Levy to reform scouting procedures

[Ribble]

and they dont even mention Bloomfield who is still the head scout IIRC?

...and who wasn't at the time of the Bale sale and purchases, so this article is partly true (the scouting system changed since that period) but at the same time bollocks (nothing to do with staff leaving) and about half a season out of date!

 

[allatsea]

Even if Spurs had "scouted" the EPL they could have picked up at least 2 bargains (just came my mind right now) over the past 2-3 season in.... Matic and Pogba.
Yes, I know it's not that simple but part of scouting is to be able to see the potential exponential growth curve in a talent - evem when oher clubs don't/can't.
Berahino is another case that comes to mind. His price has almost doubled just since the start of the season - and Spurs missed out partly, because their insistence of signing Jay-Rod (good player yes but he's not even back yet from an long-term injury).

But every team in Europe is trying to do exactly that. No one makes 100% right calls on every player they look at but we do seem to make more wrong calls then most teams.

 

[Metalhead]

It has always amazed me that Premier League clubs seem incapable of/uninterested in investing in scouting networks like the top Portuguese clubs.

A good friend of mine is a Benfica fan and he's always banging on about it!

Bit of info here: http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/jan/20/nemanja-matic-move-portugal-profit-centre

Interesting that they employ a multi layered level of scouting at Porto. You'd think it would be a case of 'too many cooks' but clearly it works well for them. I also find it interesting that Porto, Benfica and Sporting all have their own way of competing without the riches that other top clubs around Europe enjoy. I'm sure that some elements of what they do could be used over here.

 

[tony0379]

To be honest, it ties in with everything Trix said.

 

[Metalhead]

So two blokes realised they wanted to try new opportunities in the States and down under, and from that this prick fabricates a so called story. Then lists out last summers signings as failures of scouting.

To be fair, it's not like there hasn't been plenty of people on SC who thought that the Bale money wasn't spent very well and the reference to Spurs being a 'political' club has been discussed before.

 

[michaelden]

Even if Spurs had "scouted" the EPL they could have picked up at least 2 bargains (just came my mind right now) over the past 2-3 season in.... Matic and Pogba.
Yes, I know it's not that simple but part of scouting is to be able to see the potential exponential growth curve in a talent - evem when oher clubs don't/can't.
Berahino is another case that comes to mind. His price has almost doubled just since the start of the season - and Spurs missed out partly, because their insistence of signing Jay-Rod (good player yes but he's not even back yet from an long-term injury).

You are kidding? Pogba has been pulling up trees for Juve since 2012 and didn't want to re-sign with Utd. He was never an option.

And Matic has been owned by Chelsea since 2009, then sold to Benfica for 1 season which seems more like a financial play than an actual failure in talent recognition.

 

[michaelden]

To be honest, it ties in with everything Trix said.

So the lazy ass journo just made up a story from the ITK... I can believe that

 

[michaelden]

Interesting that they employ a multi layered level of scouting at Porto. You'd think it would be a case of 'too many cooks' but clearly it works well for them. I also find it interesting that Porto, Benfica and Sporting all have their own way of competing without the riches that other top clubs around Europe enjoy. I'm sure that some elements of what they do could be used over here.

They have a monopoly over the league. Not something we can do here

 

[Gassin's finest]

Another attempt to undermine and de-stabilise us from the Fail... fucking hate that paper, and those that write for it.

BUT... should've listened to AVB and got the players he wanted with the Bale money.

 

[Dharmabum]

You are kidding? Pogba has been pulling up trees for Juve since 2012 and didn't want to re-sign with Utd. He was never an option.

And Matic has been owned by Chelsea since 2009, then sold to Benfica for 1 season which seems more like a financial play than an actual failure in talent recognition.

