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Backroom & executive staff


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1 hour ago, SUPERTOON said:

Obviously just going of the media reports but by all accounts he was available for now with 2 million compensation, obviously he may not be our first choice mind.

 

The media reports I heard were saying this was still ongoing and there was a couple of directorial roles we would be looking to fill shortly, DoF and one other although it escapes what it was exactly. I think these are really important roles tbh, I would rather we did our homework and got the right one in. 

 

 

 

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21 minutes ago, TRon said:

 

The media reports I heard were saying this was still ongoing and there was a couple of directorial roles we would be looking to fill shortly, DoF and one other although it escapes what it was exactly. I think these are really important roles tbh, I would rather we did our homework and got the right one in. 

 

 

 

Yeah CEO is the other one they are looking to fill.

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1 hour ago, JJ7 said:

A DoF would still face the same problem that we do now. Anyone seeing us coming will try and drag it out as long as possible to see how desperate we get towards the end of the window. If you were in charge of another club with a player we wanted, why would you you sell now? They're only really going to sell if they're desperate for the money and we can show them that we won't go back at a later date if they don't accept now.

 

Watford seem to be getting a lot of players in, but clubs know they don't have unlimited money. If we'd went in for the same players it would probably still be dragging on, with far higher offers needed than Watford paid. 

 

This was always going to be a problem in January. Meeting release clauses or hoping a player would take a huff to come is probably our only way in most cases.

Well, exactly.

 

Every club knows that we're rich and also desperate, the weakest possible starting point.

 

We have no bargaining position and everyone we deal with knows that.

 

People saying "just pay them whatever they want" don't seem to realise that what they want is basically not a fixed amount but simply as much as they can get.

 

Quick, get someone in before Leeds!

 

Well, other clubs won't care about our result against Leeds. In fact, if we lose that game then we get more desperate and it only strengthens their hand afterwards.

 

Suits them all to push it to the last possible minute in January, as that's when they'll get the most.

 

This whole idea that we'd sign 5 players on Jan 1 was always a fantasy for that very reason, and that would absolutely be the case with a DOF or not.

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4 hours ago, CFlan said:


Both will be culpable imo. 

What do you think would have worked out differently if we appointed a DOF? It's obviously a position we need to fill but one that will benefit us more in the long term than the short term I would think. 

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3 hours ago, Sean said:

How much would we sell Wilson to Southampton for? And how much to Man City?

 

I'd say he is that important to us that we would set a ridiculous price no matter who the buyer is. If they don't want to pay near to that, they can walk away.

 

See, I think the value a club sets on their player is FAR more complicated than quadrupling the price because it's NUFC. Sure, they might up the price a bit, but clubs have been doing that to Man City for years. They still get the deals done they need to somehow though. That's where negotiating comes into play. It remains to be seen how well we are doing in that regard but it doesn't look great at the minute..

I get that, though were a bit different to Man City in the fact that we're far more desperate, and clubs know that.

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You don’t need a DOF to Do a deal in football. What you need are willing parties or contractual reasons a deal can be done without much resistance. We’ve successfully signed 2 players as such through this. The deals not done are a result of unwilling sellers tbh. 

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6 hours ago, Kanji said:

You don’t need a DOF to Do a deal in football. What you need are willing parties or contractual reasons a deal can be done without much resistance. We’ve successfully signed 2 players as such through this. The deals not done are a result of unwilling sellers tbh. 

It doesn't hurt.

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The DOF stuff is such a red herring. All the drama around the supposed lack of structure was whipped up by anonymous agents complaining that they didn’t know who at the club to pester on behalf of their clients. 

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When Abramovich bought Chelsea, he hired Kenyon from Man Utd within 3 months. Knocked a chunk off their share price and ended up pinching several deals they had worked on. It was a fairly solid short to medium term move.

 

The consortium should have done this earlier, not necessarily Kenyon but at least he would have had the experience of a similar project and would be far more used to negotiating with other clubs than our highly inexperienced current setup is.

 

The comments Emery made are probably accurate, there may not be a clear objective/vision right now, or at least it’s not being communicated as well as it could.

 

I don’t think it’s a case of egos at work that they haven’t been decisive here, but just that the threat of relegation is stifling everything and that in itself is making relegation all the more serious.

 

We need to catch a break.

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15 hours ago, ManDoon said:

Very smart play from them. And yeah I agree, it makes a big difference, see Purslow at Villa and Granovskaia at Chelsea. 

 

In my previous role I worked quite closely with Chelsea, Roma and a few other clubs. The sophistication of Chelsea as a business, never mind a football club is incredible. They have data on everything from fan engagement inside the stadium, digital channels (including revenue generated from fan channels similar to AFTV) to scaling their fanbase based off of player acquisition. The NDA I was tied to allowed access to a subset of data, I can't imagine what else lives in their data lake. 

We are, as I'm sure is obvious to everyone on this board, easily a decade+ behind the level they're operating at. Anyone thinking we're going to become near their level in the next five years needs to adjust their expectations. We'll be lucky to stay in the league this year, relegation (obviously) will set us back further than the expectations Staveley initially communicated. While it was ambitious of her to do so, in hindsight, it's a lofty goal to achieve, especially given our current plight. 

