Ole doing background checks on transfer targets

I was struck by the bit about food being re-heated and served with deplenished nutrition. Surely at a club like ours, it shouldn't be necessary for the manager to make sure that the basics are done right?

Maybe we need to hire a team of external consultants or something, a team of experts that can go over everything and look for improvements outside the football stuff.
 
That's well and good but why has it taken so long to have those deals negotiated when it seems like we were convinced a while ago that we wanted those players? I mean seriously... if you know you take longer to get deals over the line based on previous transfers, wouldn't you start negotiating couple months before, so that when the transfer window opens up, we get our deals sorted immediately. I mean Chelsea had Pulisic tied up sometime in February. Not sure why we wait for the window to open to start negotiating. Ole can do all the research he wants. At the end of the day, it's the league table that will decide his fate and our season. So when I see posts like these, it doesn't mean jack shit. Results are what matter at the end of the day.
 
Yeah it's so weird how these fees take so long to agree on. I wonder how the whole process goes, I imagine it's a lot different than bargaining at a shop in marrakech for example.
 
sveisa said:
I was struck by the bit about food being re-heated and served with deplenished nutrition. Surely at a club like ours, it shouldn't be necessary for the manager to make sure that the basics are done right?

Maybe we need to hire a team of external consultants or something, a team of experts that can go over everything and look for improvements outside the football stuff.
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Wasn't this proven to be a bit of a myth. That heating food results in barely any nutritional loss. Reminds me when eating raw eggs to absorb full protein was still a trend a couple decades ago. Is Ole taking issue with reheating food? Because that's some dinosaur stuff on par with Moyes banning chips
 
Doing background checks, is he hiring for MI6?
 
Greck said:
Wasn't this proven to be a bit of a myth. That heating food results in barely any nutritional loss. Reminds me when eating raw eggs to absorb full protein was still a trend a couple decades ago. Is Ole taking issue with reheating food? Because that's some dinosaur stuff on par with Moyes banning chips
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I don't know how this works, but the journalist's point was that Ole found a problem in the way players were fed, and fixed it. If it indeed was a problem, you'd think someone else than the manager would be there to take care of it. Ole has enough on his plate already (no pun intended).
 
1)They normally don't do this? No wonder.
2)Is this clubs way of saying "There will be no DoF, we ask Ole to do it"
 
Chairman Steve said:
I’d probably say this approach was part of the reason why SAF was as successful as he was. He knew personalities and wanted personalities who weren’t too far away from his own personality, in that they were driven to win and wanted to play for the team. They may not have been the most skillful, most exotic or even best players around, but they were the most determined to win and that wins out in his head.

You could have a 6/10 player who wanted to go out there and win, play against a 9/10 player who’d be sulky and just there for a pay check, and the 6/10 player would likely end up on the winning team and the 9/10 would be on the losing team.
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I agree with what you are saying completely. Only thing I’ll say is that this doesn’t need to be a situation where we settle for lesser players with a better attitude. Talent and desire aren’t mutually exclusive. If a 9/10 player doesn’t really want to play here, we go and find another 9/10 player who does. Even if it takes longer and costs more.
 
Wow it's like when I'm recruiting at work, I speak to other people and former coworkers and stuff..

Hardly rocket science or voodoo magic and very easy to do if your source is Ryan Giggs.

What background checks does he do on players Giggs and Neville dont know, like Dybala?
 
Ballist1x said:
Wow it's like when I'm recruiting at work, I speak to other people and former coworkers and stuff..

Hardly rocket science or voodoo magic and very easy to do if your source is Ryan Giggs.

What background checks does he do on players Giggs and Neville dont know, like Dybala?
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Pogba? Veron?
 
Kostur said:
He's talking to people. That's some unheard of revolutionary shit on the Ingurlish soil as everyday struggles such as hunting mammoths and failing to start a fire take most of the time to the British neanderthals.

Honestly though, it's the same type of idiotic article we've had before and before. With LVG it was planting trees around Carrington so the wind's stopped and throwing out rectangular tables in favour of round ones. With Mourinho it was inviting over SAF to the training ground as if he had been banned by the security from constant alcohol drinking and pissing at the doors, etc.

New season (manager?), same shit.
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I agree. Sounds like some pointless bullshit PR. Woodward for me cares too much about the media and controlling the media narrative. Less talky talky more worky worky is in order with him.
 
buckooo1978 said:
a Director of Football should be leading this

a Director of Football with a well-developed network of trusted scouts and sources

much wider net than relying on old teammates

still it's a good approach from Ole
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We definetly need a DoF, but until then we gotta work with what we've got. Ole seems to have the right approach. Although it seems like a simple thing as many post here, it's still something we haven't done under the last managers. We've signed a lot of ex-players while under our former managers, while now we're actually signing players that fit a certain mould and not just having a scattergun approach.

Redcy said:
Is this the new "no value in the market".

BBC Journo when we are in 11 th place with no midfielders : "Why didnt you buy a midfielder in the summer?"
Ole: "There was noone available with the right mentality"

Don't get me wrong if this is genuine ... great, but I am in meltdown mode as we approach a new season with Matic and Lingard as possible main players in our first team and it sounds like a ready made excuse for not buying.
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Don't think Lingard will be a first team player this year, probably more a squad player.

Regarding Matic I think with all the shit he's been spouting he'll be sold in january and we bring in his replacement which is younger and actually has legs.
 
