Another week, another new hire at Manchester United.
With Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Ineos taking over the decision making at Old Trafford, the Red Devils are being dragged kicking and screaming into the modern era after falling behind their Premier League rivals in so many departments on the Glazer’s watch.
Ratcliffe is keen to make his beloved Manchester United world-leaders again not only on the pitch but off it too, as emphasised by the appointments of proven footballing, recruitment and business experts in Dan Ashworth, Omar Berrada, Jason Wilcox and Christopher Vivell.
According to the Daily Mail, Sam Erith has now become the latest Ineos-driven hire.
But who is the man appointed on an interim basis by Man United as their new performance director until the end of 2024/25?
Former Man City chief Sam Erith joins Manchester United
The Mail claim that Ashworth – United’s technical director – was the man who headhunted Erith.
His work will also be familiar to both Berrada and Wilcox, reuniting with two former Man City employees who are hoping to embark upon a similar period of success on the red half of the Manchester.
Erith joined Man City as the Head of Sports Science back in 2011, around the same time that both Berrada and Wilcox arrived at the Etihad Stadium.
He would spent over a decade at the perennial Premier League champions before taking up a role in America with the Maddison Square Garden Sports group.
Erith worked as the senior vice-president for Player Performance and Science Lead across the Atlantic, working in conjunction with the likes of iconic basketball team New York Knicks.
Erith, who has a Master’s Degree in Sports Directorship, also spent six years as the Head of Sports Science at Tottenham Hotspur in his pre-City days and was brought on board by then-England boss Roy Hodgson in 2016 before the European Championships, with a focus on player fitness, per The Telegraph.
Erith also briefly worked as a consultant to Hodgson’s successor, Gareth Southgate.
News that Man United are hiring a renowned Sports Science expert should come as no real surprise, given the sheer extent of injury issues Erik ten Hag had to deal with last term.
The Red Devils lost so many key players while using over 30 different defensive combinations throughout the campaign. Already this season, United have been without Mason Mount, Rasmus Hojlund and marquee summer signing Leny Yoro.
Speaking to the BBC when starting out at the Etihad, Erith explained how Man City had embraced the latest scientific advances to improve both their player’s fitness as well as their diets.
“The Premier League is a ferocious league. The physical outputs of players have been shown to go up and up over the last five or six years,” Erith said at the time.
“They play an enormous number of games and their energy levels are always sapped after matches, so it is our job to try to help them get ready for the next game.”
Fitness expert will hope to stop Red Devils’ injury nightmare
According to Goal, Erith also played a valuable role in Man City’s return to the pitch post-Lockdown in 2020.
It was his job to draw up individual training plans for a group of players who had been forced to spent the last few months keeping fit in home gyms or their own back garden.
“Injury prevention is a big part of what we do as a club,” Erith added in that BBC interview. The manager, coaching staff, fitness and medical staff all have a critical role to play in this area. Right from the minute they finish a game, the recovery process starts.
“Physiotherapists and soft-tissue therapists will work with the players to try to prevent a situation where they would go into a training session or a match vulnerable.”
It is telling that Man City, during Erith’s decade-long spell at the club, tended to suffer far fewer injuries than sustained by many of their rivals.
Manchester United can only hope that – alongside Head of Sports Medicine Gary O’Driscoll – the days of a treatment room busier than Piccadilly station on rush hour will soon be over.
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