United’s Scouts

[FootyGirl88]

It's not even the hidden gems that bother me, it's the ones in plain sight.

KDB
Eriksen
B.Silva
Fabinho
VVD
Robertson
Maguire
Alli
Laporte

We've missed out on too many players that could of improved us - Questions do need to be asked.

 

[Velvet Revolver]

Comparing to SAF era, we brought in players gems or others to improve our squad and build on to an already core group of winners. It is not the same thing now! the priorities have changed along with the style of football. There is no way we would have gone for say young Chicharito at this era if he was available for 10 million!

Also, the likes of Porto, Monaco, Southhampton can afford to give these so called 'gems' playing time which big clubs cannot.

 

[Velvet Revolver]

It's not even the hidden gems that bother me, it's the ones in plain sight.

KDB
Eriksen
B.Silva
Fabinho
VVD
Robertson
Maguire
Alli
Laporte

We've missed out on too many players that could of improved us - Questions do need to be asked.

KDB - Would never have been a buy at United the first time because we never played with a out and out #10. 2nd time well
Eriksen - This was a bad miss!
B.Silva - Would he have chosen us over a brilliant city team?
Fabinho - Not really fussed about this.
VVD - We had tabs on him while at Celtic. no idea why this didnt materialize!
Robertson - We had shaw so he wouldn't have come or even if he did he wouldn't have got game time?
Maguire - Not an improvement imo!
Alli - Still on the fence on this one
Laporte - Would he have chosen us over a brilliant city team?

 

[FootyGirl88]

KDB - Would never have been a buy at United the first time because we never played with a out and out #10. 2nd time well
Eriksen - This was a bad miss!
B.Silva - Would he have chosen us over a brilliant city team?
Fabinho - Not really fussed about this.
VVD - We had tabs on him while at Celtic. no idea why this didnt materialize!
Robertson - We had shaw so he wouldn't have come or even if he did he wouldn't have got game time?
Maguire - Not an improvement imo!
Alli - Still on the fence on this one
Laporte - Would he have chosen us over a brilliant city team?

We could have gone in for Laporte before City came in for him - he had a release clause.

If we bought Maguire when he was at Hull it would have been shrewd business as we would have got him cheap and would have been an upgrade on Jones. The same for Roberston we could of had two quality LBs to rotate with.

There's no excuse for not getting KDB - he can literally play anywhere in the front 3 or midfield he just has too much quality he can fit in anywhere.

 

[WR10]

I don't think they have a problem scouting players. Think about it this way. There are a bunch of average feckers on here that have full-time mundane jobs yet watch other leagues as a pass time. Every once in a while they pretentiously post on here about some actually decent talents that they have stumbled upon. If your average armchair scout on here can pluck talent out of nowhere, I am sure experts and paid human beings can proficiently scout. You'd be delusional to think otherwise.

However, I don't think Ed ever sets out targets for the summer and achieves them. There is no way you can convince me that ALL our signings in the past 10 years have been exactly our first choices. I'm plucking this percentage out of my arse but I think we only ever really get 15% of the first choice transfer targets that we set out to get.

Other clubs just try to extort us. Why wouldn't they? We always end up either paying too much or settling for a plan B or C or D or E and end up with pretty shitty half-arsed signings.

It's not the scouts, come on.

 

[Chairman Steve]

With 39 scouts based across the world I would have thought we would be unearthing some gems. https://academymanutd.com/staff/

This hasn’t been updated in a while as Ribalta is on there.

Why have we have had a Chief Scout, a Scouting Manager, a Head of European Scouting AND a Head of Global Scouting at the same time ? How convoluted is this structure?

 

[Class of 63]

Porto have been one of the best teams in finding Gems for cheap and selling high.

Yeah because despite UEFA/FIFA supposedly clamping down on it they, Sporting Club and Benfica still abuse third party ownership of players from South America whereby they only pay a % of the asking price of the player/registration and then often only after they've agreed to sell the player on.

It's win win for the clubs, they only need one out of every five transfers(probably more) to be a success, the failures are moved on and cost them peanuts in the great scheme of things.

 

[Class of 63]

It’s not so much the hidden gems that frustrate me. It’s the obvious ones that we wait around on for too long. Take Tielemans for example. Captain of Anderlecht at 18. A hugely talented central midfielder. Transfer to Monaco for 23m (which is feasible)....1 yr later and his fee is likely to be 50m if not more.

