Scouting infrastructure problems

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FMBlade1 said:
So what? You still put the infrastructure in place. If a manager doesn't want to use youth players you don't just close down the academy.
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Thus spending money the manager may prefer to spend on HIS targets....... Err, okay.

Again, a daft analogy. Have you noticed we seem to be getting money from sales of our academy players? In our current position, the club is fully behind the academy while letting CW scout players as well. Or do we set up a cost centre now in case the next bloke fancies some French players and cut Wilders budget?
 

FMBlade1 said:
This is pure trolling at its worst. Where has anyone suggested that the board should buy someone over the manager's head? Why can't we send scouts to actually see players abroad like other clubs do?
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I don't necessarily disagree about sending scouts out FM, but my concern (and I see I caused an argument with the hypothetical mention of owners getting players the manager doesn't want which wasn't the aim) is that we should only be sending out players at the manager's request. The manager should state the criteria he wants in players which gives the scouts something to work on, otherwise they could be watching and recommending a type of player that simply doesn't fit with what the club is trying to do.

Don't get me wrong, I think if anyone in the club (even CW) has said that we don't need to or don't want to look overseas, I think it's a very short sighted and incorrect decision, but I'm just playing devil's advocate and asking whether the decision has been made by the board or the manager.
 
Fulwood Blade said:
The club have said numerous times that we aren't in the business of loan players and that we are concentrating on finding talent from the lower leagues who we can buy either in contract or last year in contract or out of contract. Foreign players (to my knowledge) hasn't been mentioned at all as we have no network at all. We are in the market for L1/L2 players and we HAVE to operate in that market, probably due to losing LOTS and LOTS of cash (sorry not losing but funded by KM & Prince..........yes, someone else's money) for the past 6 years.

We will probably lose money this year and next year and the year after..............sorry, spend more of KM's and Prince's money as we try and establish ourselves.

You should cast your eye over to Barnsley - they came out of L1 with some decent players, had to sell them all (due to no benefactors prepared to fund large amounts) and are presently trawling the lower leagues for players too. This unfortunately is the market we are in also, but unlike Barnsley, we may hang on to our decent players and not have the first fire sale in the coming JTW. I believe Barnsley lost 1 before start of last season and 3 in the transfer window last January and 3 more this summer.

Having foreign scouts all over the world recommending players to us is something that the club needs to develop and no doubt we are behind all premier league clubs and the majority of Championship clubs - but this network will cost money, time, effort and staff - all of which we probably don't have.

As fans we need to have patience in CW & AK for a while yet (as well as the directors and board) as the club re-develops/re-invents itself.............dread to think of the meltdown if we actually lose to Barnsley on Saturday - the signs are showing already.

UTB
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Funny you mention Barnsley

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/40961913
 
Sean Thornton said:
Thus spending money the manager may prefer to spend on HIS targets....... Err, okay.

Again, a daft analogy. Have you noticed we seem to be getting money from sales of our academy players? In our current position, the club is fully behind the academy while letting CW scout players as well. Or do we set up a cost centre now in case the next bloke fancies some French players and cut Wilders budget?
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Have you noticed that other clubs seem to be getting money from buying good players at value for money from overseas and selling them for massive profits?

So infrastructure budget is combined with the transfer budget? In that case the TV screen has taken a good chunk out of it, even if we'll eventually make a return through advertising
 
Worksop II said:
All fine .......... seem to be plenty ribbing McCabe and keeping you busy :)
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This ones purely simple economics, Dad , I mean Kev has had an easy ride up to now apart from his new toy in the stadium.

Anyway, I'm waiting for FM to come up with a Herbert Chapman story about him leaving Huddersfield because the chairman wore spats or something.
 
FMBlade1 said:
Have you noticed that other clubs seem to be getting money from buying good players at value for money from overseas and selling them for massive profits?

So infrastructure budget is combined with the transfer budget? In that case the TV screen has taken a good chunk out of it, even if we'll eventually make a return through advertising
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Clearly I have. Doesn't always work either but obviously cherry pick the good ones and where the clubs have got money to spend. Remember Brentford would have had solidarity payments of £4.3 million which will have paid for them together with a chairman throwing millions at the club ( Rather like McCabe did ten years ago?)

Glad to see you've grasped the TV/income point. :)
 
FMBlade1 said:
Funny you mention Barnsley

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/40961913
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he might be good, bad or indifferent - no one knows yet........but Barnsley are having to be more creative than we are. He is also probably within their wage structure too.

You should have listened to Heckinbottam before the season started - the fella was in desperate straights not knowing what to expect this season from all the new, lower league players they have had to bring in after selling all the good ones.

