The John Murtough Era

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devilish said:
Oh I agree with all of that. However that's not my point. Let's say that a 50 year old SAF returned to football as our manager. Surely our performances would improve. Does that mean that Murtough and co would suddenly become great in their jobs? Of course not! The DOF is judged on different metrics to those of a manager. Managers are mostly judged on success on the pitch vis a vis the resources handled at his disposal (for example you can't expect Brighton's manager to win the local treble). DOFs on the other hand are judged on various metrices I've mentioned above
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Our performances wouldn’t improve that fast. And if Fergie doesn’t get the right players then he will struggle to win leagues in a league where you need 90+ points to win. So the DOF in that sense would be judged if we kept signing duds

Edit: Not only that if we keep overspending on signings he’ll be judged there too
 
devilish said:
It did actually if you only cared to read it properly. Let me explain it to you in simpler terms. The DOF (we're talking about him after all) can't and shouldn't be judged on RESULTS, at least not directly. Inter for example won the treble thanks solely to Mourinho.. Neither Moratti (who was like a 13 year old playing FM) nor his best mate Branca had a clue of what they were doing and the best decision they made was to allow carte blanche to the manager. Once Mou left, everything went tits up.

DOF are to be judged on the smooth running of the club from the back end. The metrics to be used in such circumstances would be shrewd signings made, how many players are doing well in the academy, how much money we're making when selling players, if we're not overpaying players (fee and salaries), if we're hiring the right people etc. Regarding 'waiting' that also depends. A top DOF can have an immediate effect on the club. I dare to say that Paratici's brilliance in bringing in Conte, Bentancur and Kulusevski as opposed to United's stance in first sending Ole on a holiday to then sack him and bringing in a DOF in all but name as manager only to fail from backing him in January is what made the difference between us and Spurs winning that 4th CL spot.
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Spot on, mate. It's baffling John Murtough is apparently the best this club can do. Chelsea's new owners have come in and are seeking to appoint a competent DoF in the face of Luis Campos. Whether he agrees to join them or not is another matter, but the intention is there. Meanwhile, we are sticking it out with Murtough because he is "one of the lads" and "knows the club", even though he is obviously woefully out of his depth, not to mention how this strategy has worked out for us thus far. And he was the right-hand man of the utter failure that was Woodward and his regime. He should have been sent packing alongside his handler, instead he replaced him. Internal position shuffling to mitigate a PR crisis. Some change that one.
 
Cassidy said:
Our performances wouldn’t improve that fast. And if Fergie doesn’t get the right players then he will struggle to win leagues in a league where you need 90+ points to win. So the DOF in that sense would be judged if we kept signing duds

Edit: Not only that if we keep overspending on signings he’ll be judged there too
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I think what a manager like SAF would do is either go above Murtough's head or he'd ask for a huge change in how the club is being run. Which is probably what ETH did.
 
Spoony said:
Yes, it'll take time but if we're serious we'll have to put in a decent structure in place. The likes of Murtough are from Woodward's group. Basically it's more of the same. We're competing with City and we have to be at the races.
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I’m not against murtough being replaced. However I think that even if we brought in a flavour of the month DoF, there is no guarantee either. He will only be able to work within the guidelines laid out by the club. Results go wrong and fans get impatient again picking at the wrong points. We could be in a perpetual cycle of change but unless the glazers piss off then these threads will always be around with people venting at who ever the DoF is. The change needs to happen from the top because otherwise who will interview the next one? Glazers
 
golden_blunder said:
I’m not against murtough being replaced. However I think that even if we brought in a flavour of the month DoF, there is no guarantee either. He will only be able to work within the guidelines laid out by the club. Results go wrong and dabs get impatient again picking at the wrong points. We could be in a perpetual cycle of change but unless the glazers piss off then these threads will always be around with people venting at who ever the DoF is. The change needs to happen from the top because otherwise who will interview the next one? Glazers
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I agree, it does have happen from the top. I don't think that will happen with the Glazers in charge. Apparently they've been looking to sell a 30% stake in the club but without relinquishing any power. They'll sell up eventually and only then we'll see a change. They've even gone cold on stadium renovations. So yeah it's all bloody pointless because we've got more of the same until they sell up.
 