We tend to get linked to a lot of players who 1,2 seasons earlier we could have bought for half the price. It’s madness

That has always been the case and probably always will be, nobody was more cautious than SAF with transfers, often wanting to see potential targets at a higher level first(Ferdinand, Berbatov, Veron et al)and ending up paying double or triple what they'd have cost if he'd gambled on them earlier - but that probably applies to all the big clubs to some extent.

And yeah Tielemans great talent, but do you not think all the big clubs in Europe ourselves included would have been aware of him since he was 15/16 and yet when he did move from Belgium he ended up in France where he by all accounts didn't pull up any trees, and he's now at a club who think(despite their recent Premier League win) it's an achievement to finish in the top 10.

 

[Pughnichi]

That has always been the case and probably always will be, nobody was more cautious than SAF with transfers, often wanting to see potential targets at a higher level first(Ferdinand, Berbatov, Veron et al)and ending up paying double or triple what they'd have cost if he'd gambled on them earlier - but that probably applies to all the big clubs to some extent.

And yeah Tielemans great talent, but do you not think all the big clubs in Europe ourselves included would have been aware of him since he was 15/16 and yet when he did move from Belgium he ended up in France where he by all accounts didn't pull up any trees, and he's now at a club who think(despite their recent Premier League win) it's an achievement to finish in the top 10.

I understand your point that it removes risk by letting them show credentials at a higher level. But we do/have wasted a lot of money on players that aren’t quite so obviously talented in the hope they would come good. Granted not so recently, but 7m Powell, 5m Henriquez, 5m Buttner, 4m Diouf, 4m Obertan, 7m Bebe, 6m Tosic. It soon adds up. In more recent times you could argue...with hindsight, that there have been better signings than (for eg) Fellaini...when a pre injury Strootman was available. I’m just a frustrated fan disappointed with our apparent current scatter gun approach. New managers haven’t helped but I just wish/hope to see an actual plan in place

 

[PoTMS]

When's the last cheapish player we've taken a punt on that was actually any good? We pay top dollar and they're still shit.

 

[Eric's Seagull]

This hasn’t been updated in a while as Ribalta is on there.

Why have we have had a Chief Scout, a Scouting Manager, a Head of European Scouting AND a Head of Global Scouting at the same time ? How convoluted is this structure?

Thanks very much for informing me. I totally agree very confusing structure. Think Ribalta could have been kept and given the DoF role. I am going to do a bit of research to find out exactly what each one does.

 

[Eric's Seagull]

Just found out our Head of European Scouting: Henny de Regt was credited with finding Matthijs De Ligt at 16. Maybe he could start finding us some good Dutch talent for the Academy before the become established and cost massive fees. He should be very useful as he spent 18 years at Ajax which included coaching and analyst roles.

 

[FootyGirl88]

Just found out our Head of European Scouting: Henny de Regt was credited with finding Matthijs De Ligt at 16. Maybe he could start finding us some good Dutch talent for the Academy before the become established and cost massive fees. He should be very useful as he spent 18 years at Ajax which included coaching and analyst roles.

I think this was well documented - Woodward was against signing him at the time. Is Henny still with us?

 

[Eric's Seagull]

I think this was well documented - Woodward was against signing him at the time. Is Henny still with us?

It says that he is still with us on Academy Man United but not sure if the information on him is up to date. Sorry

 

[Bestofthebest]

When's the last cheapish player we've taken a punt on that was actually any good? We pay top dollar and they're still shit.

This exactly. Every time we go out and pay a big fee for a player they turn out to be disappointing. This includes Lukaku and Pogba, I thought both would be good for us but have been mediocre at best. If you look at Pep's city a lot of the players have been virtually anonymous before arriving at city and the ones costing the most or record fees have been the least successful. I mean the likes of Stones and Mahrez costing 50m and 60m and still not regulars. The likes of Jesus, Sane, Danilo etc would be starters for us but struggle to get into city's first team.

 

[cyril C]

Work permits.

Do you mean getting work permits for themselves? For all the gossip names, all are English under 23, that is because all our scouts are England based (or sitting somewhere in Spanish beach) so watching their prospects on TV.

 

[cyril C]

I believe it was one/multiple of our former managers who said the scouting structure itself was fine, it's at the top-level (i.e. Woody and co) where the problems lie.

