What to say then for our technical director....
The John Murtough Era
- Thread starter Trex
- Start date
- Status
you could say the same about us...
I am so glad we revamped the scouting department otherwise we would just be trying to sign players our manager has previously worked with
I don't onow how anyone could argue with this!
Unfortunately Arnold also has a pretty underwhelming cv and Fletcher no real experience to speak of
I said that the day appointments were made - and had to block two people here (first ever) for the abuse I received.
What are Murtough’s and Andy O’Boyle’s records on player recruitment Iike? What gems have they unearthed previously?
I’m assuming that we’ve moved to a DOF type model of recruitment now rather than buying whoever the latest manager fancies.
I’m assuming that we’ve moved to a DOF type model of recruitment now rather than buying whoever the latest manager fancies.
He just doesn't inspire confidence, has made too many questionable decisions in a short period of time.
He’s only been in control of ALL footballing matters since fecking MARCH of this year!
Before that he was still reporting to Woodward!
Last edited:
He’s chairman. He’s not DOF. Marc Overmars (you know, the guy who resigned due to being outed for sexual harassment after being handed a new contract by Edwin during the investigation) was DOF.
Liverpool gave Michael Edwards the job with less experience than Murtough. AC Milan’s is Paolo Maldini (having turned down Rangnick), Bayern Munich’s is Oliver Kahn. When Barcelona hired Txiki he was a commentator on tv. Chelsea’s for a long, long time was Roman’s previous personal assistant.
You’re talking nonsense.
Lots of the youth players folks rave about were Murtough acquisitions (Hannibal being the most famous example). Murtough has also been involved with the womens side which rose from not existing to missing out on Champions League football on the last day in 3 seasons, so fairly impressive on that front too.
Fletcher has no real experience
Do you even know or understand his role?
He is the “go to” between the first team and the youth set up. He is also there to determine if the players we are looking at for the first team have the desire and mindset to play for Man Utd.
Why can he do that? Because he has years and years of, wait for it…..experience, playing for the club.
I don’t know why I keep coming in here, no matter how many times @Adnan & others explain, in detail, why Murtough and co do have the experience. No one seems to read what they say and still spout the same nonsense of “not having experience” like jheeze!
What about O’Boyle? I know that Mitchell was touted for that role, who is credited for the likes of Son, Mane and Nkunu but I don’t know much about O’Boyle
Does his status have any importance when his influence has been longstanding ?
….his influence was basically tied up considering all footballing matters were still technically up to woodward.
Someone fairly pointed out that others have succeeded in the role at a top club without being a DOF before.
But it does seem less likely that our executive brain trust that has been failing spectacularly happens to includes a future top class DOF, than it does that a proven DOF at a club more the size of Spurs would be a success.
If they're doing the scouting, nurturing, and negotiating then what's the point in having a scouting department? Their job is to oversee the team building and stop mad shit that's happened under previous managers from happening, while negotiating for new players.
Its also their job to ensure the scouting department is doing theirs
There are quotes from last year from John Murtough that he clearly had a position of authority in many decisions being made including his support towards Ole.
There's credible journalist also who noted his decision to bring in Ragnick. It's not like John dropped out the sky and was employed from March this year, he's been in the background for a long while that's what influence is.
The club clearly emphasised his "official" status to dispel any bad reputation in association with the previous disaster of a campaign.
How plainly do I have to explain this to you?
He was still reporting to Woodward! Everything still needed sign off from woodward on decions. Now Murtough makes all the decisions for himself now Arnold lets him do that and handed all footballing power to him. Woodward wanted that so Murtough still (at the time reported to him) how hard is that to understand?!??
there's nothing actually wrong with these posters questioning his experience for the DoF role specifically. It's not like his biggest supporters even claim he's experienced. One you cited is fond of guessing Murtough had no powers under Woodward, an assertion that ironically implies he really does have zero relevant experience for the role. This is us hoping for the best that his experience in a different role can translate to being a good Dof.
You've changed your basis of point within this conversation by editing your post to chuck Woodward into the mix from initially stating that March was the period of John having been made official.