Not sure of the reliability of this story but anyone who has followed our transfer dealings on social media this summer is aware that TheEuropeanLad is an Ajax fan who seems to be somewhat ITK on Ajax matters, or relays reliable info on such.
 
Chairman Steve said:


Not sure of the reliability of this story but anyone who has followed our transfer dealings on social media this summer is aware that TheEuropeanLad is an Ajax fan who seems to be somewhat ITK on Ajax matters, or relays reliable info on such.
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I think it could work if Richard Arnold was sacked and he'd get his job. He's not a DoF.
 
He’s a genius if it’s true, I’d definitely hire someone to do my job for me if I thought I’d get away with it.
 
Chairman Steve said:


Not sure of the reliability of this story but anyone who has followed our transfer dealings on social media this summer is aware that TheEuropeanLad is an Ajax fan who seems to be somewhat ITK on Ajax matters, or relays reliable info on such.
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The European Lad basically mentioned apparently it came from VDS himself on TV and VDS spoke about it in that. But because it's in Dutch language on Dutch TV, hence no English journalist or media picked it up.

 
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Just wanted to give murtough a little bit of credit for our signings this summer, they are all having an impact in their own ways and the character of them all is wonderful
 
golden_blunder said:
Just wanted to give murtough a little bit of credit for our signings this summer, they are all having an impact in their own ways and the character of them all is wonderful
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ain't 3/5 ETH's signings? Eriksen was free and Casemiro is Casemiro.
 
fallengt said:
ain't 3/5 ETH's signings? Eriksen was free and Casemiro is Casemiro.
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He was the man in charge that brought them in. He could have gone against ETH having an influence. I think if it had been anyone else in his role, they would have got some credit. But looking at the changes and the signings that he’s put in, I think he deserves some credit. He’s brought in world class coaches, both first team and youth, he’s brought in a data analyst, changed the scouting culture and brought in someone to look after the ladies football team. All credible in my opinion
 
fallengt said:
ain't 3/5 ETH's signings? Eriksen was free and Casemiro is Casemiro.
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None of the signings should be DoF signings imo but rather head of recruitment signings or failing that head coach signings. You can credit the DoF for putting in place those people who identify the transfer targets but a DoF shouldn't be identifying players on his own whim. It's the biggest misconception people make on this forum regarding a DoF.

But I agree with GB above, he's doing well thus far and it'll be interesting to see what the new team of Simon Wells and Jose Mayorga conjure up by the end of the season in conjunction with Dominic Jordan who is the club's first data scientist on the football side of the club.
 
Moneywise the DOF at any club is only as strong as the owners say so on how much they can spend. If Citys owners had have put a 100 mill tops spend on them a season for example, their DOF or whatever hes called, would have been as shit as ours and City wouldnt have won anything like they have.
Our problem is we have had a man in charge, Woodward mainly, who couldnt pick a good manager if he tried. I think Moyes he gets a pass on as this was a desperate bid by Fergie to get someone in and was probably 4th choice. All the others, VG possession, Mourino park the bus, Ole ex player were as different from one another as chalk and cheese. Thats why we had a rag bag of players who couldnt collectively form a decent team and with their sky high salaries find hard to move on.
Now we have a swap at the top and someone, Murtough probably, had the vision to ignore the popular choice by all 'in the know', Poch and go for someone out of leftfield who had built the best team in an inferior league. We are now starting to see this was the right choice.
Shades of 86
 
mufc have started the process of recruiting data scientists, machine learning scientists, analysts and engineers as they look to become “dominant” in data science. [@ground_guru]
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