The lack of coherency in our recruitment strategy

[doctor stefan Freud]

I originally posted this in summer transfers but it doesn't fit there, I looked at other threads, I can't see where it fits so I've made a new thread, admins if you think there's a better place for this, by all means move it.

I made a post in the Reguilon thread about being hopeful Sessegnon gives him a run for his money next season and a poster pointed out, they'd hope so for the money we spent on him. It's made me realise that despite the fact that we have signed some players with great potential over the last couple of seasons, we as a club despite having limited money have decided to lump so much money on players who are basically vying for one position. Let me preface this by saying, all the players I'm going to mention, as a fan I'm happy we signed them because they're great players but I'm analysing this in terms of the strategy employed by a football clubs recruitment team

Our recruitment seemingly has no plan for how to set the team up and has basically snapped up talents based on potential rather than a coherent line up.

Sessegnon - 25-30 million - Being developed to play LB
Reguilon - 27 million- a LB

So that's 55-60 million spent on a single position to where you can only fit one into the team at a time. On a glance you think well that's great having 2 potentially great players fighting for one spot. It is if your first 11 doesn't have any weaknesses across it to where you can then focus on beefing up the reinforcements but that is clearly not where we are in terms of building a team at the moment.

To further highlight what poor decision making this is, We supposedly also have a left back coming through with huge talent in Cirkin, we already had Ben Davies who is a adequate back up for a left back in terms of if you need to spend your money on strengthening your first team. You only need to replace Ben once your first 11 is at it's peak and you have the resources to begin boosting the bench.

If you're looking to defend the decision, I guess you analyse it and say well Sessegnon can also play left wing but wait a minute, we already have one of our top 2 players there in Son and then we've decided to add yet another player whose best position is left wing in Steven Bergwijn, So;

Bergwijn - 27 million Left wing

That's a huge chunk of change on a position filled by one of our best players and a position we had already recruited a player who could potentially play there should Son be injured despite the fact that we have a glaring hole over on the right wing. Of course what we've tried to do is shoehorn Bergwijn over on the right wing where he has been completely ineffective compared to how good he was for his original club in his usual position.

Then on top of all that we then purchased two midfielders of the same ilk for over 100 million.

Ndombele - 50-55 million - CM
Lo Celso - 45 Million - CM

So these were signed for the famous diamond shape we were going to play which we never played with them in the team, despite the fact we didn't have a defensive midfielder to play at the bottom of the diamond. There's a fairly easy solution here which is to play the 4-3-3 and fit them both in, the problem with that is, the defensive midfielder we've signed isn't a traditional sitting defensive midfielder but more of a ball winning midfielder which would typically have another more defensive style of midfielder next to them as an example we used to have similar with Wanyama and Dembele who both were more known for their ability to win the ball than their attacking exploits.

The other issue is we haven't attempted to play the 4-3-3 yet, we've (despite the two expensive midfielders we've signed) gone for the 4-2-3-1. There's two issues with that, one is that we already had dele for that role though he is one player people would perhaps deem replaceable in our first 11 so that's fine so we're looking at it as well we could play either Ndombele and Lo Celso in that 10 role, despite neither have the skillset of say Eriksen who previously did that sort of role for us or say a Bruno Fernandes who we decided we didn't want - I think that one was the manager. The other issue also with playing these 2 players in the 4-2-3-1 is the aforementioned Hojbjerg problem to where he isn't the sitting midfielder which means when you pair him with the likes of Lo Celso or Ndombele, we are very often opened up in a big way. I know there will be those who will disagree with me on my Hojbjerg assessment on that front and to those I'll say, look who was next to him on the pitch at Southampton, It was Romeu.

In other words we have essentially bought 3 midfielders who seemingly do not click together whether it be diamond, 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3. The one hope we have is having Skipp come in and save the day but he's actually a similar skillset to Hojbjerg and has been sitting next to Tettey all season.

What this means is, we have the same problem in midfield as we do on the left side of the pitch which is. We have multiple players who in the right system can shine and have huge potential. The problem is they're concentrated to a certain number of positions which means we've spent all our money recruiting players who can only fit a certain number of positions and will be tremendously difficult to put all of that money spent on the pitch at the same time instead of spending the money to where you build a coherent first 11 that all fits together.

Our recruitment is simply identifying players with great potential regardless of how they fit and then having no money remaining to fix the remainder of the problems in the team. At least we have 4 left backs though.

