The lack of coherency in our recruitment strategy

[NEVILLEB]

If you’ve seen the All Or Nothing with Man City you’ll see how Txiki Begeristain strategises all the time about the squad in this way. Sees problems (age, contract, form, squad balance) before they arise and identifies and pushes through signings to solve those problems a year or two ahead of time. That’s what we need, clearly.

Even if we get them will they be able to handle Levy?

 

[curlacious]

The Sessegnon and Clarke signings were baffling. £42m on players that we had no real plan for when we desperately needed a proper ball winner in midifeild.

Don’t disagree with you but wasn't that £35m for those two players? (25+10). They were also signing fees in a pre pandemic era — seems worse now because of the current situation.

 

[tototoner]

We have a transfer strategy?

 

[Shadydan]

The Sessegnon and Clarke signings were baffling. £42m on players that we had no real plan for when we desperately needed a proper ball winner in midifeild.

Sess was a Poch target (probably wanted him to replace Rose) Clarke was a club target.

 

[curlacious]

Our recruitment is simply a symptom of the broader issue at the club that won’t simply be remedied by a DoF or change in manager

As long as we have a property developer / accountant overseeing football team operations, we will continue to sign and sell players based on the accounting book value

Will Levy relinquish control to a DoF? Does a leopard change its spots?

The club needs an entire cultural shift, similar to the type wrought by the change in ownership at Chelsea, city and even Leicester

Levy’s management of the stadium build showed what a control freak he is. ITK indicates he had a hand in wanting the reintegration of winks and dele despite their poor form and behavior (at least in winks case)

We’ve had a DoF before - we still dallied in the transfer market and did deals late in the window, hamstringing the manager and his plans

Why will that change suddenly? Why will we start signing the best young players like The Red Bull and Dortmund teams when we haven’t in the past? Why will we start signing finished products?

I honestly think as long as we’re run by a property developer using the club to enhance the value of the stadium and surrounding property, who is not willing to make the type of investment required to compete, we will not seriously challenge or win because the psychology at he very top is wrong - and it all stems from there

Does that mean levy is terrible or hasn’t done good things to progress the club? No. But I question whether he has the desire or aptitude to do what it takes to get us over the line.

Poch was an aberration - not the norm. We got lucky with him and the gelling of signings made previously.

I may be wrong, but the sense we’re not a club serious about winning is one of the reasons I’m so ambivalent about who we appoint and what structure we have. Until there is a shift in culture - which likely requires a change in owner - I don’t see things changing

I agree with a lot of this, well said. I would add however that I think there’s a lot of evidence to point to a sporting director making excellent signings for us. Commoli got us Modric, Berbatov and Bale. It can clearly work with Levy, just needs the right person. Whether Levy appoints that person is the big question for me.

 

[wrd]

Recruitment is always gonna look a bit ropey when you've bought a load of players to play Poch's style of football and then Mourinho comes in. It's almost a completely different set of skills needed.

That's why the best clubs have their style of play as a non-negotiable, either governed by a Sporting Directory there for the long-term or the club's culture and identity and you bring the coach and the players to slot into that.

We're kinda in a no man's land at the moment with feet in different ideas, all ending up in a murky mess.

Yeah see this is where I think we let the board off the hook by giving them the caveat of the difference in player style but if you analyse the way we spent money then you can see that doesn't account for it in a lot of cases.

- The midfield certainly down to stylistic clash, I can accept that but we didn't buy the right midfielder to compliment what we already had but as we say, stylistic clash.

- LB we spent 30 million on Sessegnon, an attacking fullback, we then spent another 30 million on an attacking LB. I think as a club we're not in a position to where we can do that and I think that possibly it could be argued that because we had already made the decision to sign Sessegnon that if we wanted to go the route of using an attacking LB then we should have made a go of it with him despite Reguilon obvious quality. This one isn't down to style clash

- We spent 27 million on Bergwijn despite the fact we already have Son in his position and is of a similar ilk, we also again had that Sessegnon signing who could deputize for Son. Again I don't think that can be laid at the door of style clash.

