useless 12,777 Posted August 6, 2020 Report Share Posted August 6, 2020 Quote Aston Villa swoop for former Leicester and Tottenham talent spotter Villa are continuing a significant revamp of their scouting strategy with the appointment of former Leicester and Tottenham talent spotter Rob Mackenzie. Highly-rated Mackenzie is joining from Belgian club OH Leuven and will work alongside new sporting director Johan Lange as the club's head of recruitment. He was previously part of the Leicester scouting team which took the likes of Riyad Mahrez and Esteban Cambiasso to the King Power Stadium, while he also played a part in Tottenham’s capture of Son Heung-min and Toby Alderweireld. Villa have carried out a thorough review of their recruitment department and see Mackenzie’s appointment as key to improving their record in the transfer market. The club spent £140million after winning promotion back to the Premier League last season but with largely mixed results, only avoiding an immediate return to the Championship by a single point. Mackenzie’s background is in analytics and at Villa are keen to strengthen that aspect of their approach to scouting and profiling players. At Leuven, Leicester's sister club, he successfully introduced a modern, data-driven approach which helped them win promotion to the Belgian Premier League this year. Villa boss Dean Smith will still have a major say on signings, with the club aiming for a blend of old-fashioned scouting with modern methods. Lange joined from Copenhagen last week as a replacement to Jesus Garcia Pitarch, who left the club shortly after the end of the season. Villa’s primary focus in this window is on bringing in players with Premier League experience, or at least proven in the English game. Brentford striker Ollie Watkins is among their top targets. Express and Star 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Popular Post Tomaszk 6,814 Posted August 6, 2020 Popular Post Report Share Posted August 6, 2020 Starting the petition now to remove the emojis and ellipses from the topic title. This isn't a farmyard. 5 1 Link to post Share on other sites
BigJim 176 Posted August 6, 2020 Report Share Posted August 6, 2020 Gotta be good news, though he's hardly likely to make much of an impact this window. Still. it's an extra pair of hands at what should be a very busy time. Link to post Share on other sites
Tomaszk 6,814 Posted August 6, 2020 Report Share Posted August 6, 2020 This man appears to be pretty good or a top notch blagger. Lots of success around him, but that many moves seems odd to me. Some decent articles he's done with Sky Sports. 2 Link to post Share on other sites
brummybloke 737 Posted August 6, 2020 Report Share Posted August 6, 2020 2 minutes ago, BigJim said: Gotta be good news, though he's hardly likely to make much of an impact this window. Still. it's an extra pair of hands at what should be a very busy time. Unless we plan to raid Belgium again. I presume he has a database of Belgium players ? Link to post Share on other sites
useless 12,777 Posted August 6, 2020 Author Report Share Posted August 6, 2020 Looking at his twitter it seems he already knows Lange... Link to post Share on other sites
Visiting Supporter Popular Post Fox1884 180 Posted August 6, 2020 Visiting Supporter Popular Post Report Share Posted August 6, 2020 1 minute ago, brummybloke said: Unless we plan to raid Belgium again. I presume he has a database of Belgium players ? The club he has joined you from Leuven are our sister club and they have just been promoted to the 1st division Leuven mainly have recruited more experienced players to gain promotion this season, usually players not really good enough for the 1st tier teams or the better players from the 2nd tier and below, and usually aged 25 or over But the club have gone from being at risk of relegation last season to promotion this season so they have definitely been identifying the correct players they needed 9 3 Link to post Share on other sites
Tomaszk 6,814 Posted August 6, 2020 Report Share Posted August 6, 2020 11 minutes ago, Fox1884 said: Seems like he is highly rated wherever he goes, we were rumoured to be considering bringing him back after our head technical scout left last year but we went with someone else, but he definitely has good experience hehind him as well Technical scouting is obviously becoming a massive thing when clubs look at transfers now so having someone like Mackenzie who has been doing it for a while will definitely help, will just depend on the kind of players that Smith wants He used to follow Nigel Pearson around - was with us when he was our manager, left and joined Spurs, then joined up with Pearson at Derby and then recently OH Leuven when Pearson was manager and stayed after he left there Good post from another thread. 2 minutes ago, useless said: Looking at his twitter it seems he already knows Lange... Wonder if Lange made early moves to get him in. Link to post Share on other sites
