Manchester United's Chief Scout and Head of Global Scouting have left the club

SuperiorXI said:
Good. Our scouts are either fecking shite or don't get listened to.

A 9 year old child could have identified the targets we have gone for recently.
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I think it’s the latter but either way it needs new ideas. When you hear the stories the advice was no to Maguire and Fernandes. But for balance they also said no to Isco and Camavinga.

I really do think we need to look at Mike Phelan… a lot doesn’t get said about his cultural reset. He gave the green light for Maguire. He provided the insight on why Isco wasn’t a United player. He also made the recommendation that Camavinga wasn’t a United starter. I really think this guy lurking in the shadows has had a lot to do with doing this b tech version of creating a Fergie United. He needs to leave along with his opinions.
 
UnitedSofa said:
What makes you think Rangnick had anything to do with this?

It was Murtough.

The moves will be seen as a moment of change in United’s scouting structure and will attempt to streamline an operation which critics have said has become too top heavy.

John Murtough has full control of the football operations and has driven some of the changes as he seeks to help turn Manchester United around.

Key to those changes will be the appointment of Erik Ten Hag, who has reached an agreement in principle to become their next permanent manager, as The Athletic revealed earlier this month.

But hey, Murtough's shite according to the CAF anyway......
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I think Rangnick and Murtough will work in tandem. I agree it’s strange that Murtough gets such unwarranted stick so early in his tenure.
 
Any chance they contributed to the Brexit FC strategy we’ve seen lately, which states it’s much better to overpay for an average English dude (not that we have issues with homegrown quotas, mind) like Maguire or AWB, rather than focus on sheer ability/fit for the team, not nationality? This was such an absurd
 
Berbaclass said:
Good. I’ve had enough of seeing him with his tongue in the managers ear.
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Maybe he wants him there?

It's ETH talking but Ralf's managed in Germany before so it still applies.....

If Ten Hag was to become United manager, there's a chance Rangnick could remain in the dugout at Old Trafford. The Dutchman explained that he would have liked to have had Marc Overmars on the bench alongside him when he was sporting director at the Eredivisie club.

It is believed that Rangnick will take up a consultancy role once a new manager is appointed Old Trafford - a role similar to that of a sporting director.

"Ideally, I wanted Marc on the bench. I don’t have to think twice about that," Ten Hag added. "I started to believe in that construction when I was working in Germany.

"There is hardly a better education for a coach or a manager. I love the German model.

"In Germany, it is a common thing that sporting directors sit right next to you on the bench there. If you have a good sporting director, you know he takes a lot of the noise away around the manager - both internally and to the outside world.

"He will back you up and will also take away all the hassle with football agents. That way I can fully concentrate on the team and the development of the players"

https://www.manchestereveningnews.c...ball-news/erik-ten-hag-ralf-rangnick-23374097
 
Hopefully this ends us only being linked to Declan Rice as if he's the only midfielder out there
 
Obviously none of us can know for sure how good these two actually were at their jobs, but it's clear to see that our scouting has been completely dysfunctional for some time and changes definitely needed to happen. Why do we have such a blind spot for midfielders for instance? Bruno Guimaraes and Boubacar Kamara were available for peanuts in January and neither were even considered? Christopher Nkuku, one of Europe's top talents, wasn't even on our radar until Rangnick brought him to our attention?
 
UnitedSofa said:
Maybe he wants him there?

It's ETH talking but Ralf's managed in Germany before so it still applies.....

If Ten Hag was to become United manager, there's a chance Rangnick could remain in the dugout at Old Trafford. The Dutchman explained that he would have liked to have had Marc Overmars on the bench alongside him when he was sporting director at the Eredivisie club.

It is believed that Rangnick will take up a consultancy role once a new manager is appointed Old Trafford - a role similar to that of a sporting director.

"Ideally, I wanted Marc on the bench. I don’t have to think twice about that," Ten Hag added. "I started to believe in that construction when I was working in Germany.

"There is hardly a better education for a coach or a manager. I love the German model.

"In Germany, it is a common thing that sporting directors sit right next to you on the bench there. If you have a good sporting director, you know he takes a lot of the noise away around the manager - both internally and to the outside world.

"He will back you up and will also take away all the hassle with football agents. That way I can fully concentrate on the team and the development of the players"

https://www.manchestereveningnews.c...ball-news/erik-ten-hag-ralf-rangnick-23374097
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The crucial part there is “good sporting director”.
 
