Worthy
Well-Known Member
- Feb 19, 2004
- 591
- 541
We know it's not true. Poch wanted Lo Celso over Fernandes, Villa got taken over and pulled the plug on Grealish leaving, Dybala was about image rights but dunno about Ward Prowse.
Steve Hitchen leaves THFC
- Thread starter WannaDanceWithUdogie
- Start date
We know it's not true. Poch wanted Lo Celso over Fernandes, Villa got taken over and pulled the plug on Grealish leaving, Dybala was about image rights but dunno about Ward Prowse.
Ron Burgundy
SC Supporter
- Jun 19, 2008
- 7,739
- 23,414
So why is it that he's been so regularly over ruled? It's all a bit odd
As someone else said: Either he buys sh*t players, or no one cares what he thinks
If it's the latter, who is it that keeps over ruling him?
As someone else said: Either he buys sh*t players, or no one cares what he thinks
If it's the latter, who is it that keeps over ruling him?
he is you know!
Well-Known Member
- Dec 31, 2012
- 1,847
- 3,535
‘At different times, Hitchen negotiated deals for Bruno Fernandes, Paulo Dybala, Jack Grealish and James Ward-Prowse only for the club to back out of completing the transfers over financial issues.’
Matt Law
?
Nonsense.
brasil_spur
SC Supporter
- Aug 25, 2006
- 12,710
- 16,808
There's a lot of stale-ness around the club from my personal experience with them. I can't speak to the footballing side or to Hitchen specifically, but there was a shake up needed a few years back IMO within the business, consumer facing and IT side of the club. A lot of ridiculous policies and slow moving, under-staffed parts that made the club inefficient in many areas. I'd be surprised if this also didn't apply to the footballing side, but that's just assumption on my part rather than knowledge.
One example of this is when lock-down happened in March 2020. The club was a customer of mine and we ran a bunch of their IT systems and support for them in the cloud. As you can imagine I was personally heavily invested in helping the club as much as possible. There was a real potential to get an online TV site up and running when lock-down hit, to keep fans engaged and to try and get some revenue back into the club in the short term. At one point someone in the IT team described the ambition to me as "Spurs Netflix". They had the content, they had a developer who could pull this together and they have us as an IT company that could support them and stand up all the infrastructure for it. But like everything else with them it went into countless review processes and meetings that kept getting pushed back as the IT team and key decision makers in the club were so thin on the ground. Obviously it never happened, but quite why they abandoned the idea completely I don't know.
I don't work for that company any more and so they haven't been a customer of mine for 18 months or so, but they were truly in need of a massive shake up in personal across the club.
Spurs_1981
Well-Known Member
- Jan 30, 2010
- 137
- 560
Reads to me like he has been head-hunted and his mate in the press is getting some positive PR spin out for him. And/or Law is just being a dick and laying into Spurs again.
Tucker
Shitehawk
- Jul 15, 2013
- 31,358
- 146,929
Lol that’s ludicrous that he’s used that to slate the club. What a complete wanker Law is.
As for Hitchen, I was surprised he didn’t leave when Paratici came in. That was never going to work having two directors of football, and you could see there was a bit of political leaking going on to the press over the last couple of weeks.
He has made some awful signings in his time here too, so it’ll be interesting to see how he gets on at Everton, which is a step down. You’d imagine he might get some more successes when he’s fighting a lower level of clubs for signatures.
glacierSpurs
Well-Known Member
- Sep 28, 2013
- 16,163
- 25,473
Not doubting you Trix and I think we have seen many snippets from you rating him very highly. I mean he can be very well-regarded, being good in his skill sets and well-liked, but the matter of fact is he still has to convince his boss(es)/coaches and work on ways to be deemed important and to be heard for others to use him the way he wants and not overruled. He is definitely empowered to do so but it just feels to me he's ok to live by this until Paratici came.
Is like how certain employees in a company if they are not making efforts to communicate enough, nobody in the upper management will look at them no matter how capable they are. I used to feel sorry for these people when I'm younger, as I thought these are wasted talents. But now I just feel responsibility is on them for wasting their own talents to not being seen/heard enough.
Snarfalicious
Well-Known Member
- Jul 15, 2012
- 15,722
- 72,065
Well, I hope they get to work on that “major shakeup” in scouting before the summer window.
I think this has to be seen as a good thing for Spurs.
Hitchen was here for five years, spent hundreds of millions in that time, and we’ve seen pretty poor return on investment. While we’ve got in a handful of good players who start regularly - Sanchez, Lucas, Hojbjerg, Reguilon - we haven’t had a true transfer ‘hit’ since Hitchen came in. Whereas in the years before, Dier, Dele, Alderweireld, Son, and Wanyama were all hits.
