Salford City to take advantage of Manchester United's staff exodus

The exodus of senior staff at Manchester United has gathered fresh momentum with the club’s Under-23 coach Neil Wood in pole position to become the new manager of League Two side Salford City.

Wood, 39, is expected to become Salford’s fifth permanent manager in four years after Gary Bowyer was sacked this week after the club finished 10th in League Two and missed out on the play-offs.

News of Wood’s impending appointment at Salford comes less than a week after it emerged that his assistant with the United Under-23 team, Neil Ryan, will leave Old Trafford at the end of the season in order to take up a senior position as National Coach with the Football Association.

United are undergoing a significant internal restructure in the wake of Ed Woodward’s departure and Richard Arnold’s appointment as chief executive on Feb 1, John Murtough’s widening power base as football director and Erik ten Hag’s impending arrival as manager.

Ten Hag’s first official day in charge will be Monday, with the Dutchman due to be in the stands at Selhurst Park on Sunday to watch United’s final game of the season against Crystal Palace.

Director of football negotiations Matt Judge - the club’s chief transfer negotiator - and chief strategy officer, Hemen Tseayo, are both working their notice. United’s chief of staff, Patrick Coyle, is leaving in order to become chief operating officer at the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA).

Chief scout Jim Lawlor and head of global scouting Marcel Bout have already left the club and director of communications, Charlie Brooks, is also on his way out and other changes will follow.

Ralf Rangnick will take charge of his final game as interim manager against Palace and is then due to take up a consultancy role with the club but most of his backroom staff are expected to depart, including assistant Chris Armas, analyst Ewan Sharp and psychologist Sascha Lense.

Eric Ramsay is due to stay on as part of Ten Hag’s new look backroom team but Mike Phelan’s future is said to be very uncertain, particularly as the new manager is due to add former England manager Steve McClaren to his staff.

Wood worked closely with Nicky Butt at Old Trafford when the former United midfielder was head of academy and then head of first team development. Butt is one of the co-owners at Salford along with his fellow former United team-mates, Gary Neville, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, David Beckham and Phil Neville, and is thought to have championed Wood’s credentials.

Bowyer was in charge for 14 months at Salford and his exit follows those of Richie Wellens, who lasted just five months, and Graham Alexander, who was sacked in October 2020, 18 months after replacing Anthony Johnson and Bernard Morley.

Jamie Carragher, Neville’s fellow Sky Sports pundit, responded to the latest managerial sacking at Salford by tweeting “@GNev2 puts more people out of work than Boris Johnson”. Neville has been an arch critic of the Prime Minister and his Conservative government.

Neville - who has previously expressed regret about the decision to sack Alexander - has left himself open to accusations of hypocrisy after complaining in the past about the failure of clubs to give managers time.

In the wake of Wellens’ sacking by Salford last year, Carragher reshared a quote from Neville that read: “The scary thing is that a large % of people now actually support these sackings as they've become accustomed to it... How can you build a football team without getting 2-3 years? A rule change is required to moderate sackings of managers mid-season in their first year at a club.”

Carragher has compared Neville and his other Salford co-owners to former Atletico Madrid president, Jesus Gil, who was renowned for sacking managers.