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Not ridiculous at all.
The fans have long held suspicions that we don't have any sort of transfer plan year after year. Let's have a look at the timeline.
When Poch was large and in charge he brought along with him Paul Mitchell. Paul helped bring Dele, Toby, and Sonny. A couple of years later he went off to RB Leipzig. A team that love them or hate them, have a decent eye for talent. He recently joined Monaco so no idea how well he is fairing yet as too early.
Why Mitchell left is open to debate and I think
bus-conductor
has looked into it before but I can't recall. Speculation according to The Guardian was that it was Levy. Mitchell was replaced by Steve Hitchen in early 2017. Three years since his arrival we have seen an absolute shambles in regards to transfers. Poch was blamed for some of it and Levy copped by far the biggest load of shit from fans and pundits. Mitchell and even before him with AVB we made lots of smaller signings that were cheap and often didn't pay off. But when they did we assembled a fantastic team. I'm talking Eriksen and Dembele for example. I'd even put Trippier in that bracket for 4M or so who we then sold for 20M.
Things have been stale transfer wise for a few years and everybody can see it. What was the trigger point for myself and a lot of fans was seeing how the Chief Scout behaves when he knows people are actually watching. "I hate the January window. It's reactive. There is no planning". I can't say that I'd be sacked if I said I hated doing my role, but I sure as hell wouldn't be getting a promotion. I double sure as fuck wouldn't be saying it to the waitress on camera.
Spurs are what we are. We will never be heavy hitters in the transfer market so we have to be smarter. We need a chief scout that is looking outside the box and not scouting via twitter and whatsapp messages from agents. Levy did his pyramid hands saying that now we are bigger we have less players to choose from. I'd say it would be the opposite if we had a chief scout that gave a shit. Ideally he would be planning for the January window NOW. Looking at contracts due, form, injury, games to go watch etc. FFS I'd be tapping up the nerds who develop Football Manager and those douchebag hipsters from Tifo.
Now the Amazon doco is out I bet Hitchen is dreading the thought of a dynamic DOF coming in. Rightly so.
He is the DOF in reality now though isn't he? Given our abysmal record in the transfer market since he joined i'm struggling to see why he was promoted and given such a powerful role at the club.
Not ridiculous at all.
The fans have long held suspicions that we don't have any sort of transfer plan year after year. Let's have a look at the timeline.
When Poch was large and in charge he brought along with him Paul Mitchell. Paul helped bring Dele, Toby, and Sonny. A couple of years later he went off to RB Leipzig. A team that love them or hate them, have a decent eye for talent. He recently joined Monaco so no idea how well he is fairing yet as too early.
Why Mitchell left is open to debate and I think
Three years since his arrival we have seen an absolute shambles in regards to transfers. Poch was blamed for some of it and Levy copped by far the biggest load of shit from fans and pundits. Mitchell and even before him with AVB we made lots of smaller signings that were cheap and often didn't pay off. But when they did we assembled a fantastic team. I'm talking Eriksen and Dembele for example. I'd even put Trippier in that bracket for 4M or so who we then sold for 20M.
Things have been stale transfer wise for a few years and everybody can see it. What was the trigger point for myself and a lot of fans was seeing how the Chief Scout behaves when he knows people are actually watching. "I hate the January window. It's reactive. There is no planning". I can't say that I'd be sacked if I said I hated doing my role, but I sure as hell wouldn't be getting a promotion. I double sure as fuck wouldn't be saying it to the waitress on camera.
Spurs are what we are. We will never be heavy hitters in the transfer market so we have to be smarter. We need a chief scout that is looking outside the box and not scouting via twitter and whatsapp messages from agents. Levy did his pyramid hands saying that now we are bigger we have less players to choose from. I'd say it would be the opposite if we had a chief scout that gave a shit. Ideally he would be planning for the January window NOW. Looking at contracts due, form, injury, games to go watch etc. FFS I'd be tapping up the nerds who develop Football Manager and those douchebag hipsters from Tifo.
Now the Amazon doco is out I bet Hitchen is dreading the thought of a dynamic DOF coming in. Rightly so.
Once again - how the fuck do you leap to all those conclusions based on what you know and don't know of him? Utterly ridiculous
This poor bloke has been character assassinated by our fans based on a few seconds of footage
It's hardly leaping to conclusions when I wrote out a timeline and the facts are there for everybody to see. Anyway, fair enough. I won't get into a cuntoff over it. It's a good thing that somebody is on his side.
COYS!
The insistence that it's oh so hard to improve our squad (as seen in the documentary) rings completely hollow. If that's actually what he believed then we've been fucked for a while.
It's also a shambles that he outright admitted they knew the squad had stagnated for a year or so and needed a refresh yet we clearly sat by and let it happen.
It's also a shambles that he outright admitted they knew the squad had stagnated for a year or so and needed a refresh yet we clearly sat by and let it happen.
Our track record for disastrous signings over the last few years is damning evidence of his incompetence
He has been our chief scout after all
Well maybe he should think more carefully about what he says on a documentary the whole fucking world will be watching?
