Technical Team/Player Recruitment/Scouts

[Villan4Life]

With Ian Atkins, Tommy Mooney and other personnel leaving the club today after disagreeing with the current Manager. What would you suggest the NWSE Board and Purslow will do from now on regarding the Player Recruitment/Technical/Scouting part of Villa?

The crazy thing is The Technical Team that left suggesting younger (European maybe even UK Based) players and disagreed with Bruce who may have wanted more experience or just down the British route only. Thought the board wanted younger players coming in according to Bruce in interviews last month.

What on earth is going on currently and why can't we have someone step up and sort the whole scouting/coaching from the top downwards or will that happen when we appoint a Technical Director/Director of Football or whatever they are going to title it?

 

What's everyone's thoughts? and what do people think will happen going forward? Is there a plan? 

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-6186057/Aston-Villa-sack-seven-members-technical-staff-Steve-Bruce-present.html

 

Quote

Ian Atkins, Aston Villa’s respected Chief European Scout, was the highest profile casualty in a purge of the club’s technical staff.

The 61-year-old was one of seven people summoned to the Bodymoor Heath training complex on Wednesday morning when they were told they were surplus to requirements. Sportsmail understands manager Steve Bruce was present during the series of meetings.

Atkins, who is vastly experienced and has managed nine clubs during his career, was only appointed to the role two years ago but he was jettisoned along with Tommy Mooney – who was Villa’s loan manager, three scouts, as well as scout co-ordinators John Harrower and Mark Britland.

There had been differences of opinion during the summer over transfer targets, with Bruce favouring a certain style of experienced player while Atkins was eager to promote more youthful players from the continent.

It is understood Dave Downes, whose task is to source talent for the club’s academy, has been given a stay of execution but there could be one more departure with Tom Bates, the performance psychologist, facing an uncertain future.

Villa officials made it clear they are moving in a new direction following the takeover by new owners Naseef Sawiris and Wes Edens and there are suggestions from within the club that they will be appointing a new sporting director in the coming weeks.

Christian Purslow, the club’s new chief executive, would favour appointing Eduardo Macia, who is currently Leicester’s head of recruitment. The pair worked together at Liverpool in 2010. There are, though, other candidates in the frame.

This has been a turbulent period off the field with Tony Coton, who had been head of domestic scouting, having left in June. Steve Round, who held the position of director of football, followed him out the door in July. 

 

 

Edited September 19, 2018 by Villan4Life

[TheStagMan]

I think our scouting has been poor for a long time. Look at the number of duds we have to get rid of each year, the number of players earning a wage and not playing, and the lack of gems (McGinn aside). 

 

Hopefully it is a clearing of the decks to put a whole new system in place, from the ground up and align things throughout the club. We cannot sign anyone for a few months now anyway so gives us a bit of time to do it. Whatever we do, we need it in place before the summer, whether a rebuild in the Championship or a rebuild for the premiership. Fingers crossed they get on with it swiftly as part of a co-ordinated plan and bring in people who know what they are doing. 

 

I would hope that the new setup is not far away if the old guard have been given the push.

[Dave-R]

All these staff that have gone, was not a surprise to me, the fact we had new owners as well was only a matter of time before this happened. Given Wes Edan's background in sports, I should imagine that both owners were not pleased with the current results as well as had an idea of what they wanted to do in the reshape and new structuring of the club.

I think any staff laid off where there roles included the training of players were simply to do with the current run of results. This could tell us, that the owners could be bringing in new staff, which will reshape is for the better, this could be the very first steps to seeing there vision for Aston Villa start from here on .

As in the way of scouting positions, as TheStagMan states we have been very poor for a long time. Our highly paid staff who seem to do as little as possible bring in players and often I think they go off on what they see off match of the day highlights rather than really scout our potentials out. Something needs changing because we have been paying for it in many ways, we have had way to many players come to us, earn big and do nothing, that needs to end, so does the staff who earn big bucks and don't do there job properly, it all needs sorting.

Would like to hear from the owners about it all, get some info as to what is really going on and what they are trying to do, because we can speculate all we like yet none of it is true until we hear from the men in charge.

 

[Reivax_Villa]

They have changed it and rightly so.

What european player has Ian Aitkins brought in that has been successful?

A current restructure is required and they may not need to splash stupendous amount of cash to get this done.

The technical director will be the most important signing at this club, I am very excited to find out who it could potentially be.

 

[Zatman]

52 minutes ago, TheStagMan said:

I think our scouting has been poor for a long time. Look at the number of duds we have to get rid of each year, the number of players earning a wage and not playing, and the lack of gems (McGinn aside). 

 

More of a lack of scouting and signing players based on reputation and previous form and then giving them shitty contracts

[Villan4Life]

40 minutes ago, Reivax_Villa said:

They have changed it and rightly so.

What european player has Ian Aitkins brought in that has been successful?

A current restructure is required and they may not need to splash stupendous amount of cash to get this done.

The technical director will be the most important signing at this club, I am very excited to find out who it could potentially be.

 

I'm thinking he might have been involved with Bjarnason, Gollini signings (as he was here before Bruce) and maybe watched Nyland for Bruce in Germany unless Tony Coton did when he was here.

Edited September 19, 2018 by Villan4Life

[briny_ear]

Seems fairly clear from the article that the new CEO is having a clearout of staff in key positions who were brought in by the former CEO. This is just the sort of thing that happens in big organisations when there is a change of personnel  at the very top.

The OP places far too much emphasis on the speculation that there was a clash of policy with Steve Bruce (which doesn't actually seem to be borne out by the signings this summer). The rest of the article seems to make clear this is a change of direction sought by the new owners.

