Are we starting to see the true Baldini effect?

[loaderspurs]

When Baldini first came to the club, I remember hearing that he would work on negotiating the transfers for first team players initially, which we saw last summer, and then would start work on recruiting youth.

Granted, as shown by our youth teams recent success, last year with the under 21's and this with the u18s, our recruitment has been good over recent years. That said, I don't remember seeing so many reports in the media of us signing teenagers sought after by other clubs. In past years the only ones that come to mind are Coulibaly and ceballos.

Are we now seeing the baldini effect though, using his network to find more youth gems that we can bring in and develop, either into useful first team players, or players we can sell on for a pretty penny. Reports have been appearing since January really, which was when I expected Baldini to begin his work. Links to players like Musa Yahaya, Ismail Azzaoui, Erwin Koffi etc. To me these signings would scream of Baldini working on youth recruitment, players not necessarily known by many yet, but players who have great potential, and this excites me. You just need to look up who he has found in the past, and even if only 1 in 5 of his top recruits make it with us, that could be great for us.

 

[beats1]

I think Baldini is just a fall guy atm. He is being beaten with this crap about his crap signings when we are told that the club signs players by committee


Though I think with the youth signings it is most definitely the case of him and our head youth scout(forgot his name) doing the signings and them having more control over who they want

 

[loaderspurs]

I think Baldini is just a fall guy atm. He is being beaten with this crap about his crap signings when we are told that the club signs players by committee


Though I think with the youth signings it is most definitely the case of him and our head youth scout(forgot his name) doing the signings and them having more control over who they want

I don't think it's necessarily more control, I think it's maybe more of a focus on top talent. We have clearly shown we're getting the domestic recruitment right, brining in players over the years like Kane, caulker, townsend etc, all who are PL capable, and players in the system like onomah, oduwa, winks, ogilvie etc. recently we've seen some good foreign youth recruitment too, the likes of bentaleb, veljkovic, ceballos. Seeing their success may have just given levy the green light to tell them they can branch out further and bring in a few more from further afield. This is where Baldini's network of contacts would come in, working in tandem with our current youth recruitment system.

 

[loaderspurs]

I think Baldini is just a fall guy atm. He is being beaten with this crap about his crap signings when we are told that the club signs players by committee


Though I think with the youth signings it is most definitely the case of him and our head youth scout(forgot his name) doing the signings and them having more control over who they want

And you're absolutely right about him being the fall guy, especially in the media. People say he has wasted last summers spending, but it's not gone. If you look at it like business, he just invested it in assets that we still have. Some have deteriorated in value, like soldado, and some have increased, like eriksen. Overall there has been little to no change in the total value of last summers acquisitions. Also, very easy to argue some investments are yet to mature until we see their true value: lamela, Capoue with no injuries, Paulinho in right system.

 

[mpickard2087]

Just seems the continuation of what we have been doing for many years. Look at the likes of Bentaleb and Veljkovic for instance of the current lot that we identified and signed up at a young age. He may add a few more contacts in certain places in the world, but I don't think it is massively down to him.

And as with all these players, at this point you are somewhat taking a punt on them, who knows how they will turn out.

 

[tototoner]

How many youth players actually make a living as professional footballers ?

20% ?

 

[penfold_99]

I believe there is fact that most people can agree on is that baldini is a closer.

Previously we would always hear that we tried to sign play x,y and z but with baldini on board our conversion from target to signing must be about 90%ish (willian being the only player seriously linked with us that didn't sign)

 

[SFCS]

The role Baldini plays is pretty much a manager of the non-playing staff so he organises the scouts, speaks a lot to the coaches and is involved in all the important meetings at the club. It makes it harder to quantify whether he's been a success, or not, so really we have to look at how the club progresses in the long term to judge him. Judging him by the new signings' performances is like judging Levy by the same. There are too many other factors involved that they don't directly control.

He's not an overpaid talent scout, he doesn't go to matches to scout players, he goes to speak to the people at the clubs. Of course he still has his opinions on players, everyone at the club does. Ultimately he's not here to find us the next Bale or Modric but set up the systems to find them and the conditions to sign them.

 

[$hoguN]

How many youth players actually make a living as professional footballers ?

20% ?

Last time I read an article on it, I think it was even less than that.

 

[Bobbins]

I agree with this - I think Baldini was brought in to help Levy out with the massive amount of negotiations last summer initially, but with a longer-term remit to focus on the general recruitment and youth side.

It tallies up with Ian Broomfield being brought back as head scout as well - he'll look for first team recruitment targets, while Baldini works on negotiations and the youth side.

All supposition from me but it seems logical. Anyone blaming Baldini for last season needs their head examined. He did a fantastic job with what he was actually asked to do.

 

[tototoner]

Last time I read an article on it, I think it was even less than that.

Its a shame, listened to a discussion about how so many players fail between the ages of 18 - 21

too much money too young and they think they are Billy Big Bollocks and have made it already, mind you if I was 18 again and someone paid me £ 10 k a week I don't know what I would do with it, frightening thought

Check this link, FA Youth Cup Finals from the 2000s and see how many your recognise compared to how many you don't

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FA_Youth_Cup_Finals_of_the_2000s

 

[$hoguN]

I agree with this - I think Baldini was brought in to help Levy out with the massive amount of negotiations last summer initially, but with a longer-term remit to focus on the general recruitment and youth side.

