We have a scout. He got Dellatorre ( and I suspect Yun) in without Harry knowing anything about it. According to Harry.
I think we have one, "Ian Butterworth". But I'm not sure if he's officially a proper/experienced scout. There was an article a while ago about how we had a pretty decent network under Mike Rigg, but that was all disbanded after Hughes left. Wish I could find the link! Edit: This is it- http://ficklefootball.wordpress.com/2014/01/05/scouting-what-scouting/
Here is a useful link about Mike. http://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/424481/FA-target-Mike-Rigg-to-be-new-talent-scout Can somebody please explain what a technical director and director of football do at a club. When the club pay a manager good money and also have a technical plus football director on the books it make me think what does the manager actually do? It reminds me of that saying, too many chiefs and not enough Indians. Back in the good old days I thought the manager knew which players they wanted to sign and which direction they wanted the team and club to go down.
That's a good, though rather depressing, article. Rigg had a big reputation but had very little time to put anything together, and took the blame (possibly correctly) for the spending spree. But Redknapp's legacy will be....nothing, by the sound of it. If you have Technical /Football Directors, you shouldn't need a 'manager', what you need is a first team coach to train, select and do the tactics for the first team. Has never gone down well with British managers for some reason, though its plainly ridiculous for someone like Redknapp or Warnock to have responsibility for the entire footballing side of a club, including the scouting set up, negotiating contracts, overseeing youth and elite squads etc etc. By the amount of time H spends with the media and driving back and forth to Sandbanks I doubt he has enough time to do much coaching, let alone the rest of it. If your club has a clear identity, way of playing, and set of objectives there's no need to place everything in the hands of one man.
We could always take a page out of Saints book and trade Phil Beard and "Where's Wally" Downes for a guy like this? Ice hockey chief Ralph Krueger poised to start Southampton role A coach who helped Canada to ice hockey gold at the Sochi Winter Olympics will begin work at Southampton this week. Ralph Krueger, who was born in Canada but has lived in Europe for more than 30 years, has never worked in football. The 54-year-old former ice hockey player has been appointed by owner Katharina Liebherr as part of a reshaped management setup at St Mary's. "We'll look at ways to improve commercially and continue to grow what's already there," Krueger said. "Katharina was looking for someone to come in from sport on the leadership side. She has strong values and a fresh and interesting perspective on sport." please log in to view this image http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/26328115
Cheers, that does help shed some light on the subject for me. I still think it's a case of too many chiefs and not enough Indians. I'm not completely disagreeing with your points, I guess say for example we are paying Harold 2 or 3 million pounds per season which as you know is a f@ck load of paper, what does he actually do to earn this large sum of cash? Every time I read about a director of football being appointed to a club it often ends in tears. What we need is one good person pulling the whole team in one specific direction, not a team of sub managers pulling in other directions due to differing opinions. When these so called directors of football get appointed it always seems to undermine the current manager/coach at seid clubs in my opinion!
In the English game I think a really strong, canny CEO is the key - like they've had at Man Utd, Chelsea and to an extent Arsenal, who forms a partnership rather than is in competition with the manager. Beard isn't that, he's here to develop the facilities, especially to non football side of the stadium. So perhaps a director of football would work for us, but not with an old fashioned 'manager'. I'm a great fan of TF and Beard, I think they will, eventully, build something outstanding at the Rs. But I've been in denial a bit, and I apologise for contradicting some people on here, especially Roller, they do need some football expertise in the boardroom with them. My problem is I am deeply suspicious of English 'football people' who have spent a lifetime worrying about cash and seem to think of nothing else than lining their own pockets and make everything into a macho game. Let's go European. Galliani at Milan has overseen the whole operation since the mid 80s, he's been more important than any manager they've had. We need someone about 60% as good as him, and a European manager/coach.
So what we need is a younger and lesser paid manager and a director of football, or just a younger lesser paid manager who has good communication skills with the suits upstairs?
I always thought that Venables would make a brilliant DOF, he has a vast knowledge of both domestic and overseas football and would be the ideal link between the Board and the Playing side......sadly I think that time has slipped by and he is now probably happy doing whatever broadcasting work he can get, he probably wouldn't need the hastle.....
BTW, I'm not saying I know how this does or should work, I'm just trying to understand it a bit better. Hey we are crying out for something right now. From a business point of view I like Phil Beard and as a chairman I'm very happy with uncle Tony. The problem is right now and also for the last couple of seasons something clearly is not working at our beloved QPR. I voted for Harold to stay in our poll but right now I'm feeling very indecisive about my stay vote. Some say Tony is at fault, some say Harold. It seems to be too many opinions going in different directions and not much clear vision and unity at our place at present, that is what we should be blaming maybe.
Venables - No. Well past it. Ask the Palarse fans and the host of other clubs he came in to recuse after Sugar showed him the door. Warnock - No. He's retired and would probably tell Tony where to shove it. Holloway - No. Anyone from our past in fact would be a mistake. Before I begin to sound like min-Flyer, of the candidates we know about, Mackay is the more realistic option and would build a team. Going for Laudrup would prove only two things: Tony has deeper pockets than we thought and/or He has learned nothing at all in his three years as a football club owner. Swansea got it right several managers in a row. Even Sousa managed to get them into the play offs before a disastrous run of games put paid to their chance of promotion the year before they did go up. Their owners were shrewd but essentially stuck to their principles. We do not really know anything of what went on. I suspect however that Laudrup wanted to break the bank and unlike our Tony, the owners said NO. We've given you what you want. Now get them playing the way you said they would. If that theory is right, he is not the man we need now.
Basically we need a football man to make decisions, not someone putting 100% faith in awful managers. There would be no need for a DOF if beard or TF knew anything about football because a football man would fall off their chair laughing if they were asked to sign henry, zamora or Johnson or Cesar 2 weeks after signing green.
Yorkshire.....I only mentioned Venables as a Director of Football and that would have been a good few years ago for that to happen, sadly his best days within the game are way behind him.....
I appreciate that. I just think that he's just like Redknapp. He'd do well financially out of it but I'd be wary of having him in any position of power or influence because his days of finding talented stars of the future and developing them are long gone. We would just keep on making the same mistakes of trawling round the dustbins of the big clubs looking for their rejects at inflated prices.. By the way I wasn't aware of any scouting network under Hughes. All those superstars he signed were fully paid up members of the Kia Joorabchian stable of donkeys
Having gone away and given it a little thought we may all agree on this one. The only recent bit of stability we had was when Amit Bhatia took over being our chairman form Flavio. This was the only recent time it felt like we had our rangers back and during our promotion winning season. Just saying!
I know you won't respond, but just once would you give some examples of what you want Here you seem to be arguing that Fernandes should sell up to someone who 'knows something about football' or take a back seat and just shovel cash for 'someone who knows something about football' to spend, no questions asked. You yourself claim TF tried to get rid of Redknapp last summer, and he has put the brakes on long contracts for the elderly etc, so perhaps he Has learned something.
To be honest,I think Malky would be a better option.Tough,knows the league and got Cardiff up. Just think he would be more 'QPR' than Laudrup would be.
Bang on, mate .................... In other words, a Stand-Up Philosopher ( A Bullsh it Artist ) .............. possibly a politician, there proven to be able to ab lib to the masses.
