Steve Walsh - no longer our Director of Football

[Deckard2049]

Has he signed a single quality player

N’golo Kante?

 

[toffeejack]

i really don't see the point in getting all furious about stuff like this when we don't actually know if/what he's done right or wrong.

 

[ToffeeTim]

N’golo Kante?

I don't support Leicester City

 

[Azza]

N’golo Kante?

Given Arsenal, West Ham, Newcastle, Southampton, Marseille and Spurs were all interested in signing him while he was at Caen, in the world of professional footballer scouting he wasn't an unknown player like everyone seems to make out.

 

[hktoffee]

i really don't see the point in getting all furious about stuff like this when we don't actually know if/what he's done right or wrong.

He failed to sign a striker to replace Lukaku knowing that he would leave in March. DOF what a joke he is.

 

[caught]

So he’s just the head scout then?

Difficult to say with absolute certainty but it does look that way. I think there's too much emphasis oon the DoF title, considering there's not really any clear definition of what the role entails from club to club.

I wrote something similar in the Koeman thread last week, that a better sense of how Walsh works might be to look at the relationship he has with Unsworth and the u23 squad, where we seem to be very efficient and pro-active in scouting young talent and identifing and signing them. The likes of Markelo, Mathis, Bowler, Gibson and Adeniran were all brought in swiftly, much like DCL and Lookman in previous windows. With all of those signings the media didn't report until the they were effectively done (granted, there's less attention with youth signings). One would assume that Walsh plays a part in completing these deals.

The way the relationship between Walsh and Koeman works in the first team seems much messier, where Koeman has gone to the media more than once to complain about transfer activity, and players identified by Walsh have been close to signing until a late Koeman veto (the Belfodil guy). There's an obvious lack of communication there and it's difficult to see how they are working together.

It all goes back to the board, really. It was telling that Kenwright played such an evident role in tranfer negotiations over the summer, considering all prevailing wisdom suggested his involvement would be steadily reduced. My guess is that Koeman isn't working with Walsh and the board have been pandering to his ego.

 

[toffeejack]

He failed to sign a striker to replace Lukaku knowing that he would leave in March. DOF what a joke he is.

is a guess

 

[caught]

He failed to sign a striker to replace Lukaku knowing that he would leave in March. DOF what a joke he is.

Guesswork again but, considering how determined Koeman was to get Sigurdsson in spite of not really seeming to know how to play him, one might suppose that Giroud was Koeman's striker obsession and it all went balls up when Mrs. Giroud realised what a night out in Concert Square entails.

I also think the club maybe expected Ramirez to be a bit more effective than he's so far been. By the time we realised the mess we were in it was too late to get the right player. Blaming Walsh might not necessarily be the full story.

 

[kenada_blue]

Difficult to say with absolute certainty but it does look that way. I think there's too much emphasis oon the DoF title, considering there's not really any clear definition of what the role entails from club to club.

I wrote something similar in the Koeman thread last week, that a better sense of how Walsh works might be to look at the relationship he has with Unsworth and the u23 squad, where we seem to be very efficient and pro-active in scouting young talent and identifing and signing them. The likes of Markelo, Mathis, Bowler, Gibson and Adeniran were all brought in swiftly, much like DCL and Lookman in previous windows. With all of those signings the media didn't report until the they were effectively done (granted, there's less attention with youth signings). One would assume that Walsh plays a part in completing these deals.

The way the relationship between Walsh and Koeman works in the first team seems much messier, where Koeman has gone to the media more than once to complain about transfer activity, and players identified by Walsh have been close to signing until a late Koeman veto (the Belfodil guy). There's an obvious lack of communication there and it's difficult to see how they are working together.

It all goes back to the board, really. It was telling that Kenwright played such an evident role in tranfer negotiations over the summer, considering all prevailing wisdom suggested his involvement would be steadily reduced. My guess is that Koeman isn't working with Walsh and the board have been pandering to his ego.

Ronk already came out and said Walsh deals with the youth side looking at long term.

I'm pretty sure him and Koeman look at their main targets together, go through who they want.

I'm also pretty sure we don't deal in a system where the DOF buys all the players without input from the coach like Camoli used to do at Spurs and the RS

There's not one player in the senior squad Koeman didn't want

 

[Walken]

WALSH WALSH WALSH OUT OUT OUT

 

[jceverton]

Difficult to say with absolute certainty but it does look that way. I think there's too much emphasis oon the DoF title, considering there's not really any clear definition of what the role entails from club to club.

