Steve Walsh - no longer our Director of Football

[Bally8]

If you want someone to blame for not getting transfers done properly or quickly blame the guy thats been messing them up for years.

Our CEO.

Biggest amateur going him

 

[Logans run]

lol bit harsh mate, thought it was pretty obvious he was a Leicester fan lol

I am 79 next week so must be slowing down, still "foxed" was pretty significant a clue

 

[Logans run]

Why? Thought his input might be useful in a Steve Walsh discussion. Will know more than most.

Tongue in cheek

 

[maccavennie]

I am 79 next week so must be slowing down, still "foxed" was pretty significant a clue

Happy birthday in advance mate

 

[degsy]

I read an article last year shortly about Sevilla's director of football Monchi shortly before their gorgeous victory in the Europa League final. Just did a quick google and found it. Naturally he didn't give loads away but this excerpt is probably the most indicative of what HIS role is.

“Sixteen people cover a series of leagues. For the first five months we watch a lot of football but with no particular aim: we’re just accumulating data. Every month we produce an ideal XI for each league. Then in December we start watching players who appeared regularly in different contexts – home, away, international – to build the broadest possible profile.”

Monchi pulls out his phone and, carefully reducing the image so the names can’t be seen, says: “That gives us this.” A colour-coded spreadsheet shows players by position. Around 250 potential targets, in all positions. “The manager says: ‘I want a left-back who averages 11km a game, runs 800m at full speed, uses both feet.’ And from these, 10 will fit.”

Now I'm not saying Walsh utilises this exact same method, but I think the point to be made is that his primary responsibility will be gathering potential signings for our first team, and then narrowing these down based on the manager's requirements. I doubt he has any financial involvement in deals, but it wouldn't surprise me if he had some personal interaction with potential signings, just gauging their mentality. If it's his job to see who's physically and technically good enough, I assume seeing who's mentally up for it is another part of the puzzle.

I think the thing to bear in mind though is that the role of DOF varies from club to club, and what Walsh does for us is probably a lot different from what Leonardo was doing at PSG when he was there. At the end of the day he'll be judged as a success or failure dependant on recruitment, nothing else. He just needs to make sure there's more hits than misses. Everyone forgets Comolli signed Bale and Modric for Spurs because a few years later he thought Charlie Adam had a world class left peg. Good times

iirc, Moyes has a similar system, but of an analogue-ish type - took up a great long wall of colour coded pics...also graded by price

 

[zzr45]

all threads on this forum is full of whining posts from people who don't actually know who's to blame for what, but they're just jumping on someone to fit their agenda, it's tiredsome. Why bother whinging and moaning when you don't know the ins and outs? seems a lot of wasted effort to me.

Careful, you'll be told you aren't a fan thinking like that.

 

[AaronTheBlue]

Biggest amateur going him

Be funny if we now have to pay 20m for manolas considering his lack of interest in pushing the player into signing a deal for 400k last time / lack of ability to sell the club to him, despite not being guaranteed first team football.

 

[gaino92]

This is the definition of the role
"Director of football" is a term describing a senior management figure at a footballclub, most commonly used in Europe - and typically in the UK. ... The technical director role is generally different to that of a director of football, a position which usually involves overseeing the signing of players.
Now if he's not doing this he is not a DOF, just a scout

Ok mte well can you tell me where in these quotes from Steve Walsh he says he handles the negotiations.

"I’m involved in all the major football decisions at the club," said Walsh. "Player recruitment is the key area and my area of expertise.

"I’d like to build with Ronald a team everyone can be proud of."

"We get as much info as possible about targets, finding out what they're like as people as well as players to build right team ethic.

"Most of the players in the Premier League are foreign players so it’s important that we have all the major leagues covered.

"We try to do a bit in South America as well. When I first came in and had a conversation with Ronald, I asked ‘How do you like to play?’ and ‘What type of players do you like?’"

 

[toffeejack]

Be funny if we now have to pay 20m for manolas considering his lack of interest in pushing the player into signing a deal for 400k last time / lack of ability to sell the club to him, despite not being guaranteed first team football.

ha, i was thinking that. I can always live safely in the knowledge that we will never do anything as absurd as united letting pogba going for free and then having to pay a world record £90m to get him back .... when he's not even that good either ha

 

[Milkman]

I blame this scumbag for everything bad that's happened to us in the past 20 years.

 

[balggy]

I would hazard a pretty strong guess that Memphis Depay and Schneiderlin are players wanted by Koeman.

If both arrive permanently you are looking at £40 million plus.

If that happens, what is the point in Walsh? He would have been completely undermined in the area he is responsible for, player recruitment.

 

[gaino92]

Be funny if we now have to pay 20m for manolas considering his lack of interest in pushing the player into signing a deal for 400k last time / lack of ability to sell the club to him, despite not being guaranteed first team football.

Didn't he want 1st team football and we couldn't guarantee him it?

 

[foxedup]

You may well be right but some clarity is needed, and I am not blaming him, I just feel his role of responsible for signing is not compatible to Koeman's ideas.

From what I've read of Southampton, their scouting and player finding doesn't involve the manager particularly. So he should be used to being given players.

 

[allen]

I would hazard a pretty strong guess that Memphis Depay and Schneiderlin are players wanted by Koeman.

If both arrive permanently you are looking at £40 million plus.

If that happens, what is the point in Walsh? He would have been completely undermined in the area he is responsible for, player recruitment.

Walsh's mandate is longer-term than Koeman's. I see no reason why they can't both get the players they want.

 

[AaronTheBlue]

Didn't he want 1st team football and we couldn't guarantee him it?

Yes. But we didn't exactly try and change his mind. Elstone literally was just saying "oh we will leave him to it". That's not really usual, If you really want a player, even if its a younger player you do everything you can go convince them.