Paul Mitchell

[Shays Given Tim Flowers]

Let’s not forget the velvet owl Chris Mort who was really just Ashley’s lackey.

[TRon]

21 minutes ago, kingxlnc said:

Ashworth was very accomplished speaking wise, he sounded like he had a plan and philosophy etc, the centre of the wheel etc. Look how he turned out. Not too great at his role - given the PSR debacle. 
I'd rather Mitchell stutters his way through press conference embarassingly as long as he is great at his job and brings in great players etc. 

 

Ultimately that's what he will be judged on (apart from on here).

 

You'd like to think he's got a good track record of recruiting well, and we did our homework before appointing him.

[TBG]

Was he wearing a Poppy?

[McCormick]

53 minutes ago, lovejoy said:

Being comfortable speaking in public is way down my list of attributes I want our sporting director to have.

 

Who cares?

 

 

 

The fact that he’s upset a known good thing in Howe, means I care. 

 

We haven’t seen anything from him so far to suggest he’s worth the PR blunders and disharmony in the camp. All we have to go on is his poor first window and his poor public speaking so I’m judging him on that until he shows us something to get behind.

 

 

Edited Thursday at 11:13 by McCormick

[Stal]

This is very niche but every time I see his name on here I think "Sinister Minister", even though that's James and not Paul. 

[Lush Vlad]

5 hours ago, Scoot said:

 

The Roast of Paul Mitchell - Live!

Judging by a few on here. They’d rather burn him at the stake. 

[80]

1 hour ago, Erikse said:

 

The thing is he was asked about how he has settled in the first 5 months. He replies with his own honest experience of the first 5 months. "mistakes were made, but we're gonna learn from them and come back stronger" would be a bit of an odd answer to that question, as the question was about him specifically.

 

 

 

That would be why I said spiel, as opposed to directly requesting him to use those words. It would be corporate speak, which isn't great, but would be better than looking like he's allergic to taking flak while in a leadership position.

[80]

1 hour ago, kingxlnc said:

Ashworth was very accomplished speaking wise, he sounded like he had a plan and philosophy etc, the centre of the wheel etc. Look how he turned out. Not too great at his role - given the PSR debacle. 
I'd rather Mitchell stutters his way through press conference embarassingly as long as he is great at his job and brings in great players etc. 

Agree with all that. I'm comfortable enough with that being the situation, it's just a surprise given the hype was he was this dick swinging alpha when he came in. Last night made it easier for me to believe the stories some people have been telling themselves about Eddie strong-arming him into making bad decisions like the Guehi pursuit, because he obviously feels massively on the back foot.

[Erikse]

34 minutes ago, 80 said:

That would be why I said spiel, as opposed to directly requesting him to use those words. It would be corporate speak, which isn't great, but would be better than looking like he's allergic to taking flak while in a leadership position.

 

Fair. As you probably agree with, he might be a bit defensive since he feels like he has gotten too much stick from such a difficult situation. I think he also felt like he was being used as a some kind of a scapegoat, and he probably feels uncomfortable about already being unpopular amongst fans for something that may not have been his fault, atleast not to a large degree (I know, this is a bit speculative).

 

I agree that he would be a bad politician, I think he's just answering honestly as if it was a private conversation, and not really thinking too much about it. I don't mind it personally, but that's subjective.

 

 

Edited Thursday at 12:30 by Erikse

[Keegans Export]

7 minutes ago, Erikse said:

 

Fair. As you probably agree with, he might be a bit defensive since he feels like he has gotten too much stick from such a difficult situation. I think he also felt like he was being used as a some kind of a scapegoat, and he probably feels uncomfortable about already being unpopular amongst fans for something that may not have been his fault, atleast not to a large degree (I know, this is a bit speculative).

 

I agree that he would be a bad politician, I think he's just answering honestly as if it was a private conversation, and not really thinking too much about it. I don't mind it personally, but that's subjective.

 

I much prefer it that way to generic pre-written answers that aren't actually answers at all.

 

If he has come in and basically had to go along with what the previous targets, plans etc were (and it makes sense that that's what happened) then I have no issue with him saying so.