If you want to be naïve enough to believe the narrative that Murtough has had no impactful influence on bringing in Ragnick (especially considering their previous relationship), his voice in a decision to sack Ole and the decision to terminate the consultancy agreement with Ralf that's totally your decision. Irrespective Murtough doesn't inspire confidence for these reasons that's my own personal perspective.
Why does experience matter for a relatively new role within the world of football? DOF hasn’t actually been aaround that long.
No one actually knows what a DOF actually does do they?
@Adnan explains it really well, that it’s not that different from the roles that Murtough has had previously.
& besides as @phelans shorts explained Liverpool/City, the teams we all strive to be like handed them to people with far less experience, one being an ex-tv commentator!
But we all choose to ignore that for in favour of more Murtough bashing. But besides if you’re going to imply me, simply just tag me next time eh?
There’s also nothing wrong in pointing out the narrative spun of “no other big club would do this!” Is nonsense that is proven by the vast majority of major successful clubs have done exactly this.
I will specify Txiki went to City with prior experience, it was Barca who brought him in as commentator. City brought him in because he’d worked with Pep at Barcelona so would lay the foundation to hiring him there.
Did I say that? No no I didn’t.
It’s all well and good having influence, but if that influence on the wider footballing matters at the club, besides fecking Rangnick is gatekeeped by someone. Such as….well, y’know possibly being the reason for the backroom footballing changes we’ve seen since he’s had full control of footballing matters?
Since? Let’s say…March?
He clearly had a say in the Rangnick appointment. Woodward must have signed off on it. But since March we have seen quick and swift change. But hey, Murtough has no experience, does he?
I know, but point still remains he was a tv commentator when he took the initial role. Arguably for a much bigger club at the time too. Dominating Europe.
Ok but that wasn't what you said. If you think experience doesn't matter that's fine, you can lead with that rather than nonsensing others for questioning it. You seem really dependent on the Adnan poster when you don;t have to, he too like the rest of us is really just splicing together various loose bits of info to fill in his knowledge about how he thinks the club must work. If I'm being frank the position that John did nothing last season or under Woodward is reason enough to tune anyone out. The attempt at nuance in the thread turned to full blown PR a while ago. Luckily we can finally start to move away from guesswork and actually start judging him on how the club is run.
Last edited:
If you had actually read any of their detailed posts you’d understand why they’re regarded as a high quality poster. Goes into detail far more than most about what the role actually means & what Murtough has done in the past and what he currently does do.
Hate to say but there's a fair amount of guesswork in those posts, a fair amount. The rest are tidbits dug off of twitter available to both you and I. There's already a big enough hint in this when same people imply Murtough was suppressed by Woodward. Unless one works at the club or get's the info directly how, what, or why would someone even deduce that so confidently? The conflict dynamics of their relationship isn't something to guess. Woodward was the one who retained and elevated Murtough. We just throwing everything on one guy's plate to spare the other and it's unnecessary. Humble truth is we're all employing some guesswork. It will be good to finally be able to judge him by how the club is run rather than fluff/hit pieces of opposing thoughts.
Last edited:
So if the only experience required to do his role to a high level is having played for the club, what makes him better suited to the role than our any other former players? And why does having played for the club make you anymore suited than people that played for other clubs?Fletcher has no real experience
Do you even know or understand his role?
He is the “go to” between the first team and the youth set up. He is also there to determine if the players we are looking at for the first team have the desire and mindset to play for Man Utd.
Why can he do that? Because he has years and years of, wait for it…..experience, playing for the club.
All sounds a bit like the oft deployed line about us appointing ole and team because they understood the club.
In reality anyone with the required core competencies could do the role
His influence has been longstanding but not at first team level until Ole was sacked. Because his role at the club was to do with the development side of the club, hence him having the title 'head of development' which is a role that oversees the development beneath the first team. John Murtough and the scouting team working under him at youth level have been a success.
So this is how the football side was operating throughout the club when Murtough was the head of development. And there was three factions operating independently from each other. And the team led by Murtough was the most successful team out of the three.