Well, it was the same scouting structure that recruited Djembar, Bebe, Tosic, Obertan, De Last, Buttner, just because we recruited Ronaldo and Hernandez (OK, add Nani) do not make us proud. Our failures far outweighs our achievement.

 

[Andersons Dietician]

Do you mean getting work permits for themselves? For all the gossip names, all are English under 23, that is because all our scouts are England based (or sitting somewhere in Spanish beach) so watching their prospects on TV.

Context is required. That was in response to someone who mentioned Porto. Most of their gems they unearth are due to mass taking in of 3rd party owned South American’s that they can get work permits for easily. They then fob on the ones that they don’t think will work out and keep the good ones then sell.

We are hamstrung by the work permits. Now if you want to talk about Europe most teens have choices in their own countries that will probably be better for development or even just the dreams of the player. If you’re a young Italian kid are you going to want to go to England to join United or City or stay close to home and join a Juventus or the likes.
Then you have to take in to account agents their job is to secure the progression of their clients financially and doing what is best for them. If you move someone from a lower level team to Ajax then to say a Spurs and then to a European elite you’ve done your job well and pocketed a good bit of cash for yourself and your client.

Furthermore Darmian was one of the best RB’s in Seria A, the Italian national team fullback playing for Torino. We bought him for 12-16 mil or something and most of the CAF think he is absolute trash now. Lindelof one of the best defenders in Portugal and highly touted and again for a large period of his time here a large percentage of the CAF think he was trash.

The truth is we have only ever really had 1 manager that had a real plan of development which was LVG and we decided that wasn’t for us and went for Jose who wanted a different style of footballer. Hate to harp back to this but this is where a director of football with a clear plan would come in to play.

 

[Eric's Seagull]

Someone from the club should have taken more of an interest in Jaap Stam's opinion on Virgil Van Dyke when he said this when VVD was at Celtic
“Virgil made a good impression when he played his football in Holland. But some of the big clubs in my country were really not sure about signing him.

“That has been Celtic’s gain. He has been playing at a high level in the Champions League and Europa League and showing his qualities.

“I have watched some of the games he’s been involved in, and Virgil has been impressive. He is a big guy and is physically strong, reasonably fast and has a good mentality.

“He also uses the ball well, and can make good combinations with his feet. He has the ability to play for a big team in England, for sure." Taken fromhttps://www.sundaypost.com/sport/fo...virgil-van-dijk-could-make-it-big-in-england/

Shocking he was available for £10m.

 

[Velvet Revolver]

We could have gone in for Laporte before City came in for him - he had a release clause.

If we bought Maguire when he was at Hull it would have been shrewd business as we would have got him cheap and would have been an upgrade on Jones. The same for Roberston we could of had two quality LBs to rotate with.

There's no excuse for not getting KDB - he can literally play anywhere in the front 3 or midfield he just has too much quality he can fit in anywhere.

Hindsight is 20/20. No one made a hue and cry when he KDB was sold even Chelsea fans didn't care too much!

We could have got Maguire even if he was in an academy somewhere ( i am sure he would have stood out with his height and weight) but that does not mean he is a good player. we would have had another average defender in our ranks!

Robertson yeah i agree, we could have gone for him. But if any other club promised first team football it's difficult to say no and sit on a bench somewhere else!

 

[ash_86]

It's not even the hidden gems that bother me, it's the ones in plain sight.

KDB
Eriksen
B.Silva
Fabinho
VVD
Robertson
Maguire
Alli
Laporte

We've missed out on too many players that could of improved us - Questions do need to be asked.

Eriksen is the one that absolutely baffles me. We knew about his quality when he was in Ajax but for some reason we didn't go for him. Boils my blood losing on these kind of players!

 

[Red Comet]

Why are they not scouting anybody, when was the last time United found a hidden gem. What do they actually do?

So with all United's Scouts that are scouting players we have yet to find one hidden Gem while teams like Porto , Atletico Madrid and a few others find plenty so I ask
again what are they actually doing?

Porto have been one of the best teams in finding Gems for cheap and selling high.

Not to mention Monaco, plenty of gems their.

So it seems United would rather cough up 50 million for a Fred then finding the next De Jong, seems odd.

Maybe your right just confuses me that far smaller clubs are pulling in wonderful players that for some reason our vast scouting network keeps missing.

Looks like you are more interested in just moaning rather than actually discussing.

