United accept Woodward failings as they bid to copy Spurs blueprint

THE reboot of Manchester United will be in place by the summer when a head of football will be appointed to put some distance between executive chairman Ed Woodward and the new manager.

The Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino and Paul Mitchell are expected to be asked to revive United. Mitchell is the head of recruitment and development at RB Leipzig, having formerly held those roles at Spurs, Southampton and MK Dons.

United had been pushing to make the structural changes more rapidly but Jose Mourinho resisted, fearing yet another layer of bureaucracy would clog up what he already regarded as a slow and cumbersome club.

But it seems United have finally accepted one of the key reasons for their slide to mediocrity since Sir Alex Ferguson’s departure five years ago is that, excellent though Woodward may have been in terms of driving the commercial machine, he has proved an expensive failure in the recruitment of managers and players.

United are now building a modern structure, embracing the models which exist at the most successful clubs in Europe such as Borussia Dortmund, Spurs and Liverpool, where recruitment has been coherent and strategic while United’s has been haphazard and illthought out.

It is significant that John McDermott’s name resurfaced again yesterday as a target. He is Tottenham’s head of coaching and development, pretty much the overseer of the vision of the playing side of the club, from academy to first team. United have attempted to recruit him before without success. The FA wanted him as director of football but he resisted that as well. It is inconceivable that if United want to take Pochettino, they would be allowed McDermott too. Yet the fact that Mitchell is also being lined up, is a backhanded compliment to Spurs chairman Daniel Levy: Tottenham really are one of the best run clubs around.

Mitchell’s job would be to direct a clear strategy so that players, while recruited with the sign-off from Woodward and the Glazers, also fit the playing strategy of Pochettino — meaning they will need to be capable of playing in an intensive style.

‘Paul is very intelligent, very articulate, very ambitious and highly motivated,’ said a source who knows Mitchell, who was a journeyman pro at Wigan and MK Dons, before moving into recruitment. ‘He presents very well in interview and he is well thought-out in his ideas.’

However, it is still a step up at the age of 37 to revive a failing institution as big as United. It will help that he remained on good terms with Pochettino, even when he left Tottenham last year, but United’s current scouting collective bears the scars of their incoherent managerial appointments with a multitude of voices from a variety of figures appointed by different managers.

Assuming United do land Pochettino, the second part of the equation in their reboot should be easier to integrate: that is the assimilation of Nicky Butt’s youth team

players into the first team. It’s not that Mourinho didn’t play the likes of Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard; he belatedly championed them above Alexis Sanchez. But Pochettino’s commitment to youth is an integral part of his management style.

Back in 2013, it looked as though Woodward and the Glazers had mistaken the genius of Sir Alex as a blueprint and strategy, when it had always been about a unique individual, albeit ably supported by David Gill. Now they finally seem to be finding a better way which takes a holistic view of the entire club; five years later and at the fourth time of asking.