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Sir Dave Brailsford, pictured with Manchester United chief executive Omar Berrada, operates in the background at Old Trafford - PA/Mike Egerton
If life was not already complicated enough for Ruben Amorim, among the many fires he finds himself trying to extinguish, every now and again someone is obliged to ask him about “Mission 21”.
Same again this week, after his Manchester United team lost their 13th league game of the season. Sunday brings the small matter of Manchester City, not currently at their dominant best but over 12 years the biggest nightmare for United of the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era. Marcus Rashford is scoring goals for Aston Villa. Scott McTominay is challenging for the Serie A title. Anthony Elanga looked like Kylian Mbappé against United. Dean Henderson might end up in an FA Cup final. Meanwhile, Amorim is dealing with the idea that United need to win their 21st Premier League title by 2028.
That idea was conceived of by Sir Dave Brailsford, the Monaco man of mystery, Ineos director of sport, British cycling guru and one of the most powerful men in the new United exec super-structure. He is Ineos’s lead on performance culture. He is there to help and support – but is any of this helpful or indeed supportive?
His Mission 21 presentation – winning a Premier League title by 2028 – was made to staff last year and first reported in February, but what is it? A threat? A promise? A call to arms? A KPI?
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Ruben Amorim gave conflicting answers this week when asked about United’s potential next title win - PA/Mike Egerton
Either way, Amorim was asked about the timescale for the next title this week and gave several answers at once. United, he said, “won’t be the biggest challengers in the next year if the next two years”. He added that they needed time. He also said that they could not expect time. “Next year [winning the title] is our goal,” he said. “I’m not saying we’re going to win the title in the next year, I’m not crazy.”
Make of that what you will. What is evident is this is a man under such intense pressure that 2028 might well feel as far away as the Battle of Waterloo. The club say that after years of drift United need some targets. The official line is that Brailsford is not an employee of United, and instead his salary is on the Ineos payroll. Either way, if the suggestions are true about the size of it, it is certainly the equivalent of a lot of staff lunches at Carrington.
Cycling guru had ground to make up
Brailsford is a cycling man. Given that Sir Jim Ratcliffe described former chief executive Richard Arnold as a “rugby man” it is unfortunate that United consistently fail to get the right sport, never mind the right players. Nevertheless, it meant Brailsford had a lot of ground to make up when he came into football and he did so enthusiastically. Via his associate Jimmy Worrall, a well-known networker in sport-exec circles, Brailsford established a Zoom call in the summer of 2022 for “head coaches/Team Principal/GM” as the email-invite subject field had it. The invite list was a glittering array of sport’s biggest names.
Everyone from Sir Gareth Southgate, whom Worrall now represents, to Arsène Wenger, David Moyes, Eddie Jones, Dan Ashworth, Roberto Martínez, Michael Edwards, Billy Beane, Ivan Lendl, Toto Wolff, Emma Hayes. Who on that list dialled on to the call, one could not say. But the mood in football was that Brailsford was keen to learn – and learn he did. In the 18 months that followed, the appointment process for the job eventually given to Ashworth was extensive. Although some of those interviewed wondered whether they were contenders for the job. Or were they just sources of information?
It was Brailsford who championed Ashworth, sacked five months later by Ratcliffe. Ashworth, now on the brink of returning to run the Football Association where he made his name, was the key early appointment of the Ineos era made on Brailsford’s recommendation. You might say it was Ineos’s biggest idea, since abandoned. Worrall is a close associate and he, along with Ratcliffe, was one of the select few invited to Brailsford’s wedding in Monte Carlo in February last year. Brailsford remains as powerful as ever at Ineos, with key decisions around many aspects of the club including its attempts to catch up on data analysis.
Everyone else in this new era of football had found themselves under scrutiny. For the managers it is a matter of course, and now the sporting directors and owners too. Behdad Eghbali and Todd Boehly at Chelsea. Daniel Levy at Tottenham. Ratcliffe too, who – for all the discomfort – put himself through a day of media interviews last month when no topic was off the table.
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Dan Ashworth (second from right), who has since left United, was hired on Brailsford’s recommendation - Getty Images/Chris Brunskill/Fantasista
Who is really in charge?
By contrast, Brailsford has stayed in the background, although there is a lot going on. As well as the challenges with United, Ineos has feuded with Sir Ben Ainslie, come close to selling its stake in Mercedes F1, and reversed out of its All Blacks sponsorship. It is seeking third-party funding for the Ineos Grenadiers cycling team. The Ligue 1 side Nice have had a solid season but Champions League qualification is by no means certain and there was another defeat on Friday.
Brailsford is certainly a regular at Carrington and is expected at Old Trafford for the derby. Not an easy place to be currently where Omar Berrada and Jason Wilcox, two new United executives, have faced the unenviable task of making massive job cuts and trying to sustain morale. But if United were to attempt anew to appoint a powerful sporting director as a successor to Ashworth, the shadow of Brailsford would give pause for thought. Is it Brailsford who is really in charge? And if he is, why could he not save Ashworth when the latter failed to connect with Ratcliffe?
Arbitrary targets in football, like Mission 21, are not a new idea. The FA did the same thing in 2013 with the infamous countdown clock to the 2022 Qatar World Cup final, which then chairman Greg Dyke had randomly asserted England must win. No one outside the FA ever saw the clock. Media requests to do so were politely declined. In a coaches’ room at St George’s Park it ticked down to zero on the day of a final that England never quite made. Time waits for no man, although some seem to have so much more of it than others.
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