Don't forget Caicedo too,so with that being said if we can only have one out of those three which would you choose
Kaoru Mitoma
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Yeah him as well.
Brighton have a brilliant set up behind the scenes. We should take them all as I said as they know what they are doing clearly.
Only logic behind this is if Sancho is leaving and Hag is seriously considering making Rashford a permanent striker.
Again, the key isn’t the specific personnel, it’s the analytics behind identifying the prospects. Starlizard is the key to our recruitment.
Newcastle poached our Technical Director, Dan Ashworth. Chelsea poached our Head of Recruitment and most of our backroom staff. Other clubs have had the same idea as you!
Brighton have a system of succession planning for everything from the players to the tea lady. We are fortunate as with Cucurella/Estupinan, Bissouma/Caicedo, Trossard/Mitoma, Potter to De Zerbi, we keep trading up. But there will be duds and failures too going forward, it’s inevitable.
When fans say “let’s just get Brighton’s recruitment team” they are missing the point somewhat. We don’t have this incredible global network of super scouts. We just have strong contacts with clubs and agents and the best data analysis in world football.
You’d need to sign Tony Bloom, our chairman and owner basically and/or purchase his multi billion pound business.
Maybe United should hire Paddy Power as our head of recruitment. Amazing how many of the people at the forefront of the 'smart' recruitment frontier with backgrounds as bookies. There's Tony Bloom, Matthew Benham and Ted Knutson from Statsbomb who I'm nearly certain spent a chunk of his career in sports betting.
I am curious to see how sustainable Brighton's approach is and if it can be scaled upwards. We've seen clubs like Udinese and Seville develop excellent reputations as talent spotters in the past before eventually running out of steam and never really building on their transfer successes.
Failure is certainly possible, if a pipeline of prospects doesn’t burst as expected - or the market becomes unviable for us to compete with the biggest clubs.
Presently, there are Moran (19), Enciso (19), Ferguson (18), Buonanotte (18), Adingra (21), Ayari (19), Rushworth (21) and a few others of serious potential. Many are already full internationals. If say, two of ten prospects develop in line with what the club believes is possible when signing them, the club will be very happy.
I think it’s very much a numbers game too. They won’t all come off, of course, but the outlay is so relatively small per punt that all the transfers - good and bad - are easily absorbed with just one big sale. If Caicedo and/or Mac Allister go, it’ll be in the region of £75-100m apiece. Ayari for example (who came on as a sub for Caicedo on Tuesday night) just turned 19 and cost under £4m from Swedish football. He looks an excellent player. Buonanotte (£5m up front, rising to £10m with clauses) two months after turning 18, just got a full Argentina call up. It’s mental how we keep finding these players.
But yes, much bigger and more successful clubs than ours have ultimately regressed. For now we are just enjoying this incredible ride, after all we’ve been through.
And it’s all thanks to Tony Bloom.
Some dude from Paddy Power wouldn't stand a chance, Brighton and Brentford literally have two of the largest gambling syndicates running them. These do millions in bets, per week or per day I can't remember but the figures are there online in interviews. They have large teams in place to find edge and when you're doing those sums you need operational excellence. Easy to see where the overlap between that and scouting would come from.
Who at United would scout the J league for Mitoma or some random Argentina team for McAlister's replacement? We may have one or two guys but these guys will have data and teams on another level. Hell Celtic got a free run at about 5 good players from the J league purely because their manager worked in that league for a year or two.
Given United's signgings under Ole and ETH have largely been the manager's choices, and e.g. Liverpool a lot of them are players that played well against them, it's easy to see how they have a large edge on a lot of teams.
On topic - I would love to sign Mitoma. I think he's class and has another level to go up, wouldnt be surprised to see him be the next Kvara.
Just to be clear, I don't really think that Paddy Power is a real person or should be head of our recruitment. Having said that, surely it's not beyond belief that Paddy Power and every other bookie has people with similar capabilities running their models.
It's because these people come from a background of finding edges in different markets and exploiting them, especially anyone in the gambling space. Football until very recently was still largely prehistoric in how it was operated (I mean many still hate any sort of analytical stats past basic goal records), so these newer blood management teams found ways to exploit that edge and become very successful.
