Director of Football Coming In?

[Booker4]

I think Wilder would be fine with a DoF but only if Wilder is in charge of who is brought in which is fair enough in my view. I think foreign recruitment is an area we desperately need some expertise in because that's where the quality and value is. But when we've bought players from abroad often it's fine in the cheap and not signed by the manager, I e the AI lads, Retos and Zivkovic. I still wonder who signed Berge but he was decent as a proven international.

 

[brownblade]

So we're all agreed - cardboard signs at the next game demanding Jags and Billy as lifetime Directors of Football. If one did ever leave (possibly through exhaustion from lifting trophies), they bring in someone similar (cough Nick Montgomery, Rob Page etc). The long term ethos is secured by replacing like for like in a two man team. Plans are always in place above the Head Coaches pay grade - Head Coaches have to interview(!) and convince both that they will do a good job to fulfil the current brief using the current squad.

 

[jt64]

I think Wilder would be fine with a DoF but only if Wilder is in charge of who is brought in which is fair enough in my view.

That defeats the entire point of a DoF

 

[Nick Jansky]

Barnsley had one for 18 months.
Rotherham have one.
Leicester City have one.
Tottenham Hotspurs have one.
Wolves have a five man team focused on strategy and first-team football.


What could possibly go wrong?

Other clubs that have them include:

Man City
Liverpool
Barcelona
Real Madrid
PSG
Aston Villa
Bournemouth
Brentford
Brighton
Fulham
Palace
Sunderland

 

[Silent Blade]

Other clubs that have them include:

Man City
Liverpool
Barcelona
Real Madrid
PSG
Aston Villa
Bournemouth
Brentford
Brighton
Fulham
Palace
Sunderland

What about Championship and League One clubs?

 

[brownblade]

What about Championship and League One clubs?

Lincoln are a perfect current example, everyone's raving about. He's been in their DoF job 6 years, at a quick Google.

 

[Danetheblade]

What about Championship and League One clubs?

EFL Championship – clubs with a Director of Football / Sporting Director model​

Clear, confirmed roles​

• Norwich City – Sporting Director: Ben Knapper
• Watford FC – Sporting Director model (Pozzo structure, long-standing)
• Southampton FC – Director of Football / group structure
• Leeds United – Sporting Director / Technical structure
• Middlesbrough FC – Head of Football / recruitment structure
• Hull City AFC – Sporting Director model (under Acun ownership)

Clubs with similar roles (titles vary)​

• Coventry City FC – Head of Recruitment / technical leadership
• Bristol City FC – Sporting Director-style structure
• Stoke City FC – Technical Director role
• Blackburn Rovers FC – Director of Football-style recruitment structure

EFL League One – clubs with a Director of Football / Sporting Director model​

Clear examples​

• Barnsley FC – Sporting Director (data-led model)
• Peterborough United FC – Director of Football (Barry Fry role historically)
• Portsmouth FC – Sporting Director / Head of Recruitment hybrid
• Bolton Wanderers FC – Technical Director / DoF structure
• Charlton Athletic FC – Director of Football model

Also using similar structures​

• Oxford United FC – Head of Football / recruitment-led
• Derby County FC – Sporting/technical structure
• Wigan Athletic FC – Technical Director role

Bottom line​

• Roughly half of Championship clubs use some form of Director of Football / Sporting Director model
• In League One, it’s less common but still widespread among ambitious or data-driven clubs

From ChatGPT (though some clubs have either been promoted/relegated by the looks of Leeds/Oxford etc)

 

[NordicHarry]

Don't know why people question us having a DoF, 99% of time they wait for managers/coaching team approval anyways. It's literally giving the manager more time to manage his team than trying to do everything.

The only thing that probably should be questioned is whoever comes in is the right fit.

 

[Nick Jansky]

Don't know why people question us having a DoF, 99% of time they wait for managers/coaching team approval anyways. It's literally giving the manager more time to manage his team than trying to do everything.

The only thing that probably should be questioned is whoever comes in is the right fit.

It’s questioned because we have a lot of supporters who are absolutely terrified of stepping away from how things have always been done and are quite happy to accept mediocrity and being left behind.

