When it comes to recruitment, no football club lacks information in the 21st century. The big clubs have more analysts than NASA.
At Manchester United, they try to sift through the reams of data via a bespoke scouting system that pulls together reports on thousands of matches around the world and as many as 14,000 players, many of them teenagers.
Having fixed on a position to strengthen, the data bank creates a list of 50 names which, from September to the end of October, the technical team narrow down to 15. A managerial veto removes another three. Further scouting and study creates a target list of a top three by February.
From there, contractual situations and availability are established. More checks are done not just on the player’s qualities, but on personal history and character. The ground is prepared for bidding.
It all sounds very efficient as a way of removing whims and panic purchasing. But then it also rather depends on who is sitting round the table, the human input.
When you are reeling from the downturn under David Moyes and have appointed Louis van Gaal, who demands backing for players not always fitting the approved profile, you end up with mistakes such as Bastian Schweinsteiger and Morgan Schneiderlin as you indulge a forceful leader.
If you lurch to a short-term appointment of José Mourinho, sacrificing principles, then you run a big risk of confrontation when he suddenly demands a highly expensive centre half who has never been scouted. Very soon, it is all blowing up in a costly sacking.
The best systems still require good people to make them work, which is why there have been prominent voices calling on United to have a powerful technical director; and why it is notable that Ed Woodward, the executive vice-chairman, has not been rushing to fill that role.
It was a year ago that the local paper declared, with some fanfare, that United were preparing to recruit. “An appointment that has been 140 years in the making,” the Manchester Evening News said. In that sense, another few weeks or months may not seem a big deal.
The job will be filled but those United fans impatiently waiting for a guru figure will need to realign their sights, rather like Paul Pogba from the penalty spot. “A keel on the boat,” is how one Old Trafford source described the role recently. An unseen, steadying job, in other words; certainly not the captain of the ship steering the course.
Whoever comes in will have to fit into a structure in which a panel, a transfer committee, is already in place — pieced together under successive managers to include Jim Lawlor, the chief scout, who was a Sir Alex Ferguson appointment, while Marcel Bout, head of global scouting, was championed by Van Gaal. The work of dozens of scouts is drawn together by Steve Brown, the head of operations who was formerly at Everton.
Mick Court, the technical chief scout since April after more than a decade as a recruitment analyst, is in charge of crunching the data. Matt Judge, promoted by Woodward to head of corporate development, has the responsibility to establish likely costs and the state of the market. Woodward is not about to relinquish his own part, overseeing major negotiations and consulting with the owners over key decisions.
If it sounds like a lot of different voices at a club who were so accustomed to Ferguson’s word being law, United believe that they do at last have a coherent philosophy. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, of course, has had a key say in the signing of a younger cabal of British players, with about £140 million spent on Harry Maguire, Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Dan James.
At the very least, there is a lot more togetherness than the ill-tempered summer of 2018 under Mourinho when £75 million was spent on Fred, Diogo Dalot and Lee Grant.
A new sporting director would be just one more voice around this table, which may explain why the appointment has not happened yet. Any serious outsider would want clout.
Discussions with Rio Ferdinand point to the profile Woodward has been considering but the pay is said to be considerably less than the former United defender’s hefty seven-figure income from BT Sport.
Darren Fletcher is another former player who has had discussions — Patrice Evra and Peter Schmeichel are also understood to have shown interest — but it may come down to an internal candidate such as John Murtagh, who works on youth development.
It raises the obvious criticism, perhaps most forcefully expressed by Gary Neville, that United are failing to bring a powerful new voice into a football department that has Ángel Di María and Alexis Sánchez among its high-profile mistakes. Neville has called for a clear-out, with some of the hierarchy sent “back down to London”. No prizes for guessing who he has in mind.
But Woodward is not going anywhere, investing not just funds but plenty of faith in Solskjaer, not just to coach a team but to rejuvenate a club.
The size of that task is one reason this column consistently promoted Mauricio Pochettino, but he was never even sounded out. Solskjaer may point out that over 23 top-flight matches since December, he has eight league points more than the Tottenham Hotspur manager.
He will also argue that he has needed a full pre-season to build the physical conditioning for a style with more pace and width; that with Marcus Rashford on a new long-term deal, David De Gea mulling over a new contract and Pogba seemingly appeased on top of his signings, he is on track with the three-year plan he had written up within days of arriving from Molde as caretaker.
His mission, though, remains a vast one and he will know there is no such thing as collective responsibility in football. A committee with a new technical director can work well together but there is only ever one head on the block.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/editi ... -director-m9l8k7cm0
|
发表于 23-8-2019 05:38 PM
本周最热论坛帖子
3756 
64
