Technical Director Watch - Johan Lange

[Albertbarich]

I remember getting days and days of rude comments and snarked ratings when I said paratici wasn’t that great and his main talent was using Juves stupidness to our advantage , where were these comments then?!

in all seriousness when I look at Lange and Paratici I don’t see the point in getting wound up about either of them. It’s not like there are hidden talents nobody else knows about now so that part of the job is gone.

None of us know the restraints they’re working under, the frustrations I have with Lange over squad building were the same frustrations I had with Comolli some 15 years ago. The club clearly value longterm potential profit over the immediate season so there will always be be those gaps.

What I will say about Lange is , that if it is his job to close deals and he is struggling with it then yeah in the day and age of everyone having all this information , closing the actual deal is probably the biggest part of his job so if he isn’t very good at it then this is a problem, but again he is working for Daniel Levy, I suspect we all know why it’s a struggle to close these deals.

 

[mil1lion]

For me Lange is difficult to judge because most of his signings need time. Paratici was hit and miss but he did get some quality. Vicario, Romero, Udogie, Porro are still first choice options. Not sure how much he played in Spence. Bentancur was good prior to his acl and Kulusevski has looked great. Emerson was also under appreciated but was a fullback signed a few months before we went to wing backs. So he did make a decent number of good ones.

 

[hero]

Guys, there were told several times who signed Johnson. We needed a HG player in order to have a room for non-HG transfers. Also, the payment structure was appealing for Levy. It was a compromise.

 

[Ghost Hardware]

Paratici was good because he had the inside knowledge on players which allowed him to do deals for Deki, Bentancur and Romero.

And he acted fast on Sarr.

So good at the bigger transfers and being prepared to over pay on a young talent.

However, Lange definitely has a better approach to youth players.

If that news is true about Lange, then I don't agree with it.

There's plenty of excellent sporting directors out there who may struggle with selling the club to a player or are not as good at the financials, they don't come from that background most of the time.

I'd rather have a solid sporting director and an excellent scouting department with someone else doing the negotiating than a scouting department that's pretty much about one man and his book.

Also worth mentioning Paratici is credited with completely overhauling our youth set up which really shouldn't be overlooked IMO.

There is no perfect DOF, not that he is on their level but the best like Campos and Edwards also make mistakes. Every fan base will pick apart their teams recruitment and highlight those that have failed as reason to doubt. It certainly wasn't perfect under Paratici and there was definitely some poor recruitment but he also brought in some very talented players and lets not forget his task was a monumental one. He essentially had to completely rebuild the squad from the ground up on a budget, often having to rely on loans to see us through a season. He also earmarked the likes of Kvaraskelia (still pains me we walked away from that deal) and Szoboszlai and was supposedly key in highlighting VDV for us after he left alongside Leonardo Gabbanini. Point being his eye extended beyond Italy.

Whilst Paratici is not the saint some have painted him to be I do think his contacts and negotiation skills outshine Lange's and given we are a team that doesn't throw our financial weight around in the transfer window having someone adept at working out deals is vitally important. I also think another plus point about Paratici that shouldn't be ignored is that Levy supposedly trusts him. I know some of his early pics for manager where unequivocally bad but I do think he was right to suggest Luis Enrique last time out. At this juncture it almost seems like Base has more say over footballing matters at Spurs then anyone so having another figure able to impact Levy's thinking that has a good understanding of the subject, unlike the rest of the board, is no bad thing.

Lange clearly has a very good eye for youth talent but im not convinced he is capable of leading our recruitment team nor building a coherent, balanced squad. Whilst we came away with an array of very talented youngsters I don't think we can really say the last two window's put us in a strong position to compete. Most have been calling them a complete disaster for much of the campaign. That said I really don't think sacking him is the answer at this juncture but something does need to change in our set up. Ideally he would stay on as Technical Director or take up a role as Head Scout and we would bring in a Director Of Football to sit above him. It's not uncommon in Europe to have a TD and DOF so i see no reason why we can't do the same. If that is Paratici or another is a different debate (and i can completely understand why some would want a fresh face) but even tho I am a big advocate for youth recruitment i'm not sure I see us building a truly competitive team in the immediate future with Lange at the helm.

As long as Levy is here our recruitment will always be hamstrung but that doesn't mean we can't still build a reasonably well balanced squad. It will just take a clever recruitment set up.

 

[Gassin's finest]

I wonder if Munn will be sacked too

He was literally hired for that purpose.

 

[dontcallme]

Also worth mentioning Paratici is credited with completely overhauling our youth set up which really shouldn't be overlooked IMO.

I think the bottom line is there is no perfect DOF, not that he is on their level but the best like Campos and Edwards also make mistakes. Every fan base will pick apart their teams recruitment and highlight those that have failed as reason to doubt. It certainly wasn't perfect under Paratici and there was definitely some poor recruitment but he also brought in some very talented players and lets not forget his task was a monumental one. He essentially had to completely rebuild the squad from the ground up on a budget, often having to rely on loans to see us through a season. He also earmarked the likes of Kvaraskelia (still pains me we walked away from that deal) and Szoboszlai and was supposedly key in highlighting VDV for us after he left alongside Leonardo Gabbanini. Point being his eye extended beyond Italy.

