Steve Hitchen

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HITCHENS IN OR OUT?


  • Total voters
    195
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I'm sure it is just optics by the club but still. Fair play.
2 jokers who’ve done fuck all 2 months later
 
Does this dude have a job for life or is he actually accountable for our transfers? Since 2017:

Aurier
Sanchez
Lucas
GLC
Tanguy
Sessegnon
Clarke
Bergwijn
Doherty
PEH
Rodon
Reguilon

I'd say that's 1 possibly 2 you could say are half-decent. I'm not including this summer's buys as it's too early to judge and we'll put them down to Paratici eventually.

If he's the chief scout/technical director why isn't anybody pulling him up on why most of the above have been so shit?
 
Fabio coming in is probably the best thing to have happened to Big Steve.

He was quite clearly unqualified for the management bit that came with his role. So having Fabio here to handle that bit means that he can focus on doing scouting/managing the scouts. And he is probably learning from just working with Don Fabio.
He seems to be the Harry Winks of scouting. Fucking useless but let's keep him around because he's a nice lad, proper Spurs etc. No wonder you get players like Winks hanging around doing fuck all for years when Hitchen appears to be doing exactly the same thing in his role.
 
He seems to be the Harry Winks of scouting. Fucking useless but let's keep him around because he's a nice lad, proper Spurs etc. No wonder you get players like Winks hanging around doing fuck all for years when Hitchen appears to be doing exactly the same thing in his role.

Here's something that will surprise you, he's actually highly thought of in the club, his network is generally very good, it not his fault that Levy refused to take his 1st choice targets.

Seems our fanbase have really weird energy towards Hitchen and use that 5 second clip of him saying he hates Jan transfer window and take it massively out of context in order to blame him for our recruitment, can't blame him if the chairman repeatedly changes his vision/managers and blocks transfer targets.

Anyway Paratici is in now to aid recruitment and with Hitchin's knowledge and contacts we are much better for it.
 
Here's something that will surprise you, he's actually highly thought of in the club, his network is generally very good, it not his fault that Levy refused to take his 1st choice targets.

Seems our fanbase have really weird energy towards Hitchen and use that 5 second clip of him saying he hates Jan transfer window and take it massively out of context in order to blame him for our recruitment, can't blame him if the chairman repeatedly changes his vision/managers and blocks transfer targets.

Anyway Paratici is in now to aid recruitment and with Hitchin's knowledge and contacts we are much better for it.
Hitchen has always been a good scout, just not a good negotiator it seems.
 
Here's something that will surprise you, he's actually highly thought of in the club, his network is generally very good, it not his fault that Levy refused to take his 1st choice targets.

Seems our fanbase have really weird energy towards Hitchen and use that 5 second clip of him saying he hates Jan transfer window and take it massively out of context in order to blame him for our recruitment, can't blame him if the chairman repeatedly changes his vision/managers and blocks transfer targets.

Anyway Paratici is in now to aid recruitment and with Hitchin's knowledge and contacts we are much better for it.

Who were his first choice targets?
 
Who were his first choice targets?

Every player we have been linked to over the past few years since he first came in the job in 2017 so think along the lines of Batshuayi, Tielemans, De Ligt, De Jong, Rabiot etc...either wages were too high, Levy didn't want to spend on them or Poch outright refused them

Of course the only time Levy buckled and got the managers first choice targets was in 2019 (Ndombele, Lo Celso and Sessegnon)

He was responsible for Liverpool getting Luis Suarez when he worked for them, that's the sort of level he operates on.

He hasn't been helped by the constant change of direction from the board and Levy which is a big reason why we have failed in the transfer market recently because we have signed players for the manager, not the club and we've had 4 managers in 4 years, absolute mess. As I said before, now with Fabio in charge now or player and manager recruitment so we should improve in that regard.
 
Every player we have been linked to over the past few years since he first came in the job in 2017 so think along the lines of Batshuayi, Tielemans, De Ligt, De Jong, Rabiot etc...either wages were too high, Levy didn't want to spend on them or Poch outright refused them

Of course the only time Levy buckled and got the managers first choice targets was in 2019 (Ndombele, Lo Celso and Sessegnon)

He was responsible for Liverpool getting Luis Suarez when he worked for them, that's the sort of level he operates on.

