The problem is Levy also has a veto. I don't think he should. Aside from setting a budget, he shouldn't be involved at all. But as we know, he gets far too involved. And apparently Hitchen already has the hump (according to reliable sources) bc he felt he deserved to be promoted to DOF and resents the fact that Levy went over his head and behind his back in appointing Paratici. So we have one person with a veto who shouldn't be involved, and two more people with a veto who resent each other. How is that functionally healthy? And we haven't even brought the coach into the equation!
Managers/head coach at every top club have a big say who the club signs and sells don’t they? Spurs seem to have decided the DoF/General manager (whatever they’re calling it) is the route they want to go down but that surely still requires the head coach/manager to be appointed ASAP so they can work with the DoF/general manager on the squad. I presume that the DoF/general manager will have a massive say in who the head coach/manager will be?
And I simply repeat that Chelsea, Man Utd, Liverpool and Arsenal have mostly got worse* over the last decade while we've got better despite them having much more resources. That's despite Levy? Or because of him? * Liverpool have had three better seasons recently and Chelsea have also got a bit better recently but all are averaging below where they were usually finishing in 2005 to 2010.
Liverpool won the CL and their first PL in 30 years in the last decade Chelsea have won 2 CL and 2 PL titles (I think) in the last decade That’s not bad for a decade of getting worse.
Levy has effectively been acting as DoF so his veto should be replaced by Paratici's. It's absolutely normal for people to throw a wobbly when someone is hired over them. If Hitchen can't deal with it he goes.
Indeed it isn't but I don't think either success is down to having someone better than Levy at the helm. If I could change one thing in football over the past five years I would have Barcelona buy Eriksen instead of Coutinho. That would leave us with cash to spend and Liverpool unable to buy Van Dijk and Allison. Barcelona would have done better too.
The Levy war is at its peak, lol. Levy from 2001-2015 was generally very, very good, few mistakes here and there but a lot of great decisions that ultimately progressed the club. Levy from 2016-now has been a shambles that's now seeing the club regress. So it seems the two sides are those who think he'll come good again and those who think his use by date has long expired.
There's one obvious difference between the two situations Liverpool's setup made Coutinho expendable, which is why they could spent the money on Alisson and van Dijk as they didn't need to replace him Our setup absolutely needed Eriksen, so if we sold him we'd also have to buy an immediate replacement before spending elsewhere The best comparison to Coutinho in our current squad is probably Ndombele, because at this moment in time Lo Celso is doing a better job in the Dembele role than the player we paid hardcore cash to replace Dembele, and at this moment in time Skipp and Hojbjerg are also more important to us than Ndombele is
If a DoF buys a centre forward based on his goal scoring record rather than a player a manager actually wants you end up with Darren Bent...while you also have Defoe, Berbatov and Keane at the club. It makes no sense for a manager to have no say imo. If we are telling managers they can not chose which players are sold or bought then no wonder we can't get a new one. It's one thing saying "we can not turn down £150m for kane" but something else being told that "I know you want him but we are selling Rodon for £20m cos we got sanchez and Dier." Sanchez and Dier are not good enough as CD ... regardless who coaches them. Like wise, it's OK to refuse to spend £150m on Sancho but refusing to spend £30m on Ings (if a manager wanted him) would be farcical.
My only disagreement with this is the dates. I think that he did a good job until the new ground opened . He made some mistakes up to then but for me it's the mistakes from November 2019 onwards that have turned my opinion.
In theory (and this is a phrase doing a lot of legwork) a DoF is supposed to do one of two things a.) If a manager identifies a specific player, the DoF tries to bring that player in b.) If a manager says he wants a player of certain attributes, say a rapid left winger, the DoF takes this outline and looks for someone who fits it This is where Comolli was utterly bloody disastrous, as various sources have stated that i.) Martin Jol requested he sign Berbatov, but Comolli ignored him leaving Jol to go to Levy directly to get the deal done ii.) Jol instructed him to sign a striker if we sold both Defoe and Mido that summer, instead we sold Mido and he spaffed £16.5m on Barren Dent iii.) Jol requested a defensive midfielder and a first team-ready left winger, and Comolli gave him attacking midfielder Kevin-Prince Boateng and Adel Taarabt who was clearly two years away from first team level football
My query was more why Hitchen still has a veto at all when he has apparently been replaced. So now he has a veto and he may well use it in anger. As you said Re Levy, Paratici should now get Hitchen's veto so that the only 2 people involved in the 'who' part of buying and selling players are the DOF and manager. Levy can determine the 'how much' and Hitchen can take the training bibs to the launderette for all I care.
One good season with Ings in an actual functional team (with a defence and midfield) could be the difference in coming top 4 to 5th or 6th. That would more than pay the £30m and his wages. That was the kind of decision Redknapp made in 2009 when he resigned Keane and Defoe and signed Crouch. If we had ignored him we'd never have progressed. Same thing when Jol gambled on Nabet and Davids.
Given what's been said by Juve fans, namely that Paratici worked best in a double act with Giuseppe Marotta where the two would filter through each other's targets to get the right player, that's where having somebody like Hitchen having a say could be the difference between signing a player who would be perfect in theory and signing a player who is perfect in practice This is where Comolli and Baldini both went catastrophically off the rails, as there was nobody on the staff who could filter out their suggestions which is why we wound up with an unbalanced squad as nobody could double check to see if we were signing central midfielders who knew what defending was, or wingers who didn't know what passing is, or if we were signing a striker who is as useful as a pot plan anywhere on the pitch barring the opponent's six yard box
Of course in practice a manager will have a say, but that doesn't mean he will necessarily be right so I think the value lost by not having one temporarily is probably negligible. Some signings seem to defy logic whoever is in charge....i remember Bill Nicholson swapping Jimmy Robertson for David Jenkins who was by some distance the worst player I have ever seen at Tottenham. Signing Darren Bent was another.
I try to use the skills I learned at business and apply them to football. This often leads to the exact opposite outcome to the obvious ones that most fans see. I don't claim that I am right but it's fun arguing for them.
In my world the DoF should be the Board member tesponsible for all football decisions and in many ways the coaches should work for him. Hopefully there should be good teamwork between him, the Head of Recruitment, the Head of the Academy and the Head Coach but this seems to be problematic with the prima donna type attitude of most good coaches who seem to have an almost religious belief in their ability to judge which players they need.