Moderator TrentVilla 24,341 Posted August 6, 2020 Moderator Report Share Posted August 6, 2020 18 minutes ago, Tomaszk said: Starting the petition now to remove the emojis and ellipses from the topic title. This isn't a farmyard. Your wish is granted.... 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Moderator TrentVilla 24,341 Posted August 6, 2020 Moderator Report Share Posted August 6, 2020 Lange didn't waist any time. Edens was looking at Copehagen and now we have Lange, Lange clearly knows MacKenzie and now he has joined. This has all been on the cards for some time it would seem,. Interesting. Link to post Share on other sites
Tomaszk 6,814 Posted August 6, 2020 Report Share Posted August 6, 2020 3 minutes ago, TrentVilla said: Your wish is granted.... We can remove the 'New' when he's no long new. And the job title when he's signed his first superstar for 50p from Bolivia. Nothing can stop us. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
WooJung 580 Posted August 6, 2020 Report Share Posted August 6, 2020 20 minutes ago, brummybloke said: Unless we plan to raid Belgium again. I presume he has a database of Belgium players ? Given the geographical proximity I would imagine he has also scouted players from the Netherlands and maybe France and Germany. That said, I have no idea what their daily routine is, so I may very well be way off Link to post Share on other sites
pete101 564 Posted August 6, 2020 Report Share Posted August 6, 2020 Come on MacKenzie we are not paying you overtime , identify some targets and let's get them in the door!!!!!!!!!! 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Visiting Supporter Fox1884 180 Posted August 6, 2020 Visiting Supporter Report Share Posted August 6, 2020 1 minute ago, WooJung said: Given the geographical proximity I would imagine he has also scouted players from the Netherlands and maybe France and Germany. That said, I have no idea what their daily routine is, so I may very well be way off Over the past 2 seasons the players they have signed have been mainly from central Europe - France, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, I do believe however they share some our scouting network/system as they are our sister club so I think they have been able to be a bit more expansive in their scouting compared to other clubs in their division 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Moderator TrentVilla 24,341 Posted August 6, 2020 Moderator Report Share Posted August 6, 2020 19 minutes ago, useless said: Looking at his twitter it seems he already knows Lange... I so hope Edens follows up on his interest in buying them. Link to post Share on other sites
Made In Aston 1,353 Posted August 6, 2020 Report Share Posted August 6, 2020 12 minutes ago, TrentVilla said: Lange didn't waist any time. Edens was looking at Copehagen and now we have Lange, Lange clearly knows MacKenzie and now he has joined. This has all been on the cards for some time it would seem,. Interesting. Suso's contract expired this summer. Maybe they couldn't get their first choice in Lange and gave suso a short deal to tide us over until he was available. Link to post Share on other sites
VT Supporter DaveAV1 7,434 Posted August 6, 2020 VT Supporter Report Share Posted August 6, 2020 12 minutes ago, pete101 said: Come on MacKenzie we are not paying you overtime , identify some targets and let's get them in the door!!!!!!!!!! If he hasn’t got a signing in by breakfast time I want an enquiry. Link to post Share on other sites
Moderator Popular Post blandy 16,744 Posted August 6, 2020 Moderator Popular Post Report Share Posted August 6, 2020 28 minutes ago, Fox1884 said: has joined ...from Leuven A Stella appointment. @bicksterwill get that one, at least. 6 Link to post Share on other sites
Moderator TrentVilla 24,341 Posted August 6, 2020 Moderator Report Share Posted August 6, 2020 7 minutes ago, Made In Aston said: Suso's contract expired this summer. Maybe they couldn't get their first choice in Lange and gave suso a short deal to tide us over until he was available. Not sure about that, he had a 2 year deal and I suspect Edens only became aware of Lange more recently when looking at Copenhagen. I'm also not sure he would have joined us in the Championship, so I think this is more recent than Suso's appointment. Link to post Share on other sites
Popular Post Tomaszk 6,814 Posted August 6, 2020 Popular Post Report Share Posted August 6, 2020 46 minutes ago, Tomaszk said: Some decent articles he's done with Sky Sports. I was wrong. These aren't decent, these are brilliant. We have a man here who is looking at things from a lot of different angles. Everyone read them. 4 5 Link to post Share on other sites
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