Steve Hitchen

[Shadydan]

Shadydan Hi Shandy, I thought you may be struggling to find this as you were very keen to talk about football with me then disappeared when I asked you to respond to the above. Let me know how you get on.

C x

Ok the obssession is a bit embarasing, probably just stop tagging me in random threads desperately trying to bait me purely for some oneupmanship fetish you have, shall we try that?

In regards to your post, all this shit has already been answered countless times in this thread, you need to add more nuance to this argument as to whether Hitchin uneathered gems or not. We know he didn't for the most part that's not up for debate, what is up for debate is the reason why we didn't manage to secure players and get them over the line when we already had deals in place which isn't purely down to Hitchin. Not everything is down to him as he worked in a period of austerity where the club didn't spend money because of the stadium, the managers picking poor targets (Ndombele, Lo Celso, Gedson etc...) and Levy just bein a pain in the arse - funny how no-one's gonna pick up on the fact that I have openly criticised Levy in this thread countless times but yeah whatever ENICbot blah blah...

I think where he can be blamed is probably being to pally pally and not trusting his own work and not putting his foot down and some players like the Nkoudou and Njie's who were utter gash lets be honest. As a DOF everything will fall on your head naturally if you are head of recruitment but if your CEO is constantly interfering in your job or the club are cutting back on costs then it makes your job extremely difficult.

You have to ask yourself why every report you read he has gowing references in the game from the managers he's worked including Conte with and the club really liked him yet some fans who watched a documentary in which what he said about the January transfer window which got taken massively out of context seemingly have made their minds up about him and think that he can't do his job properly.

 

[Carlito Brigante]

He has worked under the same management as his predecessors and he has worked for other rather than Levy.

Its a simple question. Hidden gems found by Steve Hitchen over his career. Go.

 

[NorseYid]

Been saying that all along in this entire thread but people still want to blame Hitchin, it's so weird.

I think though Levy has found a better DOF for the way he wants to the club to conduct business, from the looks of it Paratici is a bit of an Italian wheeler deeler who loves a deal, I don't know whether that's a good thing for Spurs or not especialyl considering Levy vetoed a lot of Hitchen's suggestions.

He can hire as many directors as he likes.

As long as they are not allowed to do business within a delegated framework from football considerations only, then Spurs will keep being and doing the same.

Apart from the odd 2 Redknapps and Pochettinos every 10 years

 

[The Outsider]

The logic on here is very confusing ....

It's Levy's fault because he stopped Hitchin buying good players
It's Hitchen's fault because he wasted all Levy's money on bad players

Fact is Hitchin got enough good players on a limited budget to get us into a CL final ... was that Hitchin good? Levy good? Poch good? Players good? or were they all, as some on here would like to believe, completely useless?

 

[The Outsider]

It was Levy's fault that we had a self imposed transfer embargo under Poch for a while, and it's Hitchen's fault that when the purse strings finally did open, we spent it on GLC, Ndombele and Sessegnon. We suffered lacklustre window after lacklustre window under him.

So all the blame with none of the praise, much like most of your posts in fact. If you could only be cup-half-full instead of cup-half-empty you'd find life so much more fun.

 

[The Outsider]

Yawn. Another weirdly angry post from you when people point out basic facts. If only you could be slightly more cordial with people rather than oddly spikey whenever somebody criticises your overlords. We're talking about Hitchens being sacked after a long period of failure. What great signings do you feel he made? Can you name actual tangible contributions aside from stuff like 'we got to a CL final!' which was more down to the manager than us having some great, balanced squad?

And hey, if you're happy with the work he did, that's fine. Go wax lyrical about him in a corner and tell everyone how great Aurier, GLC, Ndombele, Sessegnon, Fernandes, Doherty are. It sounds like a fun convo.

Why is it angry? You are obsessed with misery ....

I'm happy that Spurs fans are now annoyed when we fail to reach Europe's top competition ... we couldn't say that for fifty years 1961 until 2011, then Hitchin's signings managed it four more times in less than a decade.

So just what long period of failure were you referring to?

As I said you are always glass-half-full it's just a bit depressing.

 

[The Outsider]

You're telling me I'd find life more fun because I don't think Hitchen did a good job. There's nothing even inherently negative about that, he just didn't. Our signings under him were mostly flops. You can't even sit there and come up with positives that don't involve factors not directly related to recruitment.

I'm not going to define success and failure by what we were fifty years ago. The club sacked multiple managers for finishing outside of Europe. Clearly they define success differently to you, which appears to be we were shit once so we should be happy with what we get. After the CL final our squad declined badly and has continued to decline for years until we've landed Conte.

