I think that Hitchen gets a lot more stick than he deserves.
Scouting/signing is a process. You get judged on results, but the scouting team are not really responsible for the results, in the sense that they don't coach the player, do their physio, or get their shit together like family might.
We also don't really know who made what decisions during the Pochettino-era. When Pochettino joined, first there was the tail end of Baldini. If he was running the process then we could fairly clearly say it was not very good at identifying talent, or convincing them to come. After Baldini exits, Mitchell comes along from Soton. He had worked alongside Pochettino, so there was a pre-existing relationship. Yay. But we don't know, of his signings, who did he pick, who were we already looking at, and what the process was. Given the way we were signing players, there seemed to be some solid use of data (and his subsequent long time at Red Bull would indicate that he knows how to do it properly), and we definitely had a plan. But he left quickly, apparently not a fan of being the fifth wheel in the Levy-Pochettino bromance. After that, we got a committee which was led by Pochettino. And that, I think we can clearly say, did NOT work. We couldn't find decent talent, and the guys we did sign didn't make a big difference for the squad. Pochettino was a brilliant coach, but the Fergie role of doing everything was clearly beyond him. And so we moved to a committee with Pochettino, Levy, and Hitchen. And signed no one that summer. Based on rumours and stories after the fact, it seems that Pochettino would not accept substitutes, but none of his preferred players wanted to join. So, nothing happened. And the squad burned the candle at both ends, got top 4, a CL final, and a major case of burnout. We then belatedly started to rebuild the following summer. Targets were identified and signed, data seemed to be used as the players were all prospects which had plenty of other suitors. But, the rebuild had started too late and Pochettino needed to go. Then we get Mourinho, and a summer where we seemed to mostly be signing the kind of guys he liked, but clearly on a COVID-imposed budget. We don't know how much was club directed, how much was Mendes required, or who asked for which players.
If we don't know what Hitchen was told to look for, then we cannot judge if he was any good. If he was asked to find aging warhorses for a bus-parking asshole, then hell, he seems to have done quite well. If his job was to find young talent to rebuild the squad, then perhaps not. If his job was to do both at the same time, then you can only feel sorry for the guy.
My point is just that you cannot just look at the players signed and draw conclusions. If we don't know the manager's requests and board restrictions then we don't know what he was being told to do. And if we don't know who the short lists for each position were we cannot judge how well he and his team identified talents vs Levy and Mourinho's ability to get them to join the club. And once players joined, we don't know how well they were coached, or how their fitness was taken care of. Neither of those things are Hitchen's job, but they affect how we judge the player. Football isn't a video game, and it isn't what the media says it is. It's actually really bloody complicated and we never, ever get the true stories of what goes on until many years later, if at all.
