Between our scouting and recruitment, how do we keep getting it so wrong?

[LawCharltonBest]

I never want to see someone lose their job

But whenever he was mentioned in articles over the years, it always seemed to be that he’d either passed up on someone who later became world class. Or that he pushed to sign someone who came and was awful

Left me with an overwhelming feeling that he was as bad at his job as it is humanly possible to be

 

[quadrant]

I never want to see someone lose their job

But whenever he was mentioned in articles over the years, it always seemed to be that he’d either passed up on someone who later became world class. Or that he pushed to sign someone who came and was awful

Left me with an overwhelming feeling that he was as bad at his job as it is humanly possible to be

Very hard to judge from the outside what one person's impact is. However we can probably all agree our recruitment has been awful from 2016 til last summer. Don't wanna say its down to this guy - for all I know he could have been fighting against the tide all this time. But a change in everything to do with recruitment - including scouting - is no bad thing.

 

[Chairman Steve]

I feel like at one point we’ve had 4 different people simultaneously whose title is essentially chief scout. It’s like that bit in American Psycho where everyone is an executive vice president.

Can’t help but think that’s been part of the problem. People like Brown, Lawlor, Bout, Ribalta etc have come and gone whilst all seemingly holding a chief scout position, with some overlapping the others.

No long term constant in there and of course the extremely passive Glazer family who didn’t really care and Woodward who thought he could be the Florentino Perez of England.

 

[ScholesBrain]

The way we behave in the transfer market is like how the new generation do in the job market/ love market, we keep regarding those targets who are "easily attainable at low costs" to be bad, and those who demand more to be good targets, and keep chasing for the latter.

When endo fernandes and alvarez were available at around 20M, we regarded them to be bad because "if they are so good, they won't cost 20M only!", we walked away from caicedo who costed 4M because we dwelled on the small fee difference his former club insisted on

when atlanta asks for 70M for hojlund and ajax asks for 80M for antony, we gratefully took them in "since good players must be expensive"

that is why the modern love/job market is broken and our transfers are broken.

 

[CG1010]

The biggest flaw has been not with the scouting department but the executives and managers who take the final call. We have had serious lack of people (looking at you - Ten Hag!) with understanding which players are likely to make it in the PL given its unique physical aspects. Hence filled up on lightweight players who can do well in Spain or Italy but not in England.

Now we are trying to correct (or overcorrect) by buying PL proven players - going back to Ole's times.

 

[ScholesBrain]

The biggest flaw has been not with the scouting department but the executives and managers who take the final call. We have had serious lack of people (looking at you - Ten Hag!) with understanding which players are likely to make it in the PL given its unique physical aspects. Hence filled up on lightweight players who can do well in Spain or Italy but not in England.

Now we are trying to correct (or overcorrect) by buying PL proven players - going back to Ole's times.

back in Ole's time, our scouts/ole recommended Haaland, Rice, Bellingham, Caceido, Endo and Alvarez - all before they went famous. Only that the mightly Woodward banned all of those/made the deals broke down because we dwelled on small fee differences.

back in LVG days, we didn't sign mbappe before he became famous only because we signed martial a year prior.

So our scouts did a good job indeed. it was the top stupid management, led by Woodward, an accountant who had no football experience nor business management experience, that let us down.

 

[DarkLord1984]

back in Ole's time, our scouts/ole recommended Haaland, Rice, Bellingham, Caceido, Endo and Alvarez - all before they went famous. Only that the mightly Woodward banned all of those/made the deals broke down because we dwelled on small fee differences.

back in LVG days, we didn't sign mbappe before he became famous only because we signed martial a year prior.

So our scouts did a good job indeed. it was the top stupid management, led by Woodward, an accountant who had no football experience nor business management experience, that let us down.

Worst thing to happen to our club in decades. Wouldn't surprise me if the truth came out that he was a closet Liverpool fan.

 

[CG1010]

back in Ole's time, our scouts/ole recommended Haaland, Rice, Bellingham, Caceido, Endo and Alvarez - all before they went famous. Only that the mightly Woodward banned all of those/made the deals broke down because we dwelled on small fee differences.

back in LVG days, we didn't sign mbappe before he became famous only because we signed martial a year prior.

So our scouts did a good job indeed. it was the top stupid management, led by Woodward, an accountant who had no football experience nor business management experience, that let us down.

Absolutely - the level of players that Ole wanted were many times better than ETH got. Even Ole's purchases on the whole were much better than ETH, as evidenced by our league position. And this is after taking into factor waste like Sancho, VDB etc.

Earlier Woodword and then later ETH + Arnold combo completely screwed us over!

 

[KStandBarmyArmy1993]

The way we behave in the transfer market is like how the new generation do in the job market/ love market, we keep regarding those targets who are "easily attainable at low costs" to be bad, and those who demand more to be good targets, and keep chasing for the latter.

