Steve Walsh - with the benefit of hindsight

[Frang]

I dont think there was ever any serious working partnership with Walsh and Koeman. The latter came in like a wrecking ball determined to do it his way. The massive fees paid for tat was down to Koeman becuase he was "in a hurry" and wasn't concerned about bringing in young talent or unheard of talent.

Walsh's record of signings at Leicester needs no spin, and he also signed good players for Everton like Lookman and Gueye.

Ok, he is no DoF, but he deserves no stick for being here at the same time that Koeman was. The expensive flops were Koeman's mistakes - the vast majority of them. I notice the Echo are spinning that line again today of a Walsh-inspired fiasco. Typical of that clueless bunch of hacks.

have you been on holiday dave?

 

[Ring master]

have you been on holiday dave?

Pickford has not hardly had a game to play for Davek to have a moan about mate

 

[Frang]

Pickford has not hardly had a game to play for Davek to have a moan about mate

I heard he let an easy one in during a kids 5-a-side on his holiday at Bognor regis butlins last week..

 

[GwladysPhil]

have you been on holiday dave?

He told me he's been to Ibiza the last few weeks, been busy with some tart apparently.

 

[Frang]

He told me he's been to Ibiza the last few weeks, been busy with some tart apparently.

shut up pip

 

[LEONARD]

A bit like when you win the lottery.

Somebody recommends 'a good financial advisor'.

He suggests you invest in the Sinclair C 5 and Goldman Sachs.

50 million lighter, you have to pay him off.

 

[Groucho]

Lookman and Onyekuru combined, cost less than Bolasie

Who, lets be fair, was ok before his injury.

However he was never £30m worth of “ok”.

Steve Walsh’s biography should contain a chapter on his time here with the subtitle “they saw me coming”.

 

[nsno-chris]

I dont think there was ever any serious working partnership with Walsh and Koeman. The latter came in like a wrecking ball determined to do it his way. The massive fees paid for tat was down to Koeman becuase he was "in a hurry" and wasn't concerned about bringing in young talent or unheard of talent.

Walsh's record of signings at Leicester needs no spin, and he also signed good players for Everton like Lookman and Gueye.

Ok, he is no DoF, but he deserves no stick for being here at the same time that Koeman was. The expensive flops were Koeman's mistakes - the vast majority of them. I notice the Echo are spinning that line again today of a Walsh-inspired fiasco. Typical of that clueless bunch of hacks.

Walsh decided to give one season wonder Sandro £100k a week over a 5 year contract, added to that he spent actual cash money on Yannick Bolasie.

Clueless tit who was also the man who pushed Fat Sam and the gravy train trio onto our books. Set us back years and was rightly canned, should have been sued to high heaven the fat left bollock looking whopper

 

[JJ1878x]

: Enner Valencia, Cenk Tosun, Kenneth Zohore, Vincent Janssen and Ishak Belfodil (decent season this year, but still not good enough).

(SW's striker targets and confirmed strikers signed).

That list suggests Vardy was the exception, not the rule.

 

[Steve Wigan]

According to SSN its SAF who wants Walsh at OT. The CEO is against the idea and wants a former player as DOF

 

[stretford blue]

Walsh was not the only one culpable in that summer of recruitment koeman moshiri kenwright equally to blame with all of them seemingly having there pick of who to sign . I suspect it will take a few more transfer windows to rectify the past mistakes

 

[JJ1878x]

Walsh was not the only one culpable in that summer of recruitment koeman moshiri kenwright equally to blame with all of them seemingly having there pick of who to sign . I suspect it will take a few more transfer windows to rectify the past mistakes

Harsh to say Moshiri is to blame for the recruitment, he just wrote the checks, transfer decisions have been delegated to a managment team. A team that failed and subsequently been removed. It would be his fault if Wash and Koeman was in a job now.

 

[stretford blue]

According to SSN its SAF who wants Walsh at OT. The CEO is against the idea and wants a former player as DOF

It really is quite remarkable how an organization like utd are being mismanaged there recruitment recently has surpassed even ours under koeman and walsh

 

[catcherintherye]

I dont think there was ever any serious working partnership with Walsh and Koeman. The latter came in like a wrecking ball determined to do it his way. The massive fees paid for tat was down to Koeman becuase he was "in a hurry" and wasn't concerned about bringing in young talent or unheard of talent.

Walsh's record of signings at Leicester needs no spin, and he also signed good players for Everton like Lookman and Gueye.

Ok, he is no DoF, but he deserves no stick for being here at the same time that Koeman was. The expensive flops were Koeman's mistakes - the vast majority of them. I notice the Echo are spinning that line again today of a Walsh-inspired fiasco. Typical of that clueless bunch of hacks.

There will be a lot of black and white revisionism with Walsh. As with most things it's never quite black and white.

That being said he had two major faults for me, which were linked. The first was he didn't close enough deals, the 2nd that he didn't control the process and essentially subordinate the manager (so essentially insist on his players).

He was very keen on Bailey, Gray (from Leicester at 12 million) Mendy (who's just gone to Madrid), Isak. Regarding young players he liked both the Sessegnon twins, Brooks, Adawairo (City player) as well as Hirst and Zizkee as younger players. Had we have added the above players, instead of those Koeman insisted upon we'd have had a squad worth far more money and with the right coach one that could have developed.

Fair is fair, some we were linked with Belfodil & Gabbiadini who we were heavily linked with have flopped so we dodged a bullet there. Likewise I have little doubt Sandro was his pick and that was a poor buy.

However Gana was an excellent signing, Keane & Pickford while not faultless have proven to be decent enough and the younger players signed, Lookman, Vlasic, Onyekuru, Gibson etc will all prove to be smart buys. If he'd have trusted his approach more he'd have probably done much better.

The wider issue lay above Walsh though. You got a guy in as DOF who was essentially a scout and couldn't close deals. You stuck him into an infrastructure that couldn't close deals and worked in a slow, meticulous and cautious way. Then you had a domineering manager who wanted success quickly and an owner who was briefing the press it would be like City. It's an impossible situation. His skill at Leicester was finding diamonds at a knockdown price and over time feeding them in. It was never the job we needed.

If I am honest, it's not the job United want either. He will do very poorly there, not because he has no skill, but because the role doesn't suit him.

 

[hktoffee]

Nightmare for us. That’s what the Steve Walsh saga was for us.

We rather naively took his astute signings as a sign of a new dawn, and sadly for us and Steve it never worked out.

It was clear from the offset there were issues, rumours of discontent between him and Koeman, Moshiri getting s little too involved and you could see he was out of his depth.

He was rightly let go, but at a great cost, and I’d like to think we’ve learned our lessons from the Koeman/Walsh fiasco because it set us back approximately £20m if you include Allardyce.

But, let’s look back at Walsh legacy, and who we brought in, and the successes. Forget your Sandro’s, Klaassen’s for a sec.

Calvert-Lewin has become a first team regular (whether you like him or not £1m got a striker who’s going to be at worst a handy Squad player), then you’ve got the likes of the youth teams Bowler, from QPR, they’re talking about him like he’s going to make it and the same with Gibson the lad we got from Newcastle.

Go to Leicester, he signed Mahrez and Kramaric (both 23) and they worked out successful careers.

Steve Walsh was very good at what he does, which is sign young players with potential. But he was never ever, a Director of Football.

If you told me we could have him as a youth scout I’d have him.

Those dark days have gone now though.

Bowler and Gibson are untested.