Matic was sold to Benfica in 2011 and played there for 3 seasons before being sold back to Chelski for £21 million...
Pogba (and his agent) turned down an offer from ManU - and seeing how he developed at Juve it may not have been a bad decision from him after all

 

[michaelden]

Matic was sold to Benfica in 2011 and played there for 3 seasons before being sold back to Chelski for £21 million...
Pogba (and his agent) turned down an offer from ManU - and seeing how he developed at Juve it may not have been a bad decision from him after all

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

Senior career*
YearsTeamApps†(Gls)†
2005–2007Jedinstvo Ub16(0)
2007–2009Košice70(4)
2009–2011Chelsea2(0)
2010–2011→ Vitesse (loan)27(2)
2011–2014Benfica56(6)
2014–Chelsea26(1)

Yip you're correct on Matic. Not enough coffee yet. Still don't think we'd have got him cheap.

And Paul was seriously wanted by Man Utd but apparently they were reluctant to go above £16K (or was it £25K) per week for someone they had trained.

Looking back at Pogba & Obi Mikel, its apparent Man Utd had the better of the 2 players. And I'm a Mikel fan.

 

[JonnySpurs]

Article is annoying on a number of levels. For me the main thing is that it suggests that Levy is unhappy with what everyone else has done at the club in signing those 7 players that summer when in reality it is him and Baldini that are wholly responsible.

Other than that, the suggestion that all 7 players have been a waste of money is utter garbage. Only really Paulinho, Soldado and Chiriches haven't worked out and all have still had good games at times with the Paulinho scoring 8 goals (i think) last season.

Eriksen, Chadli, Lamela and Capoue are all players that most prem teams would want and all of those were bargains (Lamela aside). Sure they still have some work to do but that's hardly been helped by having 3 managers in the time that they've been here.

Liverpool have proven this season how hard it is to lose your best player and try to recover with multiple new players. Out of all their purchases this summer, only Lallana is playing well. Lovren has been inconsistent, Markovic & Lambert have done nothing and don't even get me started on Balotelli.

 

[dagraham]

Seems like a bullshit article, but if we are looking at our scouting set up then it's about 5 years too late.

You would have thought a club with an owner and a chairmen so risk averse and hell bent on getting value for money would have made top quality scouting networks top priority.

Too often we seem to either go for the obvious signings that CL clubs want or are out of our price range, or we go for players that are not a good fit for the PL.

I'm still not a fan of the DOF system or signings by committee and never will be at Spurs. It's no coincidence for me that our most successful period was without a DOF and committee signings. The season we brought in Friedal, Gallas, Ade and Parker many raised their eyebrows but in the end they were just what we needed.

Of course you can't just give the manager carte blanche to run the whole operation. Some consideration has to be made to keep an eye on buying young talent and not leaving an ageing squad (something that Harry obviously didn't care about). But the chairmen, manager and scouts are enough for me. There are too many voices in this committee and too many people driving transfers who have no idea what's needed for the team. We often hear of a "Levy signing" like Soldado or a "Baldini signing".

Too many damn cooks. Employ a manager you trust and allow them to build the team in their image with attributes and character that they deem necessary (all within financial constraints obviously). Give the manager all the help he needs recruitment wise, but stop stockpiling players, buying for the sake of it because they are cheap or Baldini or Levy doesn't fancy them etc.

 

[Metalhead]

They have a monopoly over the league. Not something we can do here

That's a fair point about the 3 teams having a monopoly but the clubs employ a multitude of strategies to enable them to compete without compromising their financial status. Are you saying that none of the measures that they employ could work over here?

 

[mpickard2087]

Sell
Paulinho - £10 million
Holtby - £6 million
Townsend - £12 million
Naughton - £5 million
Soldado - £10 million
Chiriches -£5 milliln

Buy
Wilfred Bony - £19 million
Morgan Schneiderlin - £24 million
Yehven Konoplyanka - Free Agent
Charlie Austin - £6 million

Lloris/Vorm

Walker/Yedlin
Fazio/Jan/Kaboul/Dier
Rose/Davies

Capoue/Morgan/Bentaleb/Stambouli
Lamela/Lennon
Eriksen/Mason
Chadli/Konoplyanka

Bony/Kane/Austin

Why doesnt Levy make me DOF?

