Our scouts - does anyone know anything about them? How many we've got? If they're stationed in any particular countries or just sent to particular places? Whether Comolli is head scout or not? Just like to know a bit more about our scouts - because under the early rafa days we made some awesome signings: Alonso, Garcia, Reina, Agger, Crouch, Sissoko, Aurelio, Kuyt, Bellamy - all of them came in the first 2 seasons Rafa was in charge and many of them now have gone on to play top football and had fruitful careers. In that time we signed... 30 players. 9 became very good players, a massive 13 of them came on frees. In 2007. We signed: Arbeloa, Pacheco, Torres, Mascherano, Ayala, Benayoun, Lucas and Insua. 26 players signed in 2007. 7 frees, 8 undisclosed transfers, 1 player under 100k. Our scouts obviously had something right because we came 2nd in the league in the 2008-09 season. But, it all went downhill after 2007 - the signings became progressively worse, we sold more players than we bought and we bought players like Glen Johnson, Aquilani and Keane who haven't/didn't justify their price tags at all (fair play Aquilani hasn't been given a chance). So - who were our scouts in those early seasons, and who are they now?
Our head scout from 2004-2006 was Paco Herrera. So I'd assume we'd be using his reports up until the Jan 2008 or so. From 2006 to December 2010 it was Eduardo Macia, he was sacked by Comolli/NESV though. The only scout I know of it Steve Hitchen, who Comolli appointed, I think. He scouts France for players, he used to be Tottenham's scout until we nicked him, Redknapp wasn't happy so he must be decent.
Our two best scouts were Geoff Twentyman who scouted Phil Neal and goodness how many more including Ian Rush,and Ron Yeats who scouted Sami Hyypia,The thing about Sami was he reminded Ron Yeats of himself.He at the time rang Houllier and said ''Gerard,this boy can be anything he wants to be''.It turns out Sami Hyypia surprised them,they knew he was good,but they were surprised how good he was.
