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.
For the record, Mitchel's appointment was Levy, nothing to do with Pochettino.
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.
www.dailymail.co.uk
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 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:
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.