Plenty of other posters here had already stated this, but I think it bears repeating:

• Player development - Not everyone is going to a wonderkid who burst onto the scene. Majority of the players need relatively good quality competitive game time to develop. Clubs like Porto or Ajax play in less challenging leagues where mistakes don't get punished heavily and therefore they generally can afford to give these kids the competitive playing time and environment (and to make mistakes).
• As you can see from the false dawns by so many of our youth players who looked promising initially but fade away, not everyone is going to make it as a top top player. It takes a combination of not just abilities, but also mental strength, luck and opportunity. Rashford would probably still be in the youth team had Martial not gotten injured. Ben Forster had bags of talent but does not have sufficient mental strength to make it at the top level.
• Again, clubs like Porto Ajax etc. where the league is much less challenging or clubs like Monaco or At. Madrid where they generally do not have the pressure of expectations to challenge for the league title every year, can afford to get it wrong from time to time.
• Our scouting strategy has always been 2-prong - Nicky Butt's youth setup will identify the really young players and get them in early, which has seen the likes of Da Silva twins, Pereira, Januzaj, Chong or Fosu-Mensah who joined us earlier, and Aliou Traore, Puigmal, Or Bejger joining us rather recently. Pogba was arguably the one brought in on this scouting strategy to make it as a superstar, albeit not with us.
• The other is to identify the players whose trajectory seems to be on the rise and get them before they become established stars. Ergo the likes of De Gea, Bailly, Shaw, Martial, Dalot.

 

[Hellboy]

When's the last cheapish player we've taken a punt on that was actually any good? We pay top dollar and they're still shit.

Chicharito

 

[Gopher Brown]

Why are they not scouting anybody, when was the last time United found a hidden gem. What do they actually do?

Yeah, and what exactly does Mike Phelan do too?

Seriously though, the ‘hidden gems’ as you put it are in our academy. It’s difficult to get them into the team. We don’t have a god-given right to sign every promising youngster in the world.

Chong, Fosu-Mensah, O’Connor, Puigmal, Poole etc etc - these were once/still are the ‘hidden gems’

 

[Samid]

Arsenal 're-sign top scout Sandro Orlandelli from Manchester United... eight years after he left the Gunners

 

[Bestietom]

With 39 scouts based across the world I would have thought we would be unearthing some gems. https://academymanutd.com/staff/

39, last I heard was we had 60 scouts.

 

[Eric's Seagull]

39, last I heard was we had 60 scouts.

Even more fecking pathetic. Didn't realise we had that many scouts. Hope they get someone decent lined up soon.

 

[Foxbatt]

It seems from some reports the scouts do report about the players they see. But respective managers refuse it. DeLigt was recommended to us but we ignored it. There are many reasons and one is that in reality the managers know that our academy is not good.
Then this myth of the PL being better than everyone else and any team can beat any team. Yes it may be the case and Lindelof and Darmian may have struggled but a lot of it is due to the coaching. Darmian, I have seen him play for Italy too and is a completely different player to the one we had at United. You look at Fellaini. Again a very important part of Belgium when he was playing for them.

 

[cyril C]

Martial.

When you pay more than 35m for any <23 player, this is not a gem. When you pay 5m for a player who end up on the starting sheet, this is a gem...

 

[cyril C]

Maybe they are scouting players.

Our scouts, are currently busy scouting the Scout, who can scout the DOF, who can then manage the scouts properly, in order to scout the players....

 

[Ali Dia]

Our scouts, are currently busy scouting the Scout, who can scout the DOF, who can then manage the scouts properly, in order to scout the players....

we can then prepare a bid for ages and overpay massively in the end. Classic United

 

[Dargonk]

It really does feel at times like United just wait for the media to make up a rumoured interest, before they go and look at a player most of the time. It really has to be the only explanation for why it seems to take a half a season of a player being linked with us before we actually buy them.

 

[Son]

We could have gone in for Laporte before City came in for him - he had a release clause.

If we bought Maguire when he was at Hull it would have been shrewd business as we would have got him cheap and would have been an upgrade on Jones. The same for Roberston we could of had two quality LBs to rotate with.

There's no excuse for not getting KDB - he can literally play anywhere in the front 3 or midfield he just has too much quality he can fit in anywhere.

KDB went to City for over £60 million and at the time was super expensive considering we signed Pogba not long after too.

He’d had a very good season in Germany but hardly anyone could have telegraphed how good he’d actually become. Ask Mourinho who sold him for what at the time looked a big amount for a fringe player.

