Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: Shrek on June 07, 2011, 05:44:49 PM
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Just listening to talksport debating Villa.
A spurs fan made a really interesting point,
He said Villa are stuck in the same position Spurs were about 5 years ago. He said mangers like Redknapp and Oneil etc can't identify the type of player needed to take us to the next level.
He reckons having a director of football you identify and attract players we never would have without one.
They were debating the posibility of MON returning and he said that he would garentee us a top half finish but could not take us that next step, because he cannot identify the type of players needed bar the obvious expensive ones.
What do people think, because in theory it sounds perfect, have a great man manger like Martin as manger with someone else identifying targets.
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DOF would not work for us IMO. Needs to be on man in charge of team affairs and for me, again just my opinion, having the confusion of a DOF would not work. In addition, and again just my opinion, I would guess any manger of a decentish standard wouldn't want a dof looking over his shoulder.
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What about a manager who can do both?
Besides the job you described as that of a DoF could equally be done by a scouting network.
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I don't think DOF works and as far as I was aware Spurs don't have one. They have a chairman who 'Arry reckons does all the buying and selling and he doesn't really know whats going on, if you believe all his shrugging and twitching every transfer window interview. Personally I don't believe it.
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No need. Just appoint a good manager. Benitez wants it, get him in and let's start work on the squad.
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Who's Harry Redknapp's director of football then? I know they had that Comolli bloke, but he left around the same time as Redknapp started.
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Who's Harry Redknapp's director of football then? I know they had that Comolli bloke, but he left around the same time as Redknapp started.
Comolli went to Liverpool I think, old Harry has his own methods of scouting players.
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Officially Tottingham don't have a DOF anymore, do they?
At least that was the line peddled when Redknapp took over, they were doing away with it and giving 'arry total control.
Reading between the lines though, I'm not sure that's definitely the case. Keane was signed and didn't really feature on return from Liverpool. And some of the last minute bids that went in for players -be it Van der Vaart (which was ultimately successful) and Adam (not so) seemed to catch the twitchy MF offguard. But perhaps he was just being enigmatic, the lovable scamp.
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I like the idea of the manager doing the transfers I'm old school I wouldn't want a DOF.
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McClaren's rise to fame was as coach under Sir Alex. Perhaps he could do a good job with the right DOF.
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I understand that Harry just says yes or no to a player, everything else is sorted out behind the scene.
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Officially Tottingham don't have a DOF anymore, do they?
At least that was the line peddled when Redknapp took over, they were doing away with it and giving 'arry total control.
Reading between the lines though, I'm not sure that's definitely the case. Keane was signed and didn't really feature on return from Liverpool. And some of the last minute bids that went in for players -be it Van der Vaart (which was ultimately successful) and Adam (not so) seemed to catch the twitchy MF offguard. But perhaps he was just being enigmatic, the lovable scamp.
I think you should get on board 'Arry's legal team this summer - Tax evasion? He was just being enigmatic your honour, he's just a loveable scamp.
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why even talk about the idea of that complete wanker returning? A DoF is a good idea but the DoF and manager NEED to be on the same page!
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Good managers don't need a DOF, in fact the best managers are quite dictatorial in management styles.
SAF, Mourinhio would'nt put up with a DOF.
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I like the idea tbh, if the signings are bad you replace the DoF if results are bad you replace the head coach but you'll rarely have to replace both together so it gives you continuity. It's a great way of creating a club style that goes through all levels. The problem with a traditional approach is that you can end up with reserves and youth that don't fit the first team. I think we've suffered from this a little recently as the reserves had a very different style to the first team whilst mon was here.
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what we need is a clough & taylor. one finds the best players the other runs the team
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what we need is a clough & taylor. one finds the best players the other runs the team
A pair like that don't come around too often. I'm not sure a DoF would work at villa. Do they ever work in England?
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paul_e, how do you decide who's to blame if the results are bad? Surely the DOF's signings are partly to blame? I agree with royvilla, we could do with another Clough and Taylor but they were a natural partnership, not a manager and a DOF thrown together by a chairman.
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Its a bit of a contradiction really.
The Spurs fan says Villa where like Spurs where and that a director of football would attract the right players to get the club to the next level.
Reality is if you want Villa at the next level IE Champions league then we need to sell the club to a very rich Arab that's prepared to throw 300ml at a squad, even then would take a few seasons to achieve.
As for MON, what MON needed was a No2, problem is MON, IMO, couldn't work with a No2, and in terms of this Spurs fan saying having another party select MON's players and then expect Martin O'Neill to work with them, sorry he's talking out of his b** hole, clearly doesn't know how MON works, how he functions with his players, MON in a million years would never work with the likes of your Berbatov's or Torres and any other of the big rock stars.
What you see with MON is what you get and you either get him or you don't, so in answer to the question i think any director of football needs the right kind of manager to work with.
The other point is, as a matter of reality Villa did achieve the next level, 6Th, (possibly a fifth place at some point) Europe, Cup finals etc., on our expenditure is as high as it gets, problem is we are just starting to realise that. Seriously if we ever did qualify for the ultimate, the Champions League, seriously how long do you think we'd last.
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It's a great way of creating a club style that goes through all levels. The problem with a traditional approach is that you can end up with reserves and youth that don't fit the first team. I think we've suffered from this a little recently as the reserves had a very different style to the first team whilst mon was here.
