Hughes joins Man Utd as Head of Football Development & Methodology

Darren Hughes has been appointed to the new role of Head of Academy Football Development and Methodology by Manchester United.

Hughes joins after almost 12 years at Manchester City, where he held a range of roles and was most recently their Head of Coaching.

At United, Hughes will focus on long-term player and coach development, methodology, coaching programmes, competency frameworks and alignment with EPPP. He will report into Academy Director Stephen Torpey, with whom he worked at both City and Liverpool.

United advertised this new role in February and conducted a thorough recruitment process, with Hughes regarded as the outstanding candidate.

As Head of Coaching at City, he was responsible for driving coach development and leading and overseeing the Academy’s coaching philosophy. Before this, he was Head of Individual Player Development, which involved developing and implementing a coaching curriculum in line with the club’s methodology, with a focus on individual player development.

Hughes first joined City in June 2014 as Under-11s Lead and was also U18s Assistant and U16s Lead. Prior to this, he spent seven years in coaching roles across the full pathway at Liverpool’s Academy.

During his career he has helped to develop players including Curtis Jones, Jarrell Quansah, Oscar Bobb, Romeo Lavia, Cole Palmer, Nico O’Rielly, Jack and Tyler Fletcher and Stephen Mfuni.

He is also regarded as an outstanding coach developer and Ilkay Gundogan (pictured above with him), spent time working with Hughes when he was doing his coaching badges.

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