Manchester United’s big name signings like Paul Pogba and Zlatan Ibrahimovic have taken all the headlines this summer, but Jose Mourinho has been busy strengthening the club behind the scenes as well.
The ex-Chelsea boss has been restructuring the club from top to bottom since he replaced Louis van Gaal this summer and he has just added two new names to the backroom staff.
According to reports Brazilian scout Sandro Orlandelli has left his job with the Brazilian Football Confederation to become United’s man in South America.
Orlandelli spent 11 years working for Arsenal so is well versed in what qualities prospective players need to handle Premier League football.
And now Mourinho has raided Arsenal’s north London rivals Tottenham for another key backroom appointment, as highly-rated coach Kieran McKenna has agreed to swap Spurs for United.
McKenna, 30, started his career as a midfield player for Enniskillen Town in Northern Ireland.
He joined Tottenham as a player but a hip injury brought an end to his playing career and he switched to coaching.
He has been managing Spurs’ Under-18s side, which reached the semi-final of the FA Youth Cup in 2015, before losing to Chelsea.
His brief at United will be to help restore the club’s academy to a regular source of players for the first team.
The most famous cohort is the so called Class of 92 which saw players including David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt and the Neville brothers graduate to the first team and become the backbone of the squad for well over a decade.
