Brailsford tipped to make right impression at Manchester United

LONDON:Sir Dave Brailsford can be the man to bring success back to Manchester United, according to his long-time colleague Rod Ellingworth.

The pair worked together for well over a decade at both British Cycling and Team Sky/Ineos Grenadiers, with the partnership only ending late last year.

Brailsford oversaw a golden era in British cycling, and though he has relatively little track record in football, Ellingworth is backing the Ineos director of sport to make the right decisions in an overhaul of United’s underperforming football operations following Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s buy-in.

“I think it’s brilliant,” Ellingworth said. “I encouraged him as obviously I was around him a fair bit while this was all happening and getting planned. I do think that if anybody can do it, he can to be honest…

“If you had asked me 10 years ago I would have said he would go and do something like this as he’s always chatting about football. He’s always been involved with people in football and always inviting ex-players and managers into the team for things.

“Dave is very well connected in that area so I would have put a lot of money on it a while back that he would have gone into football. I’m not at all surprised.”

Ellingworth spent the last two years as the Grenadiers’ deputy team principal, but was effectively in day-to-day charge as Brailsford took on a broader role within the growing Ineos sporting empire.

Brailsford dropped his team principal title in a restructure this winter. There had been an expectation that Ellingworth would step up but the Lancastrian resigned in November and was last month named race director of the relaunched Tour of Britain.

There were reports of internal tensions at Ineos amid declining results but though he admitted there were some disagreements, Ellingworth said he had already been looking for a fresh challenge.He said “there were no issues at all” surrounding his departure and that he remains in regular contact with Brailsford.

“I just decided that it was time for me to finish,” the 51-year-old said. “There were a few things that I wasn’t totally in agreement with and then I felt like life was catching up with me a little bit.

“My kids are getting older and these sorts of things and different pressures with that, so then I just thought perhaps it’s time to change. Fortunately I’m now in a situation where I got change.”

Ellingworth said he had conversations with other teams, but the more exciting opportunity came from British Cycling.

In January the governing body took organisation of the Tour of Britain and a new-look Tour of Britain Women in-house following the collapse of SweetSpot and Ellingworth walked straight into a race against the clock to get both events on this summer.

“I just needed something new, to do something a bit different and something that was going to challenge me in a different way,” Ellingworth said.

“This year, for me, it’s about learning this race director role but in a way, I’d like to give more to it than just the race director role. It’s about having a vision and some ideas about the future about how we can organise things.”

British Cycling this week named the start and finish towns for the women’s Tour of Britain, which will take place from June 6-9. While time restrictions have limited what they can do this year, Ellingworth is excited about the opportunities to develop it in the future.