 

15 hours ago, ManDoon said:

I do get what you mean, unfortunately football is full of absolute scammers and blaggers, and you need someone experienced with it all so they don’t take bad advice. Just people familiar with deals/agents/contracts. Having someone familiar who has contacts with favorable clubs/agencies is definitely a help.
 

One thing Carr was very good at was finding players that were not just good, but able to get at reasonable prices. 

 

That's why having a breadth of data to drive decision making is so essential in modern football. A talented DOF will have support on this front, while leaning in to their network for the other aspects you've mentioned. 

Anyways, it would be even bleaker outlook if Ashley was in charge and exponential regression would have set in without competitive capital expenditure. It's rather amazing we aren't even more fucked from his malfeasance in running this club the last 14years. 

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24 minutes ago, The Bonk said:

 

 

In my previous role I worked quite closely with Chelsea, Roma and a few other clubs. The sophistication of Chelsea as a business, never mind a football club is incredible. They have data on everything from fan engagement inside the stadium, digital channels (including revenue generated from fan channels similar to AFTV) to scaling their fanbase based off of player acquisition. The NDA I was tied to allowed access to a subset of data, I can't imagine what else lives in their data lake. 

We are, as I'm sure is obvious to everyone on this board, easily a decade+ behind the level they're operating at. Anyone thinking we're going to become near their level in the next five years needs to adjust their expectations. We'll be lucky to stay in the league this year, relegation (obviously) will set us back further than the expectations Staveley initially communicated. While it was ambitious of her to do so, in hindsight, it's a lofty goal to achieve, especially given our current plight. 

 

 

That's why having a breadth of data to drive decision making is so essential in modern football. A talented DOF will have support on this front, while leaning in to their network for the other aspects you've mentioned. 

Anyways, it would be even bleaker outlook if Ashley was in charge and exponential regression would have set in without competitive capital expenditure. It's rather amazing we aren't even more fucked from his malfeasance in running this club the last 14years. 

 

Very informative post. Thanks for that, opened my eyes somewhat, although I won't pretend to be surprised. I hope some of those who are moaning "why haven't we got 8 players signed already, its been 2 wks ffs", have a read. 

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1 minute ago, ManDoon said:

Excellent post. I’ve been nowhere near to that level of board room or PL level but I had an interview at Aberdeen, and they were just revamping their entire scouting set up, and the amount of data they were looking to work with was huge. Basically each person would be assigned a region, and watch the entire region looking for anomalies in the data, to find players they could afford to sign. Really impressive.

 

I wasn’t meant to say anything but fuck it, it’s been ages and I didn’t get the job. I don’t know what we have but I highly doubt it’s even close to what they were doing.


I love that! It's remarkable and easily scalable for a smaller team of scouts at a club like Aberdeen. However.....

 

What's gets me about my work is that, while I'm in it, I'm thinking "oh, this is so cool, we have unlimited cheat codes" with the insights I'm provided. Then I look at it from an ethical standpoint and realize privacy is an afterthought these days. :lol: 

I suppose the data provides insight to create very good products to drive brand reach and high expectations for fans who essentially fund the existence of the league through participation one way or another (in person or via screen). 

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2 minutes ago, TRon said:

 

Very informative post. Thanks for that, opened my eyes somewhat, although I won't pretend to be surprised. I hope some of those who are moaning "why haven't we got 8 players signed already, its been 2 wks ffs", have a read. 

 

No worries! 

 

The change management exercise that ownership needs to undertake will be the biggest challenge for the club. Who stays, goes, who to bring in to compliment existing staff, operations, etc. Which is why it made sense to keep Thumbheed around for longer than we'd all have liked. 

We will eventually be competitive, I'm sure of that, the intent is there from our owners as the gap of commitment has been filled from the previous regime. What we need is patience, which after 14 years is understandably hard to come by. :) 

 

 

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14 minutes ago, ManDoon said:

I think its scalable for us, very much so. They were really intent on budget restrictions because they "couldn't afford champinship wages" as they said in interview. We would and should have the resources to do the same thing, just takes investment and the right appointments. I thought it was really cool, the idea at least.

 

Yeah, I don't like the idea of everyone having access to personal data, it should be treated as our property (imo). In terms of football though the devil is absolutely in the data imo. Brentford have a format for their scout reports where you pretty much make an observation on every player in the match you watch, estimate height, foot R/L, and each match just gets added to the database. I haven't worked for them but the guy I work for now was a scout there so we use their format, whether its exactly the same I dont know. The days of people just being like "he's decent, sign him" are long gone imo. If you can get good quality data you get a leg up on other teams, plus the eye test. Fuck knows what our reports look like lol.

 

What an amicable challenge though, Moneyball at its finest. "Here's your Sandbox, study the data, now find the next George Best". :lol: The crazy thing is, that might actually be possible with the right data.

 

I can foresee a scenario in the future where players own their data like intellectual property. Not necessarily on field, but more the conditioning side of things. Want access? Pony up as part of my transfer fee. 

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