After two years at Chelsea, U23 coach Eric Ramsay has moved on to a bigger role at Manchester United, where he joins Ole Gunnar Solksjaer’s first-team coaching staff.
CHELSEA Under-23s assistant Eric Ramsay has been appointed as Manchester United’s first set piece specialist and individual development coach.
Manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer identified set pieces – defensive ones in particular – as an area that the team needed to improve last season.
Ramsay, 29, joined Chelsea from Shrewsbury – where he had been first-team coach – in August 2019. He is regarded as one of the most promising young British coaches and became the youngest to gain the Uefa Pro Licence in September 2019, at the age of 27.
Solskjaer said: “We’ve been fortunate enough to convince Eric Ramsay to come and join the best club in the world and in the country.
“He’s a very highly rated coach who is going to be working with individuals and in charge of set-plays as well.
“We’re excited. He’s young, fresh and with new ideas, an innovative coach we know from before. Kieran [McKenna] knows him really well from Loughborough, so we’re very pleased with that.”
Just like his move to Chelsea in 2019 from Shrewsbury Town, this looks like a promotion and step forward in 29-year-old (29!) Ramsay’s coaching career, who thus goes from youth football to senior football, and does so at one of the biggest clubs in the world. We wish him all the best of luck, as long as it’s not at our expense.
The Welshman Ramsay joined the Shrews in January 2017 as Head of Academy Coaching and was promoted to Academy Manager in August 2017 and first-team coach in December 2018.
Assistant Martyn Pert and goalkeeper coach Richard Hartis had specific responsibility for United’s set pieces last season but that will now switch to Ramsay. Tom Green is the club’s dedicated set piece analyst and will continue in the role.
