Hindsight lol
When asked, our members overwhelmingly voted 9/10 for the last transfer window
When asked, our members overwhelmingly voted 9/10 for the last transfer window
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The right model must be:
Find players in positions the team needs.
Assess players as to whether they're good enough.
Buy players for reasonable marker value (note to levy: do NOT Rey to rip clubs off or annoy them so we lose out).
Play players.
Finally, and crucially, if, after reasonable time, the player is not good enough, sell asap and go back to step 1. Do NOT let jetsam hang around on high wages as they're transfer value plummets.
Honestly, how does Hitchen still have a job with us?
Glancing at his wiki, it points out that he "played a part" in signing Modric for us and Suarez for Liverpool... but I suspect that's overstating his involvement. And other than that what in the fekking hell has he got to show for all his work? He needs to go. Fans may argue about managers and players but I think most agree that our scouting has failed time and time again. How come they escape the guillotine?
It's embarrassing how bad our recruitment team is! Before we can beging to poach the best players it's abundantly clear we need to poach Leicester or whoever's backroom staff.
Glancing at his wiki, it points out that he "played a part" in signing Modric for us and Suarez for Liverpool... but I suspect that's overstating his involvement. And other than that what in the fekking hell has he got to show for all his work? He needs to go. Fans may argue about managers and players but I think most agree that our scouting has failed time and time again. How come they escape the guillotine?
It's embarrassing how bad our recruitment team is! Before we can beging to poach the best players it's abundantly clear we need to poach Leicester or whoever's backroom staff.
I think the honest answer is that he is very much in line with Levy's views on the marketplace and what a good transfer looks like.
Which of course means any replacement will face the same problem. The player marketplace has evolved and in both personnel structure and philosophy we haven't.
It is shocking how dependent we still are on the spine of our team from five years ago given how much has been spent in the transfer market.
The only players you'd even describe as reliable performers are probably Lucas Moura, PEH, and Reguilon, and we know the latter two were moves spurred and heavily influenced by Mourinho, and we gave away a quality asset at a position of need to get one of them, and put ourselves at risk of a buy-back on the other.
Lucas Moura is a club legend for life of course, but he's a limited player who would be difficult to make a centerpiece for the team. For that to be our best piece of transfer business (and it was a clever piece of Levy-ing plucking him at a discount in the Neymar fallout, full credit) over the past five years is utterly shocking given the position the team has been in.
As long as Levy keeps meddling, nothing will change.
Levy was here before Hitchen and we got better players as they were scouted by previous scouts. Hitchen is the problem and is easily sacked. Levy is a much more difficult problem to resolve.
Not to undercut the conversation, and I am absolutely as guilty of this as anyone else, but it's really stupid the way conversations here always assign the responsibility for particular transfers to whatever person in the club's leadership fits the necessary narrative. We know next to nothing about the actual truth of those matters.
The sporting structure as a whole is antiquated and insufficient. I leave it there.
Hitchen doesn’t sign the cheques. Levy does. If Hitchen puts his scout report for Grealish or Bruno Fernandes on Levy’s desk, is it his fault that Levy dicks around and misses out?
Our scouting system is not the problem. We look at all the same players as everybody else. The problem is that Levy dithers and insists on value, always missing out on the top talents.
You mention Leicester, we looked at Maddison. We looked at Tielemans. We looked at Pereira. Everyone knew these players were good. But we didn’t want to spend so we got Gedson Fernandes, Aurier etc, cheap players with connections to agents that Levy knows well. He thinks he is smarter than the football people, that is our problem.
Instead of just buying Bruno for £50m in summer 2019 he chose to go for some convoluted loan to buy deal for Lo Celso that saved us £10m but got us a vastly inferior player. He needs to understand that the odd £10m on a transfer fee is chump change compared to the money we get from playing in the CL. You need top players to reach that competition. He still doesn’t understand that, he thinks that Kane, Son and Hugo is enough and you can just shove 8 players in between them and win matches.
A net spend of more than £10m automatically makes a Tottenham window at least an 8/10 no matter how shite they all might have turned out to be tbh.
I am just saying that with those two players there was talk that we were interested in PEH for awhile and seeing how the deal went down with us swapping KWP and paying little actual cash that seems like a very Levy style move. I don't see any indication in Jose in that move at all.
Reguilon is not the type of player that Jose usually would like, especially with his one FB deep, one pushing forward style he seemed to prefer and having Aurier/Doherty already on the right. Also, with the talks that Levy was having with RM about Bale, it seems more likely the Reguilon move came out of that with RM looking for a place to sell him and Levy seeing another chance for a deal because of RM wanting him out so clearly.
I agree that Levy was responsible for us not getting Grealish and maybe others. However my main issue is the players we have bought which have been recommended by Hitchen, his team or the Manager. Whilst every team has bad buys, we have had far too many poor purchases. A few years ago we did much better with Lloris, Vertonghen, Walker, Toby, Dele, Wanyama and Son. Levy was in charge in those days and yet we got class players. Levy I agree has a lot to answer for in his transfer dealings but the Scouting system is not producing the players we need. That needs putting right and whilst I understand Levy not wanting to take action whilst we are Managerless, he needs to overhaul the personnel responsible for recruitment as it is not working.
Do you really think that Levy makes playing decisions like whether he wants a LB that plays deep or pushes up? I can understand him wanting players that make financial sense like resale values but not playing styles. Reguilon looked a good buy until recently when he has really looked poor.
Reguilon looks exactly what you would expect a player who has only really played 1 full season in Spain to look like. At his age (25 this year) , he really should have bags more experience that he does.
I wonder how much different things would have been had played Sessegnon all season; who at 20 years old has more experience under his belt. Imagine what Ryan is going to be like in 4 years time - Sergio's current age.
I hope you are right. I liked the purchase of Sess but was less than impressed with his performances the previous season. It remains to be seen whether he will come back and cement a starting place. I do hope you are right but he will have to perform at a much higher level than when he last played for us. I understand mistakes from young players but saw little confidence or evidence that he had it in him to make it.
When Bale first arrived I immediately saw glimpses of a good player but he found it hard to cement a starting position. I did not see that in Sess but look forward to be proved wrong.
Probably get slaughtered for this but I would try and get Harry Redknapp as head of recruitment. He genuinely does know how to spot a player.
It's just as important for the person in that role to stay in their lane and let others do their jobs as it is for the chairman, and 'Arry is as bad as Levy in that regard. He'd be in the papers blaming the manager for everything that goes wrong twice a week.
No I think Jose makes that decision which is what I was saying.
if our first team players were as good as some believe then why is it our top 6 teams are not buzzing around to steal them of us (Harry Kane apart)
if Dele is unhappy and that good then why is he not linked with Manchester , Liverpool etc only PSG because of Potch.
I blame our scouting for the dross we keep buying, we are linked with players like Nkouduo, Njie who we chase for about a year then out them in a shorter period. Was Sissoko really worth 30mil
we play like a Sunday league side with no idea or passing skills (‘no offence to Sunday sides) and bottle it every time we need to win.
if Dele is unhappy and that good then why is he not linked with Manchester , Liverpool etc only PSG because of Potch.
I blame our scouting for the dross we keep buying, we are linked with players like Nkouduo, Njie who we chase for about a year then out them in a shorter period. Was Sissoko really worth 30mil
we play like a Sunday league side with no idea or passing skills (‘no offence to Sunday sides) and bottle it every time we need to win.
Poch had nothing to do with recruitment hence he said you may as well change his title to coach. The manager does not have time to scout and sign players anymore they need someone they trust and works with them to be in charge of recruitment.