It’s going to be all change at Manchester United as Sir Jim Ratcliffe closes in on his £1.3bn purchase of a 25% stake in the club.
As part of that deal, he will take control of all football operations at Old Trafford, with it already confirmed that CEO Richard Arnold will leave the club as a result. He only succeeded Ed Woodward in the position 18 months ago.
Meanwhile, he is also reportedly considering a change of director of football, with John Murtough’s position believed to be vulnerable. The Telegraph reports that Crystal Palace sporting director Dougie Freedman, former Monaco chief Paul Mitchell (who was previously linked with Liverpool), former AC Milan pair Paolo Maldini and Ricky Massara, Atletico Madrid’s Andrea Berta, and Atalanta’s Lee Congerton are all under consideration.
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Liverpool fans will perhaps be relieved that their own former sporting director, Michael Edwards, is not a name on such a list. He has been linked with a position at Manchester United in the past, after all.
Yet one of those aforementioned targets is both a boyhood Reds fan and former Liverpool coach, as well as someone who has quietly played a small but influential role behind some Anfield transfer dealings.
Congerton spent three years at Liverpool between 2002 and 2005, working as an Academy coach during Gerard Houllier and Rafa Benitez’s managerial reigns. Yet it was actually only after leaving the Reds and moving to Chelsea in 2005, initially appointed as a youth team coach under Jose Mourinho, where he inadvertently made a more influential impact at Anfield.
At Stamford Bridge, Congerton worked alongside future Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers, who was Chelsea’s reserve team manager, for the first time. After the appointment of Frank Arnesen as Sporting Director, he was appointed chief scout and partly responsible for a number of would-be big-name signings at youth level.
Daniel Sturridge and Fabio Borini were two Congerton signings at Chelsea, with Rodgers later recruiting both strikers after taking over at Anfield. Admittedly, the former enjoyed a far more successful stint on Merseyside than the latter.
Meanwhile, he had also wanted to sign Philippe Coutinho from Vasco de Gama following a scouting mission in Brazil, with Rodgers later on the record confirming that Congerton was the man who first made him aware of the playmaker before he brought him to Liverpool, along with Sturridge for a combined £20.5m, in January 2013.
“The reason I brought in Lee was because he’s one of the best at it,” Rodgers admitted in 2017 after the then-Celtic boss reunited with Congerton and brought him to Parkhead as head of recruitment.
“This is the guy who found me Coutinho. No one would have heard of Coutinho otherwise. He was at Vasco da Gama and Chelsea tried to do a deal, but they’d already done one with Inter Milan.
“He went there at 16 but I was always aware of him. When I was at Liverpool I got the guys to find out about him. Inter Milan were struggling for money and young players very rarely got a chance.
“So it was an opportunity for us to get him. We got him for £8.5million – what’s he worth now? No one knew of Coutinho. But he was in our team at 19 and he flourished.”
Before moving to Celtic, Congerton would follow Arnesen to Hamburg in 2011, spending three years at the club as a technical director. He then returned to England in March 2014 after being appointed sporting director at Sunderland.
At the Stadium of Light, he was responsible for the signings of both Borini and Sebastian Coates from Liverpool.
Initially signing the Uruguayan on loan in September 2014, after landing him permanently in a £4m deal the following summer, he said: “Sebastian was an important part of the team under Dick (Advocaat) last season and we are delighted that he has joined us on a permanent basis.
“He has Barclays Premier League experience, which is important and, after spending last season on loan with us, he will be able to settle into the team very quickly.”
Meanwhile, Congerton would sign Borini permanently for an initial £8m in August 2015, after the striker had spent the 2013/14 season on loan with the Black Cats.
“Fabio is a player who I’ve known since he was 15 years old and I was fortunate enough to help recruit him to Chelsea,” he said.
“He has developed into a Barclays Premier League striker which we have already seen from his previous loan spell at the club, and we are delighted to have him here on a permanent basis.”
Leaving Sunderland in December 2015, Congerton joined Celtic as their head of recruitment in March 2017, before following Rodgers to Leicester City and being appointed as their head of senior recruitment in May 2019. He would then join current club, Atalanta, as head of senior recruitment in March 2022.
At the Serie A club, Congerton was influential in bringing Rasmus Hojlund to Atalanta from Sturm Graz for €17m in August 2022, before selling him to United in a deal worth up to £72m a year later. But whether the former Liverpool coach now follows the Dane in moving to Old Trafford as the Red Devils weigh up candidates to potentially take over as their new sporting director remains to be seen.
