The Telegraph: The Secrets of Uniteds Summer Rebuild

People keep going on about it being right to be cynical, and it's the same old crap.

But there's a pretty significant difference in that it's a completely different man that is tasked with overseeing the strategic direction of the club. He might be "one of the boys" but he's never had this kind of role and just because he has come from that background doesn't mean he's clueless. Leadership isn't something you can create easily, you essentially have it or you don't.

As long as Arnold is empowered to do his job, then he is fully able to follow these things through. Then it only comes down to his ability. There is no suggestion that Ed Woodward lacked power, what we actually suffered from was poor leadership and absent owners. Well, you can get away with absent owners if the top exec can lead. That remains to be seen but I don't see any need to be overly cynical, I'm happy to see a change and to let it play out.
 
L1nk said:


Woodward trying to keep all the power for himself? Who would have guessed
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Meh, it's so easy to put all the blame on Woodward when he's out the door and so universally disliked among the fanbase.

I'm still skeptical on Arnold and Murtough until they prove me otherwise.
 
Corridor of Uncertainty said:
Not buying that tweet. Murtough 'challenging the players over unacceptable standards' only to let the man brought in to change these standards go?

I bet the player WhatsApp group is bouncing this morning. Another one they've got rid of. Bunch of fecking cretins.
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Conjecture. But it’s arguable that RR has left highly respected and with his advice taken on board. Really no point keeping him if he’s only doing 1-2 days a month and the press will constantly use his role to undermine Ten Hag. So the action and restructuring we are seeing could be down to RR advice.

My main reason for thinking this might be true is because of RR transfer suggestions in the winter window, our scouting department who said they were not good enough now being gone, and RR making that public about suggesting Dias and the scouts saying he wasn’t good enough
 
VanDeBank said:
Meh, it's so easy to put all the blame on Woodward when he's out the door and so universally disliked among the fanbase.

I'm still skeptical on Arnold and Murtough until they prove me otherwise.
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Arnold and Murtough turning out to be hopeless won’t make Woodward any less so.
 
L1nk said:


Basically sounds like Richard Arnold and John Murtough are ripping up trees root and stem and redoing everything, which is what needs to happen.
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DSG said:
This is speculation, but Ralf was let go because he failed to achieve top 4, he alienated the board with his comments, he was poor tactically (enough that he had to rely on a Russia based coach), criticized the players openly, and had poor pre match preparation and failed to resolve dressing room issues and squad cliques.

If anything, sacking Ralf and recognizing a mistake and addressing it quickly makes me optimistic. United fans laugh at Real for having a notoriously short leash on managerial appointments, but, hell, they’ve won 21% of all European Cup/CL titles… I do believe that times have changed and we cannot wait for signs of success. Big clubs like United have big aspirations and we should see progress quickly.
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Ralf's coaching style wasn't the right fit for the team before it started. He also hadn't managed for quite a while. It was also difficult for him to get his first choice coaches. These are considerations that were clear to Murtough before directly selecting Rangnick. By all accounts, Murtough chose Rangnick rather than Woodward.

Ralf the interim manager and Ralf the football ops are two entirely different things. He clearly has identified issues within the players and football operations, specific to scouting, recruiting, identifying, etc.

An interim manager wasn't going to fix dressing room issues, especially one that had zero affiliations w the club.
 
Abraxas said:
People keep going on about it being right to be cynical, and it's the same old crap.

But there's a pretty significant difference in that it's a completely different man that is tasked with overseeing the strategic direction of the club. He might be "one of the boys" but he's never had this kind of role and just because he has come from that background doesn't mean he's clueless. Leadership isn't something you can create easily, you essentially have it or you don't.
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Changes are clearly made. It's just hard not to be cynical when the new people do the same thing the old people did by running to the media to tell them how much we're better now.
 
I'll give them the benefit of the doubt for now but it's all stuff that is going to take years to the see the benefit of, if we get it right.

'Modernising' our recruitment in 2022 with a director of data science is the kind of stuff Liverpool were doing 5 years ago or more. We're so far behind.
 
I'd rather sell the deadwood on permanent deals for half of their 'value', than to send them on loan spells and be lumbered with them next season again. We need to be ruthless.
 
