Sporting Director vs Manager control when it comes to buying players.

[Guest Kaizer]

There are different kind of models when it comes to how the club organisation is set up.

 

At some clubs they give the manger total control when it comes to buying players while at others they have a sporting director as head of these things.

 

There are good arguments for using both models, personally I`m leaning towards the Sporting director model, because I can see it giving the club more continuity.

This model is used all over Europe, while in England its been the other way around, lately we have seen the sporting director role introduced in the PL as well at some clubs, the quaestion is will the clubs benefit from this.

 

If we look at ourselves, what could a change of models from manager control to a sporting director bring in the long run?

 

If we look back at our most successful period of time we had four different managers in Shankly, Paisley, Fagan and Dalglish, but they were all brought up with the same ideas and that gave us continuity when it came to player material etc, so if you stretch things a bit you could see resemblance with the continuity a sporting director would bring working from a model the club has set up.

 

So in more recent times we have seen Houllier come in with his 5 year plan, bringing in his own players, it did not work, we changed manager and had to start from scratch again, Rafa brought in his own players getting rid of GH`s dross, and light of recent events where some of the suporters have started to criticize the manager and if the unthinkable should happen and Rafa should leave, we would be back starting from scratch again with a new manager bringing in his own players etc, etc-

 

Its a vicious cycle, but maybe with a sporting director in charge of bringing in the players, a change of manager would not set the club back the same way and when and if a new manager came in we did not have to wait a couple of years before we could exect anything from him.

 

Any thoughts?

[Rimbeux]

Culture plays big part. If everyone else uses the sporting director route, with the coach expected to adapt to the players he has, then it can work. The players will be familiar with the system and the competitors will be using similar systems. When you use it over here, it's against a background of the British players being used to a manager in charge of everything, and the most successful teams having long serving managers in charge of everything. A coach will point to his rivals and demand the same power as them, the same backing. Not in England.

[Gunga Din]

Martin Jol doesnt buy the players at Tottenham.

when Mourinho lost controlof which players were bought at Chelsea it all went wrong.

 

its a rubbish system, the manager must have control over all aspects of the team.

[Guest Kaizer]

I agree that looking at it short term, manager control is the best, but thats not my point, my point is that in the long term aspect it might be better for the club with the Sporting director/sporting board model, if the manager stays long term he will be more and more integrated into this anyway.

 

Maybe I`m just fed up with one "5 year plan" after the other that do not succeed, if Rafa would go before he wins the league, lets say in the next two season, we will get a new manager and a new "5 year plan", and in reality this will be a 15 year plan from the clubs viewpoint, since the new manager more than likely will start to rebuild and will bring in his own players with a manager control model.

[Gunga Din]

I agree that looking at it short term, manager control is the best, but thats not my point, my point is that in the long term aspect it might be better for the club with the Sporting director/sporting board model, if the manager stays long term he will be more and more integrated into this anyway.

 

Maybe I`m just fed up with one "5 year plan" after the other that do not succeed, if Rafa would go before he wins the league, lets say in the next two season, we will get a new manager and a new "5 year plan", and in reality this will be a 15 year plan from the clubs viewpoint, since the new manager more than likely will start to rebuild and will bring in his own players with a manager control model.

 

do you think its a coincidence that Englands two most succesful clubs in terms of title wins in the last 10 years have had each only one manager at the helm? Managers need time to build greta teams, the talk of 5 year plans is just nonsense. these things take as long as they take

[bobbyboulders]

If you pick the right manager you don't need a sporting director. If you can't pick the right manager you're hardly likely to be able to pick the right sporting director.

 

I can hardly imagine any of the managers during our most successful period putting up with a sporting director. Perhaps the game has changed now, but it's still probably best to keep it simple. Get the right manager in, give him time, give him money and get out of the way. You do all these things and you achieve what manyoo and Arsenal have of late and what we look on the cusp of.