Superb post. We are indeed a structural mess. Recruitment should never be opportunistic, but part of a long term strategy to strengthen the squad as effectively as possible. I can’t get excited or optimistic about the club at the moment because I don’t really have faith in the people running it

 

[Shadydan]

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

Poch didn't want a ball winner in there, he tried to put Winks at the base of his midfield like some sort of Pirlo in a diamond, thought he lost the plot in his final season tbh.

 

[gavspur]

Our transfer strategy, in the loosest terms, is like the Mrs buying two packs of Kiev’s as they were on offer ‘buy one get second half price’.. I don’t eat Kiev’s, so the deal is irrelevant as they just take up space and you spend money on them for the sake of the deal, not for the sake of needing those items. And then she doesn’t have the money for Paella cos she spent it on Kiev’s. And now also the nice bread she got is useless without the Paella. ‘But it’s a good deal!’ she says.. But it’s not, cos they won’t get eaten, they’ll eventually be thrown out, so a waste of time and money ever indulging in the ‘deal’.. If she comes back with Kiev’s one more feckin time when I’ve asked for Paella, I tell ya, I’m gonna go ape shit.

Transfers eh?

 

[wrd]

Superb post. We are indeed a structural mess. Recruitment should never be opportunistic, but part of a long term strategy to strengthen the squad as effectively as possible. I can’t get excited or optimistic about the club at the moment because I don’t really have faith in the people running it

Thanks and exactly, I was as excited as anyone that we were going to sign Reguilon, I'd always felt we effectively killed any hope of Doherty being a success under Jose the second we signed Reguilon but when I was in that discussion about Sess and Reguilon, it just crystalized exactly what you said, recruitment should not be opportunistic and because we had already chosen the direction of going down the Sessegnon route then we either needed to stick to our guns on that one and use the little resource we have to sign players to address other areas of the squad or we need to being willing to invest to do both, which is clearly off the table. The only other solution would have been to sell Sessegnon.

Instead now we have a squad which has undergone significant investment and we can only get half that investment on the pitch at any one time whilst the rest of the squad creaks along.

 

[taricco]

Not just player recruitment - our managerial recruitment is all over the place. From pure man managers (Redknapp) to attacking system managers (Poch), to defensive household names (Mourinho), there is no consistency over the type of managerial appointment and hence the style of football. It's a bit Micky Mouse, to be honest.

 

[wrd]

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.

You know I chose not to watch that because I detest city but I must admit you have me intrigued to see the comparative way in which the personnel in those roles speak.

 

[IamSpurtacus]

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.

I agree we signed some great players with a DoF but those examples are why I’m scepitcal things will change simply by having a DoF today

We never held on to those signings or built around them

We sold berbatov last minute after a summer of wrangling and got frazier in return last minute, totally scuppering the manager in terms of timing and quality

Mitchell left because Levy refused to relinquish control. Arnesen jumped to go to a team where he would have more control and a bigger budget and more serious commitment winning

I don’t see that changing with a new DoF. Again, would welcome being proven wrong, but I’m a cynical git in my old age

 

[punkisback]

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.

My point was more that the recruitment team thought he would be the right type of player to replace him when they play nothing alike.

 

[Shadydan]

My point was more that the recruitment team thought he would be the right type of player to replace him when they play nothing alike.

It wasn't anything to do with that Poch wanted Sissoko because he said he needed someone to break the lines with direct running, Sissoko fitted that purpose:

Redirect Notice

www.google.com

 

[curlacious]

Our transfer strategy, in the loosest terms, is like the Mrs buying two packs of Kiev’s as they were on offer ‘buy one get second half price’.. I don’t eat Kiev’s, so the deal is irrelevant as they just take up space and you spend money on them for the sake of the deal, not for the sake of needing those items. And then she doesn’t have the money for Paella cos she spent it on Kiev’s. And now also the nice bread she got is useless without the Paella. ‘But it’s a good deal!’ she says.. But it’s not, cos they won’t get eaten, they’ll eventually be thrown out, so a waste of time and money ever indulging in the ‘deal’.. If she comes back with Kiev’s one more feckin time when I’ve asked for Paella, I tell ya, I’m gonna go ape shit.

Transfers eh?

I feel this somehow relates to Sergei Rebrov.

 

[danielneeds]

Poch didn't want a ball winner in there, he tried to put Winks at the base of his midfield like some sort of Pirlo in a diamond, thought he lost the plot in his final season tbh.

