Steve Hitchen

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HITCHENS IN OR OUT?


  • Total voters
    195
bus-conductor 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 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.


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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BTW bus-conductor bus-conductor I note you've left Jack Clarke off that list of post-Mitchell signings.

Now, Clarke was clearly the the type of signing a DoF would in principle make: young, talented, not many first team appearances but with a high potential ceiling.

Since Clarke was playing for Bielsa, I initially assumed this was a Poch signing, based on his relationship with El Loco and Leeds' financial situation.

But Poch allegedly refused to even watch Clarke in training, and he was almost immediately loaned back to Leeds & then to QPR.

So Clarke must have been a Chief Scout backed by Levy, but not by the Head Coach, signing. In other words, the type of signing a hardline DoF would make in the club's long-term interests, regardless of what the Head Coach thought.

I hope Clarke comes good, and he's young enough to do so. But we paid a lot of money, allegedly c£10 million, for a player who is still all potential.

As ever, we will probably never know the truth but my guess is this was us trying to get back to those Walker, Dier, Alli, Rose type signings - young (mostly) HG, bought for tomorrow more than today, outside the manager's input maybe with Hitchen entirely responsible (or maybe even Pleat who seems to advise us young English players)?- unless this was Bielsa tipping off Poch who tipped off the recruitment people who moved on it, but Poch still wanted him to get a years football elsewhere on loan to develop?

I'd go with the former guess though. For what it's worth, I didn't really get it, he'd not been getting in the Leeds team, had had that curios illness, he had some ability but nothing earth shattering from what I could see from YT reels and there were much better punts we could have taken with 10m IMO.
 
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.


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)

Elias Elias
I added the important bolded bit after you read it.
 
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.


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.



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?

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)
Thanks, you make some good points. Fundamentally though, I don't believe a coach like Mourinho would ever properly report to a DoF, just as Guardiola doesn't report to Txixi Begiristain in any meaningful sense.

And Shitty's record in bring through hugely talented young players has been pathetic under the Pep/Txixi supposed DoF regime.

In addition, having spent most of my career watching management consultants like McKinsey raking in huge amounts of cash for recommending management restructures with changing responsibilities and then fucking off for a year. Before being invited back in to change the system back to how it was before they recommended a massive restructure, I have ZERO belief in management structures being the solution to problems.

I believe it comes down to talent and judgement, the quality and calibre of - crucially - your scouts and recruitment staff. But there's still a huge amount of luck.

Who would have thought the Mo Salah we saw at chavski, who was a bit better in the slower Serie A, would then come back to the PL and become one of the best strikers in the world? Certainly Klopp didn't. So is their chief scout a prophetic genius?

Steve Walsh famously identified the likes of Kante and Mahrez for Leicester. He was then given £150 million to spend at Everton and blew it on the likes of Siggy (for £40 milion), Cenk Tosun and Theo fucking Walnut.

Even the supremely gifted & mentally tough Luka Modric took time to bed in at Spurs, and then suffered a full season of being slagged off at Real Madrid.

I'm simply not convinced that signing players the head coach doesn't want, or who don't fit their system, is ever a recipe for success. And all clubs are at risk of the head coach being fired and the new coach not wanting some of the playing squad.
 
Thanks, you make some good points. Fundamentally though, I don't believe a coach like Mourinho would ever properly report to a DoF, just as Guardiola doesn't report to Txixi Begiristain in any meaningful sense.


I don't know if that's true about Mourinho, he may be confrontational and very "alpha" but at most of his clubs he's pretty much understood and played the hierarchical game. He may bitch and whine to the press (or to his agents etc who will feed to the press) but he has invariably had to work under DOF type structures, he's rarely ever had that SAF, Wenger type power has he?

In the set up we have now, personality wise he's definitely the alpha in the room, but look at what happened January, he wanted a striker, he was given Bergwijn by Hitchen. Levy may be Mr anti-charisma, with a poor understanding of footballers (?) but he's never let a manager bully him into hocking the family silver yet and so far there's not much sign of that happening here, for all Mourinho's alpha-ness.


I believe it comes down to talent and judgement, the quality and calibre of - crucially - your scouts and recruitment staff. But there's still a huge amount of luck.

This would seem to be where we were once pretty good, at least in concept and a reasonable amount of the time, in practice, but have been pretty poor the last few years. This is what frustrates me the most. Levy pretty much had the formula. As I said above, a clusterfuck of circumstances and decisions have seen the people making judgements and the process deteriorate. I thought last summer we were reverting back to something like it, Poch's comments about him reverting to "head coach" signing young promising players like Nd, GLC, Sess etc, but maybe not?

I've no problem with Levy running us as a sustainable business and keeping to the financial parameters he does, I don't believe he scouts players and chooses them, but I think he's made some really poor key structural, personnel, process and strategy decisions in the last 3 years. If we are going to be run the way we are, he needs to put smarter people and a better apparatus in place to squeeze the value out of the resources.

I'm simply not convinced that signing players the head coach doesn't want, or who don't fit their system, is ever a recipe for success. And all clubs are at risk of the head coach being fired and the new coach not wanting some of the playing squad.

I don't think anyone's advocating signing players a head coach categorically doesn't want, but a head coach needs to understand that he's part of a process and it's about finding the best solutions for the club, team, short, medium and long term, balancing football and financial, and he won't necessarily be the biggest voice in that process, and the flip side of that is you don't necessarily just fire the coach if results aren't fantastic, you base it more on performances, which are more indicative of his coaching/tactics.
 
Is this guy good enough? I don't know much about his background but he seems like an old school scout, a bit out of step with the more modern analytics-guided approach at Liverpool and others.

On the other hand I feel like we've mostly gone for the right kind of player - 21-24 year old break outs like Reguilon and Lo Celso should be our market, but we also need to convert on the likes of Grealish and Fernandes more often. If Leicester can build a top 4 squad, we should be able to do it.

I guess this window will be mostly about whether we can hang on to Kane and Son, and shift any bad apples. If we can do that, and integrate some of our most talented youngsters like Skipp, Tanganga, Rodon, we can have a decent season.
 
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