What’s our scouting and recruitment plan?

Listening to The Overlap Podcast with them talking about conversations with different clubs and the how they approach it, Brighton have scouts assigned to a position rather than for every position they’re looking for, can be several different ones in the same country but ones the CB scout, another a LW scout.

Liverpool had said the most important part of recruitment short and long term is having good relationships with agents.

Talking about DoF being cohesive with a manager etc.

Recently the best we’ve performed in the market is down to a managers force of character and knowledge of markets he’d left to come manage us in, with Ange. Wasn’t all just players he knew but the ones he pushed for and made clear were the ones he wanted, we generally got. We missed out on only two - Mitoma and Riley McGree. His back up options being Jota and Matt O’Riley.

I’d love for us to have got Mitoma but I’d take the two 2nd picks over the first as a pair, Jota and O’Riley over Mitoma and Riley McGree. We missed out on Jenz first summer under Ange, and got CCV instead - who was the only one we’d previously looked at and were linked with.

That’s under the previous manager, that it worked because of him.


I can’t for the life of me work out what we are now though, usually there’s some interviews with background info like under Park or how we signed Dembele BR’s first time. Ange bigging up Jay Lefevre putting a scouting department back in place for us after Congerton destroyed it, wee snippets.

Do we have any idea now? Can’t see it through any info released, interviews or podcasts with insight and most importantly for me, from looking at how we do business and who were linked to and drawing my own conclusions.

it’s just… nothing

 

Reckon Ange's signing targets for us were a form of Moneyball. Let's him not sweat on getting hung up on particular signings and helps with identifying alternatives within a budget. Obviously used his knowledge of other markets too.

Possibly explains some of the misses later on as that model is more suitable for baseball with is much more about filling individual positions well than overall team fit.

 

I’d really argue against the moneyball opinion, a lot of signings under Lenny with John Park I’d absolutely say that. Under Ange it was football knowledge, a plan, a market that’s underrated and a manager with a plan. And a large slice of luck added in when the first option didn’t happen.

But I feel like that was largely Ange making sure we didn’t have just the one option. A lot of the time we seem to pursue one option, that after a while it becomes obvious we won’t get, and act surprised that we can’t get the signing over the line well after the time it’s became obvious.

Two best periods I’ve seen from us in the transfer market was Ange there, and Lenny’s first stint. After we got to latter stages of the CL under Lennon, and sold the spine of the team out from under him that summer - he’s on record that he was operating under £2.5m and not a penny more. Regardless of player, if Van Dijk had a £2.6m fee we would have said no.

That was moneyball, to the extreme. Ange had his targets that we had to make sure he got or * * help those that were supposed to be negotiating, and he made that clear, whilst accepting every bit of blame on himself we hadn’t done it quick enough.

The most baffling bit for me is Rodgers can’t seem to get us to do * all. First time here his best signing was Dembele who we’d been talking to for 6 months already, he got it over the line because his reputation, Kolo Toure who was wanting to retire and done him a favour and Scott Sinclair.

This time round under him it seems like he’s said aye to guys that were getting talked to before that were easy to get in and could be a bonus for him, and the one that seems to have been his, that he made clear he knew about and watched him closely after he played against Leicester- Nawrocki. Makes me think he either was talking * bout him originally or Rodgers has realised he was wrong to * a big bit if his budget on him and if he patches him it might look not one of his. Lagerbielke I have no idea * that’s about, apparently Starfelts agent said he was a replacement for Carl and we flung £4m at that cos he said, by the sound of it

 

My theory is it all went wrong for Rodgers in the summer when he pretty much accepted a raft of signings we had already scouted as squad fillers and had single targets for LB, Goalie etc that he had agreed budget for and he thought he could use his name to come. They all feel threw and since then he's been scunnered, not really done much and possibly alienated people on the board, etc.

Basically I think it all lies at Rodgers door. He's lost whatever drove him and is now just a bit of a spoiled brat, but was all of his making.

 

My theory was we tried to back him with a level of player we found it was something we can’t compete with when its teams that can offer the same money, competition for trophies and European football, but in a better league than us, and it went wrong. Tete, Livakovic, Merlin… they seemed the main targets to me.

Turns out, paper talk probably because we done * all when January appeared.

Had a * good theory about the summer failure anaw I’ll argue, tried too hard and hit a glass ceiling. Then jan shat over that theory, and we’re just incompetent

 

We took a manager on the decline based on his former glories. People thinking he would come back and have the same impact were kidding themselves on and clearly hadn't watched his Leicester team in that final season.

We've essentially taken him off his sabbatical to watch the same pish they were all so infuriated watching last season. It was a terrible appointment in so many ways but honestly from a footballing perspective it was so backwards and naive.

 

Think we are trying to explain the same pet theory to each other

Personally, I think it's more likely to be the truth than paper talk. Something happened in the summer that put us down this path.