It tallies up with Ian Broomfield being brought back as head scout as well - he'll look for first team recruitment targets, while Baldini works on negotiations and the youth side.

All suppposition from me but it seems logical. Anyone blaming Baldini for last season needs their head examined. He did a fantastic job with what he was actually asked to do.

This absolutely

 

[$hoguN]

Its a shame, listened to a discussion about how so many players fail between the ages of 18 - 21

too much money too young and they think they are Billy Big Bollocks and have made it already, mind you if I was 18 again and someone paid me £ 10 k a week I don't know what I would do with it, frightening thought

Check this link, FA Youth Cup Finals from the 2000s and see how many your recognise compared to how many you don't

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FA_Youth_Cup_Finals_of_the_2000s

If you had given me £10K a week at 18, I hope it would have made me focus and work harder to reach the big time, however I imagine it would have just resulted in lots of STDs.

 

[TheAmerican]

I believe his is mostly a figurehead that was brought in for his experience at large clubs, to help deal with high level negotiations and to connect our club to other prominent figures in the game. I believe he is the type of guy that can get in the ear of an agent, and he likely proves himself valuable during transfers because of this.

TL;DR Business is all about connections, and I think he is here because of his.

 

[GetSpurredOn]

It tallies up with Ian Broomfield being brought back as head scout as well - he'll look for first team recruitment targets, while Baldini works on negotiations and the youth side.

All suppposition from me but it seems logical. Anyone blaming Baldini for last season needs their head examined. He did a fantastic job with what he was actually asked to do.

You're on the money as far as I'm concerned.

 

[stov]

Its a shame, listened to a discussion about how so many players fail between the ages of 18 - 21

too much money too young and they think they are Billy Big Bollocks and have made it already, mind you if I was 18 again and someone paid me £ 10 k a week I don't know what I would do with it, frightening thought

Check this link, FA Youth Cup Finals from the 2000s and see how many your recognise compared to how many you don't

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FA_Youth_Cup_Finals_of_the_2000s

2 or 3 from each team have made a decent career for themselves. The Coventry arsenal final had Davenport and rohan ricketts.

 

[SargeantMeatCurtains]

I think Baldini is just a fall guy atm. He is being beaten with this crap about his crap signings when we are told that the club signs players by committee


Though I think with the youth signings it is most definitely the case of him and our head youth scout(forgot his name) doing the signings and them having more control over who they want

Yeah i agree with that.

As far as i can tell, Baldini has very little input into who we sign. When players are identified, Baldini does the negotiating...To blame him for this season would be utterly ridiculous.

 

[Strikeb4ck]

And you're absolutely right about him being the fall guy, especially in the media. People say he has wasted last summers spending, but it's not gone. If you look at it like business, he just invested it in assets that we still have. Some have deteriorated in value, like soldado, and some have increased, like eriksen. Overall there has been little to no change in the total value of last summers acquisitions. Also, very easy to argue some investments are yet to mature until we see their true value: lamela, Capoue with no injuries, Paulinho in right system.

Thank God some other people understand this. I can't stand it when other team's fans say we wasted 100m. It's not as if the players we bought were abducted by aliens (except Lamela of course).

 

[SpursManChris]

When Baldini first came to the club, I remember hearing that he would work on negotiating the transfers for first team players initially, which we saw last summer, and then would start work on recruiting youth.

Granted, as shown by our youth teams recent success, last year with the under 21's and this with the u18s, our recruitment has been good over recent years. That said, I don't remember seeing so many reports in the media of us signing teenagers sought after by other clubs. In past years the only ones that come to mind are Coulibaly and ceballos.

Are we now seeing the baldini effect though, using his network to find more youth gems that we can bring in and develop, either into useful first team players, or players we can sell on for a pretty penny. Reports have been appearing since January really, which was when I expected Baldini to begin his work. Links to players like Musa Yahaya, Ismail Azzaoui, Erwin Koffi etc. To me these signings would scream of Baldini working on youth recruitment, players not necessarily known by many yet, but players who have great potential, and this excites me. You just need to look up who he has found in the past, and even if only 1 in 5 of his top recruits make it with us, that could be great for us.

your avatar is Poch? Really?

 

[Kiedis]

He does bring some competence to the table.

Compare our signing of Soldado to when Man Utd tried to sign Ander Herrera on deadline day.

Knowing how Spanish clubs work, we scheduled a meeting with the Valencia representatives the day before a board meeting (spanish clubs being member owned, a transfer of that magnitude would always be subject to a board meeting), gave them a time limit, and forced them to make a desicion post haste. Valencia being on the brink of bankrupcy, their hands were forced.

Man United, on the other hand, tried to fudging broker a deal by meeting Herreras buy out clause on deadline day. Obviously not being aware while that process does in theory mean that the clubs hand is forced, the process is a lengthy one. Bayern spent almost the entire summer to broker such a deal for Javi Martinez. This is in part because it it actually the player that has to activate the clause (the money has to to into his account and then out again to the club), which rises some tax issues. In was incompetence of a magnitude one would not expect from one of the major clubs in the world.

How much of the Spurs competence in those matters are down to Baldini? That I do not know, but I'd imagine that he has some knowledge. Baldini being referred to as "a great lord" (google translate of course) by the Steua representative after brokering the Vlad deal does point to him having something to offer.