Ramón Rodríguez Verdejo (AKA Monchi)

[Dave]

oh gosh does that mean we will keep Olsen 😳😃

No, but it does mean we're bringing back Augustinsson.

Yeah, he does seem to have an eye for not-very-good Swedes.

[LeeB]

Maybe it was Lopetegui that was the problem anyway, he had Wulvz sign that pile of shit from Athletico that was about £40m

[Drummond]

Our recruitment team, and in particular Lange's stats-based approach will really help to sort out the wheat from the chaff. I think that would mitigate the bad calls. Emery will undoubtedly too.

He's viewed positively, and whilst there always has to be some caution, if Emery and Sawiris think it's the way to go, I'd be supportive.

[Risso]

Perhaps it will mainly be Emery identifying who he wants and Monchi using his contacts to make the deals happen?

[john e]

Yes, from everything you read he does seem to command love and hate in equal measures

I love Emery, but like Scott in the post above says putting almost total control in the managers hands might not be the best move long term for him as well as the club

Is it total control or a case of employing people that the manager trusts in order to create a more harmonious working environment? To use an analogy from on the pitch it’s similar to Tyrone being a better defender when he knows he has Emi behind him rather than the showroom dummy who occasionally stands in.

No, you’re absolutely right, it could all work marvellously well

And if you’re going to give a manager a lot of control as to who he wants around the club in different departments then you’re not going to get much better than Emery a man who has no real ego and a heavy dose of humility

I do think it’s one of those where you can make it sound what ever you want good or otherwise
He is an obsessive control freak which doesn’t bother me as he’s an obsessive control freak about Aston Villa and he’s good

But I also don’t think it’s a negative thing to voice a few concerns every now and again about the distribution of power

[Paul.S]

I can definitely understand our fan base being cautious about any appointment the club makes. It’s only a few years back we since we nearly lost the club and it’s entirely understandable to question things.
What I would say is that the owners we have are experienced owners of sports clubs. They haven’t got to where they are by letting people walk over them and as we’ve seen won’t hesitate to pull the trigger if needed. I’m very comfortable with what’s going on because I can see the owners are competent and if needed, ruthless. This is going to be a very exciting time for our club and I can’t wait.

[darren woolley]

Perhaps it will mainly be Emery identifying who he wants and Monchi using his contacts to make the deals happen?

I agree

[Dave]

Perhaps it will mainly be Emery identifying who he wants and Monchi using his contacts to make the deals happen?

If you mean specific players, for the most part, I'd hope not.

It should be Emery's job to say "I need a player who can do this, this and this and who doesn't do this", and then people who can spend all day, every day analysing who that player is can find names.

Emery seems to spend all of this time researching opponents and working out the best way to beat them, his time isn't going to be better spent watching non-Villa adjacent matches in the hope of seeing a player that he might want to buy.

[LeeB]

Perhaps it will mainly be Emery identifying who he wants and Monchi using his contacts to make the deals happen?

If you mean specific players, for the most part, I'd hope not.

It should be Emery's job to say "I need a player who can do this, this and this and who doesn't do this", and then people who can spend all day, every day analysing who that player is can find names.

Emery seems to spend all of this time researching opponents and working out the best way to beat them, his time isn't going to be better spent watching non-Villa adjacent matches in the hope of seeing a player that he might want to buy.

Sid Lowe did a piece a few years back on him that he shared again yesterday, and he said then something like "the manager comes to me and says 'I need a left back who can run 11k in a game and do 800m at full pelt, we check the data and it will give us 10 players to look at at".

This is the kind of thing he'll be doing for us, working with Emery to specify fulfilling our needs.

[algy]

Perhaps it will mainly be Emery identifying who he wants and Monchi using his contacts to make the deals happen?

I'd have imagined that Lange will have some input in that too.

In my head, Emery goes and says something like "get me a boss midfielder and a winger like Nico Williams and a 99 with both sauces and 4 different types of sprinkles".

