It’s the message Sir Dave Brailsford conveyed to Manchester United’s players when Ineos had just taken over at Old Trafford that they are remembering now.
‘Don’t worry. Things will change,’ Brailsford told them in February. Yet they feel stuck in an infernal cycle of doom, not even knowing what style of football they are supposed to be playing. In the dressing room at half-time on Sunday, 1-0 down to Tottenham, and after the game, some were asking each other: ‘What’s the plan? How are we supposed to be approaching this?’
The most complex overhaul in world football was never going to happen inside eight months, though some of the new owners’ thinking has already been baffling. Going to interview Thomas Tuchel, yet still deciding to stick with Erik ten Hag? Giving Ten Hag licence to bring in yet more Dutch players, with another £200million splurged this summer?
Paul Scholes wisely observed on Sunday that United, on the evidence of the past five weeks, have bought players who are no improvement on those they had. Is Noussair Mazraoui an upgrade on Aaron Wan-Bissaka? No. Is Matthijs de Ligt better than Harry Maguire? Absolutely not.
There has been more of the frustrating indecision which agents, almost to a man, describe in United. Tosin Adarabioyo, available on a free, was virtually at Chelsea by the time United formalised their interest. There’s still an abiding sense that, when it comes to doing transfer business with United, there are too many layers – too many chains of command – to get through.
Ineos Director of Sport Sir Dave Brailsford assured those within the club that things will change in a February address
Erik ten Hag has come under renewed pressure following Manchester United’s 3-0 defeat by Tottenham
Several players, including summer signing Matthijs de Ligt, came in for criticism for their performance
Yes, of course, getting Ten Hag out of the door is the imperative now. This perennial annihilation of the man is like beating up the afflicted, isn’t it? Someone please put him out of his misery.
But that’s just the obvious part. Changing the manager is subsidiary to the far bigger challenge of sorting out how to recruit efficiently and shrewdly, which football success is always built on.
Liverpool constructed a title-winning side by doing away with personal hunches on players, which has characterised United’s Dutch period. The Reds modernised their buying by bringing together football people and data analysts.
The excellent new book ‘How to win the Premier League’, by Liverpool’s data analyst turned director of research Ian Graham, provides an inside view on how that happened, revealing a journey which was often bumpy and sometimes demoralising, before glory came.
When the club’s principal owner John W Henry installed data experts Michael Edwards and Graham to help find value in the transfer market, manager Brendan Rodgers resisted the approach, all the way to the sack in 2015. He was almost as keen on buying his former Swansea players as Ten Hag has been on signing those with an Ajax identity.
The intelligence and engagement of the club’s owners paid the biggest dividend. It’s extraordinary to read of Henry’s personal involvement in the recruitment of Graham, a mere data guy who built the first in-house analytics team in the Premier League at Liverpool, to lead this ‘Moneyball’ approach.
Liverpool under owner John W Henry became avid proponents of the use of analytics in staff and player recruitment
Brendan Rodgers butted heads with the Reds data department over transfer targets during his spell at the club
The new approach saw the Reds end their 30-year wait for a top-flight title, while the Champions League was also won during this period
What a blinding contrast to the feckless, intellectually dull custodianship of the Glazers – owners far more interested in the next Malaysian potato-crisp partner. Liverpool reclaimed the title in 2020 with a net transfer spend that was less than half of United’s. Ten Hag has been given £600million to spend. He’s blown a staggering 44 per cent of that on his own former players.
‘Manchester United did not use data analysis at the time,’ Graham writes, though the club’s managers did receive stats lists like the one their brains trust produced for Jose Mourinho and Ed Woodward in 2018. It told them that Toni Kroos, a World Cup and Champions League winner whom Mourinho wanted to sign, was third best and not worth the money.
Ineos most certainly see the value in the way Liverpool have done things. Jurgen Klopp’s key partner, as Graham’s book makes plain, was Edwards – universally known around the place as ‘Eddy’ – who was sporting director when he left Anfield in 2021. Ineos tried to get Edwards for their United project as early as the summer of 2023, though he instead returned to Liverpool, where FSG were offering him the bigger role he sought, as chief executive of football.
There was no trigger-happy Liverpool splurge this summer just because Arne Slot had been hired. It was agreed that any new signing must bring ‘game-changing talent’.
Both Liverpool and United pursued Leny Yoro, the Lille centre back. When the price went well above £40million, Liverpool and Real Madrid – thought to be Yoro’s preference – dropped out of the race. United signed him for £52million. Yoro has not played since breaking a metatarsal in his left foot on their pre-season tour.
Manchester United majority owner Avram Glazer alongside minority shareholder Sir Jim Ratcliffe at the FA Cup semi-final in April
Graham left Liverpool in 2023 to form his own company, Ludonautics, which is advising a number of clubs. A conversation with him would serve United well, if it hasn’t already happened, and he will surely have something to say. ‘The definition of “Moneyball” is not to improve performance but to maximise improvement in performance per pound spent,’ he writes in the book. ‘After all, nearly anyone, with notable exceptions such as the Glazer family at Manchester United, can improve performance with large enough expenditures.’
But first, the search for a manager to help United make good on the promise of change that Brailsford made to the players. For a club which rejected Mauricio Pochettino and Tuchel in favour of Ten Hag, the judgment calls can only get better.
Decent representation or none at all?
Eni Aluko has done much to address some of the prehistoric elements of football. I’ll never forget an afternoon sitting in a House of Commons committee room, hearing her testify to the racism she had experienced. The excruciating response of then FA chairman Greg Clarke made you wonder how the hell he’d ever been appointed to that job.
But I fundamentally question Aluko’s claim that men are ‘dominating’ the broadcasting, coaching and agents’ roles in the women’s game, in some kind of malign way. Though Rafaela Pimenta, who took over the late ‘super-agent’ Mino Raiola’s business, is thriving as a leading women’s agent in the men’s game, there is a distinct lack of agents in women’s football. So, what’s best for the welfare of women players – decent representation from men or no representation at all?
Are male broadcasters, or journalists, really dominating WSL and should they be persona non grata? No. Surely anyone with agency, influence or reach – female or male – must be welcome as part of the WSL’s journey towards parity and fuller recognition.
Former England and Chelsea striker Eni Aluko said she believes men are dominating crucial roles within the women’s game
David de Gea and his Fiorentina team-mates welcome Welsh champions The New Saints in the Europa Conference League on Thursday
The New Saints in Florence
I started reporting football games in 1986, covering Oswestry Town in the Northern Premier League for my local paper, the Oswestry and Border Counties Advertiser. So it will be glorious and surreal to see the club they became – The New Saints – play Fiorentina in the Conference League as Welsh champions on Thursday. But nothing like the night – 40 years ago on Thursday – when Wrexham eliminated Porto from the Cup-Winners’ Cup.
They were 3-0 down in Portugal, having gone into the game with a 1-0 first-leg lead, and pulled it back to 3-3, with two goals from captain Jake King and a last-minute volley from Barry Horne, to go through. Great days.