[goodrobotusses]

"I asked for a table and they brought me a lamp"

 

I'm about as big a fan of the system as Rafa. It's a surefire way of pissing away money on players you coach may not want, or pissing off your coach when he's pressurised into using players he didn't want or need. If you have a system where your coach and director can agree on transfers every time, then great. But surely that's not too different to having a manager tell a chief executive what he wants, and the chief exec go and deal with it.

[Guest Snorky]

I think the manager should post his targets on internet forums, we all have a poll and then he buys who we want.

[MFletcher]

It's a ridiculous format and I'm glad we don't subscribe to such a b******s way of doing things.

[Guest Kaizer]

It's a ridiculous format and I'm glad we don't subscribe to such a b******s way of doing things.

 

I dont think its a ridiculous format at all, this is how they do it in the rest of the main leagues in Europe so why not in England.

 

What I think is ridiculous is that a club like ours should not be able to expect success before after 3-4 years into a managers time with the club, and if a manager leaves the next one will start all over again to try to build his own team and get success 3-4 years down the line again.

[Maldini]

What if the sporting director leaves?

[_00_deathscar]

What I think is ridiculous is that a club like ours should not be able to expect success before after 3-4 years into a managers time with the club,

 

So we've won t*** all these last few years then?

Edited October 6, 2007 by _00_deathscar

[Guest Kaizer]

What if the sporting director leaves?

 

The traditions and incentives the club has laid out for him and that he is supposed to base his work on will still be there, but for some reason I think a club will change manager a lot more often than sporting director, but the question is a valid one.

 

Dont get me wrong, I`m not saying we should get a sporting director in, I just think it would benefit a club in the long run to use such a model, because they would not have to rebuild every time they changed manager.

 

For me a club should not be so reliant of its manager that it would have as huge consequenses as it would for us now if Rafa decided to leave for one reason or the other.

 

With the clubs players instead of the managers players that would not be the case, Rafa won his biggest ever achievment with mostly GH`s players anyway so I cant see why not, thinking about it it might actually do us a lot of good.

Edited October 6, 2007 by Kaizer

[Maldini]

Who takes responsibility for the success (or lack of it) though, the manager or the sporting director. A manager can't do the job he wants if he hasn't got the players he wants. It's a recipe for disaster, there are very few cases of it bringing continued success.

 

As for the sporting director staying longer than the manager, Madrid have had almost as many sporting directors as they've had managers over the past decade.

 

I'd rather let the manager have complete control.

[Maldini]

With the clubs players instead of the managers players that would not be the case, Rafa won his biggest ever achievment with mostly GH`s players anyway so I cant see why not, thinking about it it might actually do us a lot of good.

 

Don't really know where to start with this point.

 

1. It completely destroys your argument that the manager leaving causes too much turmoil.

2. The fact that Rafa won the CL with the dross that GH left behind was made made it such an amazing achievement

3. Rafa then shipped out most of "GH's" players

[Guest Kaizer]

Like I said in the first post, there are good arguments for using both models.

 

Clubs like Milan, Bayern Munchen, Juventus etc are good examples of clubs with the sporting director model that consistently gets success not depending on the manager.

 

For your last point about Rafa`s success with GH`s players, it could be that he actually had a bit of different types back then, now we have mostly grafters, if Rafa had to work with some of the players he has shipped out because they did not work hard enough, run long enough or had a attitudes he did not like, who knows for all we know we might have got better results in the league, it certainly could not go much worse.

 

But like I said, I can see good arguments for both models, I raised the question because I wanted to see what arguments such a debate would raise, but also because I saw someone mention how we would be back at square one if Rafa would leave.

Edited October 6, 2007 by Kaizer

[Maldini]

I don't think we would be, Rafa has modernised the structure of the club, we now have a proper scouting setup and a more extensive back room team. There's no reason to think all these people will leave just if Rafa does. The new manager may have a different philosophy, but I can't see what drastic changes a manager could make.

