Manchester United to follow in Liverpool’s footsteps

Manchester United are looking to follow the model of arch-rivals, Liverpool and are set to restructure the club by appointing a sporting director to support transfers.

Liverpool have had big success in recent years by acquiring players with cheap transfer fee as compared to United. Former Sporting Director Ayre and current director Michael Edwards played a big part in landing cheap transfers like Roberto Firmino, Andrew Robertson, Sadio Mane, James Milner and Mohamed Salah while they recently also oversaw a £173million summer spending spree that marked Alisson, Fabinho, Naby Keita and Xherdan Shaqiri arrive at Anfield.

The smart business policy has arguably presented the Reds one of the best squads in the Premier League and the side looks to be solid for the coming future.

But on the other hand, despite spending nearly one billion since CEO Ed woodwards’ appointment, Manchester United squad still looks to be in shambles. Since Mourinho took over as manager, the club’s net spending is more than £300million and a number of high-profile signings have failed to make an impact.

Paul Pogba became the world’s most expensive player when he was signed from Juventus for £89m in 2016 while Romelu Lukaku became the second costliest United signing with a £75m fee. But both of them till now has failed to deliver. Along with them Alexis Sanchez, Fred also have failed to address themselves with top performances and it has now led to big questions regarding the recruitment policy.

As per the latest reports, the United hierarchy have acknowledged the fact that they need to restructure the policy and reportedly seeing the development made by their arch-rivals, they are now ready to follow the path.

CEO Ed Woodward is now expected to hand down the footballing responsibilities to a director of football, keen to mirror Liverpool’s transfer success by bringing in somebody to take care of their recruitment in the future.

United have been touted to land a Sporting director since the last couple of months, however one of their potential targets, former Juventus CEO Marotta recently joined Inter Milan discarding United while another high profile DOF, AS Roma’s Monchi recently publicly denied any proposals.

But now according to Daily Mail, United are considering a deal to bring Rb Leipzig’s director Paul Mitchell to Old Trafford next season to offer him the hot seat. The English personnel had been in charge of Mk Dons, Southampton and Tottenham Hotspur earlier and is renowned for developing the club with sharp deals like Nathaniel Clyne, Victor Wanyama, Dusan Tadic, Graziano Pelle and Sadio Mane at Southampton and players like Dele Alli, Kieran Trippier and Toby Alderweireld at Spurs.

The report, however, does not address any situation regarding Mourinho’s future or where he would fit in the new set up. The Portuguese manager is currently under fire and could be in line to be sacked after delivering the worst start to a campaign in Premier League era where they sit sixth, 19 points behind leader Liverpool and 11 points behind the top four.