When endo fernandes and alvarez were available at around 20M, we regarded them to be bad because "if they are so good, they won't cost 20M only!", we walked away from caicedo who costed 4M because we dwelled on the small fee difference his former club insisted on

when atlanta asks for 70M for hojlund and ajax asks for 80M for antony, we gratefully took them in "since good players must be expensive"

that is why the modern love/job market is broken and our transfers are broken.

If we signed Fernandes, Alvarez and Caideo, they wouldn't have developed like they have done.

The issue isn't necessarily the signings, it's the lack of decent coaching/tactics/strategy/culture etc when the players arrive.

I'm convinced if Antony had gone to Liverpool for say £50 million in August 2022, he becomes a good squad player for them and an important cog in a title winning team.

Hoijlund goes to a Villa/Newcastle type level of club, he's maybe a good back up striker for 2 years whilst he learns the ropes and is on a trajectory that means he's their first choice when say Watkins/Isak move on at the end of this or next season. We've thrown him in and expected him to shine because we spent massive money on him.

This summer, we need to sign four experienced players that can go straight in the team and do well from day 1. There's no room for error that allows young players to learn from their mistakes at the moment. Even if we miss the "next big thing", we need to avoid wasting another young player's potential.

 

[cyril C]

Come to think on it, HOW many decent recruitment since DDG? Bruno is about the ONLY name that I can think of. He is still controversial in the eyes of some fans, but at least he is worth every penny that we paid for. The rest? How many players who played on regular basis, with the club for over 3 seasons?

So, if the Head of Recruitment / Scouts is not responsible, WHO is? He may not be the person who recommend Antony, Malacia, Hojlund, but every recruitment went through his eyes. he had nothing to say about them? Just drink his whisky while the CEO and Manager worked out the deal?

 

[Big Ben Foster]

Come to think on it, HOW many decent recruitment since DDG? Bruno is about the ONLY name that I can think of. He is still controversial in the eyes of some fans, but at least he is worth every penny that we paid for. The rest? How many players who played on regular basis, with the club for over 3 seasons?

So, if the Head of Recruitment / Scouts is not responsible, WHO is? He may not be the person who recommend Antony, Malacia, Hojlund, but every recruitment went through his eyes. he had nothing to say about them? Just drink his whisky while the CEO and Manager worked out the deal?

Quite the opposite, the scouts pushed hard against signing Antony and Hojlund at the quoted prices

 

[Waynne]

Going to guess not everyone is or was on the same wavelength. No clear identity how we want to play so recruitments are based off what manager comes in and we change managers like we change underwear so we're left with a disjointed mess of a squad on inflated wages. Rinse & repeat.

We need the Old Trafford collective to identify what style of football we want to play and recruit players based on that blueprint while keeping tabs on managers who can come in and implement that style of play with minimal disruption to the playing squad. This unforunately will take years to set up so we must be patient.

 

[Teja]

Quite the opposite, the scouts pushed hard against signing Antony and Hojlund at the quoted prices

Hojlund specifically was a scout recommended as far as I know. They pushed for him at that price.

But yeah generally agree with the sentiment that it's recruitment strategy and not scouting that's been the problem.

 

[zenith]

For me, it was all woodward and the yes men before him who disregard scouts and often the manager's opinion. The one manager who they did listen to had the dumbest ideas (ETH), which is still costing us.

I have far more faith in the management now, to get the recruitment right. Almost all of the signings made under their purview have been good to very good and most importantly not at absurd prices. That plus the investment in young players, gives me a lot of faith.

 

[cyril C]

Quite the opposite, the scouts pushed hard against signing Antony and Hojlund at the quoted prices

What price tag do you think Antony and Hojlund should be worth? Worthy to start every game? Someone should have point out their technical weakness right from the beginning, and argue against their recruitment, not base on price tag. You can argue on Rice' price tag, but not on Mount, who can never fit in.

Got my point? They are simply NOT good enough to start regardless of their price, unless they come from Academy who cost us nothing.

Antony has neither the mind set, not will, to work on his game, including his right foot. So you think he deserves a place if say at 20m price tag?

Hojlund, mindset is very good and I appreciate his effort, but if you fail to contribute as #9, you are wasting a valuable space. The same can be said for Lukaku. 60% useful is simply not good enough.

 

[sunama]

For me, it was all woodward and the yes men before him who disregard scouts and often the manager's opinion. The one manager who they did listen to had the dumbest ideas (ETH), which is still costing us.

I have far more faith in the management now, to get the recruitment right. Almost all of the signings made under their purview have been good to very good and most importantly not at absurd prices. That plus the investment in young players, gives me a lot of faith.

I'm not sure why you have so much faith in the current regime.
The current regime have taken us to our lowest point in decades and I look at results over everything else - our results have been disastrous since INEOS took over.
When we play games against teams whose monthly wage bill is 10% of what we pay our players and we go in as the underdogs, hoping and praying for a draw - that's when I know we are on a disastrous path.
IMO, we are getting worse, not better.