Manchester United director of football Jason Wilcox provides a fascinating insight into the club’s transfer processes during an appearance on our new podcast series.
For episode one of Inside Carrington, presented by United Store, Wilcox sat down at the training ground with host Helen Evans, MUTV commentator Liam Bradford and former defender Phil Jones for a wide-ranging interview about his role.
The subject of transfers is a theme throughout our conversation and Jason speaks openly about the improvements that are constantly being made at United. Here, you can read what he has to say about recruitment…
THE PROCESS OF TRANSFERS
When asked to describe how our recruitment works, to the extent he is comfortable with, Jason reflects on his 18 months of work at the club.
“Last year's summer window [2024] was a lot more chaotic than this one and this one was really calm,”
he explains. “With this one, we knew the plan, we knew which players we were going to target, we had our lists, we knew which areas of the pitch we needed to improve.
“These are continuous meetings with myself and Ruben [Amorim], with Chris Vivell and with his team underneath, where we are very clear on the profiles that we need. So, the brief will come from myself and Ruben, it goes into Chris, there is a lot of debate and discussion around the profiles that we need, and then the scouts will go into the market, we will combine that with the data team and then there will just be constant dialogue.
“Right now, I am having weekly meetings with the recruitment team on the different profiles, the age bracket, the cost, are they attainable, with Ruben as well, so it is a really joined-up approach. When we sign a player, there are so many people that are involved in the process. The data team are involved in the process and we will then focus all our attention on certain players.
“It is really important then that we do the background checks on whether they are clean-living professionals. This is really important. This year, we looked at Premier League-ready players and certainly with Bryan [Mbeumo] and Matheus [Cunha], we couldn't take too much risk in this area. We needed players that we could plug in and play, with little transition time.
“Senne [Lammens], we were always looking at goalkeepers that have got huge potential. Senne was available and we decided to move, but it wasn't a kneejerk reaction. Tony Coton was putting Senne on my radar 12 months ago and he was relentless with it. This guy is going to be a top signing for us and he has started well, but he has got to keep it going. He is very reflective and he is very professional with his approach.”
Expanding on another new boy, Benjamin Sesko, he says: “Benji, at the top end, he's going to be an amazing player. It's difficult to be the no.9 at United and I know sometimes that Matheus and Bryan are getting a lot of credit, but the runs that Benji is making is also helping Matheus and Bryan as well.
“All four of them have done really well, the summer signings from last year, they are top professionals.”
While praising the impact of our four summer signings, Wilcox speaks passionately about the long-term plan at hand:
“We've just got to continue to build the spirit, continue to build on Ruben's idea. Ruben has got a very clear idea. It's a lot more flexible, the idea, than what people give it credit for. We have got to start with the end in mind and understand the game model, how Manchester United are, it is really important and we have to put the jigsaw pieces together.
“Putting the jigsaw pieces together, we would love to have all of the pieces in place where we can see a very, very clear picture but, whilst we are building and whilst we are building the picture, it is even more difficult when you lose some football matches because people start questioning things. But we are really clear, myself and Ruben, Omar [Berrada], the ownership, we are really clear on the direction of travel and this is really important.”
In a lighter moment, Jason is asked about the phone of a director of football always being active and he admits it is a challenge he manages at home, but the work to improve never stops.
“The phone, I think anybody in this role is getting a lot of phone calls, a lot of messages from agents that are pushing players and it's part of the job. I think, when I go home, there are times when I forget to leave my phone downstairs and it's at the side of the bed pinging and all that, and that is not good practice and you’ve got to try to get away from it.
“The transfer windows, I know we have certain blocks where it’s in the summer and in the winter, but really we are working on recruitment year-round.
“We are thinking about it constantly, thinking about the squad, thinking about which players' contracts will be starting to come to an end and the planning is really important. It's really important that we are on top of things.
“In the summer, for all the players that we signed, there were big clubs wanting to sign them and they shut out all the other clubs because they wanted to come to Man United.”
Jason Wilcox was speaking to the Inside Carrington podcast. Look out for episode two next week.