Its another page out of Fergie's book. If he can just keep doing things he saw Fergie do, we will improve immensely as a club, its stuff like this that is so important to give Ole time, and why I dont really give a sh*t where we finish, just let him build his team and his club up.

If he keeps going in this direction then we wont desperately need a DoF like we did with LVG or Jose, because he is keeping things tight and making sure that there is a synergy in the club. He has brought the right sort of individuals in, he has rejected more diva personas and he has got rid of things that he hasnt been happy with. Give him a few years and we will be back in contention.
 
While I'm all in favour of taking mentality into account when signing players, the way this is described sounds a bit parochial. It's all very well comparing it to the way Ferguson operated, but it's a different era, football is now a more global game than ever, and we can't just be unreflectively trying to emulate the way things were done in the past. If our rivals are taking their pick from the most talented players in global football, I don't want United to require that new recruits know someone who knows someone from the Class of '92.
 
I think Ole + Butt + Bout = the transfer committee, now. Butt has a large say on transfers in order to have clear paths for those in the academy, Bout has the connections (leading our scouting network), Ole has the style of play and character he wants. Seems fine to me.
 
A nothing story.
Are you telling me we spend millions of dollars on players and previously didn't do background checks and references.

The company I work in do significant checks and interviews with related parties whenever we make a senior appointment. It costs us a couple of thousand dollars (NZ). I think United can afford that.

Fake.
 
I think this makes the whole scouting system sound useless and unprofessional. None of the players mentioned were unknown at all. And what is the competence of those people involved to recognize ability and right mentality? Wayne Hennessey?
 
If anything, the buys of LVG's era seems to indicate we placed less emphasis on background checks than in the past. Signings like Di Maria, Darmian, Depay and Schneiderlin seem to indicate this.
 
This is all nice but it's basically common sense rather than genius, and more alarming that it's pretty clear the club hasn't done this with some transfers in recent years.

It's also all undermined when Woodward and his pal try to basically force Dybala to sign against his will.
 
IrishRedDevil said:
I thought this was interesting and it sounds like a good strategy moving forward. It’s probably fairly basic stuff to do background checks on players, but with a fair few dud signings in recent years, maybe the basics like this wasn’t being done enough?

Pulling out of the Dybala deal since he wasn’t fully committed to joining is another example of a change.



It’s a photograph on Twitter, so I am unable to post the text.
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The most shocking news here is that the author of this article considers such practice as something extraoridnary.
 
This is something that was done during SAF time and something that should be basic thing to do for any transfers. If we haven't done that after SAF's retirement then explains so many failed transfers.
 
Sunny Jim said:
The most shocking news here is that the author of this article considers such practice as something extraoridnary.
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Exactly. Manager doing his due diligence before signing a player. WHAT A SHOCK.
 
sveisa said:
I don't know how this works, but the journalist's point was that Ole found a problem in the way players were fed, and fixed it. If it indeed was a problem, you'd think someone else than the manager would be there to take care of it. Ole has enough on his plate already (no pun intended).
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Do you have a link you can reference?
 
roonster09 said:
This is something that was done during SAF time and something that should be basic thing to do for any transfers. If we haven't done that after SAF's retirement then explains so many failed transfers.
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Agreed, but it might be a challenge to get such information when buying a player from abroad. We'd be relying on scout reports and obviously wouldn't have those same connections. Considering all the failed signings in the last few years, Ole deserves some credit for targeting players we can get extensive information on and getting in the right sort of characters for the team he's building.
 
Nialinho said:
Agreed, but it might be a challenge to get such information when buying a player from abroad. We'd be relying on scout reports and obviously wouldn't have those same connections. Considering all the failed signings in the last few years, Ole deserves some credit for targeting players we can get extensive information on and getting in the right sort of characters for the team he's building.
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IIRC SAF relied on his scouts to do that and we did that when we signed Hernandez too.
 
Not only is it common sense but I'd wager whoever wrote that did so with no sources.
 
NinjaZombie said:
If anything, the buys of LVG's era seems to indicate we placed less emphasis on background checks than in the past. Signings like Di Maria, Darmian, Depay and Schneiderlin seem to indicate this.
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Exactly plus Mickihitaryan too, if anyone did a background check on him it was clear to see he was never mentally cut out for a big team.
 
The lot of you seem to be "enlightened" about basic recon intel. Ole and co are doing basic shit anyone whoever has been hired or done hiring at a reputable company does.

This is standard stuff any football ops does. I can understand if Ole and co do their own separate intel from their personal connections.
 
Tom Cato said:
OP mentioned that we pulled out of the Dybala transfer as another step in changing our transfer policy. The club refused to give in to an extortinate player demand to come play for the club. We signed Alexis Sanchez to fantasy money and it's currently the worst contract in football.
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Think Real Madrid beg to differ with regards to a certain Welsh guy
 
IrishRedDevil said:
I thought this was interesting and it sounds like a good strategy moving forward. It’s probably fairly basic stuff to do background checks on players, but with a fair few dud signings in recent years, maybe the basics like this wasn’t being done enough?

Pulling out of the Dybala deal since he wasn’t fully committed to joining is another example of a change.



It’s a photograph on Twitter, so I am unable to post the text.
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"contacts"?what contacts? I mean everyone asks national team managers. More regurgitated nonsense
 
Mailo said:
Think Real Madrid beg to differ with regards to a certain Welsh guy
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At least Bale is doing some world class stuff when he plays on occasion, Sanchez is straight up not contributing. And this is coming from someone who still think Sanchez got it in him to show glimpses of old greatness if he returns to the lineup this year.
 
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