Then Lange goes out and finds a boss midfielder (Tielemans), a winger like Nico Williams (which is just plain old Nico Williams of Bilbao fame), and then works out what the best ice cream van in the area is.  Then he shows them to Unai, he says "Yes" or "Si" or whatever, and then Monchi Magic goes and arranges to get Tielemans on a free, gets Williams' contract sorted, and then arranges for the ice cream van to park up in front of the gates about 5 minutes before the away team coach arrives for the first home game of the season, and arranges for all the security staff to queue up for a free ice cream (copyright us, vs Chelsea 2021)

[LeeB]

Perhaps it will mainly be Emery identifying who he wants and Monchi using his contacts to make the deals happen?

I'd have imagined that Lange will have some input in that too.

In my head, Emery goes and says something like "get me a boss midfielder and a winger like Nico Williams and a 99 with both sauces and 4 different types of sprinkles".

Then Lange goes out and finds a boss midfielder (Tielemans), a winger like Nico Williams (which is just plain old Nico Williams of Bilbao fame), and then works out what the best ice cream van in the area is.  Then he shows them to Unai, he says "Yes" or "Si" or whatever, and then Monchi Magic goes and arranges to get Tielemans on a free, gets Williams' contract sorted, and then arranges for the ice cream van to park up in front of the gates about 5 minutes before the away team coach arrives for the first home game of the season, and arranges for all the security staff to queue up for a free ice cream (copyright us, vs Chelsea 2021)

"But make sure it's aproper Flake and not one of those shit ones they make in Egypt that fall apart"

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/cadbury-flake-ice-cream-99-b2346555.html

[Risso]

Perhaps it will mainly be Emery identifying who he wants and Monchi using his contacts to make the deals happen?

If you mean specific players, for the most part, I'd hope not.

It should be Emery's job to say "I need a player who can do this, this and this and who doesn't do this", and then people who can spend all day, every day analysing who that player is can find names.

Emery seems to spend all of this time researching opponents and working out the best way to beat them, his time isn't going to be better spent watching non-Villa adjacent matches in the hope of seeing a player that he might want to buy.

But that discounts the fact all the work Emery does studying the opposition, and all of the players he's worked with in the past. I'd be fairly certain that Tielemans was his pick through having watched him play for  Leicester, for example.

[Dave]

Perhaps it will mainly be Emery identifying who he wants and Monchi using his contacts to make the deals happen?

If you mean specific players, for the most part, I'd hope not.

It should be Emery's job to say "I need a player who can do this, this and this and who doesn't do this", and then people who can spend all day, every day analysing who that player is can find names.

Emery seems to spend all of this time researching opponents and working out the best way to beat them, his time isn't going to be better spent watching non-Villa adjacent matches in the hope of seeing a player that he might want to buy.

But that discounts the fact all the work Emery does studying the opposition, and all of the players he's worked with in the past. I'd be fairly certain that Tielemans was his pick through having watched him play for  Leicester, for example.

Which is why I mentioned there will always be exceptions where he says "this guy is perfect for us, go and get him", but that's not going to be the wider strategy.

Because the pool of players that aren't about to play, or have recently played Villa that we're going to want to buy is much bigger than the pool that are.

[Risso]

Which is why I mentioned there will always be exceptions where he says "this guy is perfect for us, go and get him", but that's not going to be the wider strategy.

Because the pool of players that aren't about to play, or have recently played Villa that we're going to want to buy is much bigger than the pool that are.

Perhaps, and I guess there's no real way of knowing. But from Emery's comments regarding Zaha/Pepe after his time at Arsenal, I'd be surprised if most of our "big" signings weren't players that he personally asks for, rather than asking for a type of player based on stats. I think we'll still do that, but more for the up and coming players like Duran. Obviously the main requirement will be that they speak Spanish, and I hope that Tielemans is using his summer holiday to get up to speed having foolishly neglected that area of his game for too long.

[villabear]

They were talking about him last night on Radio 5. Rory Smith the NY Times journalist made the point that at one time this guy had great inside knowledge and he had discovered Dani Alves playing in some under 20 tournament in Brazil. He said now such ‘inside knowledge’ isn’t as useful now as every club have access to virtually every database and every young promising player is known by so many clubs. He said that same tournament would now have hundreds of scouts watching.

His point was it would be interesting to see if appointed how he would fare as his recent record isn’t that great.