He hasn't been helped by the constant change of direction from the board and Levy which is a big reason why we have failed in the transfer market recently because we have signed players for the manager, not the club and we've had 4 managers in 4 years, absolute mess. As I said before, now with Fabio in charge now or player and manager recruitment so we should improve in that regard.
you've made some good points but can't help but feel he's still dinning out on the Suarez success a bit.

I get that the chairman has likely blocked several of his transfers but he has still be involved and approved some of the crap we've bought in. I don't belive you need to be a scout to 'discover' already established talent like Batshuayi, Tielemas, De Ligt, De Jong, etc., you just need to be able to negotiate.
 
you've made some good points but can't help but feel he's still dinning out on the Suarez success a bit.

I get that the chairman has likely blocked several of his transfers but he has still be involved and approved some of the crap we've bought in. I don't belive you need to be a scout to 'discover' already established talent like Batshuayi, Tielemas, De Ligt, De Jong, etc., you just need to be able to negotiate.

Negotiating a transfer deal normally mean we are willing to match what the player and club wants within our budget, if there is competition who have higher prestige than us and are willing to pay more money then it's never easy - in our case a few of those times the players we highlighted had better offers, not much we can do about that...the other times we simply didn't want to pay what the club/player wanted - again can't point the finger at Hitchen for that.

Hitchen can only work with the tools he was given, he was bought into the club in a period where we didn't want to spend money because of the stadium so his remit was to look for deals which benefit the club from a financial perspective, it's only since 2019 when we broke our TR on Ndombele early in the window where he had free reign because we had money to spend.
 
Every player we have been linked to over the past few years since he first came in the job in 2017 so think along the lines of Batshuayi, Tielemans, De Ligt, De Jong, Rabiot etc...either wages were too high, Levy didn't want to spend on them or Poch outright refused them

Of course the only time Levy buckled and got the managers first choice targets was in 2019 (Ndombele, Lo Celso and Sessegnon)

He was responsible for Liverpool getting Luis Suarez when he worked for them, that's the sort of level he operates on.

He hasn't been helped by the constant change of direction from the board and Levy which is a big reason why we have failed in the transfer market recently because we have signed players for the manager, not the club and we've had 4 managers in 4 years, absolute mess. As I said before, now with Fabio in charge now or player and manager recruitment so we should improve in that regard.

With the exception of Tielemans (whom Poch reportedly turned down), all the players you mentioned simply had their minds/wallets focused on bigger clubs.....

Tbh i think Hitchens has mainly suffered from being stuck in the no-mans-land between being chief scout but not being a DOF; whilst Poch & Jose (and now Conte) likely all had more clout than him too.

As far as being a negotiator goes I seriously doubt he was any more than an extention of Levy's instructions (rather than having any significant autonomy).

The original earlier point about him just being made a meme by the docu is spot on though.... Rarely even got a mention by fans before then.
 
Negotiating a transfer deal normally mean we are willing to match what the player and club wants within our budget, if there is competition who have higher prestige than us and are willing to pay more money then it's never easy - in our case a few of those times the players we highlighted had better offers, not much we can do about that...the other times we simply didn't want to pay what the club/player wanted - again can't point the finger at Hitchen for that.

Hitchen can only work with the tools he was given, he was bought into the club in a period where we didn't want to spend money because of the stadium so his remit was to look for deals which benefit the club from a financial perspective, it's only since 2019 when we broke our TR on Ndombele early in the window where he had free reign because we had money to spend.

Again plenty to agree with here, but I think it's quite clear that - central to all this - we are slow in reacting to (scouting?) many of the players we're talking about if/when they hit our radar.

By the time Chavs, Juve whoever come sniffing about; it's game over.
 
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Negotiating a transfer deal normally mean we are willing to match what the player and club wants within our budget, if there is competition who have higher prestige than us and are willing to pay more money then it's never easy - in our case a few of those times the players we highlighted had better offers, not much we can do about that...the other times we simply didn't want to pay what the club/player wanted - again can't point the finger at Hitchen for that.

Hitchen can only work with the tools he was given, he was bought into the club in a period where we didn't want to spend money because of the stadium so his remit was to look for deals which benefit the club from a financial perspective, it's only since 2019 when we broke our TR on Ndombele early in the window where he had free reign because we had money to spend.

The bloke has spent hundreds of millions. Perhaps his 3rd and 4th choices need to improve.
 
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