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Reports on Tuesday morning suggest Manchester United wants to hire a sports director or football director before concluding their "in-depth recruitment process" for a new manager. That's right, this is the second smart decision from Ed Woodward's office in just over a month. The official appointment of 2019 could be a new leader, but it is unlikely to be the most important at Old Trafford.
To place their new manager in the middle of a confused and improper hierarchy would be another attempt by Woodward to place United's cart in front of his horse. After five and a half years of clashes that followed the Sir Alex Ferguson era, it seems that the club is seriously considering modernizing its structure. in this case, the appointment above a first team coach must be the main objective.
However, the range of candidates badociated with a position that is not only new to United, but still stammering in the Premier League, augurs further confusion as to how they want their new leadership structure to look and work. .
The titles of technical director, sports director and football director have been interchangeable within the many columns of columns dominated by history. United fans can only hope that Woodward has a better idea than the media or the fans who are demanding this change.
Paul Mitchell is the name that comes up most often. Aged 37, he is currently responsible for recruitment and development at RB Leipzig. He moved to Germany after serving as Talent Recruiter in Tottenham and Southampton.
Recruitment is perhaps the most obvious flaw in United's current structure. The transfer market has long been a problem at Old Trafford, but it has never been more emphasized than last summer. Jose Mourinho was furious that his targets would not be pursued while no one could say exactly who vetoed his choices. The club's personalities were happy to tell the journalists why Harry Maguire, Jerome Boateng and Toby Alderweireld were not aggressively pursued, but which was in place between Mourinho staff and former Woodward accountant to carry out such badessments?
Woodward was counting on the company's chief development officer, Matt Judge, described in some parts as United's transfer negotiator, and on John Murtough, former Premier League performance chief and former director of the United States Academy of Education. Everton. Murtough has been responsible for football development at United since 2013, a role that closely resembles that of a sports director and has seen him play an important role in stabilizing the academic club while he was drifting and rudderless by 2015. But no responsibility was attributed to the club's categorical refusal to give Mourinho what he wanted.
Rather than restructure, Woodward is keen to recruit and, given United's interest in its employee, Red Bull would like to offer Mitchell a promotion to the position of Global Football Manager, a role overseeing all the clubs in his portfolio. It remains to be seen if this will be enough to convince Mitchell, a native of Newfoundland, to refuse a place of choice to Old Trafford.
United is exploring other options. The former CEO of Juventus, Giuseppe Marotta, and the current sports director, Fabio Paratici, were among the first candidates to have links with the Red Devils. However, they both took on new roles – Marotta at Inter and Paratici to promote Juve. Monchi, the "transfer engineer" currently employed as the director of Roma football, is an obvious candidate. Tuesday's story suggests that Edwin van der Sar is under study.
The former goalkeeper's ties to United mean it's inevitable that his name will be thrown into the hat, but Van der Sar's role in Ajax was quite different from what many believe to be necessary at Old Trafford. Van der Sar returned to the Amsterdam club as marketing director after obtaining a masters degree in sport and brand management after retiring as a player in 2011. He was promoted to CEO, with Marc Overmars at the post of director of football at Johann Cruyff Arena.
"I could have made a lot of money as a club ambbadador at United and had legs in the air while endorsing beer, but I wanted to have something different" Van der Sar told Marketing Weekly in 2015 about his career choices and the 48-year has reached that. But while his badociation with the club is an obvious attraction, his business skills are not lacking in United.
You can not blame United fans for wanting to see a familiar face in such a dominant position. Since the departure of Ferguson and David Gill in 2013, United 's is too far from its fundamentals, the machine to make money pbading from one coach to the other, each seeking to mark his club. Gary Neville suggested last week that no other coach should come to Old Trafford seek to implement his own philosophy when the club already has one that has withstood the test of time for decades.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's early success as interim leader confirms this conviction. Since returning to the club, the former striker has been striving to emphasize the return of United's traditional values and his presence has radically changed the atmosphere within the club and around Old Trafford.
If the results continue in the same vein, Woodward has a problem with Solskjaer. The number of claims by Norwegians to the position of permanent director continues to grow, a fact that Woodward may not have anticipated so soon after sending an SOS to Scandinavia last month. United's intention was to call on a more experienced coach, like Mauricio Pochettino, but Solskjaer simply can not be sent back to Molde if he is also obviously outmatched.
If United looks for a figurehead over the coach, Woodward could then consider Solskjaer, provided the vice president sticks to his plan to recruit an outside coach to the club this summer. Few people know United a bit better than Solskjaer, who worked alongside the academy as a reserve team leader and now as leader of the first team. This is the kind of unifying personality that has been sorely lacking in United in recent years, a personality that can connect the club's past to its future. If Woodward is uncomfortable proposing to Solskjaer the position of permanent director, a position of influence within the new structure could be a compromise.
But United is not a club short of ambbadadors, so the Norwegian must be more than a figurehead; they need a new thought in addition to a person with more authority to preserve their traditional values. A look at the M62 and Liverpool's achievements under Michael Edwards should be enough to reinforce this point of view.
Woodward has a clear idea of who he wants to be Manchester United's next manager. Before identifying his preferred candidate to badume the role of sporting director, he must first specify the characteristics of the position even if, just like Arsenal are learningthe division of power and influence will take longer to structure itself beyond the most important summer in United's recent history. And, most likely, the process will require more appointments than the two most eagerly awaited.
Ian Watson
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