Whilst Paratici is not the saint some have painted him to be I do think his contacts and negotiation skills outshine Lange's and given we are a team that doesn't throw our financial weight around in the transfer window having someone adept at working out deals is vitally important. I also think another plus point about Paratici that shouldn't be ignored is that Levy supposedly trusts him. I know some of his early pics for manager where unequivocally bad but I do think he was right to suggest Luis Enrique last time out. At this juncture it almost seems like Base has more say over football matters at Spurs then anyone so having another figure able to impact Levy's thinking that has an understand of football, unlike the rest of the board, is no bad thing.

Lange clearly has a very good eye for youth talent but im not convinced he is capable of leading our recruitment team nor building a coherent, balanced squad. Whilst we came away with an array of very talented youngsters I don't think we can really say the last two window's put us in a strong position to compete. Most have been calling them a complete disaster for much of the campaign. That said I really don't think sacking him is the answer at this juncture but something does need to change in our set up. Ideally he would stay on as Technical Director or take up a role as Head Scout and we would bring in a Director Of Football to sit above him. It's not uncommon in Europe to have a TD and DOF so i see no reason why we can't do the same. If that is Paratici or another is a different debate (and i can completely understand why some would want a fresh face) but even tho I am a big advocate for youth recruitment i'm not sure I see us building a truly competitive team in the immediate future with Lange at the helm.

Bottom line is as long as Levy is here our recruitment will always be hamstrung but that doesn't mean we can't still build a reasonably well balanced team. It will just take a clever recruitment set up.

Like always, good post.

The real strength of the job of a DOF or technical director is what they implement over a sustained period of time.

Under ENIC, we've never implemented anything with any longevity.

 

[Ron Burgundy]

Excuse me but you are talking about our leading goal scorer. Heave knows where we would be without his goals.

Probably not a lot different, maybe marginally worse

Ultimately, if we'd spent 45m on someone else half decent, we'd be relatively better off

He's scored goals, he's a nice guy - I appreciate both those things. But we still hugely overpaid and I think we should sell him while we can still recoup a decent fee.

I accept, however, that's it's hard to look good in the current shit show of a set up.

 

[Ron Burgundy]

He was literally hired for that purpose.

If you mean - he was hired to find the right manager, yeah. I would agree that he should be sacked for that.

I also think that's bordering on the absurd that he seemingly couldn't look beyond the same nationality. That's not a great look IMO.

Levy
Munn
Ange

They should all go. I'm OK with Lange, so far

 

[Impspur1]

I wonder if Munn will be sacked too

Who?

 

[Impspur1]

Also worth mentioning Paratici is credited with completely overhauling our youth set up which really shouldn't be overlooked IMO.

There is no perfect DOF, not that he is on their level but the best like Campos and Edwards also make mistakes. Every fan base will pick apart their teams recruitment and highlight those that have failed as reason to doubt. It certainly wasn't perfect under Paratici and there was definitely some poor recruitment but he also brought in some very talented players and lets not forget his task was a monumental one. He essentially had to completely rebuild the squad from the ground up on a budget, often having to rely on loans to see us through a season. He also earmarked the likes of Kvaraskelia (still pains me we walked away from that deal) and Szoboszlai and was supposedly key in highlighting VDV for us after he left alongside Leonardo Gabbanini. Point being his eye extended beyond Italy.

Whilst Paratici is not the saint some have painted him to be I do think his contacts and negotiation skills outshine Lange's and given we are a team that doesn't throw our financial weight around in the transfer window having someone adept at working out deals is vitally important. I also think another plus point about Paratici that shouldn't be ignored is that Levy supposedly trusts him. I know some of his early pics for manager where unequivocally bad but I do think he was right to suggest Luis Enrique last time out. At this juncture it almost seems like Base has more say over footballing matters at Spurs then anyone so having another figure able to impact Levy's thinking that has a good understanding of the subject, unlike the rest of the board, is no bad thing.

Lange clearly has a very good eye for youth talent but im not convinced he is capable of leading our recruitment team nor building a coherent, balanced squad. Whilst we came away with an array of very talented youngsters I don't think we can really say the last two window's put us in a strong position to compete. Most have been calling them a complete disaster for much of the campaign. That said I really don't think sacking him is the answer at this juncture but something does need to change in our set up. Ideally he would stay on as Technical Director or take up a role as Head Scout and we would bring in a Director Of Football to sit above him. It's not uncommon in Europe to have a TD and DOF so i see no reason why we can't do the same. If that is Paratici or another is a different debate (and i can completely understand why some would want a fresh face) but even tho I am a big advocate for youth recruitment i'm not sure I see us building a truly competitive team in the immediate future with Lange at the helm.

As long as Levy is here our recruitment will always be hamstrung but that doesn't mean we can't still build a reasonably well balanced squad. It will just take a clever recruitment set up.

And how many have progress to be first team players or look likely to?

agree with everything else though

 

[Gassin's finest]

If you mean - he was hired to find the right manager, yeah. I would agree that he should be sacked for that.

I also think that's bordering on the absurd that he seemingly couldn't look beyond the same nationality. That's not a great look IMO.

Levy
Munn
Ange

They should all go. I'm OK with Lange, so far

No. Munn's just a stakeholder. Literally just a shield to take the fall for Levy, and get paid handsomely to do so.