Software Engineer and Entrepreneur. Startups. Dabble with sports analytics. #MUFC fan. 🏴♒️🏳️🌈
Manchester, England
Joined March 2009
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Experimenting again.
After writing about recovering from burnout, I’m finally starting to feel curious again - and that curiosity has pulled me into a new chapter of AI R&D with StackTiger.
No hype. No "move fast" energy. Just thoughtful exploration with @helenaellieford.
Experimenting Again: Playing at the Edges of AI
kirstywilliams.co.uk/blog/c/…
I chased the startup dream in San Francisco.
Built, burned out, and eventually moved back home to Wales.
This is the story of hitting pause and figuring out how to want things again.
kirstywilliams.co.uk/blog/c/…
Kirsty retweeted
‘Michael Carrick will be given time to turn things around’ and ‘the hierarchy do not want to rush next steps’ should be read and digested for what it really is: an indecisive club without any succession planning or contingencies because it doesn’t have clarity of identity in the first place. A club that often takes the cheap instead of the smart or right route because of the crippling Glazer debt, plus decision-makers who are never aligned - except in their own self-preservation. And it ends up costing more.
It explains the chaotic nature of lurching from one coaching philosophy to its extreme, to revisiting candidates that were on the agenda - some as far back as 2019 - that were already ruled out, to having a shortlist of options with nothing in common to take over a mishmash team that has suffered from horrid squad planning; both in incomings and exits.
Blame the players, blame the name in the dugout while the people who brought them to Manchester United, kept them, created the absolute opposite of a culture of excellence are allowed to rinse and repeat.
Kirsty retweeted
- You’re publicly talking to managers, you have been for 3 weeks.
- Briefing constantly in the press about your targets.
- You have a manager and coaching staff who have been led to believe they are going.
- You have not communicated or backed anyone.
@ManUtd cowards.
The biggest joke here is tiered minimum wage. A 16 year old and a 21 year old doing the same job should not be paid differently. My first ever job at 16 was in a factory for £3.05 an hour; any adults doing the same jobs were on almost double an hour. Not even sure how this was/is legal. Anyway, work hard kids and eventually you can be earning 100x while those same adults are stuck at minimum wage 👌
I’ve seen this argument a lot on the TL lately but what people miss is the COO at a business does a lot more than the CEO. As a COO he would have done a lot of the day to day tasks he’s doing now.
The bigger issue is the CEO should be nailing home the vision and pulling everyone in an upwards direction. In the few interviews he’s done, he’s looked far from charismatic and inspiring. He’s not a leader.
There in lies the problem at every level - Manchester United “Football Club” is lacking in leadership.
Omar Berrada has never run a football club before coming to Manchester United.
He was City’s chief football operations officer and a marketing manager at Barcelona before that.
Jason Wilcox had one season as a director of football, in the Championship, before we hired him.
This is the structure that was supposed to replace the manager as the thing that holds the club together.
Can’t stress the man management enough. You cant prioritise a tactician when your captain is being a passive aggressive teenager on social media.
Emery is the only person I see getting us out of this mess; not even winning titles. This needs an elite tactician and elite man manager. No one else we’ve been linked to has taken fledgling players and gotten 100% out of them. The current state of the squad is not good enough for any hipster coach to shape. Pay the 20m, give him all the power and promises he needs, anyone else and we will be in the same position if not worse in 12 months time.
Qualified people in ALL positions. No more learning on the job at United’s expense. Wilcox out! Berrarda out! Ineos out! Glazers out!
I swear I heard an audio clip on here a few months back with Colette saying we can’t be building a new stadium if it affects the on pitch stuff…
Kirsty retweeted
Manchester United Football Club.
A football club only works when the sum of its parts is greater than any one human.
At Manchester United that worked ruthlessly well for 20 years.
You can then trace when the rot started.
1. Calling Moyes "Everton". Big time players started to call the shots. That Moyes wasn't up to it is irelevant, the sum of the parts mantra was broken.
2. Ronaldo return. Always about 1 player in pressers, never about the team.
3. The piano playing decadence of Alexis reveal. City announce Haaland in a bland statement. United went full Liberace to "prove" how big they were. Clubs on top don't need to prove anything. They just do.
4. Numerous managers, sporting directors, organisational changes. Villa gave Emery the key to Villa Park and Bodymoor Health and said "you're the expert, we'll bring in your guys". 90% worked, 10% didn't. The 10% exited without fuss. United? Every name is a part of the circus.
5. Leaks. If you're supposed to be the worlds biggest club, you don't leak to Partridge type YouTubers or local journos. Chose players and their character carefully.
6. Fergie. Liverpool ruthlessly moved Shankly well away from Anfield, to the dismay of many. Romantics rightly said " WTF, it's him who started this!". Liverpool board and Boot Room said, "Move him out, he's only ever going to be a distraction". Proved true. The cameras panning to Fergie every game did United no favours. Why? Nobody could compete with that man.
7. Owners. When you allow owners in who only want to use you as collateral ( Hi Mr Big Banker, we own Man United so we're good for the fucking huge loan we want for something else) in a transaction, you're fucked. A lesson that even the biggest clubs are prone to chasing the dollar from anyone and everyone. Time to protect all of our clubs from rogue ownership.
8. Four four fucking two. Attack attack attack. Sometimes, in order to find yourself you need to go back to your roots. United play attacking, swaggering football. Buy two great wide men. Two mobile and aggressive midfielders. One ball playing, one aggressive central defender. Two fullbacks who only defend and a keeper who commands his box. Basics. United do that and even now all the people, characters, noise can be boiled down to basics that at first grind out badic results as the mess above gets dealt with. Basics. Painfully simple ones.
Manchester United Football Club are one of the world's biggest acting like a lost army after a great General left the batallion.
Find your General , on the pitch, in the dugout, at the head of the company, then green shoots will follow.
Sometimes, simplicity is everything and complexity is ruinous. The club believed its own hype instead of following its own DNA.
Emery is the only person I see getting us out of this mess; not even winning titles. This needs an elite tactician and elite man manager. No one else we’ve been linked to has taken fledgling players and gotten 100% out of them. The current state of the squad is not good enough for any hipster coach to shape. Pay the 20m, give him all the power and promises he needs, anyone else and we will be in the same position if not worse in 12 months time.
Qualified people in ALL positions. No more learning on the job at United’s expense. Wilcox out! Berrarda out! Ineos out! Glazers out!
The worst thing to come out of the Fergie era is no matter how shit we are or how many goals behind, in the 85th minute I still have hope of a comeback - that’s just cruel.