Managing Director Football: Fabio Paratici

[Metalhead]

Lots of US sports franchises are able to ...I should know, Im. a fan of the Raiders!

But....by their nature, do franchises inspire inter generational loyalty like football clubs do in this country?

 

[Albertbarich]

Can we get Pleat in as an interim measure and then get a top class DOF in? I think that would be the most sensible option - we clearly lack direction in our transfers.

Pleat is still around. You often see him scouting under 21 games.

 

[SUIYHA]

In the summer we spent £93m on three players - Jack Clarke, Ryan Sessegnon and Tanguy Ndombele. Last night only one of those players even made it onto the bench - he was not called upon. The others are struggling to break into the QPR side on loan and have been left out in favour of a 17 year old kid respectively. We also spent £27m on Steven Bergwijn - who I do agree has potential, but our manager deemed him only worthy of a 12 minute cameo at the end even though we were barely creating anything at all.

People are more than happy to slag off Levy/ENIC for not investing, but we spent £120m on these four players (plus Lo Celso, plus the Gedson loan). £120m on players that are not in the side. For £120m, we could have had:

Bruno Fernandes - £47m
Tyrone Mings - £20m
Danny Ings as cover for Kane - £20m
And then Allan Saint Maximin and Daniel James as young, pacey options to bring off the bench and develop into future stars - £15-20m each

Total - £122m

How people laughed at Man Utd for spending £130m on Harry Maguire and Aaron Wan-Bissaka. Overpriced they may have been, but the fact is they would go straight into improving our first team whilst we spent similar money on players that cannot even get onto the pitch. Youri Tielemans (£40m), Raul Jiminez (£32m) - there are plenty of others who would have fit into our budget if we'd tried to sign them.



If that doesn't show you how desperately we need to overhaul our scouting system then I don't know what will. Arguably we haven't had a really good transfer window in the last five years which is shocking. Clearly there was money there, we have just spent it very badly. And things are never going to get better if we don't do something to fix these kinds of mistakes. A Sporting Director / DoF is the first step IMO. That being said - it should come with the clear caveat - he reports to the manager and not the other way around. The manager should be able to choose him, the manager should be able to fire him if he doesn't like him. Getting that part wrong hurt us back in the day.

 

[emiley heskey]

I think the young players who played a lot of games during their early 20s and teenage period, tend to be more successful in our teams rather than a young player who just breakthrough for his club for one season and we bought them the next.

Example: Recent signings like Vincent Janssen, Nkoudou, Njie, Jack Clarke, Ndombele all these players only had one good season under their belts for their previous clubs. For Clarke, Nkoudou, Njie - they were not even first choice player for their clubs. No wonder they were/are struggling in our team.

Players like Eriksen, Dele Alli, Son, Lo celso, even Bergwjin has played a lot of games before coming to our clubs. And they were successful at the end. Even I think at the end, Sessgnon will be successful for us because of his vast experienced in championship level. But I can't say the same for Gedson, Ndombele sadly.

 

[DiVaio]

In the summer we spent £93m on three players - Jack Clarke, Ryan Sessegnon and Tanguy Ndombele. Last night only one of those players even made it onto the bench - he was not called upon. The others are struggling to break into the QPR side on loan and have been left out in favour of a 17 year old kid respectively. We also spent £27m on Steven Bergwijn - who I do agree has potential, but our manager deemed him only worthy of a 12 minute cameo at the end even though we were barely creating anything at all.

People are more than happy to slag off Levy/ENIC for not investing, but we spent £120m on these four players (plus Lo Celso, plus the Gedson loan). £120m on players that are not in the side. For £120m, we could have had:

Bruno Fernandes - £47m
Tyrone Mings - £20m
Danny Ings as cover for Kane - £20m
And then Allan Saint Maximin and Daniel James as young, pacey options to bring off the bench and develop into future stars - £15-20m each

Total - £122m

How people laughed at Man Utd for spending £130m on Harry Maguire and Aaron Wan-Bissaka. Overpriced they may have been, but the fact is they would go straight into improving our first team whilst we spent similar money on players that cannot even get onto the pitch. Youri Tielemans (£40m), Raul Jiminez (£32m) - there are plenty of others who would have fit into our budget if we'd tried to sign them.