On top of the shambles that has been our transfer policy since he started here, he's getting off quite lightly i reckon. I'm sure the massive promotion he's received while the squad has turned to shit for 3 years is helping him deal with the tiny amount of flak he's getting in an online forum he probably has no idea even exists.
Perfect fall guy for Levy isn’t he?
I'll say this in his defence - the "I hate this month/it's a nightmare" comment about the January transfer window is the one thing I won't attack him over. It does seem pretty clear that doing business in January is much harder than the summer and should probably be avoided if it can. That was then compounded by our injury crisis during the documentary.
If he said it about the summer window I'd want his head on a platter.
If he said it about the summer window I'd want his head on a platter.
All fine if you know for certain which players he's been involved signing, which players he recommended and we couldn't sign, which players managers turned down, etc
We've also switched managers between two guys who couldn't really be much further apart in footballing philosophy, so its pretty obvious why certain players don't now fit.
I just have absolutely no patience for "modern football, bloody hell, game's gone innit" type attitudes for anyone with backroom or executive authority over a Premier League club in the year of our lord 2020.
All fair points but who was the last guy we signed that has truly worked out for us
Son ?
He has to take a part of the blame for that as chief scout
Are our failed deals for Grealish and Bruno Fernandes his fault or Levy’s? Clearly he must have some sort of competence as a scout if he has identified two excellent players who would massively improve us. Is he to blame for Levy being stingy?
Levy is the one who is killing us. Just looking at lower league players in recent seasons, we looked at Grealish, Maddison, Brooks, Bowen, Eze and many more. At a higher level we looked at Dybala, Bruno Fernandes, Van De Beek, De Jong, so many players we made offers for but failed to sign. Our ability to identify players is not a major issue. The issue is the guy who signs the cheques not realising that being cheap and buying mediocre players has a much more serious effect on the value of the team than slightly overpaying for good ones. If we had signed Grealish 2 years ago, or Dybala/Bruno Fernandes last summer we might be in the CL right now and we would have £50m+ more money in the bank.
Son was 2015. Hitchen joined in 2017. In that time who would say our transfer business has been anything other than atrocious? The squad deterioration coincides with his appointment here. I'm not blaming him totally but as you say he has to be significant point of debate given his now critically important role at the club.
Just to add onto what
NewZealand_Spur
was saying regarding Paul Mitchell (bear in mind this is complete conjecture on my part and maybe totally incorrect) but it would seem Mitchell got pissed off at being restricted by Levy and upped sticks. It would seem Hitchen is the kind of guy who asks 'How high?' when Levy says 'Jump'.Levy surrounds himself with people happy to accept his lack of ambition and thriftiness.
Case in point: those behind the scenes at Liverpool saw the direction of travel and weren't afraid to pay a premium for the right player (see, Van Dijk) even though they don't have endless funds.I just have absolutely no patience for "modern football, bloody hell, game's gone innit" type attitudes for anyone with backroom or executive authority over a Premier League club in the year of our lord 2020.
We're operating years behind the reality of the football landscape and it shows when you look at the business other 'lesser' PL teams have done this window.
Not ridiculous at all.
The fans have long held suspicions that we don't have any sort of transfer plan year after year. Let's have a look at the timeline.
When Poch was large and in charge he brought along with him Paul Mitchell. Paul helped bring Dele, Toby, and Sonny. A couple of years later he went off to RB Leipzig. A team that love them or hate them, have a decent eye for talent. He recently joined Monaco so no idea how well he is fairing yet as too early.
Why Mitchell left is open to debate and I think
Three years since his arrival we have seen an absolute shambles in regards to transfers. Poch was blamed for some of it and Levy copped by far the biggest load of shit from fans and pundits. Mitchell and even before him with AVB we made lots of smaller signings that were cheap and often didn't pay off. But when they did we assembled a fantastic team. I'm talking Eriksen and Dembele for example. I'd even put Trippier in that bracket for 4M or so who we then sold for 20M.
Things have been stale transfer wise for a few years and everybody can see it. What was the trigger point for myself and a lot of fans was seeing how the Chief Scout behaves when he knows people are actually watching. "I hate the January window. It's reactive. There is no planning". I can't say that I'd be sacked if I said I hated doing my role, but I sure as hell wouldn't be getting a promotion. I double sure as fuck wouldn't be saying it to the waitress on camera.
Spurs are what we are. We will never be heavy hitters in the transfer market so we have to be smarter. We need a chief scout that is looking outside the box and not scouting via twitter and whatsapp messages from agents. Levy did his pyramid hands saying that now we are bigger we have less players to choose from. I'd say it would be the opposite if we had a chief scout that gave a shit. Ideally he would be planning for the January window NOW. Looking at contracts due, form, injury, games to go watch etc. FFS I'd be tapping up the nerds who develop Football Manager and those douchebag hipsters from Tifo.
Now the Amazon doco is out I bet Hitchen is dreading the thought of a dynamic DOF coming in. Rightly so.
For the record, Mitchel's appointment was Levy, nothing to do with Pochettino.