For a club without the millions of Man City or Chelsea, or the turnover of Man Utd, you need steady progress built on continuity.
We cannot afford to keep on 're-stocking' the 1st team with players purchased from other clubs. We have to bring through quality players from the youth team that fit in with the way the 1st team play. To do this the club has to play in a similar manner from top to bottom. To manage this throughout the club is far more than the 1st team manager can handle. You need a club manager that is technically gifted but may not perhaps have top man-management skills necessary for the 1st team in the PL and more importantly not have an ego that undermines the 1st team manager.
A club manager, in our case, would make up for the lack of football experience of RL, GK and PF and be that 'old hand' that we need. Somebody that could be the media face of the club that could try and build relationships with the media that we currently lack. It would not necessarily have to be an elder statesman but could be a 'wise head on young shoulders'. The club manager would have to have the vision and be in it for the long term and, above all, have the respect of the 1st team manager. I could have seen GH in this role and there are many other foreign coaches that could do it. There are very few quality British managers that can manage a team at the top and even fewer that are young with their best years ahead of them. We build up young managers on the back of their playing careers and then knock them down when they do not live up to the hype. The reason for this, I believe, is that PL football is too big for one man to manage a club.
Obviously, the 1st team is the most important and therefore, rightly, the 1st team manager must have the overall say in how the team plays. Saying that, it would have to be the Aston Villa way that everybody buys in to for it to work. Tactics change with time so that they meet the challenges at any given time. Having a system the runs from 1st team down would even give you the chance to try subtle changes to the system in the reserves before applying them to the 1st team.
The aim would be to develop players that can make the step up from youth level to the 1st team and just concentrate on their game rather than having to change the way they play as well.
I do not see this system being the tradtional DOF as put forward by most people, where they see it conflicting with the role of the 1st team manager. The club manager would be a co-ordinator of the teams at all levels, look after the scouting network, develop relationships with overseas clubs where we could possibly share ideas and exchange players to assist in their development, assist the 1st team manager in buying and selling players so that it does not take the 1st team manager's eye off the ball regarding running the 1st team and there are many other things that the club manager could do.
I honestly cannot see Villa being able to push our way on to the top table if we continue with the traditional approach to football management.
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It was a very good debate on Villa with Danny Kelly. He and his guest Harry Harris reckoned we are nailed on for Hughes and they talked up McClaren as a superb coach and than mentioned the fact that during Croatia game his biggest error was not the brolly but that he didn't do anything to close out the game at 2-2 despite having a fully fit Hargreaves sitting on the bench.
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this was brought up by me and others during MON's time and was always poo-pooed by others, perhaps with good reason.. The main problem is people have different opinions of what makes a good player and you're very unlikely to get a DOF and manager who see exactly eye to eye on that subject.
However, I feel a lot of MON's best work at the club was with the improvement of some of the existing players, and one of his problems with player purchases towards the end was he ran out of ideas which would have been where a DOF could have come in.
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I think they would have to be appointed together, or the DOF appoint the manager/ head coach, so the relationship is clear from the off.
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I posted something similar in the new manager thread recently. I reckon based on the improvement towards the end of last season we. Could have done a lot worse than move houllier into that dof role, with gmac assuming managerial responsibilities. Give them a season with a clear objective of top 6 finish and with a few quid to spend in the window and a full pre- season to get the squad right and I think we could've had a serious crack at it.
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The biggest problem with DOF is whenever I see it written down I can't help but see the initials DOL and I don't like it one bit.
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I have long been a fan of a Director of Football as I think running a club from top to bottom is too big a project for one man.
However the lines of command/responsibility need to be clearly defined. For me a DoF football should:
1. Establish and manage a scouting network for young players (say up to the age of 22)
2. Coach the youth coaches so that a "Villa way" is established
3. Control and improve the training facilities.
4. Act as an ambassador for the club
5. Provide continuity when the head coach/manager leaves
The manager should
1. Coach the first team squad
2. Sign players
3. Scout future opposition
4. Scout for future signings i.e. ones for the first team squad
5. Agree to broadly play in accordance with the "Villa way" and promote players from the Dof sausage machine.
To be honest I am not sure where the finances bit sits. Maybe that should be a third secretary type position, a la Steve Stride.
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Good managers don't need a DOF, in fact the best managers are quite dictatorial in management styles.
SAF, Mourinhio would'nt put up with a DOF.
Spot on. In England, the great managers have been, in effect, directors of football. Busby, Shankley, Fergie, Wenger, Revie, Nicholson, Saunders, going right back to George Ramsay, have dictated the direction and ethos of the whole of their clubs. I don't think thats always been the way abroad.
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If we were to get a DoF they would have to have an established working relationship before we sign them up, along the lines of GH and GMac to use as an example.
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Leave those decisions up to the manager. A decent manager will have a team of people looking at players for him anyway, none of the top managers do their own scouting.
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Good managers don't need a DOF, in fact the best managers are quite dictatorial in management styles.
SAF, Mourinhio would'nt put up with a DOF.
Mourinho had one at Chelsea and has one now at Madrid.
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what we need is a clough & taylor. one finds the best players the other runs the team
You are Tom Hanks and I claim my £5 prize!