I'm glass half full about factors deserving positivity. Conte appointment for example. I'm not glass half full about Hitchens, whose most successful signing was probably Lucas. I'm not gonna sit here and blow smoke up the arse of the guy who oversaw the GLC, Ndombele and Sessegnon window.

Yup five appearances in the CL, our only five since 1961 - he didn't do a good job.

Can't argue with your logic, when you say "I'm not going to define success and failure" so not based on our history, then you just become irrelevant.

Out of interest how do you define Spurs success - compared to City, Liverpool, Utd? no wonder you're always so negative.

 

[The Outsider]

What players that he recruited were crucial to our CL qualification? Or was he propped up by signings made by his predecessor and one of the best strikers in PL history coming through the youth academy? Do you think that because we did well on the pitch that equates to every aspect of the club immediately being ran well? Are you that blinkered?

I'm not going to define success or failure by your definition because it's bullshit and the actual club won't do it either. They sent a fucking letter out to the fans because of how shit we'd been and talked about how we aren't living up to expectations. We didn't build a mega stadium to be a conference league club. Failing to finish even inside EL places is absolutely 100% a failure, whether you like to admit it or not.

I'm still waiting on you naming Hitchens signings which were an undeniable success. I suspect I may be here for a while.

What's wrong with you? He's equally responsible for all the good ones and all the bad ones.

Blah, blah, blah we're shit blah, blah, blah .... is that your only thought?

If you won't define success or failure based on our 100 years of history, what the feck will you define it on?

We built a mega stadium and have yet to see a full seasons income from it, let alone the opportunity to invest that income into the squad, yet here you are saying failing to finish inside the top 6 for the first time since 2010 is a failure by Steve Hitchin .... hmmmm .... remember before he arrived we had only finished in the top 6 twice between 1990 and 2010 .... oh I forgot our history doesn't matter to you.

Not saying that's all on him it isn't, but clearly that's hardly failing is it?

Any of the signings you haven't picked out as "failures" would then be by your own selection be a success. 43 players signed contracts between 2017 and 2021 you selected the 'failures' ergo it's all those that are left that are successes. Or are you saying all 43 were shit?

 

[The Outsider]

All apart from Lucas yes..... and he's borderline.

Thought the Bale fellow was OK - might be worth another season?

 

[The Outsider]

Who were the good ones? How many times do I have to pose this question to you until you actually give me a genuine answer? Who do you rate out of the Hitchens signings? It's incredible listening to you try and spin this like a terrible politician, his job was recruitment right? Who did he recruit who were good value for money footballers?

You're summing up all the good stuff we've done as a football club in recent years and bizarrely giving Hitchens far too much credit. He wasn't responsible for appointing Poch, or managing the youth academy which saw Kane emerge, or even signing guys like Eriksen or Lloris who were key to these sides. He signed most of the players who saw us slide DOWN the table, not up.

And yes, he failed. He failed at his job to bring in quality footballers to improve our first team. Why you're so passionately arguing against this statement is beyond me. The man's gone to relegation threatened Everton and we're rid of him, would you want him back? Were you happy with his work?

CANT YOU READ? #658

Any of the signings you haven't picked out as "failures" would then be, by your own selection, a success. 43 players signed contracts between 2017 and 2021 you selected the 'failures' ergo it's all those that are left that are successes

These are all the players who signed Pro terms, Loan deals or Contracts in the last five years. You named the "failures" the rest are a success.

FYI - The ones in bold got us to a CL final ... but what does that matter?

