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Management David Pleat Podcast

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Life Goals with Theo Delaney - David Pleat (Part 1)

Theo Delaney is joined by one of football’s most respected sages David Pleat who has approaching a thousand games as a manager and is also know as a shrewd director of football and broadcaster. In this, part one of two, his chosen scorers include Maradona, Mabbutt and Raddy...
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Life Goals with Theo Delaney - David Pleat (Part 2)

Part two of Theo Delaney’s fascinating conversation with one of football’s wisest men David Pleat whose stories span many decades of management, commentating and advisory roles. Scorers include Michael Thomas and Heung Min Son<br>@LifeGoalsTD<br>@theodelaney<br><a...
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David Pleat is probably most remembered for his long association with Spurs for many years (although possibly made his name with THAT run onto the pitch as Luton Manager) starting with putting together the 1987 team which so nearly won a treble but ended with nothing - a wonderful team playing with Clive Allen as a lone striker (very unusual at the time) with an all star midfield behind including Hoddle, Waddle and Ardiles with a contender for our best ever CB partnership of Gough and Mabbutt behind (apologies to Vertonghen and Alderweireld who would run them very close as would England/Beal to an older generation).

He also reveals the truth behind the myth of kerb crawling - never charged despite Sun headlines !

Spent a huge amount of time scouting for Spurs - including recent players such as Son first scouted by Spurs - and still scouts today mainly for younger players despite being well into his 70's

An excellent listen talking about football from the 80's onwards (he first played in the 1950's !) of which he has an encyclopedic knowledge of players and people.

Enjoy !.
 
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bus-conductor said:
Maybe, maybe not?

Mitchell could have flagged him up and Spurs then send Pleat to watch him?

Who knows.

What would be really nice was if football clubs and those involved in the process were more transparent about this kind of stuff.
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In the podcast Pleat is quite clear, he scouted Son but for good reasons he wasn't signed immediately - a couple if years passed before he was actually signed by Spurs (in Mitchell's time).

However I have heard the story elsewhere that Son was unhappy at his (then) German club not allowing him to participate in the Asian Games (to be fair its not a tournament for which its mandatory for clubs to release players. The significance for Son is that if he played and won the tournament he would get an exemption from 2 years mandatory military service which must be started before age 27 - and that military service would probably kill off a highly paid sporting career). So his agent was proactive in seeking an exit from the German club ....... and Spurs were a club he visited. I'm sure that Spurs (Mitchell ?) would have watched a few games before signing whether live or videos, to make the decision to sign him. But I don't think Mitchell 'found' Son for Spurs, much more that Mitchell 'vetted him' when he became available and negotiated with German club and player - but given German club would have been aware Son wanted out that would not have been too difficult.

The one thing Son wanted was the opportunity to compete in the Asian Games (almost certainly a clause in his Spurs contract). And happily So was given time to compete in the 2018 Asian Games, won and was given the exemption from 2 years military service ...... which I'm sure is why Son has wanted to stay at Spurs....... as winning as Captain the tournament and getting 2 years exemption will have been life changing for him.
 
It’s probably been said before on here , but I’m new. DP is on the record as saying he literally
begged on his knees for Daniel to sign some kid from Peterborough ; Ivan something …. He ended up going to Brentford apparently .

A good man .
 
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