Kyle Macaulay’s unlikely journey to Man Utd – and how he fits into a reshaped recruitment team

Kyle Macaulay will not be the first member of his family to be associated with Manchester United when he starts work as the club’s new head of senior scouting in the new year.

Once he arrives at Old Trafford, United’s new head of senior scouting will be walking through the same doors that his uncle Steve Paterson did during a six-year spell as a player during the 1970s.

“It’s amazing for a wee laddie from a village like ours, to both be related and to end up at a world famous club,” Paterson tells The Athletic. The family hail from Elgin, though Macaulay grew up in the village of Fochabers around nine miles east.

Paterson’s own journey through football is worth touching on, not least because it interweaves with Macaulay’s. He signed for United as a 16-year-old after being spotted playing for Scotland against England in a schoolboys friendly at Old Trafford. He was a two-footed utility man, but only made 10 appearances over the next six years.

He had further spells at Sheffield United, Norway, Hong Kong and Australia, as well as a prolific stint up front at Yomiuri, as one of the first European players to play in Japan.

Then came management, notably a seven-year spell in charge of Inverness Caledonian Thistle, presiding over the famous 3-1 win at Celtic in 2000, which inspired the immortal headline ‘Super Caley Go Ballistic, Celtic Are Atrocious’ in the Scottish Sun newspaper.

He duly took charge at Aberdeen, where his long-standing battles with alcohol and gambling addictions came to the fore, resulting in him missing a Scottish Premiership game against Dundee in 2003 due to a hangover. By the early-2010s, he was in charge of Formartine United in the Highland League and his nephew Kyle was part of his squad.

“He’s a very intelligent guy, very humble, very different to me, actually, and my colourful past,” jokes Paterson. But, just like his uncle, Macaulay’s journey through football has also been unorthodox.

While playing for Paterson at Formartine, Macaulay — having previously had spells as a player at Aberdeen and a variety of lower league Scottish clubs — was also turning out for teams at the University of Stirling, where he was studying for a degree in sports and media studies. Through that came an opportunity to represent Great Britain at the 2011 World University Games in Shenzhen, China.

Great Britain’s head coach was James Ellis, now technical director at Arsenal. At the time, Ellis was also moonlighting as a scout for Ostersund, then in the Swedish fourth division and who had recently appointed a young manager called Graham Potter.

Ellis took Macaulay and his team-mates to Ostersund for a pre-tournament training camp before travelling to Shenzhen. Great Britain finished as silver medallists at the Games, with Macaulay scoring a penalty in the semi-final shoot-out against Brazil.

Not long after the trip to China, Macaulay wrote a speculative letter to Potter offering his services as a player. Potter replied to say his squad was full but vacancies were open among his backroom staff.

Following a character reference from Ellis, he was offered and accepted a six-month internship as an analyst, ending his time working with his uncle at Formartine. Paterson had not realised Macaulay had an interest in analysis but was never going to stand in his nephew’s way.

“I said: ‘Listen, you’re young. When you think you’re rejected or you haven’t made it, just keep going. Whether it’s abroad or whatever,” he recalls.

There were parallels to his own journey. “I knew he was a bit like myself at that age. He was searching,” Paterson says. “My point to Kyle was if you love the game, just keep going and doors open. ‘What’s for ye will no’ go by ye’, as the old Scottish saying goes.”

Macaulay’s work at Ostersund combined elements of both performance analysis and scouting but mostly involved a lot of driving.

“I spent 250 days on the road in my first year at Ostersund,” he told Swansea City’s official website in 2018. “Watching games, speaking to clubs and agents and persuading the players to sign.”

Those long hours played their part in what became one of European football’s more remarkable recent stories, as Potter steered Ostersund from the fourth tier to the last 16 of the Europa League. Some of the players Macaulay plucked from obscurity, such as Saman Ghoddos and Ken Sema, went on to have Premier League careers. Eventually, so too would Potter and his staff.

Ostersund’s rise caught the attention of Swansea, who appointed Potter as head coach in 2018. Macaulay followed as head of recruitment and became one of several backroom lieutenants that Potter trusted to take with him from job to job: to Brighton & Hove Albion, Chelsea and West Ham United.

