As late as this week, Nick Cox was confining talk of his exit to a small circle.
After nine years at Manchester United, Cox is heading for a new challenge at Everton where the prospect of becoming technical director and being given the scope to map out a brighter future for the Toffees was too good to turn down.
There had been similar offers to leave before, from English clubs and from some on the continent, but the feeling was different after he was headhunted by Everton.
Figures at Everton were unimpressed that news of Cox’s arrival, which is yet to be inked officially but is understood to be a formality, had leaked out. They thought they had pulled off the executive signing of the summer in secret.
Some of Cox’s closest confidants at United began to find out late last week that he was bound for Merseyside but some player relatives and agents who spoke to Cox only this week about next steps for players had no inkling, just as he would have wanted.
It leaves a giant hole in United’s academy set-up, which was already reeling from the losses of Under 18 head coach Adam Lawrence and Under 21 assistant Dave Hughes. Cox, though, will be the biggest loss of all.
Nick Cox with Kobbie Mainoo, the 2023 Jimmy Murphy Award winner for the best Manchester United academy player that season
Cox presents Ethan Wheatley with the 2024 award alongside Darren Fletcher
‘He’s very fair and actually cares,’ one agent said of the 47-year-old.
‘He’s very hands on,’ another said. ‘He is highly respected and is an ambitious guy. The time is right for him to move into a more senior role and I’m sure he will show well.’
Cox has come a long way since his days as a sports science lecturer at Oaklands College in 2000.
His route to becoming one of the most influential figures in academy football in this country has included stop-offs at Watford, where he started as development centre coordinator in 2001, then rose to academy manager in 2009.
He had four years in the same role at Sheffield United and across those two clubs he counted Jadon Sancho (Watford) and Aaron Ramsdale, David Brooks and Dominic Calvert-Lewin (Sheffield United) among the talents he was nurturing.
When he walked through the door at United in 2016 as academy operations manager, honing talent was naturally a key focus. But Cox is as much about education as anything else.
Ask him for his proudest moments and they may include first-team debuts for players such as Kobbie Mainoo, the FA Youth Cup win…