Spare a thought for Ed Woodward. As if Paul Pogba issuing a come-and-get-me plea so unsubtle he might as well have jumped out of a cake in the shape of the Bernabéu was not distracting enough, now there are claims that Manchester United’s executive vice-chairman is having trouble with an unruly board member pushing for Steve Walsh to fill the director of football role at Old Trafford.
You can understand Woodward’s reservations. On the one hand Walsh is the man credited with bringing N’Golo Kanté and Riyad Mahrez to Leicester City. On the other he took the blame for a splurge that resulted in Everton starting the 2017-18 season with 473 creative midfielders and ending it with supporters urging Sam Allardyce to eff off, which is something Walsh might want to gloss over at his next job interview.
Back to that insubordinate board member, though. Just who is “Sir Alex Ferguson” anyway? And how many commercial deals has he got over the line? The internet offers few clues, though it does suggest this Ferguson character held some kind of important role in United’s football department for quite a long time, only for it to all end in tears when he provided David Moyes with a glowing reference. Honestly. To think they made him a knight of the realm.
Best to leave it to Ed the Red, then. Until United do appoint a director of football, that is. Only, weren’t they supposed to have had one in place by now? In fact they were talking about recruiting one for the first time in their history as long ago as last summer, back when José Mourinho was delivering sales pitches like Don Draper, albeit a heavily concussed Don Draper, as he merrily explained why nobody should attend his side’s pre-season friendlies.
The thinking was that United needed a smoother recruitment policy and the topic was revisited after Mourinho’s firing in December. Paul Mitchell, previously at Southampton and Tottenham, was mentioned. There were links with punditry’s Rio Ferdinand despite zero evidence the former United defender is suited to a demanding, highly specialised job. Darren Fletcher was also thrown into the mix.
Yet the search has dragged on and United, wounded after their failure to qualify for the Champions League, are likely to remain reliant on Woodward to negotiate transfers before a season when Everton, Leicester, Watford, West Ham and Wolves will aim to overtake them.
It does not have to be this way. At a club short on expertise, however, perhaps it is unsurprising that consistency remains out of reach. Listen to Louis van Gaal explain what a technical director has to do, after all, and you could be forgiven for thinking that implementing a proper system seems like a lot of hard work. “You need knowledge of the game, methods of training, preparation experience, youth education, scouting and you have to think in structures,” the former United manager told the Guardian last month.
Van Gaal added that he was never asked about football when he interviewed for the United job in 2014 and in that context it is possible to see how a club can lurch from a possession-based manager like the Dutchman to a pragmatist like Mourinho, before getting all misty-eyed and appointing Ole Gunnar Solskjær.
United do not have to look far to see how clubs benefit when a manager does not have to worry about dysfunction off the pitch. For all their billions City would surely not have attracted Pep Guardiola if they had not put Txiki Begiristain in charge of recruitment first, while Liverpool are a shining example of how to spend wisely and originally. It is unlikely the latter would have won a sixth European Cup without the inspirational Jürgen Klopp, but there was a reason the German chose to come to Anfield. Klopp is not stupid. Managers of his calibre want a club with a plan.
The same applies to players who value career progression above money. Once United were the biggest draw in English football, capable of doing as they pleased. Potential signings need more convincing at the moment.
Perhaps Daniel James will turn out to be as canny a signing as Andy Robertson has been for Liverpool. Maybe the former Swansea winger will have Lionel Messi in a headlock in a couple of years. James is untested, though, and remains United’s only signing. By contrast Real Madrid have already spent close to £300m on six new players and could yet push for Pogba.
United display none of that oomph. They are linked with a new player every day, but they have yet to come up with a suitable offer for Crystal Palace’s Aaron Wan-Bissaka. They have wanted a centre-back for a year, but only now have they developed an interest in West Ham’s Issa Diop. You may recall, by the way, Mourinho’s comment when West Ham beat United last September: “Congratulations to the scout who found Diop.”
Anyone fluent in José-speak will understand he was really insulting United’s talent-spotters. Diop, signed from Toulouse for £22m last summer, was hardly an unknown. Now, after one season in England, there is talk of United being willing to pay £60m for him. The only problem is West Ham have no intention of selling the Frenchman and, at this rate, it is not hard to imagine United starting next season with Chris Smalling and Phil Jones in central defence.
It is a messy situation. Supporters console themselves with the knowledge that Ole is at the wheel. Look closer, though. Unfortunately Solskjær is sitting in one of those stationary toy cars found outside supermarkets. It bounces around for a bit. It is exciting for a few seconds. Then it stops.
