Paddy Reilly

[aj2k77]

Part of the now famous transfer committee, brought back from being Scout co-ordinator to be director of player recruitment here.

Does anyone know why?

He previously worked here as the head of performance analyst before moving up to be our head of player recruitment from July 11 to November 12, during that time we signed

Shay Given
Charles Nzogbia
Alan Hutton
Enda Stevens
Karim El Hamadi
Brett Holman
Matt Lowton
Ron Vlaar
Joe Bennett
Ashley Westwood
Jordan Bowery
Christian Benteke

Not encouraging.

He moved to Liverpool from November 12 to August 14, they signed

Phillipe Coutinho
Daniel Sturridge
Luis Alberto
Iago Aspas
Simon Mignolet
Joao Texiera
Kolo Toure
Mamadou Sakho
Thiago Ilori
Kevin Stewart
Rickie Lambert
Adam Lallana
Dejan Lovren
Emre Can
Alberto Moreno
Lazar Markovic
Divock Origi
Mario Ballotelli

for nearly £200m, not encouraging.

He then returns back here as head of recruitment and we know the story. Now I might be looking at this the wrong way or missing some facts but from the job he did at Liverpool, admittedly the manager nearly always has the last say on transfers, but looking at most of the players scouted and signed at Liverpool and Villa during his time at the clubs and the fees paid it looks to me like this guy is not very good at his job. So why was he brought back to this club?

[steffo]

Not at all.......For 'Performance Analyst' read PROZONE and nothing more. No professional experience at all.

[SoccerHQ]

Strikes me yet another person over promoted like Faulkner certainly was and arguably Tom Fox aswell.

[OzVilla]

Paddy Reilly absolutely epitomises us as a Club these days and now appears the last piece in Lerner's jigsaw of incompetence.

Another who was appointed way above his capabilities.  The fact he still has his job is testament to how much Lerner has become disconnected from our plight.     

[LTA]

A professional club run by amateurs.

[Tuscans]

I genuinely believe there isn't a massive amount of difference from taking Accrington Stanley to the Champions League in your bedroom on Football Manager to what Paddy does for a 6 figure annual salary at Villa.

[aj2k77]

I genuinely believe there isn't a massive amount of difference from taking Accrington Stanley to the Champions League in your bedroom on Football Manager to what Paddy does for a 6 figure annual salary at Villa.

Well he's doing the reverse and taking Aston Villa to a trip to Burton Albion next season.

[TheMalandro]

His haircut really bothers me

[steffo]

Do you think we have scouts watching other teams and watching other players?

Why bother when we have Paddy and PROZONE doing a sound job from an office and saving us money?

[martin o`who??]

His haircut really bothers me

Whats underneath it is of some concern as well.

[Dave]

Do you think we have scouts watching other teams and watching other players?

Why bother when we have Paddy and PROZONE doing a sound job from an office and saving us money?

The way that it currently happens (at Villa and pretty much every club in the top four divisions) is we look at data to see which players are doing important things better than our current players. We then go and watch those players and decide who we should bid for.

Are you suggesting that we skip the bit about "researching the player first" and just send scouts to matches around the world at random?

That strikes me as a rather inefficient way of doing things.

[thegreatdane]

His haircut really bothers me

brilliant

[andrew08]

Do you think we have scouts watching other teams and watching other players?

Why bother when we have Paddy and PROZONE doing a sound job from an office and saving us money?

The way that it currently happens (at Villa and pretty much every club in the top four divisions) is we look at data to see which players are doing important things better than our current players. We then go and watch those players and decide who we should bid for.

Are you suggesting that we skip the bit about "researching the player first" and just send scouts to matches around the world at random?

That strikes me as a rather inefficient way of doing things.

There is nothing wrong with using PROZONE, but it's the person making the decisions after that that appears to be the issue.

I believe Paddy Riley used to be the camera operator for Bodymoor Heath youth fixtures prior to his promotion.

That's how we do it these days😟

[Villa in Denmark]

Do you think we have scouts watching other teams and watching other players?

Why bother when we have Paddy and PROZONE doing a sound job from an office and saving us money?

The way that it currently happens (at Villa and pretty much every club in the top four divisions) is we look at data to see which players are doing important things better than our current players. We then go and watch those players and decide who we should bid for.

Are you suggesting that we skip the bit about "researching the player first" and just send scouts to matches around the world at random?

That strikes me as a rather inefficient way of doing things.

Nah, we should go back to the good days under MON.

See who looked good on MOTD highlights and wave a contract 50% bigger than they were worth for at least 2 years longer than they'd be useful under their noses and call it job done.

[mattjpa]

As much as we want to pick holes and focus blame, I think the quality of the squad is testament to the directive being sent down from above. Ultimately, I believe, the plan for the summer just gone was to spend the Benteke money on relatively cheap, unproven talent from abroad with the intention of getting lucky and finding the next Benteke to repeat the cycle and slowly progress up the league. maximum effort scouting, minimum net outlay, maximum profit to reinvest. To be fair, its is too early to judge, but who is to say that had we managed to secure 13th-14th place for the next couple of years, we wouldnt have been entertaining 30m bids for Amavi, Veretout or Traore? If you have an owner who no longer wants to invest then its a relatively sound plan in theory. The reasons for why it hasnt worked in practice are plentiful and not worth going into on this post but what I will say is the OP has negated his argument a little by the virtue that Benteke, Coutinho, Moreno, Sturridge (had he not been plagued by injury) and Can could probably turn enough profit alone to cover the outlay for the entire list.