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

Is this the same Jim Lawlor that helped us get Chicarito, Vidic, the Da Silva twins, implored LVG NOT to buy Darmian, wanted to buy Lozano before he came to Europe and gave the heads up regarding RVP's availability?
 
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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An executive taking credit for positive changes, shocking stuff.
 
KiD MoYeS said:
So Lawlor was another Phelan. Hanging around and collecting the big bucks. Should go regardless.
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In a way. It has been reported and also mentioned many times by @Adnan on this forum that both Ole and Mourinho ignored the scouting department in favor of agents and their personal scouts.
 
Poor Jimmy. He was doing feck all and he wasn't being listed to, our Jim. But please, keep paying him millions.
 
Would be interesting to see all the roles in signing Darmian, Dalot and AWB. From what Jose said I doubt he was plucked by the scouts and more of Jose's idea. Darmian, not sure if true but someone posted LVG overruled them. AWB seemed like a joint thing with Ole and at that time Ole got the go ahead on Maguire as well.

Our left and right backs solutions have been quite alarming for a decade.
 
AlexUTD said:
An executive taking credit for positive changes, shocking stuff.
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What? It's literally his job.

"taking credit" what on earth are you talking about. He controls ALL football sides. Isn't this literally what we wanted, a football man controlling the football side?
 
cyberman said:
Chief football scouts earn upwards of 100k a year. Pretty sure we have paid him millions at this stage.
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Which isn't millions.

IrishRedDevil said:
I'd hope not, all ours do is watch the Premier League.

How much does a Chief Scout earn?
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It depends, generally below 100k per year to way below that. And lets not insult these people who work incredible hours, the issue with Lawlor and other scouts has been well documented, it's not that they weren't doing their job but that they weren't listened to.
 
UnitedSofa said:
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.
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Exactly. I get fans wanting to find scapegoats within the club but the hate towards Fletcher has been bizarre. There has been somewhat of a jobs for the boys, insular culture at United but Fletcher is clearly very intelligent, has done his badges and has coaching experience at other clubs. He’s not just been on the TV and hoped for a shot.

It’s not been that weird him being a technical director and then coaching. His job, while strategic, has always been very hands on and the departures of Carrick and McKenna has seen the need for him to fill in.

I hope, contrary to rumours, he stays in the club and is mentored by Ralf (who seems to like him). I bet he’ll get a League 1/League 2 or SPL manager role though.
 
JPRouve said:
In a way. It has been reported and also mentioned many times by @Adnan on this forum that both Ole and Mourinho ignored the scouting department in favor of agents and their personal scouts.
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Sometime in the future we'll find out they were both embezzling money from the club
 
So where we had 4 people:
  • Head of Recruitment Operations - Steve Brown
  • Head of Global Scouting - Marcel Bout
  • Technical Chief Scout - Mick Court
  • Chief Scout - Jim Lawlor
Now we only have 2. If we are bringing in someone like Paul Mitchell, is he going to take one of the vacated positions, or will others be leaving as well?

I'd love to see clearly defined job descriptions outlining what each role is responsible for. Seems a bit like trying to run a kitchen by having a Head Chef, a Director of Food Operations, a Head of Burger Operations, a Director of Salads, a Technical Food Preparations Director, a Chief Wash Up Specialist, a Global Head of Vegetarian Options etc etc.

Feck off lads. Have one fella in charge and a team of specialists who answer to him. Giving every fecker a 3 line title on their business card and letting them think they're the big dog is exactly how you end up spending £130m on Maguire and Wan-Bissaka. I bet they spend all day long sitting in convoluted meetings where nothing effective gets done as well.

What a bloody nightmare.
 
Jim Lawlor. It is literally in the name. We really were a bunch of idiots with money. Mugged for too many times. These two have made millions probably.
 
I think we’ve made enough space for Mitchell now as head of recruitment.
 
crossy1686 said:
They still recommended him as the best option:



It's fine to give your scouts some criteria but they have fallen short every single time we've made a signing. I bet none of them knew that Bellingham even existed until he hit the headlines. Ask anyone in Birmingham and they knew how good he was.

They're just piss poor and have become so complacent it's embarrassing.
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How do you know they recommended him as the best option, they may jave just been asked to scout him and provide reports.

Essentially what I am saying is that a scouting department can make recommendations on players to sign but these might not be acted on. At a dysfunctional club the department could also be completely sidelined and players signed managers or directors whims
 
crossy1686 said:
This all adds to the Ogden story that our scouts don't actually have any data on the upcoming talents.
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I’m always reminded of what happened with Hakimi - you know, the Man United fan and all round up-and-coming-best-right-back-in-Europe Hakimi - who got himself a meeting with Richard Arnold only to be asked who the feck he was.
 
