One was announced on July 30, with Manchester United confirming the hire of data director Michael Sansoni.<\/p>\n
Michael Sansoni will lead United\u2019s charge into analytics, with the club looking at how the club can benefit from expertise and intelligence in key areas with regard to recruitment, performance and even injury handling<\/a>.<\/p>\n F1 expert\u2019s verdict on Michael Sansoni<\/p>\n Michael Sansoni arrives from a Formula 1 background, where he was working for Mercedes, who also have ties to Ineos<\/a> and Sir Jim Ratcliffe<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sansoni spent 10 years working at Mercedes and worked specifically with Lewis Hamilton as a performance engineer.<\/p>\n United In Focus spoke to F1 Oversteer<\/a> expert Rory Mitchell to get the lowdown on Michael Sansoni to find out more about Manchester United\u2019s behind-the-scenes hire.<\/p>\n Mitchell explained: \u201cAs is often the case with F1, it\u2019s the people behind the scenes who make the biggest difference. Sansoni is one of hundreds of those who you don\u2019t see in front of the cameras trackside in the fast-paced pit lane and paddock environment.<\/p>\n \u201cData is the main currency in Formula 1, and Sansoni worked directly with some of the main protagonists behind Lewis Hamilton\u2019s record-breaking success at Mercedes.<\/p>\n \u201cSansoni\u2019s role was part of the trackside team, working through the mountains of data that is collected from an F1 car, which is around 1.5 to 3 terabytes on a single race weekend, in a bid to optimise the car setup. It\u2019s integral to making sure everything that happens on the track lines up with what is being developed at their factory.<\/p>\n \u201cAlthough football players don\u2019t have the same ability to \u2018plug and play\u2019 when it comes to data, the pivot towards sport science and using what happens in training to inform matches means Sansoni\u2019s role is interoperable.\u201d<\/p>\n Manchester United announced the hire of Michael Sansoni in late July, but he actually began work at the club in April. And he is committed to building out his department with further hires.<\/p>\n Sansoni posted to LinkedIn<\/a> to claim that the two signings of Bryan Mbeumo<\/a> and Matheus Cunha<\/a> are backed by his department: \u201cOver the past few months, we\u2019ve already made meaningful progress. With new methodologies starting to take shape and two fantastic signings, Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbuemo, already reflecting some of that early work.\u201d<\/p>\n United In Focus reported in late May that Manchester United\u2019s interest in Mbeumo<\/a> was being driven via analytics, with the former Brentford star standing out as one of the top performers in European football.<\/p>\n Sansoni added: \u201cI\u2019ve inherited a brilliant team: smart, committed, and hungry to make a difference and together we\u2019re building a world-class data and AI function to power decision-making across football and the wider club.<\/p>\n \u201cThe challenge is great, but so is the opportunity. We\u2019re only just getting started and I\u2019ll be growing the team in the months ahead. It\u2019s an honour to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n United did not have a data department before 2022, and have begun building on the initial team put in place, with United bringing in Sansoni to lead the new-look unit.<\/p>\n Sansoni reports in to chief executive Omar Berrada<\/a>, who is currently away with the first team squad on tour<\/a> in the USA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manchester United have hired a new key off-field member of staff. He claims to be already making an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[842,218,3300,2916,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-37917","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-bryan-mbeumo","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-ineos","11":"tag-matheus-cunha","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Manchester](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-2225504918-1024x683.jpg\")
Photo by Manchester United\/Manchester United via Getty ImagesMichael Sansoni claims he has already made impact<\/p>\n