[Albion] Recruitment Dept

[Guinness Boy]

I guess in the end it's still a learning process for the club. We went through a phase of hiring exotic foreign managers, more or less just for the sake of it. Now we're doing the same thing with players. Reckon that phase is about to come to its close. Amen!

Well if anyone sees Winstano on a plane to Amsterdam it had better be as part of someone's stag weekend.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Well if anyone sees Winstano on a plane to Amsterdam it had better be as part of someone's stag weekend.

 

[studio150]

What on earth does it say about this department that not one of our summer signings is in the side. If Hughton goes sure they will follow

It shows we are in a relegation battle with an away game, where certain types of players will be preferred due to the tactical game plan.

 

[ewe2]

15 million is bargain basement these days it seems !

 

[One Teddy Maybank]

The length of time we were tracking Ali J and Andone it would have been criminal if CH hadn't seen them play live at least once before they eventually signed. Montoya, on the other hand, seemed to fall in to our laps and doesn't quite fit in.

I'd seen Propper and Izquierdo play on TV for Holland and Club Brugge respectively - Izquierdo scored a worldy against Leicester. Again I'd be amazed if CH hadn't at least seen those games.

I know someone who knows Paul Trollope's wife fairly well. Apparently PT cannot watch a game of football on TV normally, has to be isolated, fully in the zone, and he's not even in the four man process.

As to the size of the list I would suggest the starting point is a budget and that budget is considerably lower than most of our rivals. It's a little like rifling through the bargain bin while your friends are all at the butcher's counter selecting fillet steak. For that I don't blame TB, who has more than done his bit as we all know. I firmly blame the Premier League, agents and the billionairres and foreign nation states who keep fiunding both.

Thanks


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[One Teddy Maybank]

Well if anyone sees Winstano on a plane to Amsterdam it had better be as part of someone's stag weekend.

[emoji23]


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[Tom Hark Preston Park]

The length of time we were tracking Ali J and Andone it would have been criminal if CH hadn't seen them play live at least once before they eventually signed. Montoya, on the other hand, seemed to fall in to our laps and doesn't quite fit in.

Think it's pretty safe to say that anyone who shows any kind of aptitude at kicking a ball anywhere in the world has been closely tracked from about the age of eight. Our recruitment team appear to be labouring under the misapprehension that they're uncovering hidden gems that they can later sell on at a profit while in the meantime raising the global profile of the Albion. In reality, they're gullible PL new boys being scammed by agents into paying hugely over the odds for duds that countless other clubs will have considered and rejected.

 

[Stat Brother]

15 million is bargain basement these days it seems !

Now you're getting it

I guess the club could dip into the free transfer market.
Then the £15m only has to go in signing on fees, extra agents fees and increased wages

 

[Weststander]

Think it's pretty safe to say that anyone who shows any kind of aptitude at kicking a ball anywhere in the world has been closely tracked from about the age of eight. Our recruitment team appear to be labouring under the misapprehension that they're uncovering hidden gems that they can later sell on at a profit while in the meantime raising the global profile of the Albion. In reality, they're gullible PL new boys being scammed by agents into paying hugely over the odds for duds that countless other clubs will have considered and rejected.

Our ‘unique’ insight into the Dutch league, if it ever existed, wasn’t all that.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Our ‘unique’ insight into the Dutch league, if it ever existed, wasn’t all that.

Some dunce will be along in a minute to say 'What about Ajax then, they're quite good' thereby missing the point about that overall Poundshop embarassment of a league.

 

[Weststander]

Some dunce will be along in a minute to say 'What about Ajax then, they're quite good' thereby missing the point about that overall Poundshop embarassment of a league.

With Ajax (until now) and dutch football being at it lowest ebb in 55 years. As covered in great detail by Johan Cruyff in his last autobio.

 

[trueblue]

I don't think most of the signings have been as bad as some are making out - and I thought Hughton has the final say anyway, so some of the blame would fall with him rather than just the recruitment team.

However, it's notable how many of the best players from lower down the English league do look capable at Premier League level. Brooks at Bournemouth, Gray and Barnes at Leicester, Wood at Burnley, even Grant at Huddersfield immediately spring to mind. I'm not saying they're all better long term bets than a good overseas bargain - and admit I thought we'd done some reasonable business in the past - but those players have the advantage of immediately understanding the pace and physical nature of the English game. Maybe we underestimate their merits.