Great stuff. Of course it's hard to say how responsible they were for the mess we're in, but judging by the only metric we as fans can (quality of our players) they've been an absolute disaster class.
 
And on Bout and Lawlor, I wouldn’t be quick to write them off as crap. The scouting and transfer policy has been so dreadful that I’m sure they’ve been made to look worse than they actually are. Trouble is, such working conditions kills motivation, confidence and even aptitude. It’s easy to just play the game. I reckon both stayed with United rather than truly putting their neck out to foster real change because they’re older guys on good money. This is all speculation on my part but either they’re accountable for the problems or victim of what’s above them. Both staying so long implies they just put up with it or they’re complicit. I prefer the previous explanation.

That being said, I’m hopeful their departures mean we’re getting better people. Mitchell might make sense, though I’m not sure he’s as good as made out in the media. Rangnick has a great record so clearly knows good people.
 
OleGunnar20 said:
Great stuff. Of course it's hard to say how responsible they were for the mess we're in, but judging by the only metric we as fans can (quality of our players) they've been an absolute disaster class.
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It's more likely to be Woodward let's get real.
 
devilish said:
What experience does he have in the job? Why have we handled Pogba 400k a week contract? Why it took us so much time to sack Ole? Was it a good idea to go for a temporary manager whose system is poorly suited to our team? Wasn't Murtough part of the same transfer committee which brought us talent like Mcshane, Heaton + injury prone relics like Cavani and Varane?
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He has the same experience Edwards had before he became Liverpool's DoF - and I could go into the archives of my posts on the matter, but he has far more experience than a lot of renowned DoF's when they took their jobs.

Who is reporting this 400k a week contract that is actually reputable, more the reports coming out are we aren't pursuing renegotiation but Ten Hag will be allowed a word on that.

Until Woodward left he was the ipso facto decision maker, it's only since Arnold has come in that Murtough in this structure has taken on more responsibilities.

Yes it was if the fact of the matter is that Rangnick is coming in as a consultant (the first step of which is understanding the specific failings of the club from squad level) and providing them with a brutal analysis. Also our main two choices for the job were Poch and ETH, both high pressing managers with other stylistic differences. These players needed to be prepared in kind for one of those two managers (we now know that a lot of them aren't suitable) - bringing in Garcia or Valverde who would have both been pragmatic may have got us top 4, but in reality we would have just continued playing low block counterattacking football and have another moment of reckoning when ETH found out that none of the players were suited to his style during pre-season. Now we know that our squad needs drasctic changes - if we had got top 4 relatively alright, the club wouldn't be pressured to make the wholesale they will now hopefully be pushed to do. You could now make the same yet bigger argument that we shouldnt bring in ETH because his system is poorly suited to our team, even Poch's system is poorly suited to our team. feck it, based on the work rate of our side, even Conte wouldn't have worked.

Again Michael Edwards was part of a backroom staff that was seen as a laughing stock before Klopp came in. Their recruitment was abysmal. You can hire from within and it can work. Have you ever worked at a company that is being mismanaged and sat there thinking how if you had the power to change things, everything would look better? Just because Murtough was employed by the club =/= bad at his job.

Cavani was a good signing for that one season, he did not need to be renewed. Heaton is a third keeper, weird stick to use to beat someone with. Varane has had injury problems, but that's as much on the medical staff and whoever wrote the risk assessment.

We have a new structure in place, in may easily be as bad as the last one, but equally it may turn out well.
 
Two big scouts gone
Ralf seen talking with Paul Mitchell
Mitchell being a former Head of Recruitment for Spurs and in the process of leaving Monaco

Are the stars aligning that obviously?
 
Seem to recall us hiring Marcel Bout was considered a bit of a coup at the time, cant say I'm surprised that it hasn't turned out that way
 
Stephen Howson said we are looking into hiring a lady (I know, take it with a bucket of salt) who is heavily into analytics.

I paid no attention to it but wonder if there is some wider restructure going on with how we scrape the world for talent.

Edit - take it with a bucket and a half in fact. Lord knows why it's even worth posting.
 
Champ said:
Is this the same Jim Lawlor that helped us get Chicarito, Vidic, the Da Silva twins, implored LVG NOT to buy Darmian, wanted to buy Lozano before he came to Europe and gave the heads up regarding RVP's availability?
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All 10+ years ago.

Lets get Carrick and Scholes back in midfield aswell.
 
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