 

[Tom Bott]

So we're all agreed - cardboard signs at the next game demanding Jags and Billy as lifetime Directors of Football.

Worked for Leicester, won the PL title and other such.

now has it's down side though.

If only life were so simple.

 

[SouthportBlade]

I’ll say upfront I’m relatively pro a DOF set up. There’s a fairly chunky caveat however….

There is absolutely no guarantee of success or even better outcomes, it’s simply a different approach. Not better, just different.

A bad DoF is no different to a bad manager, or a bad player etc. Same applies for good.

The question I ask myself is could we recruit a good DOF and they be a good fit and provide the structures/processes/personnel needed to have them be a success.

Answers on a postcard, but my fear is nope

 

[Tom Bott]

The only thing that probably should be questioned is whoever comes in is the right fit.

Look at our last two managerial appointments.

Abject failures and dismissed within months.

With a non Bladey Blade face on I could say - 3rd time lucky then.

Though I remember the 6 years in League one, and all the failed managers of those years and the years it took us to get there after Warnock.

As a realist I look back over 50 years and see Sheffield as a 2 club city (I use the term loosely) without the pulling power of Manchester,Liverpool or London.

Sheffield United do not have the pulling power for owners who wish to 'invest' £20/30 million pounds per season even if they were allowed to do so.

'But we could use AI like Brentford and Brighton' - no one else has thought of that.
We tried that last summer.

We have suffered the consequences this season - yet we choose to blame Wilder rather than AI or the new owners.

 

[Tom Bott]

Other clubs that have them include:

Man City
Liverpool
Barcelona
Real Madrid
PSG
Aston Villa
Bournemouth
Brentford
Brighton
Fulham
Palace
Sunderland

You forgot to include Leicester City where under the DOF of Jon Rudkin they won the PL title.

Though they have moved him 'up' in March of this year after he has seen them relegated from the PL to potentially League one.

As a Leicester junior player he was also a Foxy fox appointment.

Swings and roundabouts- no guarantees.

Barnsley didn't win the PL title after appointing a DOF.
Let alone move out of League one.

 

[Silent Blade]

You forgot to include Leicester City where under the DOF of Jon Rudkin they won the PL title.

Though they have moved him 'up' in March of this year after he has seen them relegated from the PL to potentially League one.

As a Leicester junior player he was also a Foxy fox appointment.

Swings and roundabouts- no guarantees.

Barnsley didn't win the PL title after appointing a DOF.
Let alone move out of League one.

Ah! Nick Jansky you didnt include the clubs that are struggling despite that they have a DoF!

 

[Pandev]

I’m pretty sure all current premier league teams have a DOF type model.

Seems like we have to move in that direction or be left behind (like we already have been).

DOF gives the club a long term plan and would have prevented the car crash of Selles. If every appointment has the same philosophy / tactics / recruitment it makes transitions smoother. Going from Wilder to Selles back to wilder was anything but smooth.

A great example is Brentford. Lost their manager, Frank, who everyone credited with their success. Keith Andrews takes over and their success continues. Andrews is clearly a good coach but I think it’s more to do with systems etc that are already in place.

 

[Bladesman]

I’m pretty sure all current premier league teams have a DOF type model.

Seems like we have to move in that direction or be left behind (like we already have been).

DOF gives the club a long term plan and would have prevented the car crash of Selles. If every appointment has the same philosophy / tactics / recruitment it makes transitions smoother. Going from Wilder to Selles back to wilder was anything but smooth.

A great example is Brentford. Lost their manager, Frank, who everyone credited with their success. Keith Andrews takes over and their success continues. Andrews is clearly a good coach but I think it’s more to do with systems etc that are already in place.

Brighton managers/coaches get poached quite often but they have kept themselves in the PL.

 

[Nick Jansky]

Ah! Nick Jansky you didnt include the clubs that are struggling despite that they have a DoF!

That’s because I was replying to a post that only listed the clubs that were struggling. That post was hopelessly biased so I thought some balance and context were needed.

As a comparison it would be interesting to see a list of successful clubs that don’t have a DoF or similar. It’s hard to think of any. Having one doesn’t guarantee success, whatever it looks like for individual clubs, but probably makes it more likely.