Pochettino: I had nothing to do with Mitchell appointment
Following Paul Mitchell's appointment as Tottenham's head of recruitment and analysis, Mauricio Pochettino has indicated he had nothing to do with his departure from Southampton.
Why Mitchell quit nobody really knows, as you say reports of a falling out with Levy in the press, and I've posted links to Gab Marcotti claiming Mitchell is "known in the industry as the man who fell out with Pochettino". For all any of us know, it could have been neither and Mitchell just fancied to move on after being with us for a couple of years as he has at every other job he's had I think.
But it wasn't as some have suggested on here, anything to do with us not stumping up for Batshuayi, we'd already bought Janssen for that role a month before that(a player scouted and researched by Mitchell and his head of scouting Rob Makenzie - who spoke about ion the scout 7 podcast).
Levy had drawn up a list of replacements for Mitchell but according to this article in the Times he ditched the idea to keep Pochettino happy as he was being courted by RM and Levy wanted to get him to sign a new deal, going with Hitchen as head scout instead:
Mauricio Pochettino halts Tottenham search for head of recruitment
Mauricio Pochettino has vetoed Tottenham Hotspurs’ proposal to appoint a new sporting director with the manager eager to retain a significant influence over transfers. The club are understood to have assembled a shortlist of potential candidates to replace the former head of recruitment, Paul Mitche
www.thetimes.co.uk
Mauricio Pochettino has vetoed Tottenham Hotspurs’ proposal to appoint a new sporting director with the manager eager to retain a significant influence over transfers. The club are understood to have assembled a shortlist of potential candidates to replace the former head of recruitment, Paul Mitchell, but have abandoned the process after talks between Pochettino and Daniel Levy, the chairman. Many of Mitchell’s functions have been taken by the chief scout Steve Hitchen, who reports to the club’s football committee of Pochettino, Levy and the academy manager John McDermott.
There's nothing to prove conclusively the above is accurate representation of events, but it is how we proceeded for the next 4 years and did make sense, Poch made a power play while his stock was hot, fancied himself as our SAF, Levy was desperate not to lose the hottest young manager around....this is where the first huge mistake by both men was made IMO, that ended up fucking them both (and us).
Here is Levy stating for the record to the trust our recruitment structure:
THST meeting with the Spurs Board: Report - Tottenham Hotspur Supporters' Club
On the evening of Monday 2 March 2020, representatives of the Trust Board met with representatives of the Spurs Executive
www.thstofficial.com
• DL explained that the process is unchanged. The Chief Scout – Steve Hitchen; the Head Coach - Jose Mourinho; the Chairman – DL; the Head of the Academy - John McDermott (if it concerned a youth player) along with the Head of Football Administration – Rebecca Caplehorn – were involved in the process
• SH and JM would discuss what areas needed strengthening and who might be an option, considering age, salary expectations, nationality, language etc.
• The list would be narrowed down and then presented to DL
• The list would be put in order and they’d then see what was possible
As far as our new Big Fat Gypsy DOF goes, I think what he said about January has been jumped on primarily because we have an angry fan base right now, they were throw away comments that most involved in football seem to say about January windows, they are for the desperate traders and nobody wants to lose their best players halfway through the season and clubs will have to pay through the nose often to get them - clubs don't generally plan to sell or buy in January.
But as far as the rest of our opinion and assessment of Hitchen goes, we can only judge by the players we have bought and/or been seriously linked with because that's primarily all we have to go on. And by and large it's a pretty unimpressive track record over the last 4 years isn't it? But lets be clear, according to Levy, Poch (several times in interviews) and recently Hitchen on the doc, Hitchen is working with the managers - first Poch and now Mourinho - on putting those lists together.
With regards to our whole recruitment strategy, ultimately the buck stops with Levy for allowing this situation to persist when it clearly wasn't working and not reinstating the system that by and large got us to a pretty god place 4 years ago, there was great opportunity to do it a year ago, instead he's doubled down and brought in a manager with outdated ideas and promoted a head of scouting who none of us rate to DOF and we seem to be operating for all intents and purposes an old school set up, where the manager is far more powerful than the DOF.
Since Mitchell left we've bought (€):
Sissoko 35m
Moura 28m
Aurier 25m
Llorente 15m
Sanchez 40m
Foyth 13m
Sess 27m (- Onomah)
Bergwijn 30m
Ndombele 60m
Lo Celso 48m
Hojbjerg 16m (- KWP 12m)
Doherty 16.6m
Of those transfers I rate about two of them as making rock solid sense at the time they were made (Nd/GLC), another one (Sess) I liked the kid but I think we overpaid. Sanchez I don't hate but 40m for a kid with his lack of technical ability was staggering. How the fuck we looked around Europe at young CB's and thought we couldn't find better and much cheaper is staggering. The rest I really don't like as transfers for price, quality and in some cases both.
Some of those early buys - Sissoko, Aurier, Moura - may well have been the work of Mitchell that was just followed through by the club - Mitchell has shown interest in Aurier this summer at Monaco for example.