He was literally making it up on the fly to plug the gaps, particularly after Dembele left. No-one can convince me he didn’t want another holding player. His whole system is based on the double pivot enabling the fullbacks to control the flanks.

 

[Shadydan]

He was literally making it up on the fly to plug the gaps, particularly after Dembele left. No-one can convince me he didn’t want another holding player. His whole system is based on the double pivot enabling the fullbacks to control the flanks.

So why didn't we target one then?

We had been crying out for a DM in the 2018/19 season so why wasn't one in his list of targets?

Instead he chose to prioritise two central midfielders and adopted this wierd diamond with Winks at the base of it, bizarre.

He made some bizarre decisions towards the end of his tenure tbh.

 

[hellava_tough]

It’s very simple. Our overall recruitment strategy is to view players as assets that are supposed to appreciate over time. Like investing in property. Rather than concentrate on building a quality, well rounded team for the here and now, we will speculate on young players who may (or may not) explode in value.

Sessegnon, Bergwijn, Clarke, Rodon. Money that could have made a real impact on the starting 11. But that maybe would’ve required spending a large chunk of money on fewer, slightly older players at the peak of their price/value.

To be fair, this approach has worked well for Levy/ENIC over the years.

If you look at the squad they inherited in 2001/02 and then the player trading they conducted over the next 14 seasons, there was a massive increase in player quality and value (despite ups and downs of course).

The problem was/is we became successful!! The recruitment strategies used in the days when we had crap players and our aspirations were to play in the UEFA Cup, aren't relevant now.

By the 2017/18 season, we had found ourselves in a position where we needed to fine-tune a squad to win league titles and this was always going to be more difficult to achieve, than our previous targets.

This is where Levy has come unstuck because he's a builder, not a winner. He just doesn't have the killer instinct, desire or risk-taking mentality to aggressively put together a squad to win a league.

We might make the top 4 again, but we'll never win anything with this guy in charge.

 

[NEVILLEB]

It’s purely ego. He wants a decisive say in the glamourous arm of the business, even at the expense of the business.

I found it really weird how intertwined he was with the players and the Manager. This could easily lead to a fake environment where no one can relax. He won’t just let them get on with it he wants to micromanage which inevitably leads to the Manager losing his place as the authority figure.

 

[dontcallme]

We know we have had a scattergun approach with managers. This has meant we changed our playing style every few years so the transfer policy is looking for quality or good deals over the right fit.

Poch instilled a playing style and we really should have stuck with that. If our signings fit those needs then we'd know who to target.

 

[danielneeds]

So why didn't we target one then?

We had been crying out for a DM in the 2018/19 season so why wasn't one in his list of targets?

Instead he chose to prioritise two central midfielders and adopted this wierd diamond with Winks at the base of it, bizarre.

He made some bizarre decisions towards the end of his tenure tbh.

Why was he so pissed off that summer when we played in Munich, carrying that disposition right into the season? Probably because he wasn’t getting the rebuild he thought we required.

 

[BringBack_leGin]

for some reason

That reason being that he’ll be one of the best players in the country once he gets going.

I have been criticising much of how we’ve approached the transfer market over the past half decade but getting in this boy is one thing I will not criticise, he is going to be special.

 

[Wheeler Dealer]

We know we have had a scattergun approach with managers. This has meant we changed our playing style every few years so the transfer policy is looking for quality or good deals over the right fit.

Poch instilled a playing style and we really should have stuck with that. If our signings fit those needs then we'd know who to target.

But we failed to back or have the DOF to support Poch to push on when we had the opportunity. Poch over delivered, moved the barrier upwards. but those expectations became impossible with our inability to invest when the time was right. This was the catalyst of the demise..

 

[Shadydan]

Why was he so pissed off that summer when we played in Munich, carrying that disposition right into the season? Probably because he wasn’t getting the rebuild he thought we required.

Not according to Dan Kilpatrick, he said that we got his main targets in Sessegnon, Lo Celso and Ndombele.

 

[shelfboy68]

But we failed to back or have the DOF to support Poch to push on when we had the opportunity. Poch over delivered, moved the barrier upwards. but those expectations became impossible with our inability to invest when the time was right. This was the catalyst of the demise..

The year we came runners up to Chelsea was us at our peak the club should have invested and or recruited better.
But normal service saw us just plod on thinking we didn't need anything other than luck, since then the form has declined year on year now it's a circus and we are miles away.