UTB
 
Woodwardfan said:
Our manager had almost a blank canvas when he joined us just over 12 months ago. He had that fortunate/ challenging situation where numerous players' contracts were ending and he had the opportunity to clear the decks and bring in half a squad of his own men. I believe he chose his own Head Scout at the time and was delighted when Mitchell joined us.

At the time of Mitchell's appointment I feel sure he mentioned European coverage and his data base stretching over there.

In 2016 we appointed Chris Wilder and he is a certain type of manager who often says himself that he's 'old school'. As sure as night follows day our fans would always start questioning his credentials if we lost a couple of matches this season. The O.P. suggests the issue is a Board failing but fact is the manager has the set up exactly as he wants it. He said he was delighted with his budget and the way the club was structured and has never suggested otherwise since as far as I know.

We didn't appoint a German manager with knowledge of German league players, nor a Spanish one or a Portuguese one dare I mention. Personally I am glad we didn't, I like the S2 Blades unique approach of signing value for money proven players hungry to achieve at the new level. Keep signing value for money and it will all accumulate. Sign one supposed 'star player' who struggles to settle and everything is endangered.

Signing foreign players is always a risk. For the few that can be mentioned on this thread there have been vast fortunes totally wasted at many clubs over the years. We are not that flush that we can afford many failures and Wilder treats the cash as though it's his own.

Our experiment with sister foreign clubs yielded no obvious quality recruits though it did help Lowton to develop over there when he might not have done over here.

Again personally, I am disappointed Whiteman and Reed are not featuring for us this season but that's another fragment of the whole approach which was available to us. I appreciate not many, if any, agree with me on that point.

We are a club on the up. We are maybe 20 times stronger than we were 12 months ago. Only so much can be achieved in a short time period and gambles on foreign players do not fit the circumstances we are in. Maybe next season in the Championship we might think about it but something tells me a foreign player might not understand Wilder's culture which goes right through the club now.

KTF. We have 3 points from 3 games including two away games at current form clubs and favourites for honours this season. Remind yourself we are hoping to consolidate and improve, not run away with the league just yet. Spend a load o' money on a speculative foreign 'star' and risk increases. Sign three value for money, quality players instead and we will be better placed if say two of them do well.
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It shouldn't be Wilder's decision as to whether we have a Europe wide scouting infrastructure however if Wilder doesn't not want to sign any players thrown up by the scouting system that is his decision. The scouting infrastructure should be in place for all future managers just as the Academy is.
 
Fulwood Blade said:
The club have said numerous times that we aren't in the business of loan players and that we are concentrating on finding talent from the lower leagues who we can buy either in contract or last year in contract or out of contract. Foreign players (to my knowledge) hasn't been mentioned at all as we have no network at all. We are in the market for L1/L2 players and we HAVE to operate in that market, probably due to losing LOTS and LOTS of cash (sorry not losing but funded by KM & Prince..........yes, someone else's money) for the past 6 years.

We will probably lose money this year and next year and the year after..............sorry, spend more of KM's and Prince's money as we try and establish ourselves.

You should cast your eye over to Barnsley - they came out of L1 with some decent players, had to sell them all (due to no benefactors prepared to fund large amounts) and are presently trawling the lower leagues for players too. This unfortunately is the market we are in also, but unlike Barnsley, we may hang on to our decent players and not have the first fire sale in the coming JTW. I believe Barnsley lost 1 before start of last season and 3 in the transfer window last January and 3 more this summer.

Having foreign scouts all over the world recommending players to us is something that the club needs to develop and no doubt we are behind all premier league clubs and the majority of Championship clubs - but this network will cost money, time, effort and staff - all of which we probably don't have.

As fans we need to have patience in CW & AK for a while yet (as well as the directors and board) as the club re-develops/re-invents itself.............dread to think of the meltdown if we actually lose to Barnsley on Saturday - the signs are showing already.

UTB
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Mostly agree but feel sure we intend to loan a player or two to join us yet.
 
Sean Thornton said:
Not sure what you mean. Speed was only manager five minutes. Blackwell decided not to take him originally. He could just have been a referral from his agent rather than from an overseas scouting network.
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Certain scouts remained at the club after the Warnock era and worked under Robson, Blackwell and Speed.
 
FMBlade1 said:
I've been looking more into this briefly and it just makes me even more annoyed

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Maupay

This player had a decent scoring record in the French second division last season. The stats are all available on Wikipedia. It took me 30 seconds to find them.

He signs for Brentford for just £1.6 million and has already scored twice in three games. At the age of 21 and a former French youth international he is likely to only get better.

Could we have scouted him before Brentford got him?

If not, why not?
If we could, why didn't we?
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One look at FIFA 15, 16 and 17 could have told you Maupay would be shrewd buy nevermind having a scout out there watching him.
 