What has Murtough achieved in his career? On which merits were he hired?

Hiring ETH seems like the best move this club has done in a decade.
 
I posted the other day mentioning I was hopeful we could do business faster and there appears to be some light, I got rightly slated for being optimistic about this club. For the last 9ish years, I have despised almost every decision by this club. From the 80m signing of Pogba to the hiring of a amateur (but previous player legend) manager, Ole. I thought, he'll with it, new manager new CEO, Ed is nothing but burnt newspaper memories, coaches have gone, new scouts and other staff, great. I showed an ounce of optimistic behaviour and 24 hours later RR gets the boot. Whatever anyone thinks of him, he did one thing right, he called out this club for what it was. Now United can say whatever story they wish about how he needs to focus on managing but you cannot change the facts that just 1 week ago he was telling us he was excited to work with Ole and could manage the dual position. Does anyone else know that Tafarel, the legendary Brazil GK, is the Liverpool GK coach as well as Brazils? I mean he travels thousands of miles to do that role, he may not be manager but he definitely travels a lot more. Anyway, I ramble on, my point is, I go back to believing nothing about this club until I see evidence that the pantomime called Manchester United has ended. We are just like the royal family, hanging on to past fame but inside, we are broken, clueless on society and overpaid.
 
MrBest said:
I posted the other day mentioning I was hopeful we could do business faster and there appears to be some light, I got rightly slated for being optimistic about this club. For the last 9ish years, I have despised almost every decision by this club. From the 80m signing of Pogba to the hiring of a amateur (but previous player legend) manager, Ole. I thought, he'll with it, new manager new CEO, Ed is nothing but burnt newspaper memories, coaches have gone, new scouts and other staff, great. I showed an ounce of optimistic behaviour and 24 hours later RR gets the boot. Whatever anyone thinks of him, he did one thing right, he called out this club for what it was. Now United can say whatever story they wish about how he needs to focus on managing but you cannot change the facts that just 1 week ago he was telling us he was excited to work with Ole and could manage the dual position. Does anyone else know that Tafarel, the legendary Brazil GK, is the Liverpool GK coach as well as Brazils? I mean he travels thousands of miles to do that role, he may not be manager but he definitely travels a lot more. Anyway, I ramble on, my point is, I go back to believing nothing about this club until I see evidence that the pantomime called Manchester United has ended. We are just like the royal family, hanging on to past fame but inside, we are broken, clueless on society and overpaid.
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Exactly
 
El Jefe said:
Can we at least give the new regime a chance before we write them off. If Ed was still in charge and this came out, I'd be in board with the negativity but this is Arnold and Murtough's first summer running the ship.
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No. Burn them!
 
Thats just fkn hilarious spin. We want to hire best in class and we have got a good consultancy to do interviews. Well no sht. Isnt that what all top clubs do? He doesnt want to look back and regret things he hasnt done. Again no sht. He wants a deputy to help him out.

I mean its not exactly cutting edge here is it? What's next - we want really good footballs for training with. We will get the best and we have hired an expert to go and source good footballs. Im not against all of these changes but to try and pretend we are fancy all of a sudden is hilarious
 
big rons sovereign said:
Well, I generally come in around 15 minutes late. I use the side entrance so lumburgh doesn't see me.
Then I just sorta space out for a while.
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I’d say in a given week I only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual work.
 
To be fair the Glazer's have precedent for what's allegedly happening at UTD.

They did something similar with their NFL team and were successful.
 
L1nk said:


Woodward trying to keep all the power for himself? Who would have guessed
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This isn't necessarily directed at you so bear with me but this is where people start making deductions that arent even in the tweet. Tweet says his power widened and people jump on it as having no or minimal say before january. Prior to january he had the power to decide on Rangnick, ETH and by his own words maybe even considerable influence to decide on Ole's departure. That is already a monumental power scale. It's only the 3 biggest influences of our season. His sphere of influence had already long been widening. People need to stop trying to reduce Murtough's part to a binary sum of zero to paint a picture he had no part of the goings on before his power became absolute.

