You may be correct. If Levy stuck strictly to only buying players the managers want, we wouldn't have Djed Spence. I'm still waiting for anybody to give Levy his props for making this signing happen. I have a feeling I'll be waiting for a very long time.
...and this summer we are said to have been ready to accept less than we paid for him, but nobody came forward. I'm not against club signings...as part of a joined up strategy. If we'd signed Spence under a different coach, or sent him out on loan whilst Conte was here, fine. However, we signed him and gave him to Conte, who point blank refused to use him and he was left to mope about the place losing value, until a no-mark Italian team took a cheap punt on loan. Spence's success is down to Spence and Ange's coaching team. Otherwise we end up with a KPB, GdS, Taarabt, Aurier, Reguillon, Rodon...even Bale when he returned. A poor return on our money and on the pitch. If the coach says "No" and clearly means it, the transfer is off to a very, very poor start...so, just don't do it. Employ coaches who will accept it, or use loans to get players up to speed. To keep doing what we do is ****ing daft and it rarely works. ...and I am correct, but some can't or won't accept it. I'm not claiming any special insight. It's well known...unless you refuse to acknowledge it for some reason.
The football ops should be selecting the players that will best suit the club (specifically the way the team is intended to play) . If those players overlap with those the manager would like to have, all well and good.
I am agreeing with you, it's not special insight. It's also true that everything that happened is seemingly exactly what needed to happen for us to benefit from the gem of a player in Spence that we have now. It is also true, for all of us fans, that we are all glad that we have him in the squad right now and Levy had a part to play in our 'gladness', unless some refuse to acknowledge it for some reason. Are you saying we shouldn't have signed him? That we'd be better off without him now? Levy is a clown in many respects and has made lots of dumb decisions, true, but he also sometimes does positive things that work out, also true. No?
But we would still have had Ndombele, Sessegnon, Janssen... This is the thing with the DoF model: it's a red thread which runs through the club and is focused just as much on the future as it is the present and that requires commitment from the chairman, manager and DoF alike, and if one of them is not committed then it is inevitable that failure will soon follow In the case of Spence it was patently obvious why he was brought in, as he was a better fit to cover Matt Doherty as a RWB in Conte's system than Emerson ever was while offering the added benefit of potentially futureproofing our HG numbers, but Conte acted like Paratici had signed a couple of randos and expected him to use them in much the same way Martin Jol had Taarabt and Boateng dumped on him by Comolli before getting downright bizarre in January when on the same day we brought in Porro but loaned out both Spence and Doherty (and then had to terminate Doherty's contract as we crossed our loan threshold) so were right back to Emerson being the RWB cover But as I suggested, pinning all the blame for failing to commit on the manager is missing the point, given Comolli is an example of a DoF who wasn't committed to the project as he outright sabotaged Martin Jol (which Levy should have put his foot down over) while the amount of PSG coaches that fell out with Leonardo during his second spell as sporting director as his approach during that stint seemed more about creating his own personal fiefdom than actually doing the job he was assigned, while Liverpool's board seemed to treat their transfer committee as a bulwark to defend themselves from blame when they missed out on key targets
Up until the stadium build started in earnest, I was very pro-Levy and ENIC. Since then, not so much. Whilst progress as an entertainment venue and property developer has been significant, we've regressed as a football club. As far as Spence is concerned, we bought a player who has just managed to salvage what looks like a very promising career out of what was becoming a car wreck. I'm very happy for all concerned. In the end, we got one right...but a stopped clock does that twice a day. Having proper processes in place can minimise the risks of failure in any activity. For years now, we've run transfer business like mug punters and have burned money as a result. Levy's job is to establish proper management to extract the maximum results out of our resources. When he's doing that (if ever) he'll be deserving of credit. Until then, his report card reads - "C- Needs to apply himself to the tasks at hand"
Spence has turned out great. But for him to have turned out great you have had to sack conte, fall out of CL and hire Ange and even then Ange has only used him because he had no one else to turn to. Now maybe that would still have happened and you wouldn't be having this decent iteration of spence, but that's not good planning if you are buying a player for a manager who is stubborn and doesn't want to use him as you are essentially hoping the manager changes his mind or he sacks the manager. Either isn't the way to run a football club.
Ange wanted Spence gone last season (agreed sale price in a loan). Let’s not rewrite history and pretend it was all some master plan. The player has massively changed his attitude and the manager had to use him because of injuries, sometimes things just fall into place and a player gets a chance and takes it.
I am not rewriting anything or implying it was a masterplan at all. More like fate. Luck maybe. I remember being glad we got Spence after seeing him skin Arsenal in a match. I don't remember fans being mad that he was bought. Levy took a chance. It worked out, eventually. I find it comical that absolutely nobody who agrees that it worked out, want to give Levy even half a teaspoon of credit. Question. If, (big if I know. ) we win the Europa League this season, will Levy get any of the credit?
When you look at how the club has treated Spence since he was originally signed, it might be easier to do understand any 'attitude' issues he may or may not have had?
We won't win it. If the nearly impossible happens, it will be down to multiple factors. Levy deserves credit for getting us to a point where we've burned £100,000,000s on **** signings and compo for unsuitable coaches since 2019 and have been able to win something... ...just imagine what we could have won, if he'd been doing his job properly.
of course he will get credit. Is he going to get the credit from the levyistas if you don't win it, don't qualify for europe and finish bottom half?
In a weird way that mirrors Gareth Bale: for him to turn out great we had to have borderline relegation form in the back end of a season, sell Keane and Berbatov, have actual relegation form at the start of the next season, sack Ramos and Comolli, and even then we were on the verge of offloading him until injury freed up a place in the squad Sometimes things have to fall into place just right for football clubs to stop getting in their own way Us more than most, it sometimes feels like
No. And if it did happen, the way the team have been playing all season, IMHO the same would apply for Ange.
I find it weird that people act like we're the only club that makes signings that aren't the manager's first choice. Virtually every club in the world does it. Some signings aren't realistic, regardless of what the manager wants. People have got pissed off when we haven't signed players that don't want to leave the clubs they're at, even. We should always be looking to make the best and most suitable signings that we can. There should be an overall plan and a style of play that we have in mind for the squad. Academy progression should be part of it, especially in our current club-trained situation. Our managers should be brought in based, at least partly, on whether they fit.