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Macaulay’s story has been inseparable from Potter’s in that way, yet within the industry, he has carved out his own reputation for being early on signings, fitting United’s intention to be more aggressive and creative in the market.

The 39-year-old stayed at Chelsea following Potter’s exit, then briefly did so again at West Ham. Both clubs wanted to keep Macaulay in place but, for the first time, he has taken on a role without Potter installed in the dugout.

“That speaks volumes for Kyle,” says his uncle. “He’s achieving in his own right now.”

Macaulay will head up United’s scouting network upon arrival in January, reporting into director of recruitment Christopher Vivell. His appointment is the latest change within a department that has seen significant upheaval and restructuring.

As revealed by The Athletic earlier this year, former director of scouting Steve Brown informed staff that he would be leaving the club in April. At that point, a department which once boasted 140 scouts worldwide had been reduced to around 80 following Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s first round of redundancies. Last summer’s second tranche of cuts will eventually slim operations down even further.

As a result, United no longer employ dedicated talent spotters in nations considered to have smaller pools of potential targets, such as the United States.

Other Premier League clubs have taken similar measures in recent years, however, and there is belief that this leaner, more focused approach to player identification is a more efficient use of resources.

At a personnel level, Simon Wells and Mick Court, two of United’s most senior scouts prior to INEOS’ arrival, were among the departures during the summer.

Wells spent 19 years at Old Trafford, first joining as a performance analyst before moving into scouting, and served as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s personal scout until the Norwegian’s departure as manager in November 2021.

Court was another long-serving member of the department, having joined in 2008 before becoming technical chief scout six years ago, and has since been appointed director of recruitment at Ipswich Town.

Other changes have seen Joe McDonald promoted to head of scouting operations, overseeing logistical elements of the department’s work and acting as a conduit between scouts and decision-makers at executive level.

Macaulay is not a direct replacement for Brown as he arrives in a newly-created role, with a title focused on ‘senior’ talent, but alongside his appointment, United are seeking to hire regional heads of emerging talent, covering the UK, Europe and the Americas, and tasked with leading the identification of younger

David Harrison, United’s former lead emerging talent scout, was another figure to leave the club following the end of last season.

Although the department’s work was already divided between senior and emerging talent scouting responsibilities before these changes, it is hoped that the appointments of Macaulay and the regional heads will better align United’s scouting process across global talent.

Scouts have previously bemoaned how high-potential targets have been identified, approached and even shown around the premises at Carrington only to eventually move elsewhere, with a lack of decisiveness often blamed.

Former assistant head of academy recruitment, Lyndon Tomlinson, told The Athletic last year: “I think it’s just being decisive and getting things over the line, that was always the problem.

“In terms of the scouting, the structure and system we had — look at (Alejandro) Garnacho — was good. The reports were there, the process was there. We were just being let down at the end of it.”

There is optimism that has now changed. Jason Wilcox, United’s director of football, meets regularly with scouts to stay across the details of possible targets, taking an active role in pursuits, and is considered approachable, accessible and thorough in his dealings with the department.

While speaking to United’s ‘Inside Carrington’ podcast recently, Wilcox recently referenced how Tony Coton, United’s goalkeeping scout, had played an influential role in the identification and pursuit of Senne Lammens, championing his cause internally.

Since INEOS’ arrival, United have notably committed more resources to signing young talent from outside of Europe, from regions such as west Africa — as seen with the signing of Sekou Kone from Malian side Guidars last year — and South America.

This past summer’s arrival of teenage Paraguayan left-back Diego Leon will be followed by that of Colombia under-17 international Cristian Orozco next year.

Orozco visited Manchester last week to familiarise himself with his new surroundings ahead of joining from Colombian side Fortaleza CEIF next summer, and attended Old Trafford for the 1-1 draw with West Ham on Thursday night.

The 17-year-old’s signing reflects not only an increased focus on signing promising young players from around the world, but also a greater willingness to trust and act on those recommendations.

Whenever he has spoken publicly about the task at hand at Old Trafford, Ratcliffe has highlighted recruitment as the key difference-maker between success and failure. Through Macaulay’s appointment, United hope they have taken another step towards getting it right.