Under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer Manchester United are steadily improving, but suggestions that the club could do with a sporting director to be the link between first-team and board aren’t without merit.
Ed Woodward has done his best as a go-between to this point, but he would be the first to admit that he’s not a football man.
Therefore, the Norwegian would surely benefit from from having someone alongside that ‘speaks the same language’ as it were.
To that end, the Red Devils have been urged to appoint Eintracht Frankfurt’s Fredi Bobic, as his expertise is likely to help the club get back to the top.
“I’m very excited to see where Fredi’s path leads him. I think there are three options,” Fortuna Dusseldorf board member Lutz Pfannenstiel wrote in his column for DAZN, cited by the Daily Express.
“First, he could stay in Frankfurt for a long time, but I personally do not believe that. After all, what more could he achieve after double qualifying for the Europa League and winning the DFB-Pokal? Bayern [Munich], Dortmund and [RB] Leipzig are currently difficult to reach for Frankfurt.
“Second, he could move to a top European club. Or third, he could do something completely different, something more exotic and work for a club where he can build something structurally.
“I personally would like to see how Fredi works with a bag full of money and which players he would sign.
“Even if working at a top club is completely different compared to developing and building up a club with limited resources, I am sure that Fredi would be up to the task.
“I am firmly convinced that he could lead a club like Manchester United back to the top. The question is rather whether he wants that. Conversely, top European clubs have long been on the downturn.
“At Man Utd, for example, restructuring with a strong sports director who works in the background of the trainer or manager, as they say on the island, would certainly work very well.”
If the club truly want to rule the roost again domestically and on the continent, then arguably it’s not only on the pitch where they need to invest.
Whether Man United’s owners, the Glazer family, will listen favourably to any pleas is another issue entirely.
There have been plenty of times in the recent past for them to install someone to help out the succession of managers that have followed Sir Alex Ferguson, but none of those opportunities have been taken.