Steve Walsh - no longer our Director of Football

[Papa Shango]

I highly doubt koeman rejected any centre forward or centre half offered to him this summer. To be honest koeman suggests he had very little to do with it all hence why he was playing the team he was given and not arsed to change anything (I have my theory as to why but off the point).

The reality is, although here and there a few players signed were good business, together they have been terrible. It would be Walsh's job to manage who is coming in and out of the club, far more than koeman. So when lukaku us off in March then it should be Walsh who sorts out replacing him. Koeman can say which striker he prefers but it is Walsh that does the business. The same Walsh flying out to Italy to do naff all business wise. It should have been Walsh that after 3 ams signed was sorting out other areas of the pitch. It was Walsh that should have been sorting a striker out whilst we were after siggurdson. The list goes on and on, that's his job to deal with these things and to identify players through his scouts, if he fails at that (like he has done) then he should be culpable for the mess we are In.

I don't believe that a manager who goes on holiday rather than try and sort a mess out as he did recently has any significant input into dealings transfer wise. He may say buy me x or y but that is clearly as far as it goes with him.

I just don't get why in any given situation, us blues have to defend any negative viewpoints. The same negative to unsworth being good enough to be manager and how culpable Walsh is. The fact is unsworth isn't good enough to be out manager and Walsh has failed in his job. That's the start and finish, if the dof oversees a complete mess then he has failed in his job, it's his job to prevent that happening

Its hard to say he has failed in his job when nobody quite knows what he does exactly. That is evident in this very thread.

I reckon he is a glorified scout personally.

Oh and for those saying we don't have centre forwards. We do, we just don't play to their abilities (if any)

 

[Zeke]

This guy has got away with murder - going into this season without replacing Lukaku or bringing in defensive reinforcements was absolutely criminal.

If he can't turn this around in January he should be binned.

Why give him January at all? He could just make the situation 10x worse if that is even possible!

 

[Kenshin]

Its hard to say he has failed in his job when nobody quite knows what he does exactly. That is evident in this very thread.

I reckon he is a glorified scout personally.

Oh and for those saying we don't have centre forwards. We do, we just don't play to their abilities (if any)

He has to be involved in transfers otherwise he is essentially getting paid for nothing. It's the dof elsewhere that does the transfer dealings and negotiates ala sevilla or psg or even city.

So if he wasn't doing that then we are wasting money paying him

 

[NilSatisOptimum]

It was on this forum another member suggested he was in charge of recruitment under certain age, makes sense to me. Maybe has some input in older signings...

 

[Papa Shango]

He has to be involved in transfers otherwise he is essentially getting paid for nothing. It's the dof elsewhere that does the transfer dealings and negotiates ala sevilla or psg or even city.

So if he wasn't doing that then we are wasting money paying him

Maybe so but these players have still got to fit into a managers system. I am not sure who would have fitted into Koeman's vision of sore all the goals whilst the rest of the team stands still doing nothing.

 

[Azza]

Its hard to say he has failed in his job when nobody quite knows what he does exactly. That is evident in this very thread.

I reckon he is a glorified scout personally.

Oh and for those saying we don't have centre forwards. We do, we just don't play to their abilities (if any)

This is what Walsh's job is. There's an interview on the OS where he says what he's responsible for and how him and Koeman were always in communication.

The scouts do their normal job, if there is a player they think is talented they'll tell Walsh.

Walsh himself then watches the player if he likes the report.

He identifies if the player(s) will fit into Koeman's plan and system and brings them to Koeman for discussion. If they already have a mutual player in mind then it's all good.

If they both agree then it's down to Elstone & Kenwright to do the deal with the club.

Walsh and Koeman will have a discussion with the player about the vision & project to try and convince them to join. No doubt Mr. Chairman pipes up at some point as well. Then it's down to the £££.


Walsh plans transfer windows in advance. How long was Koeman saying publicly that he needed another striker and a centre back...? 7 times in the month before the window closed! How far back was Lukaku first talking about leaving for CL football...? Before last Christmas probably. Lukaku publicly rejected the new contract 14th March, at least 171 days they had to find another striker. We've no idea when the contract was actually offered or Lukaku told the club he wouldn't be signing but it was certainly before this date. So... systematic failure all around starting with the man who's supposed to find the players.

As I've posted this example before to back up the above, Steve 'PE' Walsh doesn't actually find the players initially. The other scouts finds players and he brings them to the manager.

Some even claim that it was a scout called Ben Wrigglesworth who was head of technical scouting at Leicester who spotted Mahrez and Kante to begin with...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football...o-helped-spot-mahrez-and-kante-joins-arsenal/

He is essentially a head scout, the title of 'Director of Football' isn't a true reflection, as to me that is normally someone who is responsible for the entire footballing strategy throughout the entire club. Something which shouldn't and thankfully isn't responsible for.


The summer striker thing then makes things bizarre.

http://sportwitness.co.uk/steve-wal...-inability-negotiating-enabled-chaos-everton/

The questions that have to be asked are:

Did Walsh actually have a list of suitable players for striker, left back & centre back?
Did Walsh actually bring these to Koeman in the first place?
Did Koeman then not like the players that Walsh brought?