If that doesn't show you how desperately we need to overhaul our scouting system then I don't know what will. Arguably we haven't had a really good transfer window in the last five years which is shocking. Clearly there was money there, we have just spent it very badly. And things are never going to get better if we don't do something to fix these kinds of mistakes. A Sporting Director / DoF is the first step IMO. That being said - it should come with the clear caveat - he reports to the manager and not the other way around. The manager should be able to choose him, the manager should be able to fire him if he doesn't like him. Getting that part wrong hurt us back in the day.

Yeah, fantastic post with hindsight after year. Bet in summer you would choose Ndombele, Sess and Clarke over them

 

[danielneeds]

In my opinion we need a Sporting Director that understands the premiership. Dortmund and Bayern are well run clubs because all their decisions are made from ex players but also ex german players that understand what works in the Bundesliga.

We had Arnesen who was very reminiscent of my approach in Champ Manager back in the day; who bought players that never really fitted in the way we played as a team and also most of them weren't suited to the Premier League.

Then we had Comolli who for some reason paid 16.5m on a striker that isn't suited to playing for a team at home whose opposition play deep but brought in two of the most technically gifted players we have ever seen at the club in Modric and Berbatov. He still however had a habit of leaving the squad unbalanced in certain areas.

Baldini proved a failure and wasted what should of been our opportunity to build a great team
but again failed to understand the Premier League and it's demands on players.

If we are thinking of reintroducing a DOF then I would prefer it be an Englishmen or someone who has actually played in this country and understands the level what is required.

I’m not so sure it matters if the SD is English, if you look at the most successful transfer set-ups at the moment, Liverpool, Leicester, they both have much bigger statistical analysis departments than us. Crunch the numbers, find the players doing best work in each positions then send experienced and trusted scouts to watch them and build up a profile, creating a list of your preferred targets. It’s pretty simple, although the analysis software has to get more sophisticated every year like an arm’s race because if everyone is getting directed to the same players the competition will be fiercer than ever.

 

[Albertbarich]

In the summer we spent £93m on three players - Jack Clarke, Ryan Sessegnon and Tanguy Ndombele. Last night only one of those players even made it onto the bench - he was not called upon. The others are struggling to break into the QPR side on loan and have been left out in favour of a 17 year old kid respectively. We also spent £27m on Steven Bergwijn - who I do agree has potential, but our manager deemed him only worthy of a 12 minute cameo at the end even though we were barely creating anything at all.

People are more than happy to slag off Levy/ENIC for not investing, but we spent £120m on these four players (plus Lo Celso, plus the Gedson loan). £120m on players that are not in the side. For £120m, we could have had:

Bruno Fernandes - £47m
Tyrone Mings - £20m
Danny Ings as cover for Kane - £20m
And then Allan Saint Maximin and Daniel James as young, pacey options to bring off the bench and develop into future stars - £15-20m each

Total - £122m

How people laughed at Man Utd for spending £130m on Harry Maguire and Aaron Wan-Bissaka. Overpriced they may have been, but the fact is they would go straight into improving our first team whilst we spent similar money on players that cannot even get onto the pitch. Youri Tielemans (£40m), Raul Jiminez (£32m) - there are plenty of others who would have fit into our budget if we'd tried to sign them.



If that doesn't show you how desperately we need to overhaul our scouting system then I don't know what will. Arguably we haven't had a really good transfer window in the last five years which is shocking. Clearly there was money there, we have just spent it very badly. And things are never going to get better if we don't do something to fix these kinds of mistakes. A Sporting Director / DoF is the first step IMO. That being said - it should come with the clear caveat - he reports to the manager and not the other way around. The manager should be able to choose him, the manager should be able to fire him if he doesn't like him. Getting that part wrong hurt us back in the day.

You sort of argue against yourself here.

Its often stated poch didnt want clarke but levy brought him as an investment, hence he was loaned out.

And berjwijn is the telling one here. He was brought whilst jose was here and he still isn't playing him. Its not scouts we need as much as a coherent plan between a dof or levy and the head coach.

This has been going on for 20 years and were still debating the same thing. Every manager we have had has been let down by transfers. Go back and remember the same arguments when comolli and baldini were here. Remember all the disasters in the transfer windows, the moaning the jokes about us leaving it until the last second. Remember bidding for aguero on transfer deadline day and when of course they turned it down we were trying to buy Charlie adam with five minutes to spare.