When Hitchen has spent big, it’s backfired. Lo Celso and Ndombele have fallen far short of expectations, while Sessegnon and Bergwijn haven’t come close to justifying a ~£55m outlay on the pair of them.
I’ve seen a few in this thread saying that we’ll miss his ability to identify young English talents, but again, I can’t agree. £52m has been spent across Sessegnon, Clarke, and Rodon - Sessegnon and Clarke have gone backwards over the last three years, while Rodon hasn’t played and clearly isn’t rated by Conte.
Hitchen was here for five years, spent hundreds of millions in that time, and we’ve seen pretty poor return on investment. While we’ve got in a handful of good players who start regularly - Sanchez, Lucas, Hojbjerg, Reguilon - we haven’t had a true transfer ‘hit’ since Hitchen came in. Whereas in the years before, Dier, Dele, Alderweireld, Son, and Wanyama were all hits.
When Hitchen has spent big, it’s backfired. Lo Celso and Ndombele have fallen far short of expectations, while Sessegnon and Bergwijn haven’t come close to justifying a ~£55m outlay on the pair of them.
I’ve seen a few in this thread saying that we’ll miss his ability to identify young English talents, but again, I can’t agree. £52m has been spent across Sessegnon, Clarke, and Rodon - Sessegnon and Clarke have gone backwards over the last three years, while Rodon hasn’t played and clearly isn’t rated by Conte.
Trix
Well-Known Member
- Jul 29, 2004
- 19,511
- 330,450
Yeah well I don't get Matt Law too wrong with the players he's mentioned being pushed for by Hitchen. Also the likes of Teilemens as an alternative for Poch.
Westmorlandspur
Well-Known Member
- Feb 1, 2013
- 2,860
- 4,723
If you stick to buying EFL players for small fees you don’t get much criticism. You get the odd success and are praised accordingly. Hitchen was supposedly an expert in the French market. Tanguy has put paid to that, never mind Njie and Nkoudou.
When you look back Commoli didn’t do a bad job.
ShelfWatcher
Well-Known Member
- Sep 9, 2021
- 3,169
- 4,814
Yep definitely a good thing he's going. Hitchens time here has been characterized by failure.
How much is his fault I don't know. The people who really need to go are of course our owners. But that's not happening.
So let's get new recruiters in. When you see how well Brentford Leicester and Liverpool do, it's shameful to look at what we get for our money.
bubble07
Well-Known Member
- Dec 27, 2004
- 23,156
- 30,327
My issue is the coaching is bad then the signing will be bad. if they all signed for Pep I'm sure most would get a success
mattstev2000
Well-Known Member
- Aug 15, 2007
- 2,782
- 5,512
Nothing about our recruitment track record across his time here suggests to me that we will miss him, he has either made some startlingly bad choices himself or he has been ignored and overruled. Either way, not really a loss.
rossdapep
Well-Known Member
- Aug 25, 2011
- 22,154
- 79,695
Wasn't Hitchen an expert in the French market? I seem to recall that his knowledge there was very good and he was scouting for us before he returned and became our head scout permanently.
Therefore, I am not sure how much of a worry it is when it comes to HG players.
In his time at the club we signed;
Jack Clarke
Ryan Sessegnon
Neither have been good enough.
Also, FP seems to be overseeing a scouting revamp, I imagine this will mean that we improve our scouting in the local area/country.
Therefore, I am not sure how much of a worry it is when it comes to HG players.
In his time at the club we signed;
Jack Clarke
Ryan Sessegnon
Neither have been good enough.
Also, FP seems to be overseeing a scouting revamp, I imagine this will mean that we improve our scouting in the local area/country.
dovahkiin
Damn you're ugly !
- May 18, 2012
- 3,339
- 89,305
Club statement – Steve Hitchen | Tottenham Hotspur
We can confirm that Technical Performance Director Steve Hitchen has left the Club.
www.tottenhamhotspur.com
GutBucket
Well-Known Member
- May 26, 2013
- 6,844
- 11,542
Pretty short statement, no mention of him scouting for over 100 years for us.Club statement – Steve Hitchen | Tottenham Hotspur
We can confirm that Technical Performance Director Steve Hitchen has left the Club.www.tottenhamhotspur.com
Montalbano
Well-Known Member
- Jan 29, 2018
- 3,928
- 18,702
40 odd words after 10+ years of service. We're becoming experts at the brief outro hahaClub statement – Steve Hitchen | Tottenham Hotspur
We can confirm that Technical Performance Director Steve Hitchen has left the Club.www.tottenhamhotspur.com
