Our scouting

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Norwegian Jim

Norwegian Jim

Does anyone know how our scouting is set up? Is detailed scouting something that only exists in FM and at the biggest clubs in the world? I know we have Ian Broomfield, so one guy…And Sherwood has told us how he scouted Suarez, and we sent someone to watch Dier.

Based on our transfers the last couple of years it’s obviously not working out all that well, and we seem to miss out on exciting players. This season we have examples like Graziano Pelle, Sadio Mane, Enner Valencia and Diafra Sakho, who would arguably improve our first eleven at the moment. Last year Bony was a big miss..and so on.

These are our signings the last couple of years:

Lewis Holtby
Zeki Fryers
Paulinho
Christian Eriksen
Nacer Chadli
Roberto Soldado
Etienne Capoue
Vlad Chriches
Erik Lamela
Michel Vorm
Eric Dier
Federico Fazio
Ben Davies
Benjamin Stambouli

14 names. The players that arrived in the summer should be given more time of course. But right now, I would say that only Eriksen and Capoue look like solid, first team improving signings. Is scouting yet another area where we are failing? Why did our staff think that Paulinho, Soldado and Chiriches would be suited to the PL?
 
Over the last two seasons we've sold two academy players for 8m+ each, have four academy players contributing to our first team, have loads out on loan succeeding at numerous levels and our academy teams continue to thrive and seem full of talent.

For those reason, I have to assume that we do have some talented football minds and scouts at some level of our club. When you look at the failings of senior team player acquisition, you have to wonder if we're going at it with one hand tied behind our backs due to budgetary restrictions.
 
JDK said:
Over the last two seasons we've sold two academy players for 8m+ each, have four academy players contributing to our first team, have loads out on loan succeeding at numerous levels and our academy teams continue to thrive and seem full of talent.

For those reason, I have to assume that we do have some talented football minds and scouts at some level of our club. When you look at the failings of senior team player acquisition, you have to wonder if we're going at it with one hand tied behind our backs due to budgetary restrictions.
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exactly...you don't need good scouts to identify worldies, you just need a big transfer and wage budget..
some of the decisions do seem to have been done slightly ad hoc but overall many of those acquisitions you cant fault..
I mean ffs bobby was banging in goals for fun, comes to us and couldn't buy a goal..#spursy
 
Blanchflower said:
Easy to say the scouting missed certain players like the above, but with someone like Pelle (and Tadic) - Koeman has just taken him from his previous club and/or used his knowledge of a league that others don't have.
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I agree, and this is of course very normal for a new manager. Still, Pelle is not some obscure find and has pretty solid stats the last few seasons. We have needed goals for a while and he wouldn't have been a huge gamble.
 
The reason we don't go for the left field buys initially like Bony & Pelle is because our director of football & maybe our scouts too, think that they are flash in the pans in lower leagues at lower level clubs than we should be buying from. On the plus side that looks like it is no longer happening with the signings of Fazio and Stambouli seeming to be specific buys to add some grit and fight into the side.
 
Aussie Ardiles said:
The reason we don't go for the left field buys initially like Bony & Pelle is because our director of football & maybe our scouts too, think that they are flash in the pans in lower leagues at lower level clubs than we should be buying from. On the plus side that looks like it is no longer happening with the signings of Fazio and Stambouli seeming to be specific buys to add some grit and fight into the subs bench.
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JDK said:
Over the last two seasons we've sold two academy players for 8m+ each, have four academy players contributing to our first team, have loads out on loan succeeding at numerous levels and our academy teams continue to thrive and seem full of talent.

For those reason, I have to assume that we do have some talented football minds and scouts at some level of our club. When you look at the failings of senior team player acquisition, you have to wonder if we're going at it with one hand tied behind our backs due to budgetary restrictions.
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So you mean that money is being used for the academy instead of senior scouting? That's not necessarily a bad thing if true, but so many of our "missed opportunities" and failed signings seem to be these quite visible players. Players that we should know a lot about without spending huge on travel and wages. What I'm getting at is that there seems to be a certain level of incompetence at our club right now. We've heard rumours of Baldini being a great people person, but poor scout, and Broomfield coming back is certainly interesting.
 
Norwegian Jim said:
I agree, and this is of course very normal for a new manager. Still, Pelle is not some obscure find and has pretty solid stats the last few seasons. We have needed goals for a while and he wouldn't have been a huge gamble.
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Speaking specifically on Pelle - the only manager that has ever got him scoring is Koeman, his record other than playing for him is less than 1 in 5.

I think we would have ended up looking even more stupid than we do right now if we'd signed him.
 
Blanchflower said:
Speaking specifically on Pelle - the only manager that has ever got him scoring is Koeman, his record other than playing for him is less than 1 in 5.

I think we would have ended up looking even more stupid than we do right now if we'd signed him.
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Why is that? He's already at Soldado's numbers, after a handful of games. No guarantees he would have done the same here of course, but he might have, and the financial risk would not have been crazy.
 
Norwegian Jim said:
Why is that? He's already at Soldado's numbers, after a handful of games. No guarantees he would have done the same here of course, but he might have, and the financial risk would not have been crazy.
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.........just working on the basis that we manage to turn career long prolific strikers into duds........Pelle would have to score a considerable amount of own goals to make an equivalent turn around in form to Soldado
 
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