Jesus Garcia Pitarch

[KenjiOgiwara]

10 hours ago, VillaChris said:

Suso the sacrifical lamb.

He really really isn't. We spent around £ 127 million and while I have no idea which players he actually brought to the table, I think it's safe to say he did a poor job. 

[thabucks]

Have been slow to criticise Suso as his job and precise remit is somewhat unknown but it looks like the writing is in the wall so he has obviously failed. We can all see the deficiencies in our team but if it was agreed with smith a certain type of player is needed and acquired and I’ve used the example before of Nakamba and Luiz both DM with certain characteristics then is Suso solely to blame? He would have done what has been asked and found the type of player Smith asked for? We threw Paddy Reily under a bus too soon in hindsight. Steve Round was never gunna work out and now Suso. Hopefully they can persuade Michael Emenalo to join or Dan Ashworth but it is going to be difficult as a championship club to attract them. 

Edited July 1, 2020 by thabucks

[OxfordVillan]

Juanfran is gone. Incredible how we’ve let such a vital figure leave the club. He was instrumental in unearthing the Spanish & Portuguese talents currently thriving in the team. So many of them, I can’t remember a single name.........hold on, that lad Baston, he was Spanish wasn’t he? Oh yes, we’re going to be sorry we let Suso’s right hand man walk out. 

[Delphinho123]

27 minutes ago, thabucks said:

Have been slow to criticise Suso as his job and precise remit is somewhat unknown but it looks like the writing is in the wall so he has obviously failed. We can all see the deficiencies in our team but if it was agreed with smith a certain type of player is needed and acquired and I’ve used the example before of Nakamba and Luiz both DM with certain characteristics then is Suso solely to blame? He would have done what has been asked and found the type of player Smith asked for? We threw Paddy Reily under a bus too soon in hindsight. Steve Round was never gunna work out and now Suso. Hopefully they can persuade Michael Emenalo to join or Dan Ashworth but it is going to be difficult as a championship club to attract them. 

I'm not sure we did. Yes, a few of the players he has signed have gone on to be very decent players but that isn't what it is about.
There are so many factors that you need to think of when signing player, not least, is he the right player, right now, for this club. 

Signing players that might be good in 2-3 years is absolutely fine if you have a solid squad to start with and these players can come in here and there and improve alongside the recognised players. Signing lots of players with potential all at one go when you already know you're likely to be in a relegation scrap is just stupid. So whilst Paddy Reilly may have had an eye for talent and potential, signing them when he did was suicide for Aston Villa.

As others have alluded to, you have to strike the right balance. We seem to go from these crazy extremes and there is no balance to what we're doing. This time around, we've gone out and signed lots of youngish players from abroad who have done well in their respective leagues in the hope we'd improve them and they'd hit the ground running. That just hasn't happened and it was never going to happen and now we're left with players that may even struggle at championship level. We certainly havent added any value to their transfer fees so we'll lose out in that respect too. 

Let's take Douglas Luiz as an example. In my opinion, it's a terrible signing. Not because he's a bad player, he has shown what he was capable of over the last 3/4 matches, but because its taken him 30 games to finally show this and he's still too young and inexperienced to be dominating matches. You sign players like Douglas Luiz for 15m when you have an established defensive/deep lying playmaker for him to learn from. You don't sign him expecting him to start every match and magically become a PL player overnight. 

Look at players like Jonny Evans and Gary Cahill. I guarantee there were people on here, me included, that turned their nose up to Gary Cahill signing claiming he's past it and he is only after one last pay checque. Look at how that's turned out? He may never have wanted to come, fine, I'm just using him as an example as to how we need to look at recruitment moving forward. If we need to sign a few experienced old heads for low fees/high wages, it shouldnt be seen as a failure of our scouting system.

We were far too arrogant in our approach, especially dismissing the loan market like we did.

Like I say, balance. 

Edited July 1, 2020 by Delphinho123

[Zatman]

18 minutes ago, OxfordVillan said:

Juanfran is gone. Incredible how we’ve let such a vital figure leave the club. He was instrumental in unearthing the Spanish & Portuguese talents currently thriving in the team. So many of them, I can’t remember a single name.........hold on, that lad Baston, he was Spanish wasn’t he? Oh yes, we’re going to be sorry we let Suso’s right hand man walk out. 

Where did douglas Luiz play last season

[Johnnyp]

27 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

I'm not sure we did. Yes, a few of the players he has signed have gone on to be very decent players but that isn't what it is about.
There are so many factors that you need to think of when signing player, not least, is he the right player, right now, for this club. 

Signing players that might be good in 2-3 years is absolutely fine if you have a solid squad to start with and these players can come in here and there and improve alongside the recognised players. Signing lots of players with potential all at one go when you already know you're likely to be in a relegation scrap is just stupid. So whilst Paddy Reilly may have had an eye for talent and potential, signing them when he did was suicide for Aston Villa.