Apparently Woodward just hired a guy he didn't get along with to be his DoF so he could have someone to bully. I don't doubt Wooward had the final say but It's deducing power conflicts from nothing when his own words point to considerable involvement in football decisions this season before january.

He was a part of our season, so while he doesn't even have to take blame for all of it he definitely doesn't need to be spared from all of it. Only Arnold has a claim to such a clean slate because he had nothing to do with the football side in any assigned capacity. To be honest I'm actually half shocked people haven't already tried to push his tenure back to may 2022 to run away from accountability from that terrible Bruno contract renewal.
 
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"Fool me once, Strike one. Fool me twice, Strike three".

We are probably at Strike 15 by now.
 
Florida? Forget the alligators, the pythons are way worse. Invasive, no natural enemies, they get up to 30 feet long.
 
Why did Erik and Ralf not see eye to eye?
Did Ralf want to sign low value players and compete in some years time while Erik wants us to do business like Chelsea and Manchester City?
 
TheRedHearted said:
Why did Erik and Ralf not see eye to eye?
Did Ralf want to sign low value players and compete in some years time while Erik wants us to do business like Chelsea and Manchester City?
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ETH might just be a bit of a control freak who doesn't really want to do anything but his own ideas. Not necessarily a bad thing if his ideas are good
 
VanDeBank said:
Meh, it's so easy to put all the blame on Woodward when he's out the door and so universally disliked among the fanbase.

I'm still skeptical on Arnold and Murtough until they prove me otherwise.
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Same stance.

However, I understand a little PR is needed right now after a disastrous season end.

Let's wait for performance to answer.
 
I am getting sick of the overhyping of the Big Data/Data Science guy, Dominic David or summat. The hope that he will change and revolutionize the club when he's been at the club longer than Ralf. Guess what? everybody's doing it and not all of them are successful! its not a new science anymore. How to be successful : do everything the opposite of what Woodward has done. Thats it. Dont put it on Dominic.
 
They are saying all the right things again, but time will tell whether any of that actually bears fruit, or even happens.
 
So the club kicked out a renowned football consultant, and brings in an "organisational" consultant. looking forward to an organisational revolution where Martial and Rashford will look like new signings.
 
It's bit of a weird thing here calling all this PR when after years of calling for it, since January-
1) The head scouts have been fired.
2) The main negotiator is fired or leaving the job
3) Upgrades being made to Carrington

I mean I'm all for being cynical but the changes are literally here to see. I don't know if it'll be successful or not but the complete structure has been changed!
 
Clearly the PR briefings didn’t go with Woodward, it’s pretty comical resorting to this already.

They’ve done some streamlining behind the scenes but they’ve got big decisions wrong. They haven’t added anyone with real competence and quality to help with recruitment so a lot will be dependent on ETH. Need to start getting some big decisions right and quickly because won’t be able to keep blaming Woodward going forward.
 
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KM said:
It's bit of a weird thing here calling all this PR when after years of calling for it, since January-
1) The head scouts have been fired.
2) The main negotiator is fired or leaving the job
3) Upgrades being made to Carrington

I mean I'm all for being cynical but the changes are literally here to see. I don't know if it'll be successful or not but the complete structure has been changed!
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Yes but let's also see who fills those roles. Firing people isn't much of a revolution on its own. That's just the people at the top consolidating their power. What they do with said power is the real test. Curious to say the least. Ball is in their court.
 
Greck said:
Yes but let's also see who fills those roles. Firing people isn't much of a revolution on its own. That's just the people at the top consolidating their power. What they do with said power is the real test. Curious to say the least. Ball is in their court.
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I don't think that scouts will be replaced. From what I've read about the club, there were far too many people in the chain for a target to be passed leading to some delayed decisions. It seems that the decision making is streamlined for now.
 
If the Express story is true (it's the Express so I hope it's their usual utter drivel), then we've got problems. You can't buy two half-decent players for £120m and those three players named won't exactly make anyone rich

DAILY EXPRESS


Erik ten Hag will have £120m to spend on Manchester United's squad this summer but could increase that by offloading the likes of Anthony Martial, Eric Bailly and Aaron Wan-Bissaka.
 
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