At what stage does Bloom question the recruitment set up?

[glasfryn]

I was listening to that lot on MOTD 2 last night and the similarity between us and Spurs is just amazing.
someone else picks who we get in and the manager has to make it work.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Same as last year if you took out Ward, Lingard and Andrews? The season before with Upson, Bridge and Hammond?

Long-term loans have been a feature of our first XIs for a while now.

Did we have six at any one time though? I don't remember we did.

And while you're spot on with Lingard and Ward (and credit where it's due, they were excellent for us) I spent most of the season hoping Andrews would be dropped!

 

[Seasider78]

Money buys you quality and at this level you get what you pay for. It's no coincidence that under gus when the transfer budget was a bit more free flowing we had quality players fighting at the top end of the division. Now with the club on a massive FFP cost cutting curve it is clear we are taking more punts at the lower end of the market.

Can't help but think we blame the recruitment team for what may be the equivalent of sending someone out with £100 and expecting them to come back with a Ferrari

 

[Bozza]

Did we have six at any one time though? I don't remember we did.

Probably not, but we did only play three of them on Saturday - two of them long terms and the other Elliott Bennett.

 

[b.w.2.]

Player sales. Excellent work to get top dollar. Player acquisitions this summer a shambles. Too slow and insufficient quality. Burke should be shown the exit door.

 

[Guy Fawkes]

But our current manager said when he joined that he was happy to leave recruitment to someone else as he had never been involved in it before.

I agree with other that I am sure that it is constantly under review, but I do not believe that he will change the process, just perhaps the people involved in it.

Fans are critical of the club for the way they percieve it is being handled by anyone but the manager but are these fans being naive?

Do any of the other Championship (or higher) managers go out and watch and select their own targets? Does our manager get more input into new players than most other managers who may just get given new players and told to get on with it. they may get more of a say here than at most clubs.

Part of our problem has been the last 2 seasons have ended with our manager leaving. one sacked and one quitting (for whatever reason) but this has been twisted and used against the club and recruitment has been selected as the reason for their going by some and this myth has become fact in some peoples mind.

We have had our last 2 managers who would have been responsible for the retained list at the club, so the players we released last season could well have been as a result of Garcia saying to get rid of them rather than a penny pinching exercise (or whatever else has been used to blame the club for the summer recruitment process)

The retained list would have been done before the season ends and therefore by Garcia before he quit (and maybe before be even decided he wanted to go)

Were the delays in our summer signings so that the new manager could also have a say in who joined?

Sami is having an input towards the new targets / signings in January (if any) so do we want to go back to square 1 again by sacking the manager or the recruitment team?

 

[Easy 10]

Bloom must have personally sanctioned paying the ridiculous figure of £2m for Baldock - plenty of blame to go round

Well hang on...Bloom is the one with the chequebook, but he's not the one primarily responsible for identifying targets. When Bristol were playing hardball over the price, Burke and (hopefully) Hyypia presumably said "this guys worth it", and so Bloom backed their judgement and the deal was done. If you're looking to apportion blame on Bloom for splashing out £2m on Baldock, then he's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. If he'd said "no, I don't fancy him" and hadn't spent that money, the shrieking about lack of investment in the team would be at even more deafening levels.

News of his signing was met at the time with a (largely) positive reaction. But now we all have the benefit of hindsight of course, where Baldock has scored 1 in 9, it naturally becomes another stick to beat Burke / Hyypia / Barber / Bloom (delete as applicable).

 

[Questions]

5 months ago

 

[Bold Seagull]

I was listening to that lot on MOTD 2 last night and the similarity between us and Spurs is just amazing.
someone else picks who we get in and the manager has to make it work.

The similarity isn't that. For example Swansea and Southampton are selling players, changing managers, have separate recruitment systems beyond the managers, but are still making it work.

For me, as I've said, I've no issue with selling players to the Premier League. It's a reality we have to live with.

What we've done appallingly badly in my opinion is not adequately value the players we have. Not giving Barnes the big contract he felt he deserved is now looking as ridiculous as the same decision for Murray. Barnes is a better play up front than if you put O'Grady / Colunga / Baldock into a newly invented quantum mixing machine and created a player with the best attributes of all 3.

I know I'm going over old ground, but all this concentrating on who is coming in is really masking the real question of who is going out. I miss Ashley Barnes as much as I missed Glen Murray now. Anyone thinking what a good bit of business it was to get a bit of cash for him really wants their head testing considering what that cash has got us in return.

I'll tell you this much, Ashley would have notched more times than our entire midfield and forwards put together if he was still here.

 

[Napier's Knee]

there is one bit of information I would love to know. Bloom makes a lot of money from gambling on football, and his bets are presumably made on the basis of algorithms which, over the course of a spread of bets, gives him a profit. Those algorithms will have been applied to the Albion - the players we have, what other teams are up to and so on. So where do the algorithms say we will finish? I remember at the Horsham fans session TB looked very shifty when he was asked where he expected us to finish this season - not saying he is expecting relegation, but are the club settling for 20th this season? Is Sh part of a long term master plan? If so I reckon the football nous of SH has been pretty badly over-estimated

 

[glasfryn]

The similarity isn't that. For example Swansea and Southampton are selling players, changing managers, have separate recruitment systems beyond the managers, but are still making it work.

For me, as I've said, I've no issue with selling players to the Premier League. It's a reality we have to live with.

What we've done appallingly badly in my opinion is not adequately value the players we have. Not giving Barnes the big contract he felt he deserved is now looking as ridiculous as the same decision for Murray. Barnes is a better play up front than if you put O'Grady / Colunga / Baldock into a newly invented quantum mixing machine and created a player with the best attributes of all 3.