The approach absolutely can and will scale (Liverpool under Klopp and Edwards wasn't dissimilar in the ideas behind the approach), and there's a good chance that the majority of clubs will have copied the approach within the next decade or two as is what happens in every major sport when a team starts revolutionizing how to operate and look at the game. Just think still about how much "old school" garbage is still spewed by many well known pundits and fans. No one references xG or anything deeper besides analytical twitter accounts mostly, people still talk in cliches often with stuff like "he's going to get you goals" "proper number 9" "gets up and down the pitch" "makes things happen" etc. without ever delving into the why or how.
Excellent post.
There are crazier ideas than buying Mitoima and a #9 and just moving Rashford up top more and more, keep Martial around as depth, don't think we're saving much money loaning him out anyways. Might piss off Garnacho though.
Striker: #9 (Rashford, Martial)
RW: Antony (Amad/Pellistri, Mitoima)
LW: Rashford (Mitoima, Garnacho)
and basically you've got the #9, Rashford, Mitoima and Antony playing a ton of minutes in the 3 attacking spots and then #5, 6 and 7 are Garnacho, Amad/Pellistri and Martial in some order.
Striker: #9 (Rashford, Martial)
RW: Antony (Amad/Pellistri, Mitoima)
LW: Rashford (Mitoima, Garnacho)
and basically you've got the #9, Rashford, Mitoima and Antony playing a ton of minutes in the 3 attacking spots and then #5, 6 and 7 are Garnacho, Amad/Pellistri and Martial in some order.
Sounds like an OnlyFans account.
Easily one of the best players in the league post-WC, so exciting to watch, would love him here but unfortunately, it's far from the priorities we have.
The only possibility would be if we fail to sign #9 and/or ETH decides to move Rashford centrally long-term (although I do believe Rashford is better from the LW position) + giving up on Sancho (at least as LW). So, too many factors that should happen to be a realistic option for both club and the player.
The only possibility would be if we fail to sign #9 and/or ETH decides to move Rashford centrally long-term (although I do believe Rashford is better from the LW position) + giving up on Sancho (at least as LW). So, too many factors that should happen to be a realistic option for both club and the player.
Well said, excellent read.
And, again, there’s the fee. The player is not for sale…
Of course, that goes along with other things mentioned in the post. Brighton could theoretically be tempted to sell only if the big fee is included when on another end we have to spend big on other positions first.
PS. I'm pretty sure your club already has a talented replacement in place.
Like Mitoma a lot, but I think he’s another one who’s not actually that fast. He looks quick, but he’s not going to tear teams open like Vincius or Rashford. He’s better than Sancho (and Antony) right now, but if Sancho improves then I don’t think you really need Mitoma (I know that’s a big ‘if’).
He really is a brilliant player. Technically excellent. So easy on the eye. Brilliant dribbler. Two footed. Will be a good asset for any big club that moves for him.
Should have had another goal and won a penalty for Brighton yesterday. If VAR wasn't so incompetent, everyone would be rightly raving about him again. Just a very impactful player that makes things happen. Hope he stays at Brighton and not to one of the bigger clubs. Unless it's us of course.
Could be a good point. But is Grealish «fast»? Is Mahrez? I would argue both of them is quick, but not fast like Rashford.
The way we played in the past few years we have relied heavily on players with pace out wide. We have progressed the play by making (long) passes into space hoping our attackers are quicker into that space than the defenders. I think EtH, like Pep, want wide attackers (that play quite narrow) that is good at progressing the ball through «carries».
I’m a bit fearfull that we will lose Garnacho as there is very little news about his new contract. Would be a shame. Can only see him going to Real Madrid if so. Worth noting that Vincius, regularly abused in Spain, only have a year left on his current contract.
It's a no from me
Vinicius worships Real (sadly). His renewal is much more of a formality than Rashy's is with us. They will still go after Garnacho though.
I actually agree, it should be that the wingers who don’t rely on pace can work, especially in a possession-based side but Antony and Sancho get a lot of stick for not being fast enough or “going on the outside”. Mitoma may or may not be better than either of them, but I think he’s kind of similar, so it seems to me the most resourceful thing to do would be to get at least one of them playing like Mitoma does right now (because Mitoma might not be able to do it for United anyway).
He’ll end up going to the scousers and absolutely tear it up.
Klopp does like a Japanese attacker after all.
The way city play they need more "creative" wingers rather than fast direct ones. They're a extremely highly possession based team, so most of the time they face packed defenses which leave not much space at the back. So fast wingers become less effective in that situation that's why they use mostly creative wingers that can create the space and chances.