There is one common denominator here. Its not poch, its not mourinho. I understand why people defend levy as we have the best stadium in the world and the club has grown but I wish people would stop trying to blame different managers for these transfers when the same thing keeps happening no matter who is the manager.

A director of football is the way to go 100% but for him to be effective levy has to stay out of it. He should be giving them a budget and letting the director of football and head coach choose the players. He never will and never has though and yet as we go through manager after manager after manager with no trophy somehow were still debating whose at fault.

Only in january when the whole world could see we were desperate for a second striker did we not get one and look what happened. And its fine for jose to pretend he wasn't that bothered at the time but as soon as it went wrong he used it as an excuse. When we talk about a lack of a winning mentality at the club someone should look into how these managers earn millions and get short changed in the market time and time again but defend it at the time only to use it as an excuse later.

Remember poch not having the pressure of winning a title because that's not whata expected of him? And we wonder why we never win anything.

 

[SUIYHA]

Yeah, fantastic post with hindsight after year. Bet in summer you would choose Ndombele, Sess and Clarke over them

Much as I'd like to be, I'm not a multi-millionaire football executive who's sole job it is to scout and analyse which players that are out there will improve the team and fit in to the culture of the club. The reason I want a DoF is specifically so that we're not looking back with hindsight at mistakes like these when other teams with better scouting setups are reaping the rewards.

Summer 2015 - Man Utd spent big money on Depay, Schweinsteiger, Darmian and Schneiderlin - whereas we signed Alli, Alderweireld, Son and Trippier for a fraction of the cost. Better scouting = better results. I want to see things like that happening again but Lo Celso aside, our recruitment has been dreadful since Mitchell left.

 

[danielneeds]

Much as I'd like to be, I'm not a multi-millionaire football executive who's sole job it is to scout and analyse which players that are out there will improve the team and fit in to the culture of the club. The reason I want a DoF is specifically so that we're not looking back with hindsight at mistakes like these when other teams with better scouting setups are reaping the rewards.

Summer 2015 - Man Utd spent big money on Depay, Schweinsteiger, Darmian and Schneiderlin - whereas we signed Alli, Alderweireld, Son and Trippier for a fraction of the cost. Better scouting = better results. I want to see things like that happening again but Lo Celso aside, our recruitment has been dreadful since Mitchell left.

I’d say our scouts have been identifying good players - we could easily have Grealish and Fernandes in our squad now at a cost of £75m between them and they’d be worth double that. It’s more a failure to identify where our weaknesses have been before it’s too late.

 

[SUIYHA]

You sort of argue against yourself here.

Its often stated poch didnt want clarke but levy brought him as an investment, hence he was loaned out.

And berjwijn is the telling one here. He was brought whilst jose was here and he still isn't playing him. Its not scouts we need as much as a coherent plan between a dof or levy and the head coach.

This has been going on for 20 years and were still debating the same thing. Every manager we have had has been let down by transfers. Go back and remember the same arguments when comolli and baldini were here. Remember all the disasters in the transfer windows, the moaning the jokes about us leaving it until the last second. Remember bidding for aguero on transfer deadline day and when of course they turned it down we were trying to buy Charlie adam with five minutes to spare.

There is one common denominator here. Its not poch, its not mourinho. I understand why people defend levy as we have the best stadium in the world and the club has grown but I wish people would stop trying to blame different managers for these transfers when the same thing keeps happening no matter who is the manager.

A director of football is the way to go 100% but for him to be effective levy has to stay out of it. He should be giving them a budget and letting the director of football and head coach choose the players. He never will and never has though and yet as we go through manager after manager after manager with no trophy somehow were still debating whose at fault.

Only in january when the whole world could see we were desperate for a second striker did we not get one and look what happened. And its fine for jose to pretend he wasn't that bothered at the time but as soon as it went wrong he used it as an excuse. When we talk about a lack of a winning mentality at the club someone should look into how these managers earn millions and get short changed in the market time and time again but defend it at the time only to use it as an excuse later.

Remember poch not having the pressure of winning a title because that's not whata expected of him? And we wonder why we never win anything.