Which centre halves will be able to stop Kane and Austin in 2 on 2 tag team situations?

I thought change number one from you would have been reappointing AVB...

 

[Flobadob]

Fuck, it gets on my tits when those 7 players are categorised as flops/failures and it's said that we wasted all that money.

If we sold those players on the transfer market today, here's what i think we could recoup from that 100m or so outlay...

Eriksen- 30m
Lamela- 20m
Chadli- 15m
Capoue- 15m
Soldado- 10m
Paulinho- 8m
Chiriches- 5m

Total- 103m

Obviously, you can give or take a few million here and there depending on opinions, but still that investment is far from wasted in terms of the players' value as assets on the transfer market. They haven't worked out as a team yet, but these rag newspapers make out that we've blown our only opportunity to assemble a top class squad of players, when that's actually far from the case. We've still got an opportunity to cut our losses on 2 or 3 of those 7 players that haven't lived up to expectation and bring in funds that can be used to buy more quality in key positions, rather than the quantity that we currently have. I just hope we don't make the same mistake again and buy quantity and be made to look foolish by it coming to light that we already had young players in our own academy that are capable of taking places in our squad. If it was down to me, we would now buy squad players as an absolute last resort, because it's been proven over the last 2-3 years that this club is now more than capable of training it's own squad players and ones that care about the club and give their all. My only criticism's of our transfer policy as it looks right now is that we've bought too much quantity and foolishly ignored the talent we have in our academy. Other than that, i think we've done well with Eriksen, Chadli, Lamela and Capoue, as not many would argue that they weren't good signings as individuals at the very least. Going by that evidence, i don't think we need a massive overhaul of our transfer policy, we just need a few tweaks to make it more efficient. Having average squad players that just make up the numbers constantly coming in and out of the club every summer is clearly not efficient

 

[ClonedFromSandrosBeard]

I think most of us are unsure of Baldini's role within the club. It seems by general consensus he is the greaser of the wheel; the negotiator rather than a finder of talent, in which case shouldn't be judged on signings, rather the process of signings.

So our failure to get MM and MS this summer is on him you say?

 

[0-Tibsy-0]

Sell
Paulinho - £10 million
Holtby - £6 million
Townsend - £12 million
Naughton - £5 million
Soldado - £10 million
Chiriches -£5 milliln

Buy
Wilfred Bony - £19 million
Morgan Schneiderlin - £24 million
Yehven Konoplyanka - Free Agent
Charlie Austin - £6 million

Lloris/Vorm

Walker/Yedlin
Fazio/Jan/Kaboul/Dier
Rose/Davies

Capoue/Morgan/Bentaleb/Stambouli
Lamela/Lennon
Eriksen/Mason
Chadli/Konoplyanka

Bony/Kane/Austin

Why doesnt Levy make me DOF?

Which centre halves will be able to stop Kane and Austin in 2 on 2 tag team situations?

If we sign Charlie Austin then I would be tempted to boo a Spurs player for the first time ever (I wouldn't, but id really want to)

Wanker.

 

[dondo]

It annoys me when they lump all 7 players in saying we "squandered" the Bale money. IMO, Eriksen, Chadli and Capoue were bargains.

Eriksen , chadli , capoue and even vlad are the type of signings we should be making. Not hugely expensive by today standards and like any transfer some work out and some don't. What I have and issue with is the big money spent on soldado lamela and to a lesser extent paulinho. All 3 of those were big risks (a few might still come good?) for a club like us

 

[fedupyid]

If you do not spend big on transfers then you need to spend big on your scouting network and coaching to develop the players. My belief is the money has to be invested you cannot consistently move the cash around.