 

Likewise I have no problem with him calling out our previous transfer activity. We were scrambling around at the end of June trying to avoid a points deduction so something has gone wrong and if those involved want to brush over it or pretend everything was hunky-dory then they're going to make the same mistakes again. 

[80]

1 minute ago, Erikse said:

 

Fair. As you probably agree with, he might be a bit defensive as he feels like he has gotten too much stick from such a difficult situation. I think he also felt like he was being used as a kind of a scapegoat, and he doesn't want to be unpopular amongst fans for something that may not really have been his fault (I know, this is a bit speculative).

 

I agree that he would be a bad politician, I think he's just answering honestly as if it was a private conversation, and not really thinking too much about it. I don't mind it personally, but that's subjective.

Yeah I agree with all that. Going back to the start of this whole conversation, that's what I was originally saying - I was surprised by how affected he was, but that wasn't a criticism. I can take a few positives from how he was last night.

 

It also makes a lot more sense of the bad interview he did in September - how half a dozen journalists all came out with different messages. It looked like he was playing power games, but he was probably coming out with word salads.

[TRon]

23 minutes ago, 80 said:

Agree with all that. I'm comfortable enough with that being the situation, it's just a surprise given the hype was he was this dick swinging alpha when he came in. Last night made it easier for me to believe the stories some people have been telling themselves about Eddie strong-arming him into making bad decisions like the Guehi pursuit, because he obviously feels massively on the back foot.

 

The Guehi pursuit was obviously Howe led. Guehi would be the opposite of the typical transfer profile MItchell has made his name for, i.e, under the radar younger players who don't have a high profile yet.

 

You could argue he should have done his own stuff right off the bat, but considering Howe's success and popularity, it was understandable he'd try and get him the player he wanted to get him onside, provided the price wasn't ludicrous. Which in the end it was.

[Erikse]

19 minutes ago, Keegans Export said:

I much prefer it that way to generic pre-written answers that aren't actually answers at all.

 

If he has come in and basically had to go along with what the previous targets, plans etc were (and it makes sense that that's what happened) then I have no issue with him saying so.

 

Likewise I have no problem with him calling out our previous transfer activity. We were scrambling around at the end of June trying to avoid a points deduction so something has gone wrong and if those involved want to brush over it or pretend everything was hunky-dory then they're going to make the same mistakes again. 

 

Going back to when Howe said that if his key players wants to go to a Champions League side, they need to play like Champions League players. It's possible for someone to frame it as him blaming the players for the form we were in, but in reality he was just being very straightforward, something he often isn't. Our form has been much better after that statement, and although there are several reasons for that, maybe some players needed a wakeup call.

 

Not an exact comparison at all, but more on the topic of how we can frame statements in different ways.

 

 

Edited Thursday at 12:56 by Erikse

[80]

22 minutes ago, TRon said:

 

The Guehi pursuit was obviously Howe led. Guehi would be the opposite of the typical transfer profile MItchell has made his name for, i.e, under the radar younger players who don't have a high profile yet.

 

You could argue he should have done his own stuff right off the bat, but considering Howe's success and popularity, it was understandable he'd try and get him the player he wanted to get him onside, provided the price wasn't ludicrous. Which in the end it was.

I wasn't saying Eddie didn't want him, but I struggled to imagine Mitchell would (try to) authorise a purchase he didn't believe in that would tie his own PSR hands up for a couple of years and make his future life a lot harder.

 

He is - as many remind us - Eddie's boss ultimately. Backing Howe's judgement is one thing, but not at the cost of signing the next Gyokeres or whoever he's monitoring because we're in PSR debt again.

 

So yeah, if he did bend his knee and do that, and then get publicly mugged off, I can see why he'd feel very pissed off with himself.

 

 

Edited Thursday at 13:07 by 80

[TRon]

1 hour ago, 80 said:

I wasn't saying Eddie didn't want him, but I struggled to imagine Mitchell would (try to) authorise a purchase he didn't believe in that would tie his own PSR hands up for a couple of years and make his future life a lot harder.