As others have alluded to, you have to strike the right balance. We seem to go from these crazy extremes and there is no balance to what we're doing. This time around, we've gone out and signed lots of youngish players from abroad who have done well in their respective leagues in the hope we'd improve them and they'd hit the ground running. That just hasn't happened and it was never going to happen and now we're left with players that may even struggle at championship level. We certainly havent added any value to their transfer fees so we'll lose out in that respect too. 

Let's take Douglas Luiz as an example. In my opinion, it's a terrible signing. Not because he's a bad player, he has shown what he was capable of over the last 3/4 matches, but because its taken him 30 games to finally show this and he's still too young and inexperienced to be dominating matches. You sign players like Douglas Luiz for 15m when you have an established defensive/deep lying playmaker for him to learn from. You don't sign him expecting him to start every match and magically become a PL player overnight. 

Look at players like Jonny Evans and Gary Cahill. I guarantee there were people on here, me included, that turned their nose up to Gary Cahill signing claiming he's past it and he is only after one last pay checque. Look at how that's turned out? He may never have wanted to come, fine, I'm just using him as an example as to how we need to look at recruitment moving forward. If we need to sign a few experienced old heads for low fees/high wages, it shouldnt be seen as a failure of our scouting system.

We were far too arrogant in our approach, especially dismissing the loan market like we did.

Like I say, balance. 

I agree. The players we signed who did crap for us but went on to make moves and play well for bigger clubs is a moot point. Southampton didn't sign Schnederlin thinking " well he may flop for us but hey he could go on to have a good career elsewhere. No, he played his best football for them. We aren't a footballing creche. Getting players ready for big school. Recruitment, management - wise up.

Edited July 1, 2020 by Johnnyp
..

[OxfordVillan]

Regardless which league we play in next season I think it’s become obvious that the recruitment policy has to be tweaked, and that’s something of an understatement. Having gotten promoted ahead of schedule, relegation now would be something approaching a disaster. Nearly everything done last summer would have to be ripped up, and we’d have to recruit all over again. Suso’s sole role is/was to source talent to compete in the Premier League, and we are looking well short of having the players to compete. I’ve said in the last couple of days, Suso’s position must come under pressure a good bit before Dean Smiths. It can be debated, and we’ll probably never know, but I don’t think Trezeguet is a Dean Smith pick at all. Nor Wesley, for that matter. Nor Nakamba. I think it’s quite well reported that Dean Smith wanted Kelvin Phillips and Benrahma, he got Nakamba and Trezeguet.  
Thats not to give a clean slate to Dean Smith, as there are signings made last summer that seem to be his and have arguably been equally disappointing. Jota and Engels are two that I think we can say are Dean Smith signings, though I think you can reasonably argue that Jota wasn’t bought as a 1st teamer, he was a squad filler. Engels started promisingly, not sure what happened with him but he doesn’t seem happy in the squad. Heaton was a success up to his injury, and he was definitely a Dean Smith signing. On the face of it, it would seem that Dean Smith wanted to spend money on players to fill what he thought were the most important positions (GK, DM, AM/Winger), and he has probably been proven right as the season has unfolded. I don’t think many of us would argue that our team would have been much improved with Kelvin Phillips anchoring the midfield instead of Nakamba/Luiz, and Benrahma playing out wide instead of Trezeguet. Ifs, buts, maybe’s. 

[OxfordVillan]

36 minutes ago, Zatman said:

Where did douglas Luiz play last season

Yep, I know that! It’s just unfortunate that it took until June to see him start performing. And even his signing is with the caveat that Man City can come grab him if they choose to. But We’ll give them Douglas Luiz, so that’s one player in two years 

[Reivax_Villa]

I don’t think that the Sporting Director market is similar to the Manager/Head Coach market in terms of big names.

We could bring in someone who is relatively unknown like Stuart Webber at Norwich or Max Eberl at Gladbach or maybe someone lower profile. 

The point is all the money in the world cannot get you the best Sporting Director because look at Man Utd.

This is going to be the more difficult appointment. You’re seeking for someone that can recruit players that can fit into a system that suits the clubs playing style for good value. Someone that is able to contribute heavy in finding replacement managers and coaches for the club and more. 

Edited July 1, 2020 by Reivax_Villa

[Tomaszk]

Webber at Norwich would be a great appointment.

He's the reason they signed Maddison a year earlier than anyone else, he's the reason they've signed Sam McCallum a year before anyone else.

[avfc1982am]

Whilst I agree that Suso must take a portion of the blame I would also portion it off with Smith, Purslow and who ever else was involved. Blaming Suso for not getting the likes of Phillips and Benrahma who both were unobtainable anyway isn't fair. Smith himself said he didn't want Maupay for the fee either when most would've taken him and everyone has been crying over Wes since......It's easy to point the finger at the most dispensable but it never resolves the issues on the pitch. Take the defence for instance, you could argue that Suso had nothing to do with any of them.. Konsa, Hause, Mings, Elmo, Guilbert, Targett, Engels, Taylor.. 8 players that haven't for large parts been very good. I'm sure that we were also priced out of many deals due to being obviously needy.