ARRIVALS 15/16
Players		Transfer sum
Heung-min Son	Bay. Leverkusen	£27.00m
Toby Alderweireld	Atlético Madrid	£14.40m
Clinton N'Jie	Olympique Lyon	£12.69m
Kevin Wimmer	FC Köln	£5.40m
Kieran Trippier	Burnley	£4.41m
DeAndre Yedlin	Sunderland	End of loan
Alex Pritchard	West Brom	End of loan
Josh Onomah	Spurs U18	-
ARRIVALS 16/17
Players		Transfer sum
Moussa Sissoko	Newcastle	£31.50m
Vincent Janssen	AZ Alkmaar	£19.80m
Victor Wanyama	Southampton	£12.96m
Georges-Kevin N'Koudou	Marseille	£9.90m
Pau López	Espanyol	Loan fee:
Cameron Carter-Vickers	Tottenham U23	-
Harry Winks	Tottenham U23
ARRIVALS 17/18
Players		Transfer sum
Davinson Sánchez	Ajax	£37.80m
Lucas Moura	Paris SG	£25.56m
Serge Aurier	Paris SG	£22.50m
Fernando Llorente	Swansea	£13.59m
Juan Foyth	Estudiantes	£11.70m
Paulo Gazzaniga	Southampton
Cameron Carter-Vickers	Sheff Utd	End of loan
Josh Onomah	Aston Villa	End of loan
Georges-Kevin N'Koudou	Burnley	End of loan
Cameron Carter-Vickers	Ipswich	End of loan
Kyle Walker-Peters	Tottenham U23	-
ARRIVALS 18/19
Players		Transfer sum
Josh Onomah	Sheff Wed	End of loan
Cameron Carter-Vickers	Swansea	End of loan
Oliver Skipp	Tottenham U23	-
ARRIVALS 19/20
Players		Transfer sum
Tanguy Ndombélé	Olympique Lyon	£54.00m
Steven Bergwijn	PSV Eindhoven	£27.00m
Ryan Sessegnon	Fulham	£24.30m
Giovani Lo Celso	Real Betis	Loan fee:
Jack Clarke	Leeds	£9.90m
Gedson Fernandes	Benfica	Loan fee:
Japhet Tanganga	Tottenham U23	-
Alfie Whiteman	Tottenham U23	-
Michel Vorm	Without Club	-
ARRIVALS 20/21
Players		Transfer sum
Giovani Lo Celso	Real Betis	£28.80m
Sergio Reguilón	Real Madrid	£27.00m
Matt Doherty	Wolves	£15.12m
Pierre-Emile Höjbjerg	Southampton	£14.94m
Joe Rodon	Swansea	£10.89m
Carlos Vinícius	Benfica	Loan fee:
Joe Hart	Burnley	free transfer
Gareth Bale	Real Madrid	loan transfer

 

[Deuterz]

CANT YOU READ? #658

Any of the signings you haven't picked out as "failures" would then be, by your own selection, a success. 43 players signed contracts between 2017 and 2021 you selected the 'failures' ergo it's all those that are left that are successes

These are all the players who signed Pro terms, Loan deals or Contracts in the last five years. You named the "failures" the rest are a success.

My god you're a nightmare to 'converse' with. Nothing about your own opinion on which of these players were actually good, just some nonsensical way to measure success. When you look at that list, do you see success? Do you see good recruitment?

Actually don't answer. I really don't care.

 

[The Outsider]

My god you're a nightmare to 'converse' with. Nothing about your own opinion on which of these players were actually good, just some nonsensical way to measure success. When you look at that list, do you see success? Do you see good recruitment?

You can't even grasp the concept that you're talking utter shit - that's just sad.

Hitchins oversaw the signing of thirteen players that took Spurs to their (so far) only CL Final in our history - what a useless cunt he was, is that really what you think?

 

[The Outsider]

You realise he didn't sign most of the players you highlighted right? Like Hitchens never signed Son or Toby .. at all.

Hitchens joined us in 2017. Notice how the hit rate of your list goes sharply downwards and the only real major success post Hitchens is probably Lucas, and even that's stretching it?

And I see you're still running with the idea that the players Hitchens signed were the ones who got us to the CL final. Incredible stuff.

He returned as chief scout in February after leaving us in 2010, I know my history.

Your opinion says everything after 2017 is worse .... yet arguably our most successful season since 1961was 2019 .... agenda much?

So players signed by Hitchin who were in the CL squad didn't in fact get us there - just how deluded are you? That bizarre logic is Incredible stuff indeed

You clearly are beyond educating so let's just leave it there - you think he was shit - I think he played his part in a very decent five year spell.

It was time to move on and no question other clubs will be beating down his door ... but hey what do they all know. Raumdeuterz knows best right.

 

[The Outsider]

post after being proven totally wrong and offering nothing of substance other than must defend club at all costs on every single issue, even when very clearly mistakes were made. Try to patronise, patronise again, and when all patronising fails walk away clearly fully believing you've really argued your case well.

Nobody reading your posts, not a single person, will actually have been convinced Hitchens did a good job or had much to do with the CL final. But hey, when you include the players Hitchens didn't sign, it all looks great!!!

Yup the head of scouting and recruitment has nothing to do with the players scouted and recruited - as I said Raumdeuterz knows best - and as he says not a single person can have a different opinion - arrogant and stupid, well played.

 

[Furball man]

 

[Football Chap]

View: https://twitter.com/FabrizioRomano/status/1717134383218389424

Hitchen now Unique Sports Group agency Director of Football

Ryan Sessegnon, Brennan Johnson, Brandon Austin, Luca Gunter and Max Robson are all with USG