And then the one I keep mentioning where we decided to sign Doherty as a wing back and have Davies sitting only to then Sign Reguilon. In that situation I think you can analyse that to say that as a back 4, those two fullbacks won't work certainly not without a DM who can fit into the back 3. We then compounded the issue of Doherty by signing a winger who simply will not track back. Again all these issues are in 1 window, the manager essentially had a window where his signings were clashing with own style

Now you made the point in the post you quoted me on that we shouldn't have signed Sessegnon, I think when I look at our business, I tend to agree with you in the sense that if we removed those sessegnon and doherty signings, then the rest can all fit and work. However because we signed those players first then I just feel like a club our size has to make them work don't we? Like I wonder if we had to make the best of those signings and then because of that it means for example we don't sign Reguilon but at least we could use that money to sign the CB we need. The fullback options aren't as great as reguilon but at least the team all fits together.

I guess I'm trying to say, look at City; they signed Bravo for silly money, he didn't work so they signed Ederson. We simply can't do that, we'd either have to find a way to sell Bravo or make him work within our team because City not only could sign Ederson but they could sign the other players they needed. Where as we tried to buy the replacement and then couldn't sign the other players we needed.

 

[danielneeds]

Yeah see this is where I think we let the board off the hook by giving them the caveat of the difference in player style but if you analyse the way we spent money then you can see that doesn't account for it in a lot of cases.

- The midfield certainly down to stylistic clash, I can accept that but we didn't buy the right midfielder to compliment what we already had but as we say, stylistic clash.

- LB we spent 30 million on Sessegnon, an attacking fullback, we then spent another 30 million on an attacking LB. I think as a club we're not in a position to where we can do that and I think that possibly it could be argued that because we had already made the decision to sign Sessegnon that if we wanted to go the route of using an attacking LB then we should have made a go of it with him despite Reguilon obvious quality. This one isn't down to style clash

- We spent 27 million on Bergwijn despite the fact we already have Son in his position and is of a similar ilk, we also again had that Sessegnon signing who could deputize for Son. Again I don't think that can be laid at the door of style clash.

And then the one I keep mentioning where we decided to sign Doherty as a wing back and have Davies sitting only to then Sign Reguilon. In that situation I think you can analyse that to say that as a back 4, those two fullbacks won't work certainly not without a DM who can fit into the back 3. We then compounded the issue of Doherty by signing a winger who simply will not track back. Again all these issues are in 1 window, the manager essentially had a window where his signings were clashing with own style

Now you made the point in the post you quoted me on that we shouldn't have signed Sessegnon, I think when I look at our business, I tend to agree with you in the sense that if we removed those sessegnon and doherty signings, then the rest can all fit and work. However because we signed those players first then I just feel like a club our size has to make them work don't we? Like I wonder if we had to make the best of those signings and then because of that it means for example we don't sign Reguilon but at least we could use that money to sign the CB we need. The fullback options aren't as great as reguilon but at least the team all fits together.

I guess I'm trying to say, look at City; they signed Bravo for silly money, he didn't work so they signed Ederson. We simply can't do that, we'd either have to find a way to sell Bravo or make him work within our team because City not only could sign Ederson but they could sign the other players they needed. Where as we tried to buy the replacement and then couldn't sign the other players we needed.

I think Sessengon was a bit of strange case. By all accounts we’d been tracking him for years and thought we were landing one of the best of his age in the country. But when he got here it was clear that he was lacking confidence and fitness and was nowhere close to being ready to play in the first team. So, that’s why loaning him out and signing Reguilon became an option.

 

[GobbyJJ]

Just seen that Luis Campos is no longer working for Lille. Surely this is the best talent spotter in football. GET HIM NOW LEVY

 

[wrd]

I think Sessengon was a bit of strange case. By all accounts we’d been tracking him for years and thought we were landing one of the best of his age in the country. But when he got here it was clear that he was lacking confidence and fitness and was nowhere close to being ready to play in the first team. So, that’s why loaning him out and signing Reguilon became an option.

