bus-conductor good post with plenty of relevant content. Thanks.
I've excerpted the list of players bought since Mitchell left because it represents signings made without a true, hardline, DoF structure, and instead on a system where the Head Coach outlines the type of players and positions he wants, and the Chief Scout prepares a list of options.
Of course the DoF structure is intended to ensure continuity regardless of who the head coach is, whereas our current structure is far more Head Coach-led.
Sissoko appears to have been an opportunistic Levy buy (Ncastle were going down). Whoever scouted him, paid that large a transfer fee, and gave him two lucrative contracts, is an idiot. My considered opinion is that the prime culprit is Daniel Levy.
Lucas Moura and Aurier were both opportunistic buys because PSG wanted to sell. Moura was a January punt. Aurier was bought as the "Ivorian Kyle Walker" to replace our outgoing player at half the price to provide an athletic RB to rotate with the more technical & unathletic Trippier.
Llorente was brought in as the highly experienced back up for Kane. Now Hitchen's job was to find somebody better, and ideally younger, but it's entirely possible that Poch vetoed all the alternative options.
Davinson Sanchez was considered perhaps the best young pure defender in Europe when we prised him out of Ajax. We'd already heard Mourinho highlighting his lack of ball-playing ability, so we knew he wasn't a de Ligt-style defender. But many people thought we'd pulled off a coup because if we'd waited another year it was possible Sanchez would have cost even more. With hindsight, we probably did pay too much, but the club was buying a young, fast, CB who'd already played in a European final to provide a succession plan for Verts & Toby. Surely this is precisely the kind of move a DoF would have advocated?
Foyth and Sessegnon were also talented young players bought with the future in mind, as any DoF would want. Foyth was almost certainly not the product of Hitchen's scouting, but of Poch's contacts in the game. Sessegnon was wanted by lots of PL clubs. What we don't know is whether Hitchen & Poch saw him as a LB to eventually replace Rose and/or Davies, or as a wide AM.
Ndombele was one of the hottest talents in Europe. The club did very well to sign him. Now, should our scouting and medical staff have identified any physical issues? Yes. But I wonder how much of the criticism Ndombele gets is because of his gait, his running style. Ndombele lopes, but that forward leaning posture often enables him to escape from pressure. And then he gets his head up and plays aggressive forward passes better than anyone else at our club.
Lo Celso had just had an outstanding season at Betis, and was clearly a Poch target. I think he will become a key Spurs midfielder. Ndombele is 23 now, and GLC 24. Both should have their peak years ahead of them.
Bergwijn is clearly a Hitchen signing, with Amazon revealing we'd been scouting Stevie & stalking his family for at least 2 years. The jury is still out, but he clearly has talent and is much better at linking play than Moura. Again, I think a DoF approves this recommendation from his Chief Scout.
Hojbjerg is a Mourinho signing.
Doherty is a Mendes signing.
The only older players on that list, with little resale value, are Llorente (a short term option to fill a squad place) and Doherty (who Mourinho had the hots for, and Mendes facilitated).
All the rest are young, talented, players. We can argue about how talented they are. And it's always the case that some signings are mega flops, a few are huge successes, and most are in the good to meh range.
bus-conductor What do you think a DoF would have done differently?
With regards to Sissoko I don't agree. We were linked with him long before we bought him on the last day (in fact we were linked with him all the way back to when he was still at Toulouse). He could not have escaped Poch's attention when having one of his rare good games against us in that infamous last day 5-1 slabbing away at relegated Newcastle the last day of the previous season and also caught (stupid) people's eye that summer at the Euro's.
He was also very openly after powerful direct AM's like Mane and Zaha and I just think Sissoko was someone down on that Athletic, powerful, direct list.
Why Pochettino has spent £30m on Sissoko
Spurs have been lacking pace in wide areas, and after missing out on Wilfried Zaha, Moussa Sissoko became the next big target to provide that
www.independent.co.uk
As ever, you can say our budget played it's part in working down that list and ending up with Sissoko but also as ever, the recruitment person (Mitchell or maybe Hitchen by then) and Pochettino are without doubt more culpable in terms of Sissoko even being on any list that he shouldn't have been anywhere near - although there is one tiny caveat - I don't think anyone scouted him as a CM/DM, he was always more of a wide attacker or occasionally a lateral 8 in a CM3 - using him there is completely on any manager stupid enough to do it...cough Poch, Mou
With regard to the rest I think the process was always pretty similar, manager and Head of Recruitment (Mitchell then Hitchen) discuss what the team needs and come up with a list of players between them, I would guess/hope the HOR is the one coming up with the more "scout needed" solutions but higher profile players like Sissoko, Moura, Aurier, Ndombele etc would almost certainly be ones the manager is familiar with already or has maybe even suggested for the list? Then Levy puts the financial parameters on the list and negotiates/works his way down it based on what the financials allow.
Depending on the DOF as to what they'd do differently. I favour a DOF with power who oversees an entire philosophy and then recruits coaches to match that, combined with also overseeing a proper recruitment team - Head of Recruitment, analytics dept and scouting dept.
What you'd hope is that a proper, more thorough recruitment team would be able to cast a wider net and come up with better value, better match for the philosophy, better match for the coach options etc.
I think we were better at this when we did have DOF type structures, we've also had good recruitment and analytics people (not always simultaneously), that's how we climbed above teams like Liverpool, Woolwich etc for a number of seasons, and Liverpool are a great comparison, a club run basically along the same fundamental principles as us, bought by an investment group who specialise in Sport with the ultimate aim of adding value, but they are now doing the smarter things that we were doing 5-6-7 years ago (and have done them smarter than we did even then - but also appointed Klopp, a better, smarter coach than any we've ever appointed - as good as Poch was before losing his way)
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