Is there a plan? Based on this article, I'd say "yes". Personally, I can't wait to see a better scouting and recruiting system put in place at Villa. Our set up in this area has been an embarrassment for years and years.

 

[Demitri_C]

About time. The scouting at the club has been dreadful for too long now. Like others have said when was the last time we signed a gem? Also how many young players have broken through? Not many.

Its time for change and I support their decision 

[sidcow]

Agree all the above. 

We have new owners who will have different advisers and a clean sweep is inevitable but also probably justified.  Anyone 9n here could have scouted the players who have come in and done well the last couple of years.  However nothing left field has come in and been a hit.  Other clubs seem to bring in those kind of players with regularity. 

[peterms]

7 hours ago, Reivax_Villa said:

The technical director will be the most important signing at this club, I am very excited to find out who it could potentially be. 

And also how the manager's role may change to accommodate it.  Does the role become more focussed on coaching and tactics?

[sne]

This can only be a good thing.

As stated in the post above, we need to move in a totally different direction.

[VillaBrum]

2 hours ago, peterms said:

And also how the manager's role may change to accommodate it.  Does the role become more focussed on coaching and tactics?

https://www.quora.com/What-does-a-technical-or-sporting-director-at-a-football-club-do

The presence of a director of football acts as an intermediary between the manager and the board and may relieve pressure on a manager by handling aspects away from day-to-day coaching, allowing a manager to focus on on-pitch performance. The director may also help to stabilise the club – many examples exist of director stepping in as a caretaker manager on the departure of the manager. The director – often an experienced football figure – may also positively advise a less experienced manager or the board of a less well developed club."

Am I reading too much into this?

[peterms]

3 minutes ago, VillaBrum said:

https://www.quora.com/What-does-a-technical-or-sporting-director-at-a-football-club-do

The presence of a director of football acts as an intermediary between the manager and the board and may relieve pressure on a manager by handling aspects away from day-to-day coaching, allowing a manager to focus on on-pitch performance. The director may also help to stabilise the club – many examples exist of director stepping in as a caretaker manager on the departure of the manager. The director – often an experienced football figure – may also positively advise a less experienced manager or the board of a less well developed club."

Am I reading too much into this?

Thanks for the link.  I think the next bit of it is worth quoting as well:

Quote

Generally though it is often perceived both within and outside the football club as an alternative form of the dreaded vote of confidence for an under-performing or inexperienced manager. At other times, this appointment is viewed as a direct threat to the manager's autonomy and authority and often marks the literal 'beginning of the end' for the manager in question at a specific club.

The technical director role is generally different to that of a director of football, a position which usually involves overseeing the signing of players.

The technical director looks after a whole host of things that offer an element of continuity above and beyond the to-ing and fro-ing of individual managers. The role tends to include, and this is by no means a comprehensive list: responsibility for and the overseeing of the academy, the training ground, the infrastructure, medical, physiotherapy, conditioning, fitness, nutrition, hydration, rest, well being, and culture and behavioural standards within the club.

The technical director can also have a remit for coaching programmes and philosophy (coaching the coaches). It is a role typically found within a nation's football association as well as big and also ambitious smaller clubs. It tends to be a role designed to facilitate long-term strategy and continuity independent of a manager's remit with the team.

 

[VillaBrum]

3 minutes ago, peterms said:

Thanks for the link.  I think the next bit of it is worth quoting as well:

 

The plot thickens! 

[Made In Aston]

10 hours ago, briny_ear said:

Seems fairly clear from the article that the new CEO is having a clearout of staff in key positions who were brought in by the former CEO. This is just the sort of thing that happens in big organisations when there is a change of personnel  at the very top.

The OP places far too much emphasis on the speculation that there was a clash of policy with Steve Bruce (which doesn't actually seem to be borne out by the signings this summer). The rest of the article seems to make clear this is a change of direction sought by the new owners.

Is there a plan? Based on this article, I'd say "yes". Personally, I can't wait to see a better scouting and recruiting system put in place at Villa. Our set up in this area has been an embarrassment for years and years.

 

I'd like the club's coaching setup revamped from the ground up. It seems like very few youngsters develop substantially enough to transforn into first team players and the players that come in from other clubs seem to stagnate or regress. 

[sharkyvilla]

Whatever happens I just hope for once we have everyone singing from the same hymn sheet.  Some of the players we scouted from Europe like Gana, Veretout, Traore etc have gone on to better things than they showed here under some dogshite management, who we end up replacing and starting all over but with the same awful mistakes being repeated.

[Villan4Life]

Seems Bruce ignored the scouts. McGinn was spotted by One of the scouts working under Stan Ternant.

 

 

[briny_ear]

2 hours ago, Made In Aston said:

I'd like the club's coaching setup revamped from the ground up. It seems like very few youngsters develop substantially enough to transforn into first team players and the players that come in from other clubs seem to stagnate or regress. 

Totally agree, although in the case of players coming in, they often go on to flourish at other clubs.

There is something seriously wrong in what should be our engine room.

Edited September 20, 2018 by briny_ear

[villaglint]

To be fair if our scouting team weren't able to identify a talented up and coming CB that we could actually sign in the transfer window then they blooming well deserve sacking. 

[Skills]

On 20/09/2018 at 09:13, Villan4Life said:

I'm thinking he might have been involved with Bjarnason, Gollini signings (as he was here before Bruce) and maybe watched Nyland for Bruce in Germany unless Tony Coton did when he was here.

pretty much part of the reason hes gone id say