It's not about signing players that the manager doesn't want - it's about giving an extra pair of eyes and ears to identify top targets and to go out to approach them when the manager is too busy with the day-to-day coaching and management of the match-day squad. I'm sure Mourinho or whoever is managing our club will have at least heard of most players that are proposed as signings, but it goes way deeper than that. Even if a player looks talented, you need someone in management that can really dig deep on them. Do they have attitude/fitness problems? Are they likely to adapt to a new league? Are they likely to impact upon the development of a more talented youngster that we already have? And even if you have identified them as a good player - chances are that a lot of other rivals have as well - you need someone on the sales front to go out and charm them to sell the dream. Man Utd wanted Berbatov and Bale, lots of teams wanted Modric, Van Der Vaart was at one of the biggest clubs in the world, even Soldado was seen as a bit of a coup - we were able to secure these players because they'd bought into the Tottenham project - that required a personal touch from someone like Baldini, Comolli and even Levy himself to go out and seal the deals.

When Pleat started signing players Hoddle didn't want - it fell apart. Same with Arnesen and Santini, same with Jol and Comolli etc. But if the manager picks the DoF and has the option to fire him if he doesn't like what is being done, then I think we'd see real results.

 

[Albertbarich]

It's not about signing players that the manager doesn't want - it's about giving an extra pair of eyes and ears to identify top targets and to go out to approach them when the manager is too busy with the day-to-day coaching and management of the match-day squad. I'm sure Mourinho or whoever is managing our club will have at least heard of most players that are proposed as signings, but it goes way deeper than that. Even if a player looks talented, you need someone in management that can really dig deep on them. Do they have attitude/fitness problems? Are they likely to adapt to a new league? Are they likely to impact upon the development of a more talented youngster that we already have? And even if you have identified them as a good player - chances are that a lot of other rivals have as well - you need someone on the sales front to go out and charm them to sell the dream. Man Utd wanted Berbatov and Bale, lots of teams wanted Modric, Van Der Vaart was at one of the biggest clubs in the world, even Soldado was seen as a bit of a coup - we were able to secure these players because they'd bought into the Tottenham project - that required a personal touch from someone like Baldini, Comolli and even Levy himself to go out and seal the deals.

When Pleat started signing players Hoddle didn't want - it fell apart. Same with Arnesen and Santini, same with Jol and Comolli etc. But if the manager picks the DoF and has the option to fire him if he doesn't like what is being done, then I think we'd see real results.

I agree with most of that except the last paragraph which I'll come to after but my point still stands.

20 years of this. And if you have spent a few years around spurs Internet you will know these arguments have been going on for most of that. Buying players the manager doesn't want or need has been a staple of levys reign, as has not strengthening positions the team was desperate for.

We can blame all these folks over the years but the pattern has rarely changed and there has been one consistent- levy. Its the way he works so while id love a superscout to come in its no good if that man isn't working in alignment with the manager , see Paul Mitchell.

Onto your last paragraph id do it the other way. In my ideal world in the summer mourinho would go and before thinking about a head coach we would bring in a director of football. He would then appoint a Head coach who he would work with. That director of football would be the man to hire and fire managers and oversee the youth development side of things. The timing would be perfect with mcdermott gone.

 

[DiVaio]

Much as I'd like to be, I'm not a multi-millionaire football executive who's sole job it is to scout and analyse which players that are out there will improve the team and fit in to the culture of the club. The reason I want a DoF is specifically so that we're not looking back with hindsight at mistakes like these when other teams with better scouting setups are reaping the rewards.

Summer 2015 - Man Utd spent big money on Depay, Schweinsteiger, Darmian and Schneiderlin - whereas we signed Alli, Alderweireld, Son and Trippier for a fraction of the cost. Better scouting = better results. I want to see things like that happening again but Lo Celso aside, our recruitment has been dreadful since Mitchell left.

And how Ndombele and Sessegnon are wrong scouting?
Ndombele is a perfect replacement for Dembele, proven for 2 seasons in one of top5 league and europe, without any fitness issues
Sessegnon is still young, very talented player, homegrown and will be class left-back in the future.

 

[emiley heskey]

And how Ndombele and Sessegnon are wrong scouting?
Ndombele is a perfect replacement for Dembele, proven for 2 seasons in one of top5 league and europe, without any fitness issues
Sessegnon is still young, very talented player, homegrown and will be class left-back in the future.