See arsenal for a change, Saka and Martinelli are fast direct wingers they're approach is different.
For most teams having fast wingers is a must, while ten Hag is a possession based manager I don't think he's as high as Pep. So we definitely be looking for pace specially considering the only players in the squad who can be described as fast are Rashford and Garnacho.
Regarding Garnacho I do fear if Madrid comes calling he'll leave definitely. He's clearly a fan and it's been seen interacting with Madrid players and accounts on social media. But Madrid have Vinicius, Valverde and Rodrygo as wingers. All young and more developed than him so I doubt Madrid it's interested at this point.
Good player but can't see a space in the team for him. We're well-stocked for wide players.
Rashford
Sancho
Antony
Garnacho
Amad
Pellistri
Elanga
Rashford
Sancho
Antony
Garnacho
Amad
Pellistri
Elanga
Except pure pace isn't actually an issue of you are an elite player at taking men on (which Mitoma is). Antony gets stick because he doesn't actually beat players on the dribble often, and some of that is because he's so one sided that every team dares him to go on the outside and he simply doesn't. Even statistics wise, he's only averaging .75 successful dribbles per 90 minutes compared to Mitoma being over 2 (which is almost top of the league).
Bottom line is we need more players that are technically elite AND can be 1v1 threats.
If we sell Sancho then this makes sense, I think he'd be an excellent rotation option.
This actually doesn’t in my opinion, no matter how much I rate him. Would you play Rashford out of his position or stop giving minutes to Garnacho?
If he has a Stormer against us than the clamouring will reach fever pitch. But don't think this will go ahead.
Those are some good points here and I think it's heavily connected with our goalkeeper and here is why.
As we all already know, DDG is not very confident with a ball at his feet so our limited ability to use him as an extra man in the build-up encourages opponents to apply a higher line against us.
As DDG fancy to go for a long ball instead and with space behind to exploit it, that makes a pace so crucial for our wingers in last years. I already noticed a tactical tweak from ETH when he started Rashford at #9 and Weghorst at #10 and I think the idea behind this was to move opponents' lines slightly deeper due to the pace that Rashford possesses (especially compared to WW) + Weghorst is more comfortable winning long balls the first time and winning the second balls for runners. And it worked pretty well.
Having a goalkeeper who can participate in the build-up and who is not afraid to play through the press will naturally move opponents' line deeper and that is where I see explosive pace would start to be less important for our wingers and where I can see players like Mitoma could slot in.
Roberto De Zerbi has strongly hinted that Mitoma will soon be signing a new long-term contract.
There was never any real suggestion he was going anywhere anyway, but good for us to get him tied down for longer.
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There was never any real suggestion he was going anywhere anyway, but good for us to get him tied down for longer.
I'm watching Mitoma in a Chelsea game right now and I'm wondering if the scouts we're hiring are actually people who were hired by mistake. Mitoma instead of Sancho and we're a much better team. Absolutely Fantastic player.
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Agree. All the clubs who didn't sign Mitoma should fire their scouting teams. You simply have to sign all talented footballers, no excuses.
He's class. Would love to sign him.
we have many more mistakes like Sancho. At a club like Manchester United, more is expected of everyone.
When was the last time we signed a player for <30m and developed him into a top player? We sign players for 50-80m only to discover they are mediocre at best. Brighton are such a well run club.
No one could have predicted Mitoma would be better than Sancho ffs
He literally started his professional career at the age of 22.
Can thank the incompetence of our transfer structure as well as this obsession with everyone we sign needing to be "proven" as a bigger name. Think people are finally realizing that spunking huge transfer sums in general isn't a great strategy unless it's for a true proven commodity or if you have an unlimited budget. Signing players like Caicedo or Mitoma for 10m to supplement those "big money" signings every summer is a no brainer decision because even if those cheaper prospects come in and don't quite work out, you move them on without having to swallow big losses or persisting with a failed player simply to hope he pays back his transfer sum. Take Malacia for example: we spent 15m and he's been a quality backup option while still being a young player that can improve. Even if he doesn't end up succeeding Shaw, we aren't invested so deep into him that we'll be taking a big loss if he doesn't work out. Problem is we never seem to do these types of signings consistently, the only spot where we do well is with the true youth products.
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