 

[Silent Blade]

That’s because I was replying to a post that only listed the clubs that were struggling. That post was hopelessly biased so I thought some balance and context were needed.

As a comparison it would be interesting to see a list of successful clubs that don’t have a DoF or similar. It’s hard to think of any. Having one doesn’t guarantee success, whatever it looks like for individual clubs, but probably makes it more likely.

If every club in the Championship have a DoF then just three clubs gain promotion to the Premier League at the end of the season which would mean 21 clubs didnt get success despite having a DoF.

I am still not convinced.

 

[The Fox]

If every club in the Championship have a DoF then just three clubs gain promotion to the Premier League at the end of the season which would mean 21 clubs didnt get success despite having a DoF.

I am still not convinced.

Its all about opinions granted .
Those clubs who have adopted the structure show no signs of going back to the old structure so even if they dont do well it doesn't appear they put that down to having a DOF/ Tech Dir .

I'm open to the idea but doubtful We'll see it anytime soon .

 

[brownblade]

If every club in the Championship have a DoF then just three clubs gain promotion to the Premier League at the end of the season which would mean 21 clubs didnt get success despite having a DoF.

I am still not convinced.

Nobody's said it guarantees success. But done properly it should give the club more stability and less of the summer disasters that we're very familiar with.

When Wilder leaves, the chances we'll go through a few managers in quick succession before maybe settling on one for two or three years.

But with DoF/Technical structure above the manager/"head coach", we should hope to have a steady and joined up transfer and off-field approach regardless of who the Head Coach is at the time. That's the key point and I really don't see why anyone would think it couldn't help?

Or we can continue buying and selling constantly, having to say we need a few more transfer windows and proper pre-seasons, practically every year.

 

[Silent Blade]

Nobody's said it guarantees success. But done properly it should give the club more stability and less of the summer disasters that we're very familiar with.

When Wilder leaves, the chances we'll go through a few managers in quick succession before maybe settling on one for two or three years.

But with DoF/Technical structure above the manager/"head coach", we should hope to have a steady and joined up transfer and off-field approach regardless of who the Head Coach is at the time. That's the key point and I really don't see why anyone would think it couldn't help?

Or we can continue buying and selling constantly, having to say we need a few more transfer windows and proper pre-seasons, practically every year.

I dont think it is a good idea having a DoF when Wilder is still our manager because he will still refuse to pick the signings that were recommended by the DoF/technical structure whatever.

 

[brownblade]

I dont think it is a good idea having a DoF when Wilder is still our manager because he will still refuse to pick the signings that were recommended by the DoF/technical structure whatever.

That may be the case...

 

[KMC-1889]

Not really. Using a useful data company can do much of that.

Can a data company plan the construction of the new first team training facilities? Can a data company plan the transition of the youth and women’s team to Shirecliffe when the first team move out, taking into account all the extra safeguarding measures that will need to be accounted for? Can they review the scouting an analysis team and and make sure we have adequate resources looking in the right places for the right players? Can they work with the ground keeping team to understand why we have a massive bald patch on the pitch at the Shoreham / cherry street corner?

All these plates are currently been spun by Wilder & Bettis, they’re spreading theirselves too thin and it’s why the club swings from crisis to crisis. No one is there to plan any longer than the current season.

 

[NordicHarry]

Look at our last two managerial appointments.

Abject failures and dismissed within months.

With a non Bladey Blade face on I could say - 3rd time lucky then.

Though I remember the 6 years in League one, and all the failed managers of those years and the years it took us to get there after Warnock.

As a realist I look back over 50 years and see Sheffield as a 2 club city (I use the term loosely) without the pulling power of Manchester,Liverpool or London.

Sheffield United do not have the pulling power for owners who wish to 'invest' £20/30 million pounds per season even if they were allowed to do so.

'But we could use AI like Brentford and Brighton' - no one else has thought of that.
We tried that last summer.

We have suffered the consequences this season - yet we choose to blame Wilder rather than AI or the new owners.

I really don't understand what you're getting at here?
Firstly a DoF would come in with knowledge of the game, and sieve through potential managers, and not just hire them cause they're a nice bloke is what seems like we did without any actual interview?