I don’t care what people say in hindsight, not many top English clubs were queuing to bring him back here for a massive fee.

 

[Adamsk7]

To be fair to our youth scouts, we have Mason Greenwood and Hannibal Mejbri who look like they are too good not to make it. We also have Williams getting games, McT is one of our better players, Rashford.....then we have Gomes etc. Even Chong and Fosu Mensah were very highly rated when we got them.

As others have said, it’s the Eriksens and De Bruynes of this world that annoys me. Players that are on the cusp of a breakout season and it’s obvious to anyone that watches football. Often we stay away from those players whilst other teams take a calculated chance.

 

[Adnan]

Arsenal 're-sign top scout Sandro Orlandelli from Manchester United... eight years after he left the Gunners

New Technical director at one of the smaller Red Bull clubs like Paul Mitchell is.

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

 

[Red00012]

So he left Utd and went to Arsenal for a week ?

 

[SparkedIntoLife]

Maybe this Sandro Orlandelli move explains why Ralf Ragnick allegedly met with United officials late last year

 

[CG1010]

Bump. Its the same issue every year. Why are we not able to scout for good squad players for the positions that we need? Where are the Evra, Vidic, Ji-Sung Park, Chicarito, Smalling type of signings? We either try for established top players (with top fees) or rely on youth. The middle ground is missing and it shows with the lack of our squad depth. When we do make such signings, like Dalot or James, it always seems to have a link to the manager's sources and a one-off.

We seem to have worked on our academy and the results are flowing. Our player recruitment strategy and scouting needs to be next up for reform IMO.

 

[cyril C]

That has always been the case and probably always will be, nobody was more cautious than SAF with transfers, often wanting to see potential targets at a higher level first(Ferdinand, Berbatov, Veron et al)and ending up paying double or triple what they'd have cost if he'd gambled on them earlier - but that probably applies to all the big clubs to some extent.

And yeah Tielemans great talent, but do you not think all the big clubs in Europe ourselves included would have been aware of him since he was 15/16 and yet when he did move from Belgium he ended up in France where he by all accounts didn't pull up any trees, and he's now at a club who think(despite their recent Premier League win) it's an achievement to finish in the top 10.

Sorry you are a bit confused here. Do you need scouts to tell you to buy a 100m player? Or a 70m? or a 50m?

You need scouts to identify a 16-20 player costing probably around 10-20m, and we get rip off for a bit paying 20-30m. Veron, Berbatov and Ferdinard for that matter, didn't fit into this category.

Only Rafael twins, Hernandez, fit into the scouting territory. OK if you add Tosic, Bebe, Obertan, Djouf - who was the guy from Celtic, and another from Championship, who hardly had a game?

Park was already an established player, same for Zaha, Depay, Darmian, Blind, Rojo. Scouts might tip you off but there are enough opportunity for the managers to see for himself.

 

[Maticmaker]

Bump. Its the same issue every year. Why are we not able to scout for good squad players for the positions that we need? Where are the Evra, Vidic, Ji-Sung Park, Chicarito, Smalling type of signings? We either try for established top players (with top fees) or rely on youth. The middle ground is missing and it shows with the lack of our squad depth. When we do make such signings, like Dalot or James, it always seems to have a link to the manager's sources and a one-off.

We seem to have worked on our academy and the results are flowing. Our player recruitment strategy and scouting needs to be next up for reform IMO.

I agree with this!
One of the really 'big holes' formed for the management of the club when SAF packed it in, was exactly this, recruitment and transfers! Of course I am aware that SAF bought and/or brought in a few shall we say 'poor choices' in players as well as the outstanding ones. In fact you might argue on a ratio basis Ole up to now has a better track record. The difference is the way players were scouted, assessed, and due diligence was carried out on every aspect of the individual, his family, his background and his ability to 'fit in'.

SAF always seemed to look for 'round pegs for round holes' even if his pegs were not 'round' enough at times etc. The only time I can remember when he bought a player for a specific skill and then played him in another role was Ashley Young. At Villa Young use to start wide but then cut in down the centre at speed, he gave our CB's loads of trouble. When Ashley eventually arrived at the club, SAF played him as an out and out traditional winger aiming for the dead ball line then to cross, it was not Ashley's forte and never became his best point, but he did turn out to be a half decent full back though.

Whatever is wrong with recruitment needs to be sorted before we not only waste more money, but also keep fecking up the squad with 'anomalies'.