 

Bayern have a sporting director, but from what I'm aware of he signs the players the manager wants him to (the same way our sporting director Macia operates). Milan and Juventus's transfers are bizarre to say the least, obviously they've signed fantastic players, but they've also signed some awful s***e and more importantly they've both signed players that weren't wanted by the manager. Milan just resigned Ibrahim Ba for f***s sake!

 

It's a recipe for disaster as I said, managers don't know where they stand, it completely undermines their authority and so what often happens is they take it out on the players the sporting director imposes on them. That's what happened to Henry at Juventus and Davids at Milan.

 

Also, how do you judge the success of a sporting director? How do you know who would make a good sporting director? You can tell who's a good manager from their success on the pitch and how his teams play football, what criteria do you use for a sporting director?

Edited October 6, 2007 by Maldini

[Guest Kaizer]

For the last question, well its a difficult one, but if the club have success the sporting director has done his job.

 

If the club was going to appoint one I would have liked it to be someone like Dalglish, but thats another discussion.

 

The manager would off course have his say in this as well, but to use our two last managers as an example, I cant see us signing so many players based in France with GH and so many based in Spain with Rafa with a sporting director at head of things, and I`m not sure if that would have been a bad thing, and I guess this is my main point as well, I can see a lot of these players might want to leave if Rafa left and that would put the club in a difficult position.

[growler]

it comes down to the manager really. souness was left with an aging squad and triedto change it too quickly and failed. houllier was left with a culture but some good players who had lost their way. he brought discipline back to the club and put us back at the top table. Rafa has cleaned the squad up, and you can see the value of the squad has increased.

 

A manager can always be assessed by what he leaves for his successor. Rafa's successor will be the easiest job, as opposed to the job when Rafa or Houllier took over.

[Guest Kaizer]

Thats a decent point that, but what about the nationality issue when it comes to players?

 

My uncle who is a deluded Spurs fan used to say when GH was our manager that what he did was pumping money into French football just to wind me up, after a couple of years it was not such a bad point even if I dont think it had any foundations in reality.

 

But when we change manager the next time and lets say we bring in an Italian, what will happen then?

[Guest Kaizer]

So after the last weeks happenings, any more thoughts on this one?

[Herbie von Smalls]

still a non-starter.

 

close the thread

[mooks]

do you think its a coincidence that Englands two most succesful clubs in terms of title wins in the last 10 years have had each only one manager at the helm? Managers need time to build greta teams, the talk of 5 year plans is just nonsense. these things take as long as they take

Is that Big Wayne talking?

 

I must have fallen down a rabbit hole this morning. First knox, now wayne.

 

All we need now is for Snorky to start lecturing us on the need for stability.

 

 

Edit: Just realised this is from three weeks ago. I guess wayne's reverted to his old ways since

Edited October 26, 2007 by mooks

[John am Rhein]

I think that IF the club goes down the road of firing managers because their time's run out without winning the League then a long term appointment in the so-called sporting director role would go some way to maintaining a degree of continuity.

 

However, it would be far better to just not go down that road and get the continuity from a manager who stays around for the long term.

 

Perhaps some sort of 'front manager' is needed to serve as official media scapegoat, aunt sally to the fans and handle the press conferences, etc. We could then sack him every 18 months or so, allowing the real manager to get on with his job.

[mooks]

I think that IF the club goes down the road of firing managers because their time's run out without winning the League then a long term appointment in the so-called sporting director role would go some way to maintaining a degree of continuity.

 

However, it would be far better to just not go down that road and get the continuity from a manager who stays around for the long term.

 

Perhaps some sort of 'front manager' is needed to serve as official media scapegoat, aunt sally to the fans and handle the press conferences, etc. We could then sack him every 18 months or so, allowing the real manager to get on with his job.

LMFAO!

 

(I nominate Mark Lawrenson)