Ndombele actually has fitness issues. Look at what his previous coaches told about him

 

[DiVaio]

Ndombele actually has fitness issues. Look at what his previous coaches told about him

He also didn't have any injury for 3 years before transfer

 

[mr ashley]

It's not about signing players that the manager doesn't want - it's about giving an extra pair of eyes and ears to identify top targets and to go out to approach them when the manager is too busy with the day-to-day coaching and management of the match-day squad. I'm sure Mourinho or whoever is managing our club will have at least heard of most players that are proposed as signings, but it goes way deeper than that. Even if a player looks talented, you need someone in management that can really dig deep on them. Do they have attitude/fitness problems? Are they likely to adapt to a new league? Are they likely to impact upon the development of a more talented youngster that we already have? And even if you have identified them as a good player - chances are that a lot of other rivals have as well - you need someone on the sales front to go out and charm them to sell the dream. Man Utd wanted Berbatov and Bale, lots of teams wanted Modric, Van Der Vaart was at one of the biggest clubs in the world, even Soldado was seen as a bit of a coup - we were able to secure these players because they'd bought into the Tottenham project - that required a personal touch from someone like Baldini, Comolli and even Levy himself to go out and seal the deals.

When Pleat started signing players Hoddle didn't want - it fell apart. Same with Arnesen and Santini, same with Jol and Comolli etc. But if the manager picks the DoF and has the option to fire him if he doesn't like what is being done, then I think we'd see real results.

I think the problem with this approach is what happens when the manager loses his way.
If we follow your approach through, that would mean having potentially fire and the recruit a new manager and a new Sporting director, which would destabilise the playing staff even more. For example, if we had a DoF who was part of Pochs team (let’s say Bielsa, for arguments sake), when Poch lost his way, the entire back room staff inc the DoF would have to go.
In most clubs, the Sporting director is responsible for player recruitment, and involved in hiring the coach. That’s essential to maintain some continuity, and to have a buffer between the owners and the coach.
Done well, the coach and SD are part of the transfer committee, working within an agreed budget.
If/when the coach leaves, the SD recruits another coach who fits the vision.
You might not always appoint a big-name coach with this approach, but you’d rarely get coaches moaning about not getting the players they want, because they’d know what they signed up for.

 

[fishhhandaricecake]

In the summer we spent £93m on three players - Jack Clarke, Ryan Sessegnon and Tanguy Ndombele. Last night only one of those players even made it onto the bench - he was not called upon. The others are struggling to break into the QPR side on loan and have been left out in favour of a 17 year old kid respectively. We also spent £27m on Steven Bergwijn - who I do agree has potential, but our manager deemed him only worthy of a 12 minute cameo at the end even though we were barely creating anything at all.

People are more than happy to slag off Levy/ENIC for not investing, but we spent £120m on these four players (plus Lo Celso, plus the Gedson loan). £120m on players that are not in the side. For £120m, we could have had:

Bruno Fernandes - £47m
Tyrone Mings - £20m
Danny Ings as cover for Kane - £20m
And then Allan Saint Maximin and Daniel James as young, pacey options to bring off the bench and develop into future stars - £15-20m each

Total - £122m

How people laughed at Man Utd for spending £130m on Harry Maguire and Aaron Wan-Bissaka. Overpriced they may have been, but the fact is they would go straight into improving our first team whilst we spent similar money on players that cannot even get onto the pitch. Youri Tielemans (£40m), Raul Jiminez (£32m) - there are plenty of others who would have fit into our budget if we'd tried to sign them.



If that doesn't show you how desperately we need to overhaul our scouting system then I don't know what will. Arguably we haven't had a really good transfer window in the last five years which is shocking. Clearly there was money there, we have just spent it very badly. And things are never going to get better if we don't do something to fix these kinds of mistakes. A Sporting Director / DoF is the first step IMO. That being said - it should come with the clear caveat - he reports to the manager and not the other way around. The manager should be able to choose him, the manager should be able to fire him if he doesn't like him. Getting that part wrong hurt us back in the day.

1000,000000% mate great post so so so spot on.

 

[GetSpurredOn]

Rumour on Twitter today, from Paul O’Keefe that an overhaul is coming up, a new head of football operations, although probably not Campos.

 

[Cochise]

Unfortunately? Does O'Keefe not rate Campos?

 

[Timberwolf]

Unfortunately? Does O'Keefe not rate Campos?

Unfortunately suggests he does rate Campos.

 

[dontcallme]

Unfortunately? Does O'Keefe not rate Campos?

Surely it means he does rate him and is disappointed we're not getting him.