 

[macbeth]

Am I the only one who doesn’t think the summer recruitment was that bad, and that a lot of the blame lies with the tactics more than anything?

Bernardo is a clear upgrade on Bong
Burn is a good back-up CB
Bissouma is clearly a very raw, but exciting player with a big future
Andone; when fit, looks dangerous
Jury still out on Montoya

Balogun makes a mistake a game, and Jahanbakhsh has shown absolutely nothing so far (although has hardly played in his preferred position) but for the most part the signings we made should have improved the team. The problem is we play for a 0-0 draw every week with tactics that stifle any kind of creativity or attacking intent. Mo Salah & Raheem Sterling would struggle to do much in this team when they’re playing as fullbacks for 85 minutes of the game.

Despite reputation Chris Hughton is not always a defensive manager. He is, like Rafael Benitez, a pragmatic manager. He is always about percentages and fine margins. If he thinks that the opposition is better, he will have no qualms about setting up to frustrate them. He expects hard work from everybody regardless of the position they play. The change to 4-3-3 was not as some seem to suggest, an attempt to integrate the new players, but instead a way of trying to create more going forward in away games, something that needed improving from last year. It seemed to have potential in the periods that saw us go two nil up at West ham and Fulham, but the system fell apart defensively when the opposition countered with sustained pressure. The suggestion that there was potential there if the system could be more flexible and adapt dynamically to circumstances that arise, would seem to be why he persisted with it, but it hasn't worked, seemingly because our current midfield is not mobile of flexible enough to press forward, but still cope with counter attacks against high quality opponents.

Somewhat of a circle here, as if the recruitment wasn't bad but we are still finding ourselves overrun in midfield and unable to get forward then were does that leave us? An yet I think it's clear that chris' tactics were the right ones to use, as we were destroyed when we became more expansive in the 433, so if our player's aren't good enough to play football properly around teams and have to be put in the defensive formation, then surely it's not the tactics that are to blame but surely the quality of player's we have. It can't be that neither the recruitment or Hughton's pragmatism are to blame.

 

[Sussex Nomad]

Don't blame recruitment for negative tactics.

 

[Sussex Nomad]

Some dunce will be along in a minute to say 'What about Ajax then, they're quite good' thereby missing the point about that overall Poundshop embarassment of a league.

With a team in the semi finals of the ECL.

 

[Not Andy Naylor]

The same recruitment department that signed Knockaert, Murray and Gross are responsible for AJ, Locadia and Montoya. Sometimes you eat the bar ...

 

[Ernest]

The same recruitment department that signed Knockaert, Murray and Gross are responsible for AJ, Locadia and Montoya. Sometimes you eat the bar ...

Tasty

 

[Ernest]

With a team in the semi finals of the ECL.

Have you seen some of the teams in the top league, defences are non existent at times so no wonder the likes of Locadia and Jahanbaksh look like world beaters. Even Van Persie is still banging them in for Feyenoord and his about 40.

The bottom half of the Eredevisie teams all average conceding over 2 goals a match which sums it up. Ajax have scored 107 goals in 31 games so far this season and PSV 90 goals
If the Dutch and Belgian leagues were that good then more would sign them. It's like when Newcastle found a couple of decent French league players and from then on they wasted loads on agents bringing them useless players thinking they could buy them up and sell them on for a fortune and instead they lost a packet on them

 

[Sussex Nomad]

Have you seen some of the teams in the top league, defences are non existent at times so no wonder the likes of Locadia and Jahanbaksh look like world beaters. Even Van Persie is still banging them in for Feyenoord and his about 40.

The bottom half of the Eredevisie teams all average conceding over 2 goals a match which sums it up. Ajax have scored 107 goals in 31 games so far this season and PSV 90 goals
If the Dutch and Belgian leagues were that good then more would sign them. It's like when Newcastle found a couple of decent French league players and from then on they wasted loads on agents bringing them useless players thinking they could buy them up and sell them on for a fortune and instead they lost a packet on them

They still have a side in the last four. Italy don't, France with their bent PSG (like our Man City) don't. Say what you like fella, they are doing something right. They have beaten teams outside of Holland to get there.

 

[Ernest]

They still have a side in the last four. Italy don't, France with their bent PSG (like our Man City) don't. Say what you like fella, they are doing something right. They have beaten teams outside of Holland to get there.

As I said they average over 3 goals a game against the other Dutch league sides which shows how crap their league is apart from them and PSV