which suggest a certain antipathy between the two.
On the other hand the technical director role is really small fry considering the wholesale changes we would probably do. Fletch is also loved by the fans and as @golden_blunder said he did a fairly decent job in his new role.
If you ask me I think that Fletcher will survive the initial onslaught. Sacking a former player is bad PR something both INEOS and the Glazers hate. Whether Fletcher will leave the club in let's say 6 months - 2 years on his own accord remain to be seen. Football Clubs tend to have a way of making someone feel unwelcome.
Reports throughout this saga is that Glazers have 69%. The confusing thing with this 25% is that it might not be 25% of the glazers shares, but split between Glazers/shareholders to avoid uproar. So the glazers could still have even more than we thought, worse case scenario really. They got everything they wanted again
According to roades its about 18%
Well results speak for themselves don't they? Paying 100 million for Antony is just incompetence on full display.
You could argue that Joel and his indecisiveness cost as Gakpo (who I believe was EtH preferred choice, I may be wrong) and then cost us with Antony when Ajax jacked up the price towards the end of the window.
I think it's been well reported that most personel would struggle under a Glazer sign off. So I'm not sure how much can be pinned on Arnold and Murtough really.
Sure, can't argue with that. The blame that lies on Murtough is the fact that there were no alternatives lined up besides Antony. ETH may have pushed him desperately to sign a player he's familiar with, but isn't it Murtough's job to push back against the manager as DoF? He couldn't have overruled the manager and gone for other players the scouts have lined up? You don't need 30 years in coaching or sports science or whatever the previous poster mentioned to recognize simple errors like that which result in massive consequences.
Thought it was well documented Antony was first choice but initially we baulked at the price. I'm glad we didn't get Gakpo, he's honestly so average and he seems to prefer the side we have a load of players already on, I feel like Antony we obviously overspent but he does make us better overall - I still think he'll have a good season (hopefully) all the drama is behind him.
The problem with Antony was they could not get any alternatives over the line and so had to go back for Antony at the end of the window. Why Joel needs to take some blame is one of the reasons for that delay on the alternatives was restricted budget sign-off where additional budget was only signed off late in the window.
Same thing happened this summer with Amrabat. All parties have to take some blame
The negotiations over Antony started and stalled well before the end of the window so I seriously doubt they could not get any alternatives over the line. More likely is that ETH stood firm on his preference and Murtough just didn't want to overrule him.
Completely irrelevant to my post. Not only are Caf’ers unable to use google, they can’t read posts either.