Secondly what's it got to do with having massive pulling power and spending 20mil+? Again this is what a DoF would come in and evaluate between scouting networks etc. Brentford, Bournemouth, or Brighton didn't have great pulling powers to start with? And look at Lincoln now? They have a structure. We don't.

 

[KMC-1889]

And who’s to say succession planning for a DOF is not a bad idea anyway?! Like managers they probably have a shelf life and need to be moved up or out

Myself and Addison have been banging on about this for years. We are way to lean on staffing particularly on the football side of things. I think we are generally not set up for success and would say we are seriously under resourced on:

• scouting
• transfers
• coaching
• sports science
• player welfare
• press/comms
• corporate/marketing

It all comes from the top. Leadership drives culture which drives performance. Systems need to be in place and then high quality motivated individuals and teams.
If this is anathema to you then being successful at modern professional football is probably not for you. Hallam or Sheffield FC is where you need to be with well meaning volunteers running the pie stand and club shop whilst doing the 50/50 draw.

Preach brother

There’s a chunk of our fan base that wants to see us ran like Sheffield or Hallam but ALSO want us competing in the premier league, it’s mutually exclusive.

We can keep banging the drum about how the club isn’t set up for sustained success but there will always be a fight against this because key people within the club also want to see us run like a ‘traditional club’.

 

[LBA_Blade]

Does anyone know if theres ever been an internal review with the owners,senior management and off field staff to look into the reasons why last summers debacle happened and who the people responsible for it were?
We know the owners admitted their part,but that was only the half of it with recruitment, fitness,scouting and god knows what else all dis functional,so it needed to be got to the bottom off and protocols,plans, systems, whatever you want to call them put in place so that there is an actual hymn sheet for everyone to sing off,and a good one at that,or was everything just swept under the carpet and left to chance whether it happens again or not.

The time it took to get rid of Wilder and bring in Selles didn't help as we already had committed to a pre-season under Wilder that involved a week in Spain without any fixtures followed by the Yorkshire/Derbyshire tour then, Selles decided to add 2 other fixtures in vs OGC Nice & Fulham (120 minute match too!) and had just over 6 weeks to put a squad together and work on fitness. Although we did reasonably well results wise in preseason something has been lacking fitness wise for a while. I think playing the number of friendlies we did was far too many from 15th July to start of season on 9th August, we had 6 1st team friendlies. 1 a week is plenty and that needs to be thought through a bit more.

 

[Greasy Chap Butty]

If every club in the Championship have a DoF then just three clubs gain promotion to the Premier League at the end of the season which would mean 21 clubs didnt get success despite having a DoF.

I am still not convinced.

Not sure on the logic works there mate.
Also, it isn't just about success in the current season, it carrying out a longer term plan, for all areas of the club.

 

[Carlton Blade]

If every club in the Championship have a DoF then just three clubs gain promotion to the Premier League at the end of the season which would mean 21 clubs didnt get success despite having a DoF.

I am still not convinced.

Calling having enough people to cover the huge number of roles that are required to keep a club competitive, sustainably in the top 30 clubs "a DoF" is really reductive. The issue is, it's far far too much to ask the person responsible for winning the next match to also be responsible for everything else

 

[Sean Thornton]

I really don't understand what you're getting at here?
Firstly a DoF would come in with knowledge of the game, and sieve through potential managers, and not just hire them cause they're a nice bloke is what seems like we did without any actual interview?

Secondly what's it got to do with having massive pulling power and spending 20mil+? Again this is what a DoF would come in and evaluate between scouting networks etc. Brentford, Bournemouth, or Brighton didn't have great pulling powers to start with? And look at Lincoln now? They have a structure. We don't.

“what seems like we did without any actual interview?”


Does anyone honestly think that the Selles appointment was made without anyone actually interviewing him?

 

[jt64]

If every club in the Championship have a DoF then just three clubs gain promotion to the Premier League at the end of the season which would mean 21 clubs didnt get success despite having a DoF.

I am still not convinced.

Despite the fact that it would have been epic failure when Selles was sacked, half the board at that point were saying that finishing 21st would have been a success. Everything is relative. I'm sure Lincoln would not regard a mid table finish next season as a failure.