Koeman apparently rejected the signing of Belfodil - https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/jan/19/everton-ishak-belfodil-ronald-koeman-standard-liege

Discussions took place between the two clubs over a £10.4m move but Ronald Koeman was not convinced. “Belfodil was one of the players on our list and we had the opportunity to buy him but we took the decision not to sign him,” the Everton manager said.

Some suggestions that this was about his character ... but one of the things Steve Walsh says he does is look at a players character and attitude, so he seems to have fallen down on that one.



But what ever, tldr; the guy is a fraud.

 

[MACCA75]

Its hard to say he has failed in his job when nobody quite knows what he does exactly. That is evident in this very thread.

I reckon he is a glorified scout personally.

Oh and for those saying we don't have centre forwards. We do, we just don't play to their abilities (if any)

We really don't have centre forwards. DCL should never even be thought of even as a squad player, he shouldn't have even had his debut yet. Rooney has shown last 2 years that he simply can't play as a centre forward, he drops too deep.
Sandro was never in a million years a lone striker either.

 

[foxedup]

Personally, having seen the bloke work here over two periods and building three title winning teams I would really be looking at the manager a) demanding certain players to fill certain positions and b) not being capable of getting the best out of the players.

Of course he shouldn't be free from critisism, the striker situation is a bit of a mess. But we never, ever had an unbalanced squad here. I don't see why he'd suddenly lose the plot and start signing a dozen No.10's without that being the wish of the manager to play that way.

He gave Pearson a strike force of Harry Kane, Chris Wood and Jamie Vardy in the championship... Pearson decided to play David Nugent instead. Or play he'd played Kane and Vardy wide in a front three. You can serve up decent players, but unless they are use correctly they can look a load of rubbish.

 

[Papa Shango]

We really don't have centre forwards. DCL should never even be thought of even as a squad player, he shouldn't have even had his debut yet. Rooney has shown last 2 years that he simply can't play as a centre forward, he drops too deep.
Sandro was never in a million years a lone striker either.

Agreed but the Rooney thing annoys me. Its true, he does drop too deep, the thing I don't get is why does nobody just tell him to stop doing it. Its like everyone is scared of him.

Just leave him up front and tell him to shoot when the ball comes near him. Seems obvious enough to me.

 

[LiamG]

Personally, having seen the bloke work here over two periods and building three title winning teams I would really be looking at the manager a) demanding certain players to fill certain positions and b) not being capable of getting the best out of the players.

Of course he shouldn't be free from critisism, the striker situation is a bit of a mess. But we never, ever had an unbalanced squad here. I don't see why he'd suddenly lose the plot and start signing a dozen No.10's without that being the wish of the manager to play that way.

He gave Pearson a strike force of Harry Kane, Chris Wood and Jamie Vardy in the championship... Pearson decided to play David Nugent instead. Or play he'd played Kane and Vardy wide in a front three. You can serve up decent players, but unless they are use correctly they can look a load of rubbish.

Still doesn't explain why we never signed a LB although I blame Koeman 100% for the Martina fiasco - we can't even argue that the money wasn't there. We signed Sigurdsson for almost £50m.

 

[foxedup]

Still doesn't explain why we never signed a LB although I blame Koeman 100% for the Martina fiasco - we can't even argue that the money wasn't there. We signed Sigurdsson for almost £50m.

The club saw the building as a long term thing and not one of it needs to happen in one season? But then sacking a manager after a handful of games flys against that I support.

 

[LiamG]

The club saw the building as a long term thing and not one of it needs to happen in one season? But then sacking a manager after a handful of games flys against that I support.

Still doesn't explain why we went into a season with no fullbacks that are fit for purpose.

It's one thing to say we are building for the future but the reality is we have had no cover for Coleman for years and it has always stung us normally when we played the RS at the pit. There was really no excuse this season when we had money and Coleman had just suffered a broken leg.

Baines was an equally stupid decision. They thought Funes Mori could do that job. Anyone who watches Funes Mori knows that's not the case especially in a team without wingers.

 

[TheBlueGibbon]

Still doesn't explain why we went into a season with no fullbacks that are fit for purpose.

It's one thing to say we are building for the future but the reality is we have had no cover for Coleman for years and it has always stung us normally when we played the RS at the pit. There was really no excuse this season when we had money and Coleman had just suffered a broken leg.

Baines was an equally stupid decision. They thought Funes Mori could do that job. Anyone who watches Funes Mori knows that's not the case especially in a team without wingers.

Funes Mori was known to be out until at least the new year if not the entire season

 

[LiamG]

Funes Mori was known to be out until at least the new year if not the entire season

I know but they only went looking for a LCB/LB when he got injured. The reality is they needed one before that. Had they looked earlier then they would have been able to get one.

But...... for some reason we spent £50m on Sigurdsson instead.

 

[MartSlinger]

We need clarification on his role so that we can assign some accountability.

Does he only sign/scout players that fall under a particular age category?
Does he have the final say on signings for the first team?
Does he have nothing to do with first team signings?
Does he work alongside the Manager and they both decide who and who not to sign?