WHAT WOULD WOODWARD DO?

Sir Dave Brailsford isn't football's first interloping innovator from another sport, as Southampton fans will recall

- Richard Edwards

With Manchester United's football operations now overseen by Sir Jim Ratcliffe's Ineos, and masterminded by former British Cycling director Sir Dave Brailsford, football fans are debating whether the Red Devils are about to get back on track... or if the wheels are going to fall off completely.

Those curious as to how an expert from a different sport will fare in football need look back only as far as 2005 for their answer - to an era when Rugby World Cup-winning coach Sir Clive Woodward was named technical director at Southampton FC.

A close personal pal of then-Saints chairman Rupert Lowe, Woodward had been a regular spectator at the second-tier outfit's Staplewood training ground for a while prior to his July 2005 appointment. The eggchasing empresario had suffered a disastrous spell in charge of the British & Irish Lions, following England's historic World Cup triumph in 2003, and claimed he wanted a change of scenery.

"I'm interested in football," stated Woodward at the time. "I intend to do the certificates, but I may end up coaching Maidenhead Under-9s. You have to start at the bottom." After Maidenhead's U9s said no (or so we assume), Woodward agreed to take over football operations at Saints, managed by Harry Redknapp, and wasted no time in overhauling the backroom staff.

Among the new faces to arrive before the 2005-06 Championship campaign was Paul Balsom, who was no stranger to innovation. For his 1985 undergraduate dissertation, Balsom wrote a computer programme that examined movement patterns of individuals in both rugby and football, analysing the amount of time they spent walking, jogging and running. Later, he got to explore those findings further with the Swedish national team, whom he joined as a coach in 1992, and then at Sam Allardyce's Bolton.