SuperiorXI said:
Good. Our scouts are either fecking shite or don't get listened to.

A 9 year old child could have identified the targets we have gone for recently.
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Don't get listened to most likely. For example we were one of the first clubs to scout Haaland, before anyone really knew he existed. That doesn't happen by chance. And there's no way they didn't recommend him after watching him in those games.
 
sullydnl said:
On the surface level you might say that if they were in charge of our scouting then it's good that they're going.

However, that assumes our scouting was actually listened to at all times. When we know they were often at odds with our managers and their personal scouts. A classic case being Maguire, who our scouts didn't think should be signed when Mourinho wanted him but then we caved and got him anyway a year later.

So it's not quite as black and white as our scouts being good scouts, it's also about the power dynamic between them and the rest of the recruitment process.

Still, hopefully this is a sign of positive change. If we're going to make changes now is the time to do it I guess.
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My thinking is similar. Don't know what they had taken on board from what they offered to state whether they did a good or bad job. If you're putting forth reports and highlighting concerns and yet still the club is buying these players, that's not any slight on you or the job you did. Bruno, it was said scouts were wary of his wastefulness and propensity for ill-considered actions; he was still bought. Maguire, there were concerns about; he was still bought.

So if they are being bypassed, it's not their heads that should be the first to roll.
 
diarm said:
I still don't understand why "Chief Scout" and "Head of Global Scouting" were 2 different positions.

If you ever wanted a diagram to depict too many cooks spoiling the broth, it would be a picture of the United organisational structure.
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I remember stories of a power struggle within scouting after LVG joined. Something along the lines of him wanting them all to have equal say and the power to veto each others recommendations in order to find someone they all agreed on. Problem with that setup is massive fecking ego's get in the way.
 
Telsim said:
Are these the same people that scouted 100000 full backs and arrived at AWB? If so, then good.
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Everyone involved in that should be sacked. He's a relegation battling fullback. Suited to backs to the wall tactics with lots of last gasp challenges needed. I called it before his signing, he was never going to have the technical quality to play progressive football for a top side.
 
UnitedSofa said:
I'm gonna keep saying this until I'm blue in the face.

Fletcher has all the credentials necessary to do the job he's been hired to do, having played for the club for many years.

His role is to bridge the gap between the youth team and the first team, identify players who have the right mindset to play for the club in first team capacity. It is also his job to also identify if players we are looking to purchase as a transfer from another team for the first team if they too have the right mindset for the first team. That's his role.

Literally no one else from outside the club can do this role other than ex-players.
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Fletcher was mentioned to be in manager interviews, he sits on the touchline, it was said he was also in discussions about the transfers last year. The job description you write might be fitting to him. But it does not seem to be what he is doing.
 
Red Star One said:
Any chance they contributed to the Brexit FC strategy we’ve seen lately, which states it’s much better to overpay for an average English dude (not that we have issues with homegrown quotas, mind) like Maguire or AWB, rather than focus on sheer ability/fit for the team, not nationality? This was such an absurd
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100% right. Hopefully we look further afield and sign foreign players rather than focusing on overpriced English players like Varane, Bruno, Van de Beek, Ronaldo, Cavani.
 
What might concern me about this is the timing.

Let's say this is a result of the club accepting that our scouting process needs to be improved. Well then we're presumably about to spend a lot of money this summer based on that sub-optimal scouting?

Whereas if these changes had been made earlier in the season we'd have had 6-ish months for any new structure to prepare for this first summer under a new manager?
 
Berbaclass said:
The crucial part there is “good sporting director”.
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Fletcher is not the sporting director, Murtough is. Fletcher is the technical director. What exactly has Fletcher done wrong?

I'm gonna keep saying this until I'm blue in the face.

Fletcher has all the credentials necessary to do the job he's been hired to do, having played for the club for many years.

His role is to bridge the gap between the youth team and the first team, identify players who have the right mindset to play for the club in first team capacity. It is also his job to also identify if players we are looking to purchase as a transfer from another team for the first team if they too have the right mindset for the first team. That's his role.

Literally no one else from outside the club can do this role other than ex-players.
 
Anyone playing a major role in our transfer buys over the last 8/9 years needs replacing.
 
sullydnl said:
What might concern me about this is the timing.

