Not really, not at this level. He was at Everton with Moyes I believe.
For all his experience its Ralf that's having to hold his hand through the club rebuild.
It’s posts like these that force me to respond to a subject that we typically don’t have enough information on, to provide a useful insight.
Firstly, the term “hold his hand” is inherently derogatory, and you really have no basis for it. He has the counsel of RR, who will work as a consultant. Most modern organisations use consultants to shape their processes, so by those Terms, no one anywhere has any clue what they are doing, and everyone is “having their hand held”.
Secondly, you talked about experience. Murtough has a lot of football experience at the top level that is easily translatable to his new role. You really have no basis whatsoever to question his ability to do the job, until the has been given the opportunity to do the job for a reasonable period of time. Experience isn’t the only criteria by which to assess someone’s competency to perform a role, you have to also look at strategic vision, critical thinking, leadership ability, domain knowledge and expertise etc., and without talking to the guy, or working with him, the only way you can even vaguely assess those, is through his results. Results which, given the strategic nature of much of his work, will take time to become apparent (positively or negatively).
There are a number of academic and professional studies of relevance in the area. For example, in the last decade data shows that top performing CEOs are heavily dominated by first time candidates to the role. That is to say it’s their first CEO role. Seems counter intuitive, but the data shows that the ambition, less risk averse decision making first time CEOs are prone to, translates into better organisational outcomes. None of these people had been CEOs before, but all had extensive domain experience and knowledge. In the rapidly changing environment - a fact for all modern industries - forward thinking, fresh minded CEOs are king, and this is also true for many executive leaders. Why should it be any different for a Director of Football?
The bottom line is that whole experience can give us an indication of a candidates track record, they only tell a small part of the story about their suitability for any given role. We don’t know how well suited and capable Murtough is for his role, and we won’t know until the judge the results. And even that isn’t a perfect science because we’ll never know a number of hidden, and key, contextual factors - such as the Glazer role.
