Dave Brailsford, marginal gains and Man United. Will it work?

And it’s the tale of the mattresses that perfectly typifies Team Sky’s marginal gains approach.

In order to minimise any changes in sleeping conditions for their riders, Team Sky would take their own mattresses and pillows to races to ensure each rider has almost perfect conditions for a good night’s sleep.

This is just one of a plethora of marginal gains used by Team Sky, which led them to becoming the best road team in the world, winning the sport’s flagship event, the Tour de France, an astonishing seven times between 2012 and 2019.

Team Sky, and then Team Ineos as it was rebranded in 2019, and the marginal gains approach, was spearheaded by one man; Dave Brailsford, who had previously deployed his meticulous approach at British Cycling before his move to Team Sky, also with great success.

The Englishman became known as the mastermind behind the marginal gains theory, explaining it in the early days thus: “The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improved it by 1%, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together.”

Such was Brailsford’s success at the helm of Team Sky, he came to be seen as a sporting genius, and began to exert something of a Svengali-like influence over the sporting world.

Before we knew it, every athlete was talking about marginal gains and was digging deep into their performances to uncover areas in which they could find those one percent improvements.

Such was the reputation Brailsford cultivated, as well as collecting a knighthood for services to cycling along the way, it’s hardly surprising that the Englishman began to catch people’s eye outwith the cycling bubble.

Few, however, could have imagined quite where Brailsford’s path would ultimately lead; Manchester United Football Club.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who is a British billionaire due to the success of the chemicals group, Ineos, which he founded and is now chairman and CEO, is due to imminently acquire 25 percent of Manchester United.

On completion of his acquisition, he will insert Brailsford into the club, with him due to sit on a powerful three-person committee running the football operations.

The Englishman has already made a visit to Manchester United’s training ground, where his presence will likely become something of a regular occurrence when he begins his new role officially.

Brailsford (centre) with Ineos Sport CEO Jean-Claude Blanc (l) and Jim Ratcliffe (Image: Getty)

On the face of it, the appointment of Brailsford seems a sensible move; why not deploy the skills of one of the most successful men ever in the cycling world at one of the most successful football clubs in the world?

But Brailsford does not come without his baggage, to put it mildly, and it is far from certain that his success at the helm of Team Sky, and more recently Team Ineos, will translate into success on the football pitch.

Firstly, the marginal gains method is not universally popular, with Olympic gold medallist and 2012 Tour de France champion, Bradley Wiggins describing it as something a lot of people made a lot of money out of but he thought was “a load of rubbish”.

In the early days of Team Sky, it would have seemed preposterous to dismiss the marginal gains approach; after all, it seemed to be what made the difference between Brailsford’s riders and the rest of the world.

But as the years have progressed, it’s become apparent that there was perhaps more to Team Sky and Brailsford’s success than was initially believed.

Certainly, their story had more to it than merely using the same mattress every night.

Over time, more than a few controversies have emerged.

Just this year, the former chief medical officer at both British Cycling and Team Sky, Richard Freeman, who was employed on Brailsford’s watch, was banned from sport for four years for violating anti-doping rules.

And there’s the TUE scandal which involves Wiggins deploying therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) for triamcinolone to treat asthma and allergies shortly before three major races, with the timing of his usage arousing considerable suspicion.

And there’s the “jiffy-bag” incident, whereby a jiffy-bag containing substances was delivered to Wiggins, but when asked, no one at this allegedly meticulously-run cycling team could quite pin down what was inside the jiffy-bag.

Ultimately, no charges were ever brought but a report by a parliamentary committee asserted that in their use of TUEs, Team Sky “crossed an ethical line”.

Knowing this, things start to look considerably less rosy around Brailsford.

Ratcliffe knows Brailsford well; as the man at the helm of Ineos, when the company took over from Sky as the cycling team’s title sponsor, it’s hardly surprising the pair developed a close relationship.

And with no charges ever brought against Brailsford for any misconduct, nor any of the allegations ever showing that Brailsford was explicitly breaking any rules, it’s hardly surprising Ratcliffe has turned to the Englishman to improve Manchester United’s current form.

Football, however, is a very different beast from cycling, something Brailsford already knows having been director of sport at OGC Nice, the club Ratcliffe has owned since 2019, for almost two years.

It will be fascinating to observe how successfully, or not, Brailsford’s methods are deployed at Manchester United. 

With the more recent years of his career stained by controversy, however, he could certainly do with these marginal gains adding up to a Premier League title.