Manchester United news: Nicky Butt will be buoyant but where is the club's football philosophy?

United hope former player will attract local talent to academy but more needs to be done

Nicky Butt discusses tactics with Manchester United assistant manager Ryan Giggs (Getty Images)

Manchester United have put their first-team chief scout in charge of academy recruitment and are planning to add a new full-time scout for non-United Kingdom players as part of the overhaul which has seen Nicky Butt become academy director.

The club have no plans to appoint a technical or football director to take over some of the responsibilities of executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward and oversee the work of 41-year-old Butt, who had been coaching the Under-19s. Yet the bolstering of United’s scouting regime does reveal an acceptance that their systems have not been as effective as they should, amid transfer market spending of over £500m which has delivered United extremely mixed results since the departure of Sir Alex Ferguson.

Butt, whose arrival ends United’s nine-month spell with no academy director, spoke powerfully about getting the club “back to where it used to be.”

The bolstering of the scouting system – with chief scout Jim Lawlor now taking a responsibility for academy as well as first-team signings – underlines that the best coaching in the world will not make a difference if United do not attract the best talent available locally and overseas.

The decision not to make a technical director part of that structure suggests that United will not be going to the lengths that some other leading clubs have, in developing and coaching a consistent style of football which enables a smooth transition from academy to first team.

The Liverpool academy under Frank McParland which signed Raheem Sterling, Jordon Ibe, Sheyi Ojo and Jerome Sinclair, among others, included Rodolfo Borrell, signed from Barcelona as head of academy coaching. It was he who sat down with manager Rafael Benitez and McParland to establish the broad philosophy of football which was to run through the club. Borrell, released by Liverpool in November 2013, is now global technical director at Manchester City.

A key figure whose future role could be crucial to creating a bridge between the Butt academy and the first team is United’s highly regarded John Murtough, officially “head of first team development”. Murtough, former Premier League head of elite performance, is currently engaged in the complex task of providing clarity on how the administrative side of United’s academy will work, as part of the club’s compliance with the league’s EPPP system. All clubs are undergoing their three-yearly EPPP audit. It is thought that United’s club secretary, John Alexander, will take over the administrative side of the academy for Butt.

But United’s infrastructure still feels far less substantial than City’s, who have both Brian Marwood, the managing director of football services who is experienced in recruitment and player development, and Txiki Begiristain, the director of football whose role is fundamentally identifying and signing players.

Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal (Getty)

United are struggling to find a consistent way of playing, with Butt’s philosophy likely to be at odds with the ponderous style of Louis van Gaal – who announced at his inaugural press conference that he had too much on his plate to take an interest in the academy. But Butt knows all about the United philosophy and what it will take to reach the first team.

United hope his arrival will also strengthen their hand in their attempts to re-establish themselves as the club of choice for the best young players. Signing the best local talent is a crucial part of that task. “If they are good enough, local players bring more passion than any others,” says one elite academy director. But City have the edge and are now considered a far better club for parents to deal with than United or Liverpool. “They are outward facing and make the idea of signing very attractive,” said one lawyer who has worked with families of a number of young Premier League talents.

United believe that they have a key competitive advantage by offering a greater chance of first-team football than City, though. Woodward’s comment to United’s investors in a conference call last week pointed to this potential selling-point over City. “The runway we deliver of first-team opportunities to those players coming through is very different to some of our competitors,” Woodward said. “We’ve done that very well for many years,” Butt added last night.

Butt made it clear that he feels that passing down experiences like his own, from work under Ferguson and then Sir Bobby Robson at Newcastle, is far more important than more intellectual coaching professionals.

“There may be very clever people around the country doing this job who are astute in what they do and probably excelling at what they do far better than me in most things,” he told MUTV. “But, ultimately, football clubs are about football and producing footballers. I don’t think I’m blowing my own trumpet when I say I’ve done that and know what they’re feeling when they’re down because they’ve been beaten 3-0 or 4-0 to City, things are not going well at school or not going well at home.

“[It’s] important for somebody to take over who knows the ins and outs of the club, how it works and knows how to get through the grades. It’s all well and good people outside coming to talk to 12-,13-,14-year-olds and say they’ve done this badge, that badge, this university study and they know what it is but, a lot of the time, they don’t.”

Though City’s football academy is the exemplar of a training facility, Butt made it clear he feels United can offer something which is more real. “You can be having everything easy – training grounds like villages,” he said. “You’ve got to have a bit of the hard stuff as well, got to have a bit of a slog, play on bad surfaces, sometimes play against bad teams, bad crowds, with wind and rain-swept pitches.”