Director of football

Why does everyone think it is the answer? Do great chefs cook great meals with ingredients chosen by someone else?

What a strange analogy

Originally Posted by Sparky***

What a strange analogy

Thought it was a tasty one myself. If I was a manager I’d wouldn’t want someone else choosing my squad for me.

Originally Posted by Sparky***

What a strange analogy

Lots of restaurants have suppliers that chefs have to buy from

For decades, the chefs at our local restaurant have been happy to cook with the ingredients chosen by someone else.



Same at all McDonalds.

Originally Posted by Chris Quayd

Lots of restaurants have suppliers that chefs have to buy from

True, but the chef chooses whether to buy fillet steak or tripe and make a meal out of it.

Originally Posted by avocado

Why does everyone think it is the answer? Do great chefs cook great meals with ingredients chosen by someone else?

Because every successful club these days has one

It’s pretty simple
Managers these days are coaches which is their specialty, to get the best out of the first team squad
They’re not recruitment specialists, they don’t have the time to be looking at hours of footage of hundreds of players around the world

ETH at Utd is a classic example of why you don’t give managers that power as he’s just gone for players he’s worked with before or ones that he knows
Very hard to get good value and pick up gems when you’re limiting yourself to such a small pool of players

The other reason you don’t want the manager to have the recruitment power is he might not work out and you need to sack him but then you’re saddled with his players (the situation Utd will find themselves in again soon enough)
If you have a sporting director with a clear footballing vision buying the players he can sack a manager and bring in another one with a similar footballing philosophy which will suit the squad you already have

It’s just being smart which is the exact opposite of us as a football club

Originally Posted by Sparky***

What a strange analogy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp8yqQLE4UA

Originally Posted by ZiggyStardust

Because every successful club these days has one

It’s pretty simple
Managers these days are coaches which is their specialty, to get the best out of the first team squad
They’re not recruitment specialists, they don’t have the time to be looking at hours of footage of hundreds of players around the world

ETH at Utd is a classic example of why you don’t give managers that power as he’s just gone for players he’s worked with before or ones that he knows
Very hard to get good value and pick up gems when you’re limiting yourself to such a small pool of players

The other reason you don’t want the manager to have the recruitment power is he might not work out and you need to sack him but then you’re saddled with his players (the situation Utd will find themselves in again soon enough)
If you have a sporting director with a clear footballing vision buying the players he can sack a manager and bring in another one with a similar footballing philosophy which will suit the squad you already have

It’s just being smart which is the exact opposite of us as a football club

Suspect you won’t find Guardiola or, dare I say it, Klopp, having players foisted on them. Managers get (or should get) the best out of players that they want that fit the way they want to play (not the way a director of football thinks the manager wants to play).

Originally Posted by avocado

Suspect you won’t find Guardiola or, dare I say it, Klopp, having players foisted on them. Managers get (or should get) the best out of players that they want that fit the way they want to play (not the way a director of football thinks the manager wants to play).

You think Pep wanted Kalvin Phillips?

Originally Posted by avocado

Suspect you won’t find Guardiola or, dare I say it, Klopp, having players foisted on them. Managers get (or should get) the best out of players that they want that fit the way they want to play (not the way a director of football thinks the manager wants to play).

They’re not foisted onto to them but even the two best managers in the world don’t dictate transfers at their club
Both will work with the recruitment side of the club but they’re not saying I want these players
Maybe they’ll insist on a player here or there but most of the time they’ll trust the recruitment department to get them the players they need

Apparently Klopp when he came to Liverpool wanted a bunch of Bundesliga players but the recruitment department pushed back against that and then signed the likes of Salah who Klopp didn’t actually want

A director of football basically just nudges the manager in the right direction by giving him good options and also vetoing bad suggestions.

they also use their contacts to present players to the manager and they agree on it etc

One of the best in the business sis the dodgy one at spurs. Unearthed some real gems for them even though he is officially “banned” for some stuff he done recently.

For example a director of football would have not sanctioned mount.
Would have questioned Hojlund and had other more reliable options etc

DOF also love to waste agents times and have lots of players on the cusp of deals so for example when we were desperate after Brighton and Brentford a DOF would have presented us with lots of options for attacking players not just go back in for a player we thought was worth 25m and having to pay 83m

Fletcher and murtough have no football connections , no nothing.
We needed a emergency CB loan deal and they probably say evans in the car park picking up his wife from mutv….Been saying for a while we needed a real DOF football , of course dunk disagreed but is now posting the athetic article when we thought our DOF was doing a great job!

Originally Posted by armchair

You think Pep wanted Kalvin Phillips?

Well if he didn’t, he’s made it pretty clear he didn’t …..
And if so, they won’t be doing that with him again.

I just want us to make some positive structural appointments and yes I know it won't help this season which looks a write off

Originally Posted by avocado

Suspect you won’t find Guardiola or, dare I say it, Klopp, having players foisted on them. Managers get (or should get) the best out of players that they want that fit the way they want to play (not the way a director of football thinks the manager wants to play).

Apparently Klopp didn’t initially want Salah, but instead wanted Reus (I think it was).

Originally Posted by Neo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp8yqQLE4UA

From the sounds of it, if we weren’t prepared to give ten Hag that power we would have had to go with someone else.

Former dof Brighton former Brighton manager. Manchester United 2024

Originally Posted by Sheik JaBooty

From the sounds of it, if we weren’t prepared to give ten Hag that power we would have had to go with someone else.

He stated that clearly in his press conference and an interview he did with a Dutch media outlet where he referred to himself as a control freak

ETH is the definition of strong and wrong!

Imagine trying to sell The Scottish Player while signing amrabat and amrabat can’t get in the team ahead of him.

This is on the back of letting go of the one midfielder that gave us bite in the midfield in the summer:

Originally Posted by puressence

Former dof Brighton former Brighton manager. Manchester United 2024

Whatever else they may be, Brighton are a well run club. Everything that we are currently not.