FMBlade1 said:
One of the reasons that led to Brian Clough's departure at Derby County was that he was sick of the chairman spending money on luxury stadium accessories rather than investing in new players.

If we have the money to put a 6 figure amount into a TV screen, we should have money to put into scouting. If the TV means we don't have that money for scouting then yes I question that board's priorities.

I suspect its the former rather than latter, and as I said in the OP it appears poor strategy from the board rather than financial limitations.
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I can only speculate and say that maybe the screen money is a "different pot" so to speak? By that I mean funded, at least in part, by sponsorship with the quid pro quo of the screen touting the services of that sponsor? In essence, not costing the club as much as one might think?

Or I could just be talking out of my arse, it has been known :)
 
ghandi said:
It shouldn't be Wilder's decision as to whether we have a Europe wide scouting infrastructure however if Wilder doesn't not want to sign any players thrown up by the scouting system that is his decision. The scouting infrastructure should be in place for all future managers just as the Academy is.
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As I said in the post you replied to, I'm fairly sure Mitchell has European connections. I remember being surprised when he confirmed it when appointed.

Fact is Wilder has spelled out his target transfer market and the profile of players he is seeking. It's right for us now and I hope Wilder is with us 10 years or more as that will mean he and we have been successful. I'm 100% sure that if he is still with us in say five years his target transfer market will be far and wide and will grow with the manager and the club. For now we know who we are and what we want.

I think Wilder will stick to his knitting for some time as did Clough actually. Adkins was all over the place.

Not many years ago we were without a Head Scout for nearly 2 years after Philliskirk left. Hard to believe and scandalous of course. I have always said the Head Scout appointment is nearly as important as the manager appointment and I sincerely believe the Scout should report to fans via the website - the extent of his activities, without names and full details of course but some indication of the scale of the efforts being made. In the final analysis he will be judged on the performance of recruited players as needed by the manager.
 
If Wilder wants a scouting network in Europe then I'm sure he would've asked McCabe, McCabe might have answered that you can have one but unfortunately it will have to come out of your budget, the plus side though Mr Wilder is that you get to use 80%? of any transfer funds you make from selling on any of the players you bring in from abroad. Decisions, decisions!

This is all obviously conjecture but it's not an easy option or decision for Wilder to make on the spot, let Wilder get through this season hopefully unscathed and see if whilst the season is going on we can get something in place for the start of next season.

I've got to be honest, I couldn't give a flying fuck where they come from as long as we see the mighty Blades do well.
 
When Warnock was in charge he had a "European Scouting Network", its success rate was around 1 in 8 from memory. We haven't got the cash to waste now on transfers or wages for that kind of success rate to work.
 
FMBlade1 said:


Adams was one of the worst manager's in our history so its no surprise to hear he burned our bridges in this regard as well.

Think Blackwell actually signed Calve, but like to have an excuse to look at that goal again
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Did he? I thought that Blackwell gave him a trial but decided not to sign him, then got sacked and Speed signed him pretty much straight away.
 
C'mon we have foreign players begging to join us on our Facebook page for fucks sake! :D


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Woodwardfan said:
Mostly agree but feel sure we intend to loan a player or two to join us yet.
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True - I suppose I should have qualified the loans as the "we'll get them fit" or journey men at the end of career types.

Quite willing to have young players aka: Blackman. Keeping them for a year, and if we are seriously interested, we can work on them during the year with a view to a possible permanent signing. Coady for instance was a great loan and is the type we should be looking at from the big six in the Prem not players like Baptiste from Boro who fits into both categories above.

UTB
 
Apologies if this has already been asked - cba'd to trawl 5 pages - but how much can it really cost to set up a scouting network in, Belgium, say?

3 guys, 40k a year each, travel around the cities and digs while they're there, expenses. 250K a year? Half a million? Peanuts, even if they only come back with a Che Adams once a year, ready to be developed for a couple of years, then sold on. Let alone the more realistic idea of finding players that'll strengthen the first team.
 
That ethos is partly why, despite the “better value” on offer, Wilder has largely resisted the lure of players from overseas.

“We’re based on an English mentality but that doesn’t mean we’ll close the doors on other players,” he insists. “We are looking to expand our recruitment, but the most critical thing is that players fit into our culture.”

http://www.theleaguepaper.com/featu...nable-to-pay-our-suppliers-says-chris-wilder/
 

Sean Thornton said:
Thus spending money the manager may prefer to spend on HIS targets....... Err, okay.

Again, a daft analogy. Have you noticed we seem to be getting money from sales of our academy players? In our current position, the club is fully behind the academy while letting CW scout players as well. Or do we set up a cost centre now in case the next bloke fancies some French players and cut Wilders budget?
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Don't they have to be black French players?
 
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