 

He is - as many remind us - Eddie's boss ultimately. Backing Howe's judgement is one thing, but not at the cost of signing the next Gyokeres or whoever he's monitoring because we're in PSR debt again.

 

So yeah, if he did bend his knee and do that, and then get publicly mugged off, I can see why he'd feel very pissed off with himself.

 

 

 

 

 

Depends what we actually bid. Palace were talking £70m, there was talk our actual bid was more like £50m, which while it's still a lot, would not be unreasonable for an England defender. Even then though, I agree it doesn't really seem like a trademark MItchell deal so kinda strange business all round.

[Erikse]

4 hours ago, 80 said:

I wasn't saying Eddie didn't want him, but I struggled to imagine Mitchell would (try to) authorise a purchase he didn't believe in that would tie his own PSR hands up for a couple of years and make his future life a lot harder.

 

He is - as many remind us - Eddie's boss ultimately. Backing Howe's judgement is one thing, but not at the cost of signing the next Gyokeres or whoever he's monitoring because we're in PSR debt again.

 

So yeah, if he did bend his knee and do that, and then get publicly mugged off, I can see why he'd feel very pissed off with himself.

 

 

 

 

I can see him going with whatever the club/Howe had planned in the first window, having arrived like 5 minutes ago. It's probably what many fans would say that he should do, had they been asked about it the when he arrived. Makes more sense to me instead of changing everything up on the first few days, without even having had time to map out where we are at, unlike Howe who at the time had been here for nearly 3 years. Ofcourse there had to be some agreement there between the parties, but he might have been careful simply because it was such early days for him.

 

 

Edited Thursday at 17:42 by Erikse

[80]

2 hours ago, Erikse said:

 

I can see him going with whatever the club/Howe had planned in the first window, having arrived like 5 minutes ago. It's probably what many fans would say that he should do, had they been asked about it the when he arrived. Makes more sense to me instead of changing everything up on the first few days, without even having had time to map out where we are at, unlike Howe who at the time had been here for nearly 3 years. Ofcourse there had to be some agreement there between the parties, but he might have been careful simply because it was such early days for him.

 

 

 

I agree the majority of fans would've wanted that, but ultimately we were hiring him for his expertise and control of transfers, so I wouldn't have wanted him to be too influenced by that. It wouldn't really have been him changing plans up as the June PSR crunch and board fallout just before he joined had done that for us...

 

Being conservative about which players to go for when you're new is very fair, but the financial situation shouldn't have taken too long to understand, with Eales and co. to talk to. So for me, it's the opposite of careful to try and put all his remaining eggs in a very expensive basket he wasn't willing to say he fancied himself.

[SteV]

Brief NUST summary of what he said the other night:

 

Brad Miller and Simon Capper discussed their roles (supporting the Exec Board and 'bean counting' respectively) before attention turned to Paul Mitchell who was keen to address his much-reported-on relationship with Eddie Howe, or as Mitchell put it, the media's 'Eddie and Paul Watch'. In Mitchell's words: "We work closely and there is a natural collaboration. Eddie is an elite professional and it would be remiss of me to be looking over his shoulder." Paul described Eddie Howe as a 'very talented Head Coach' and Eales agreed his achievement in taking the club from a relegation spot to the Champions' League and a cup final 'speaks for itself'.

Later Mitchell would clarify that he does not have the final say in player purchases 'and no Sporting Director [in football] does', with it being a 'collaborative approach' involving the Head Coach.

[Erikse]

15 minutes ago, SteV said:

Later Mitchell would clarify that he does not have the final say in player purchases 'and no Sporting Director [in football] does', with it being a 'collaborative approach' involving the Head Coach.

 

Blaming Howe once again, shameless!

 

 

Edited 22 hours ago by Erikse

[80]

1 hour ago, Erikse said:

 

Blaming Howe once again, shameless!

 

 

 

That bit was the last answer I was praising in my first post...  Went into a fair bit of detail, talking about working with the psychology of your manager etc. Sounded spot on.