Manchester United is in the doldrums. After a three-month honeymoon period for supersub-turned-manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Wednesday’s 2-0 home defeat to local rivals Manchester City was the seventh loss in nine games.
United will finish trophy-less for the second consecutive season and it is now six years since Sir Alex Ferguson’s last Premier League title in 2013.
Who is to blame and what is to be done? Many pundits and fans are in no doubt. United’s decline, they argue, can be directly traced back to its £790m takeover by America’s billionaire Glazer family in 2005. And the latest manifestation of the alleged mismanagement since then is United’s tardiness in joining the trend of appointing a technical or football director.
What’s In A Job Title?
Ignoring the five Premier League titles won under the Glazers, whose sporting portfolio also includes gridiron's Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the argument pinpoints the Glazers’ 2013 annointing of investment banker Ed Woodward as United chief executive as the moment that the pursuit of on-field success was relegated to a distant second behind the gathering of financial riches.
Woodward, so goes the narrative, is a talented deal-maker adept at signing corporate partnerships but has little clue about the beautiful game. Solskjaer is left to handle all that but has nobody with clout on the board to stand up to the money men and demand what it takes to make United dominant on the pitch again.
Some of United’s biggest rivals now have people in the sporting or football director role.
At Manchester City there is Spanish former footballer Txiki Begiristain as director of football, while Liverpool employs sporting director Michael Edwards and Chelsea has given many of the role’s functions to its Russian-born director Marina Granovskaia since the departure of Michael Emanalo in 2017.
Arsenal is said to be close to appointing a technical director, which would leave Tottenham Hotspur, which has not replaced former head of recruitment Paul Mitchell two years after his departure, as the only other club in England’s “big six” not to have someone in the position.
On the continent, Paris Saint-Germain boasts sporting director Antero Henrique, Barcelona has former French international defender Eric Abidal as director of football, Bayern Munich employs the Bosnian former footballer Hasan Salihamidzic and Italian former player Fabio Paratici fills the role at Juventus. Real Madrid have not had a former player in the sporting director role since Jorge Valdano left in 2011.
Remit
United bowed to the clamour to follow suit by pledging a year ago to appoint the first technical director in the club’ s 141-year history. The remit is said to be to augment the structure of the football' with responsibility for the first-team and a long-term outlook on the academy.
Assistant manager Mick Phelan is now believed to be in the running for the role. However, an appointment is still to be made, with former manager Jose Mourinho’s opposition to the idea among the tensions that led to his ousting in December ber.
Many football writers believe this is a major problem. “Manchester United’s wait for a technical director is costing them,” the Manchester Evening News’ Samuel Luckhurst wrote this month. “On a board of directors dominated by six Glazer siblings, United lack football knowledge at a time where negotiations intensify ahead of the summer transfer window.”
James Ducker at The Daily Telegraph agrees, writing: “United’s scattergun approach to recruitment has drawn fierce criticism and there is recognition of a need for someone to take a longer-term view on the first team, loan players and the academy.”
Henry Winter at The Times has meanwhile argues that United needs somebody of the calibre of RB Leipzig’s Paul Mitchell or Marc Overmars at Ajax who can “take a cold-eyed look at the squad, offload underperforming stars and then use an extensive contacts book to bring in the right, thrusting young players.”
Chief executives across many industries will see the logic. A key part of the job, after all, is appointing the best talent. A technical director could also deflect criticism of Woodward’s lack of prowess in the transfer market. There would be someone else to blame and - who knows - the new executive may do a better job.
Not The Answer
It is a tempting argument but lacks depth. Standing up to the board at Manchester United will not be an easy task. Another middleman may not make much difference, particularly if Phelan simply changes his title and does not take a seat on the board.
Sports writers may deride United’s 72 corporate partnerships and pursuit of wealth but this is now one of the world’s largest quoted sports companies, valued at $3.25bn on the New York Stock Exchange.
Despite forecasts that their highly-leveraged takeover was saddling the club with too much expensive debt, the Glazers have more than quadrupled their money.
Having given three managers more than £750m to spend on players in the post-Ferguson era, they also cannot be said to be under-investing. Could the money have been spent more wisely? Of course. Does it need a longer-term approach? Definitely. Will a single appointment under a new title make the vital difference? Probably not.
Football eras in England can suffer long interregnums. United took 26 years after the 1967 triumph of Best, Charlton and Law, to win the nation’s top football league again. Chelsea did not win it between 1955 and 2005. The beginning of Manchester City’s current success in 2012 ended a 44-year wait. Tottenham and Liverpool have not won it for 58 and 29 years respectively.
Winning eras are characterised by healthy funding, shrewd signings, solid coaching, strong, characterful management and an X factor that brings to life all that dull talk about talent management and the ability to motivate and steer a team.
United’s next golden era will begin when the club gets all that right. A trendy new title on a door at its Carrington training ground may be part of the solution but it is no panacea and technical directors can get sacked too. Whoever gets the new technical director job will find all the odds stacked against them.