Solskjaer - first team manager. ----- Marcel Bout - head of recruitment ------ Murtough - head of dev.
Phelan - adviser/assistant. ------ Jim Lawlor - Chief scout. ------- Nick Cox - Academy head
Simon Wells - personal scout. ----- Mick Court - Technical Chief scout ---- David Harrison - HOYR.
HOYR = Head of Youth Recruitment and Nick Cox is the head of academy.
You can easily verify the above information if you like. And if you want to judge John Murtough's role at the club before he was made the DoF, then look into his work as the head of development, which is a role synonymous with the development side of the club from the youth teams etc.
And there was nothing wrong with the decision to appoint Rangnick in a temporary role imo. Rangnick had already shown in recent times that he was a capable interim at RB Leipzig in the 2018/19 season, where he was the placeholder until the arrival of Nagelsmann. This wasn't a permanent role but rather a temporary one.
I can't predict the future and you're within your rights to question credentials. But before you do that, at the very least do some research on the man and how the club was structured. Because my participation in threads like these is to point out clear discrepancies like how Paul Mitchell was so great at Soton but people are oblivious to the fact that the DoF at Soton at the time was Les Reed. Or Van der Sar being the DoF at Ajax, when in-fact that has never been the case. And stuff like that is repeated by some fan channels on YouTube and is taken as gospel truth.
Some interesting insight and fair points there but I have to take issue with the claim that appointing rangnick as interim wasn't a poor decision. It was proven to be an utter failure and the only question is why. Just because he worked as an interim before doesn't make it an appropriate appointment. At leipzig I would expect he was taking over a teak with a defined playing style which fit his own preferred style. Completely different to us, at united he was also required to manage much bigger names/egos and he clearly struggled to get their buy I'm. These are the kind of factors you would expect a good Dof to have thought through
Also praising murtoughs previous sub team as being the best performing of the three doesn't seem like the highest praise
You also have to understand that John Murtough inherited the current problems at first team level and wasn't party to the decision making process until he was made the DoF. And his first decision was to appoint Rangnick as the placeholder after he (Murtough) said he wanted to create a identity from the first team that ran like a thread all the way down to the youth teams playing dominant football. So his mindset was to create a team led by a head coach that plays a attacking brand of football in a compact high block. And Rangnick was the correct profile of head coach to potentially do that on a short term basis until a permanent head coach arrived.
Just because the previous managers bought a number of players that didn't suit a high intensity play style in a compact high block, doesn't mean we should persevere with such a approach. There's going to be teething problems but we can't carry on adopting a underdog mentality where we approach matches to react to the opponent rather than be proactive ourselves. I'm also of the opinion the narrative around Rangnick would've been very different if McKenna, Carrick and Pert stuck around. But unfortunately for us they also departed with without little notice.
I'm not praising Murtough's sub team, but rather pointing out the difference in how the club was structured from the first team to the youth team. When Murtough first arrived at the club, the youth teams were beginning to deteriorate and Man City were poaching our players and scouts (James Smith). It was so bad that certain parents were taking their kids out of the United Academy and over to the City academy. The difference between when he started to now is huge. There's so much talent in the various age groups now and we're the reigning FA Youth Cup champions. A distinction has to be made between what he was doing before, and what he is doing now after being appointed the DoF.
Yep. Folks on here dont know or wont accept until Jan 31st Woodward was still pulling all the strings, as in he had the final decision on all matters, then fed this to the Glazers.
Someone mentioned an overhaul of the scouting department earlier. Genuinely curious as to what this entails? I know we got rid of some scouts but have we brought in some top scouts to actually do a job and identify some good players before they can be identified by every casual fan and their mum?
Hope he can bring in Granovskaia as she left chelsea now.
Why would we do that?
she is good at selling I guess
Still waiting for first addition in transfer window.
I saw a tweet / rumor that any and all work in the scouting area has been dumped due to ETH wanting specific targets. Next summer is where it will really start.
It's an absolute shambles and sadly there is no quick fix.
- Status