Let's say this is a result of the club accepting that our scouting process needs to be improved. Well then we're presumably about to spend a lot of money this summer based on that sub-optimal scouting?

Whereas if these changes had been made earlier in the season we'd have had 6-ish months for any new structure to prepare for this first summer under a new manager?
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Well there must be some form of plan. Ralf has an idea of how we should play and how Ten Hag wants to play. Paul Mitchell has found players of a certain criteria to fit Pochettino's teams and even Ralf himself knows the kind of players we need to fit Ten Hag's system. You would also think that Ten Hag is going to bring one of his own scouts with him.
 
gica_7 said:
Fletcher was mentioned to be in manager interviews, he sits on the touchline, it was said he was also in discussions about the transfers last year. The job description you write might be fitting to him. But it does not seem to be what he is doing.
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Yes so he's doing exactly what he's been signed up to do.

Transfers last year: Highlight the players that are suited to Man Utd.
Manager interviews: Highlight if the manager is the right fit for Man Utd alongside Murtough.
On the touchline: After Carrick/McKenna left he took up some coaching to help ease the pressure on other coaches/Ralf.
 
I mean their positions were untenable really after spunking 130m on Harry and AWB
 
Heads are finally starting to roll. Long overdue. Whatever you think of Ralf as a coach, his impact will be good for us in the long run, seems like he's finally opened the eyes of the idiots at the top.
 
sugar_kane said:
No big surprise given how scathing Ralf has been about our player recruitment, and how this has (rightly) become the media narrative.

Lawlor seemingly only worked as a scout in South Africa (not even sure what this means, for who?) for one year before joining United and became chief scout in 2014/15. Madness.
https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/jim-lawlor/profil/trainer/7284

Marcel Bout joined the set up around the same time under LVG - he's more experienced in the game but largely in a coaching capacity rather than scouting:
https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/marcel-bout/profil/trainer/10093

How on earth do a team like United end up with this kind of set-up? I hope one day someone writes a proper book on how badly run our club has been since Fergie left.
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Mata will probably write one. He can call it "Hugs? More like Shrugs ffs"
 
sullydnl said:
What might concern me about this is the timing.

Let's say this is a result of the club accepting that our scouting process needs to be improved. Well then we're presumably about to spend a lot of money this summer based on that sub-optimal scouting?

Whereas if these changes had been made earlier in the season we'd have had 6-ish months for any new structure to prepare for this first summer under a new manager?
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This is where Ralf is worth his weight in gold. Ten Hag will have ideas. I can also see us bringing in Paul Mitchell. Those three plus Murtough together would be able to come up with targets fairly quickly so I’m not concerned as such. TBH I’d rather this scenario because it means we are listening to Ralf/ETH rather than proceeding with targets from the old regime
 
Considering our recruiting record recently, I see this as an absolute win
 
Weren't these guys promoted following Jon Murtoughy appointment as DOF?
 
Mainoldo said:
I think it’s the latter but either way it needs new ideas. When you hear the stories the advice was no to Maguire and Fernandes. But for balance they also said no to Isco and Camavinga.

I really do think we need to look at Mike Phelan… a lot doesn’t get said about his cultural reset. He gave the green light for Maguire. He provided the insight on why Isco wasn’t a United player. He also made the recommendation that Camavinga wasn’t a United starter. I really think this guy lurking in the shadows has had a lot to do with doing this b tech version of creating a Fergie United. He needs to leave along with his opinions.
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Samid said:
Don't get listened to most likely. For example we were one of the first clubs to scout Haaland, before anyone really knew he existed. That doesn't happen by chance. And there's no way they didn't recommend him after watching him in those games.
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If it is the case that they're not being listened to, you have to wonder who actually thinks they know better? Woodward? Phelan? What a horror show.
 
amolbhatia50k said:
Anyone playing a major role in our transfer buys over the last 8/9 years needs replacing.
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I think that's overly simplistic in the other direction.

Looking at Liverpool for example, a lot of the key figures in their scouting renaissance were the same people derided as part of the Brendan Rodgers transfer comittee era. If they had had a wholesale clearout following Rodgers' collapse then they wouldn't be where they are now.

What actually needs to happen is for us to keep and lose the right people. And that's a lot trickier than broader changes. Certainly not something we can do from the outside.
 
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