Yeah I just wonder if a club of our stature can afford to do such a thing. I think if we had all other areas of the pitch sorted then that's a fantastic idea but when the club still has a lot of weaknesses in the starting 11 then that's where you look at it and say it's a big error to invest such a large chunk of the money we have available to us into 1 position.

 

[Cavehillspur]

Just seen that Luis Campos is no longer working for Lille. Surely this is the best talent spotter in football. GET HIM NOW LEVY

Will probably end up at Roma with Jose

 

[mr ashley]

Recruitment is always gonna look a bit ropey when you've bought a load of players to play Poch's style of football and then Mourinho comes in. It's almost a completely different set of skills needed.

That's why the best clubs have their style of play as a non-negotiable, either governed by a Sporting Directory there for the long-term or the club's culture and identity and you bring the coach and the players to slot into that.

We're kinda in a no man's land at the moment with feet in different ideas, all ending up in a murky mess.

This is where we’ve gone wrong more than anything.
Academy teams should feed into first team using the same approach.
Link between every team and the one above
Sporting director oversees all teams, appoints coaches who can dovetail and work within these parameters.

Sadly losing John McDermott so soon after sacking Poch may have destabilised this for us.

We really need to appoint someone who can do this- right now I think levy wants to do some of it and reluctantly lets hitchen deal with recruitment.

But it’s totally wrong. It’s lead us to hire Jose when the squad wasn’t set up to play the way he wanted, and started to recruit players than don’t fit or just duplicate players.

We need to decide on our identity and approach and stick to it.
If that’s going back to signing young players from the championship and France and Holland then so be it.
Play aggressive, energetic and attacking football with technical players.
Accept that some may leave but worry less because the replacements are either already in place or at least identified.
Basically run the club in the style of Dortmund/Ajax

 

[DiVaio]

The Sessegnon and Clarke signings were baffling. £42m on players that we had no real plan for when we desperately needed a proper ball winner in midifeild.

And what proper ball winner player do you buy when both Poch and then Mourinho didn't want player like that?

 

[Wsussexspur]

The most amazing thing I find is the guy who is in charge of our transfer strategy got a promotion! That’s one of the biggest clues that Levy doesn’t have a clue what he is doing as since Hitchen took ”control” of our transfers as chief scout and now head of football development or whatever his title is our activity in the transfer market has been nothing but a complete shit show and has left us with a massively unbalanced squad

 

[Wsussexspur]

The Sessegnon and Clarke signings were baffling. £42m on players that we had no real plan for when we desperately needed a proper ball winner in midifeild.

Didnt we have reports regarding the Clarke transfer that this was very much a Levy deal. Potch didn’t want him yet Levy for some reason had massive thing for him so pushed the transfer through.

No reflection on Clarke just obviously massive question marks if he will ever be good enough to make it with us.

 

[mumfordspur]

The recruitment team also decided Mane was too expensive and Sissoko was a good replacement...

Why do 2 posters disagree with this?

 

[Wheeler Dealer]

Recruitment strategy, well its not really a strategy is all about re-sale values as opposed to getting a player that fulfills the area of need / weakness..

 

[mumfordspur]

Anyway following on from wrd
this is from memory (too tired/pissed to check) but didnt we once have 4 strikers around the time of Bent but years later we went at least of season with 1 striker?

 

[danielneeds]

Didnt we have reports regarding the Clarke transfer that this was very much a Levy deal. Potch didn’t want him yet Levy for some reason had massive thing for him so pushed the transfer through.

No reflection on Clarke just obviously massive question marks if he will ever be good enough to make it with us.

I think it was probably either Hitchen or Pleat telling Levy the boy could be a star and him feeling we needed to find another young British talent.

 

[danielneeds]

And what proper ball winner player do you buy when both Poch and then Mourinho didn't want player like that?

How do you know they didn’t? Poch played Dier there, bought Wanyama, and clearly had to change the side to accommodate Winkssoko .

 

[Shadydan]

Why do 2 posters disagree with this?

Because that's been gone over so many times, Mane wanted more money than our highest paid player Kane at the time so it was never going to happen. Sissoko was the agreed replacement by Poch and Levy.