I know I'm going over old ground, but all this concentrating on who is coming in is really masking the real question of who is going out. I miss Ashley Barnes as much as I missed Glen Murray now. Anyone thinking what a good bit of business it was to get a bit of cash for him really wants their head testing considering what that cash has got us in return.

I'll tell you this much, Ashley would have notched more times than our entire midfield and forwards put together if he was still here.

totally agree with you about Barnes, but they (the upper management did not want him to stay)otherwise they would have offered him more as with Murray.........say it all really never send someone who knows little about football to buy new players COG and Baldock are good players but here they are square pegs in round holes I'm sure Sami might have seen this but had no choice in the matter

 

[Bold Seagull]

Can't help but think we blame the recruitment team for what may be the equivalent of sending someone out with £100 and expecting them to come back with a Ferrari

What we seem to be doing, is we've got a Ferrari but no one at the club has realised it. It only need a tune-up, a paint renovation, but with a bit of time we would have had a nice Ferarri.

Instead, thinking it wasn't a Ferrari, we've snatched the hand off some punter who has given us the equivalent money for a Citroen. We've thought, that was a good deal, that Citroen needed a bit of work. The punter has gone away thinking, 'shit me, the Albion have just sold me a Ferrari that needs some dusting off for the price of a Citroen!'.

We've then replaced the value of the Citroen with a Kia.

 

[durrington gull]

The underlying issue is whether Hyypia is questioning the recruitment set up. Sami is undoubtedly getting the blame for the poor results. But he seems reluctant to accept that it is his tactics that are to blame. So is it the squad of players that has been presented to him?

It's essential that the manager / coach has confidence in the arrangements that the Club has in place to recruit players. If Hyypia is sacked, it will be essential that his replacement has faith in the recruitment set up. The big question is ... is there ANY potential manager out there who will be happy to work with the arrangements that the Club has put in place?

Nailed it! - how would we attract any decent manager with our current setup??

 

[durrington gull]

Well hang on...Bloom is the one with the chequebook, but he's not the one primarily responsible for identifying targets. When Bristol were playing hardball over the price, Burke and (hopefully) Hyypia presumably said "this guys worth it", and so Bloom backed their judgement and the deal was done. If you're looking to apportion blame on Bloom for splashing out £2m on Baldock, then he's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. If he'd said "no, I don't fancy him" and hadn't spent that money, the shrieking about lack of investment in the team would be at even more deafening levels.

News of his signing was met at the time with a (largely) positive reaction. But now we all have the benefit of hindsight of course, where Baldock has scored 1 in 9, it naturally becomes another stick to beat Burke / Hyypia / Barber / Bloom (delete as applicable).

Speaking to my Bristol City ST mate and he said Baldrick needs 5 chances to take 1!! - we never create that many chances in a game!!

 

[Easy 10]

Speaking to my Bristol City ST mate and he said Baldrick needs 5 chances to take 1!! - we never create that many chances in a game!!

Maybe not, but clearly Burke and Hyypia felt he could being something to the team. Bloom could've vetoed it, but instead he chose to back their judgement and cough up. I don't blame him for that.

The fact that since he's been here he's been playing in a system thats meant he's absolutely starved of service isn't really Blooms fault.

 

[Skylar]

Bloom only took action when we lost to Sheffield Wednesday and Birmingham as he said he thought we'd win those with the squad we had. He was hoping Goodwin was the answer to Ulloa but it all back fired and then the club rushed out and brought mediocre players on the cheap to save money but has back fired spectacly and has cost us and will cost us millions for being tight *****.

 

[nwgull]

I can imagine the phone calls........

"Hi Sascha / Sammy - Sami Hyypia here, how are you doing?"
"Fine Sami mate, how's yourself?"
"Great. I've just been appointed manager at Brighton. We've got a fabulous new stadium, and a brilliant mantra of 'Premier League Ready' "
"Sounds great man - what's the playing side like? Any good players? Any ideas who you are going to get in?"
"No idea - the club employs a bloke called Burke to do all that stuff. Do you want to be my assistant?"




"No!"

I imagine that that was just the conversation Hyppia had. Sammy Lee was clearly so appalled at the set up that he decided to sign a 3 year deal with us to be assistant manager.

 

[nwgull]

Bloom only took action when we lost to Sheffield Wednesday and Birmingham as he said he thought we'd win those with the squad we had. He was hoping Goodwin was the answer to Ulloa but it all back fired and then the club rushed out and brought mediocre players on the cheap to save money but has back fired spectacly and has cost us and will cost us millions for being tight *****.

It will cost WHO millions?

 

[spanish flair]

OK. Another question arises then.

If the system is fine, is it the failure of the individuals who operate the system that is the problem?

It's surely essential that we identify what is wrong, before we come up with a "solution".

If we had got the organ grinder (Les Reed) and not the monkey from Southampton I think the system would have worked.
Burke worked for Reed at both Fulham and Southampton and I think it is fair to say, never has he held such a high position before joining Brighton.
If you study his previous roles, he was only responsible for youth at his previous positions and never before dealing with the transfers of top professionals.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

But that sentence is the crux of the matter - the club are recruting players before a new manager has a chance to decide if they are they are the right signings or not. The system has proved itself to be majorly flawed and is a barrier to experienced and successful managers coming here

There's no way that a 23 year old with Toko's credentials could be considered as a development squad addition.

Toko needs to start showing his credentials. I've watched him in the dev squad and at Burton. He didn't do anything to convince me that he deserved a first team place.