 

That's exactly what Rodgers thought too. Think he saw an easy way to boost his reputation, then * it.

 

He was lucky Michael Beale was in town. Now it's the first time he's had a title race up here and he's rattled.

 

There is no coherent plan..

We need a DoF to be given full authority to reshape the full Footballing Operation..

Youth setup, scouting, recruitment and first team coach..

That's what's needed but we won't do it..

 

That what was needed last time Rodgers left.

Instead we got the nearest, easiest person appointed.

Good news for Kennedy I guess.

 

Ahh see that’s the thing that made me warm up most to him returning here, he stayed there to try and do it still for emotional sentimental reasons rather than clear cut emotion aside, career move. Because in the summer with them he called exactly that there was no support, no money, no players coming in, players will leave, and he’ll need to try and deal with it, and he got punted early on that season and a replacement made zero difference.

But he took that Leicester team to a trophy and a top 5 finish three seasons in a row. Thing is, it should have been top 4 if not for BR not knowing how to see games out. They shouldn’t have been near that last day for him to bottle it either but, it’s a Rodgers paradox that.

In the last decade though, I’ve seen his teams * it when a game needs managed to scraping through, from Saturday against Killie there, to the Leicester ones finishing fifth the last game of the season, to * the league at Liverpool especially the 3-3 with Palace.

He’s never took a lesson off of any of them.

 

That was the plan apparently before we got Ange. Then he turned out to be the best at everything, like an old school manager who does all the roles and makes sure everyone else does their role.

Before he took over think Pedro thought he was that and CEO. He made a * return because we were far more competent away from any of the * leadership.

i really wish I was being making up something farfetched here

 

Yeah they couldn't spend the same type of money as previous seasons but the players at his disposal were still too good to go down and certainly capable of playing a better brand of football than the one served up. It was so bad to watch they now hate him (not hyperbole btw, they cant stand him) despite the cup win and early impact he had there. Not just football fans being fickle either, it was the constant bullshit, never taking any accountability for the performances, always praising the performance when clearly awful etc.

It's all very much playing out the same way with us and why anyone's surprised at that I don't know. Football moves fast and he's not where he was 8 years ago when we first hired him that's for sure.

 

I won’t disagree with that at all mate, it was all very familiar from what’s happened throughout his career when his squads stopped buying into his bullshit.

He showed a lot of adaptability at Leicester, because they didn’t have the players, and he stayed on longer than he’d usually jump and got knocked off. That two parts for me, that was major for wanting him back here. I was * wrong but.

It’s not even where he was 8 years ago, 3/4 years ago at Leicester is the best he’s been for me. The arrogance of the * doesn’t take a lesson or any growth with that experience but

 

Bold of you to assume we have a plan

 

‘* it, see what happens’ is still a slight plan

 

Throw enough * and hope some will stick seems to be the current plan

 

We have a host of people unqualified for the jobs they are in and are mainly in them bcoz of who there da is.

It then leads to the usual incompetence you would expect with nepotism.

The way I see it, they scout players and recruit them based on them showing up well in inferior leagues to ours and we hope they can then step up. The biggest problem tho is they are not scouting/recruiting players that can actually play in our team or to the managers style (whatever the * that is).

Guys like Palma, Lagerbielke, Nawrocki, Bernardo, Yang, Holm on paper all look like good players and had performed well in their respective leagues but none of them are actually a good fit for our team or where what was required.

 

The truth is there will be others out there Ange missed out on too, he wanted Sasha Boey who was vocal about not coming because of being approached by a third party. Got Juranovic though so still done ok but Boey for about £1m would have been some buy, we could have probably done with signing both. Miki Yamane at Kawasaki was also quoted but not sure how firm that was.

There was talk he wanted a different keeper to Hart but accepted him when that fell through.

One I would speculate on is if we were looking at Hatate and Mitoma, we probably had an interest in Ao Tanaka who was that teams other star midfielder at the time. He went to German second tier on a loan to buy for about £1m. Koki Macheda at USG was another rumour as a left sided centre back who again moved for a loan then a cheap fee, now quoted as an 8 figure player.

I agree with other posters I think Rodgers went along with summer recruitment on the basis he would get a few players he wanted at the end of the window and that all went down the toilet when they decided against coming here. Probably decent players but we had no plan b.

Back on Ange see relying on a managers knowledge of previous markets they have worked in this will always be a case of diminishing returns the longer they are away from the market. Ange wanted Kyogo, Hatate, Ideguchi and Maeda, Mitoma too based on what they had done against his team or for it.

Kobayashi, Ange would have likely never seen play live when he was at Yokohama, see on a shorter contract a punt for him on a free wouldn’t have been bad especially if he was brought in then loaned out. Iwata looks a decent signing too just has had limited game time but for £800k or so you can’t argue.

Why we have now decided to start spending over £2m for punts from Korea, and largely ignore Japan I have no idea.