The way I see it is there is an accumulation of reasons for the collapse of this season. Much of it down to players brought in by the committee but more importantly how them players have been used by the coaching staff imo. It's a collective FkUp that need addressing not just the DoF situation at the end of the season. 

[Sulberto21]

Kalvin Phillips didnt want to come. If we had a higher calibre manager / coach he might have. Suso is not to blame for that. Nor is he to blame for Newcastle's goal the other day ( mings Hause, Nyland possibly could have saved it). We don't know the conversations that took place about the likes of Cahill and other more experienced players.

[hippo]

2 hours ago, thabucks said:

Have been slow to criticise Suso as his job and precise remit is somewhat unknown but it looks like the writing is in the wall so he has obviously failed. We can all see the deficiencies in our team but if it was agreed with smith a certain type of player is needed and acquired and I’ve used the example before of Nakamba and Luiz both DM with certain characteristics then is Suso solely to blame? He would have done what has been asked and found the type of player Smith asked for? We threw Paddy Reily under a bus too soon in hindsight. Steve Round was never gunna work out and now Suso. Hopefully they can persuade Michael Emenalo to join or Dan Ashworth but it is going to be difficult as a championship club to attract them. 

Was susso who plucked Jota and Konsa from championship club's ? 

[thabucks]

44 minutes ago, Reivax_Villa said:

or Max Eberl at Gladbach

Especially if he was to bring my first choice to replace Smith in Marco Rose and maybe Zakaria and Thuram with him...

[Zatman]

46 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

Webber at Norwich would be a great appointment.

He's the reason they signed Maddison a year earlier than anyone else, he's the reason they've signed Sam McCallum a year before anyone else.

He was at Huddersfield when they got promoted then moved to Norwich. Maddison signed year before he joined

[Reivax_Villa]

There are sporting directors that we don’t know of that are have a deep analytical understanding of the game.

So a big name is not necessary as a replacement.

[Tomaszk]

1 minute ago, Zatman said:

He was at Huddersfield when they got promoted then moved to Norwich. Maddison signed year before he joined

Oops.

His time at Huddserfield was very positive then.

[sne]

17 minutes ago, thabucks said:

Especially if he was to bring my first choice to replace Smith in Marco Rose and maybe Zakaria and Thuram with him...

They also have a guy named René Maric in their backroom team who is a really interesting fella.

There was a Swedish article about him a while back but it's behind a paywall now. Think this one covers much of the same stuff.

Long but interesting read.

We desperately need someone like this IMO.

Quote

From chatroom to the bootroom: Rene Maric’s very modern coaching journey

A blog dissecting teams, players, tactics and managers started a journey which has led the 26-year-old to a coaching job at Red Bull Salzburg

The facts create a sufficiently compelling image. Maric is one of Europe’s most progressive coaches and, earlier this month, signed a contract extension that will ensure he remains one of Marco Rose’s assistants at Red Bull Salzburg until 2021. He is also astonishingly young. This interview takes place on his 26th birthday, which happens to be a rare day off, at an otherwise deserted training ground where he works “up to 100 hours a week, but most of the time it’s 70 or 80”. Apologies for the imposition are waved away. This is not work, he says: we are talking football.

That is exactly what started everything off in the first place. If Maric’s tale has attracted interest then it is because this is a very modern story with few parallels. He was coaching in his home village, Handenberg – 30 miles north of Salzburg – after being forced to give up playing in his mid-teens, but opportunities to exchange football philosophies were limited in a settlement of 1,000 inhabitants. There was more luck online, where like-minded souls could be found in coaching forums and chatrooms. With four of them, Maric began the project that would inadvertently accelerate his career beyond all imagining.

“It was just five guys who wanted to talk about football and did it together,” he says of the Spielverlagerung blog, which launched in 2011. It is still running and the most cursory of browses reveals its seriousness: these are weighty ideas that bear little regard for brevity, dissecting teams, players, tactics and managers in infinitesimal detail. “How to break a low (4-5-1) block with (Guardiola’s) positional play” is a 3,100-word example from last month; this kind of text is impenetrable to many but, as Maric explains, offering up user-friendly analyses was not the intention.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/sep/19/chatroom-bootroom-rene-maric-modern-coach-salzburg

[VillaChris]

4 hours ago, Tomaszk said:

Let's see how Brentford get on if they get promoted!

Yes Brentford have nice model but they still don't forget to sign experience in key areas, 29 year old Pontus Jansson for instance. Oldest CB we signed was Mings at 26 and we know it's an area where you need one older head at least to calm things down.

[VillaChris]

1 hour ago, Tomaszk said:

Webber at Norwich would be a great appointment.

He's the reason they signed Maddison a year earlier than anyone else, he's the reason they've signed Sam McCallum a year before anyone else.

Think he was also at Huddersfield the year they went up.