I wrote something similar in the Koeman thread last week, that a better sense of how Walsh works might be to look at the relationship he has with Unsworth and the u23 squad, where we seem to be very efficient and pro-active in scouting young talent and identifing and signing them. The likes of Markelo, Mathis, Bowler, Gibson and Adeniran were all brought in swiftly, much like DCL and Lookman in previous windows. With all of those signings the media didn't report until the they were effectively done (granted, there's less attention with youth signings). One would assume that Walsh plays a part in completing these deals.

The way the relationship between Walsh and Koeman works in the first team seems much messier, where Koeman has gone to the media more than once to complain about transfer activity, and players identified by Walsh have been close to signing until a late Koeman veto (the Belfodil guy). There's an obvious lack of communication there and it's difficult to see how they are working together.

It all goes back to the board, really. It was telling that Kenwright played such an evident role in tranfer negotiations over the summer, considering all prevailing wisdom suggested his involvement would be steadily reduced. My guess is that Koeman isn't working with Walsh and the board have been pandering to his ego.

I agree and that appears to me to be the situation. A couple of things that I have come across in the press which give interesting insights about what maybe going on. Came across this snippet from an article by Ian Ladyman in the Mail today; "Koeman told agents in the summer that it was definitely him — rather than director of football Steve Walsh — who was in charge of recruitment, and if that is the case then only he can be blamed for the clear holes in his recent transfer activity."
Was also looking at Les Reed situation at Southampton and came across this snippet as well from a Neil Ashton article in the Mail "Reed, who remains close with Hunter, continues to push the Under 21 players towards the first team, but he is being met with resistance by Koeman. The Dutchman wants players with first-team pedigree."
We also have this comment from Walsh: "My department is very well run, very organised and we make sure we get as much information about the player that we possibly can. If we like the player, I’ve got to try to convince Ronald that he’s the player for us."
I think when you look at the players that we have signed for the first team it's pretty clear to me that Koeman is in charge and Walsh's role is concentrated on the younger players. All in all i would say its a complete mess and needs sorting out once Koeman has been given the boot.

 

[caught]

Ronk already came out and said Walsh deals with the youth side looking at long term.

Which is why it's perhaps a better example of how Walsh works.

I'm also pretty sure we don't deal in a system where the DOF buys all the players without input from the coach like Camoli used to do at Spurs and the RS

There's not one player in the senior squad Koeman didn't want

Absolutely. But, as I said, there's evidently a disconnect between the two that is causing problems, hence a window in which a lot of money seems to have been unwisely spent.

 

[caught]

I agree and that appears to me to be the situation. A couple of things that I have come across in the press which give interesting insights about what maybe going on. Came across this snippet from an article by Ian Ladyman in the Mail today; "Koeman told agents in the summer that it was definitely him — rather than director of football Steve Walsh — who was in charge of recruitment, and if that is the case then only he can be blamed for the clear holes in his recent transfer activity."
Was also looking at Les Reed situation at Southampton and came across this snippet as well from a Neil Ashton article in the Mail "Reed, who remains close with Hunter, continues to push the Under 21 players towards the first team, but he is being met with resistance by Koeman. The Dutchman wants players with first-team pedigree."
We also have this comment from Walsh: "My department is very well run, very organised and we make sure we get as much information about the player that we possibly can. If we like the player, I’ve got to try to convince Ronald that he’s the player for us."
I think when you look at the players that we have signed for the first team it's pretty clear to me that Koeman is in charge and Walsh's role is concentrated on the younger players. All in all i would say its a complete mess and needs sorting out once Koeman has been given the boot.

Agreed, and some interesting quotes there.

It always seemed an odd combination: a new board/major investor who would apparently be spending enormous amounts, yet we appoint a DoF who has built a career on the astute and diligent scouting of young or under-appreciated players. Then we bring in a manger who has a clear preference for established PL players over the age of 26.

P*ssing in the wind comes to mind...

 

[efcjames]

He's jarg, needs to leave with Koeman

 

[jceverton]

Agreed, and some interesting quotes there.

It always seemed an odd combination: a new board/major investor who would apparently be spending enormous amounts, yet we appoint a DoF who has built a career on the astute and diligent scouting of young or under-appreciated players. Then we bring in a manger who has a clear preference for established PL players over the age of 26.

P*ssing in the wind comes to mind...

Yes seems like a complete cock-up to me. It always appeared that Koeman was a short term appointment so why let him blow all that money on players in their peak/past peak with little or no re-sale value when we don't appear to have that much money? The logical way to go with this would be to appoint a young progressive coach who is happy to build a team around younger players that we already had coming through and supplement them with other young/under-appreciated players. In essence we did the whole thing backwards and have appointed two people without any real thought about how they are going to effectively work together. The result is the shambolic mess that is Everton's first team transfer signings/policy.