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Our scouting network

Re: Broomfield

I seem to recall Greg saying they got one of our scouts who signed Ba, Cisse and Ben Arfa. If so, how did we let that happen?
 
Re: Broomfield

I seem to recall Greg saying they got one of our scouts who signed Ba, Cisse and Ben Arfa. If so, how did we let that happen?

Saudi Sportswashing Machine's chief scout, Graham Carr, has had two spells with us. He was born up there and is now in his sixties, so I see why he would go there. He's also got a long contract and gets to do what he wants.

Most scouts move around a bit, they often follow managers.
 
Re: Broomfield

I think we have several people watching players, sending in reports, but maybe organising this falls under Sherwood now? As long as whoever it is have us tracking the right players.
 
Re: Broomfield

I think we have several people watching players, sending in reports, but maybe organising this falls under Sherwood now? As long as whoever it is have us tracking the right players.

As I said......to my (limited) knowledge, Spurs don't seem to send scouts down south. Am not aware of any ever appearing at any of the many tournaments I've been involved in, whereas you can guarantee clubs south of the river will be represented.
 
Re: Broomfield

As I said......to my (limited) knowledge, Spurs don't seem to send scouts down south. Am not aware of any ever appearing at any of the many tournaments I've been involved in, whereas you can guarantee clubs south of the river will be represented.

We do have people watching players, but maybe not at that level. Some watch targets for the first team, others look for youths. What areas we cover I have no idea about, but it could probably be improved on.
 
Re: Broomfield

We do have people watching players, but maybe not at that level. Some watch targets for the first team, others look for youths. What areas we cover I have no idea about, but it could probably be improved on.

It's a bit like the "Spurs summer coaching schools" where you can pay to send your kids. The vast majority are held in Herts/Essex areas. We occasionally get the odd one in Sussex, but few and far between.
I'm sure we are missing a trick here.
 
Re: Broomfield

Chelsea have a ridiculously large scouting network, I forget how many, but way more than other top clubs
 
Re: Broomfield

liverpool has asked lucas who's injured to scout ... pretty good use of downtime i should say.
imagine and pro like that getting down to his hometown... sure to get plenty of leads.

we've got gomes (brazil), cudicini (italy), bentley (russia) to start ! do players have friend-get-friend benefits in their contracts?
 
Re: Broomfield

David Moyes has always been open about using it.

I don't really get the stigma around FM, it's a well researched expansive database of footballers across the globe, I see no reason why real life managers wouldn't find it a useful source of info.
 
Re: Broomfield

I don't really get the stigma around FM, it's a well researched expansive database of footballers across the globe, I see no reason why real life managers wouldn't find it a useful source of info.

The stigma is constructed and kept alive by (generally older) posters that use it as derogatory term against other posters who display superior football database knowledge to them or simply happen to watch games outside the Barclays Premier League.

i.e. knowing who UC Sampdoria's starting RB is
 
Re: Broomfield

I don't think any club would just buy Ibrahim Bakayoko coz he's good on FM without running the rule over him in real life, but FM certainly is useful in compiling a list of clubs and players worth having a look at.
 
Re: Broomfield

couldnt agree more, FM is a class tool to use. I hope our next striker has 20 shooting.
 
Re: Broomfield

The stigma is constructed and kept alive by (generally older) posters that use it as derogatory term against other posters who display superior football database knowledge to them or simply happen to watch games outside the Barclays Premier League.

i.e. knowing who UC Sampdoria's starting RB is

I think that some older (and younger) posters find it frustrating when people comment on a player or generally on football based on their experiences in a computer game (however well researched) rather than first hand or in the real world.
 
Re: Broomfield

I think that some older (and younger) posters find it frustrating when people comment on a player or generally on football based on their experiences in a computer game (however well researched) rather than first hand or in the real world.

That's fair enough but I think some find it equally frustrating when someone is tarnished by that brush simply for mentioning a player who competes outside of England or a game he watched which wasn't a PL featured match

i.e. I like Atletico Madrid's right winger - looks a great prospect. Seen him a few times - showed potential = FM fanboy
 
Re: Broomfield

That's fair enough but I think some find it equally frustrating when someone is tarnished by that brush simply for mentioning a player who competes outside of England or a game he watched which wasn't a PL featured match

i.e. I like Atletico Madrid's right winger - looks a great prospect. Seen him a few times - showed potential = FM fanboy

Yeah, that can be annoying and doesn't add anything to the discussion.

It's warring everyone with the same brush just because a small number of people pretend to have seen players that they haven't.
 
Re: Broomfield

Yeah, that can be annoying and doesn't add anything to the discussion.

It's warring everyone with the same brush just because a small number of people pretend to have seen players that they haven't.

To be honest that's virtually everyone to an extent. It's not that we pretend to see players we haven't, but we just aren't watching them anywhere near as carefully as our own players. Watching other teams is just so different to watching Spurs as we don't do it with the same nervous intensity. When watching Spurs we tend to notice virtually every little thing and analyze all parts of our players game. So when we watch Atheltic for example, we see Falcao score some great goals, but I bet most people wouldn't be able to give anywhere near the detailed analysis of his performance as we can for Defoe after one of our games. Often after one of our matches I can hardly remember anything about the contribution of some of the opposition players, but can talk for hours about what our players did. Last season I watched loads of Fulham, but was mainly watching Dembele as I was sure we'd be after him. I know his game so well, but despite all his goals I actually don't know much about Dempsey.

If you read the Lloris thread there are loads of posts that just don't seem in keeping with his statistics. I know statistics don't tell the whole story, but they can be very accurate at pointing to strong characteristics in a players game and even his over all performance level. I wonder just to what extent people have really watched him carefully. In my experience even the best known names in the game aren't particularly well scrutinised outside of their own fan base. If you read some of the stuff written about our best known players in recent years, such as VDV and Modric, on non Spurs forums and you'd honestly think they'd never seen them play. It's not as if most people haven't seen Modric and VDV plenty of times, but it's just not with the same level of intense interest Spurs fans do.
 
Re: Broomfield

I agree with this, but I actually think we already have a pretty excellent set of scouts. No one's is going to be perfect, but if you look at the players we've signed since Pleat was brought in by Sugar, given the wages and transfers we've spent, we've actually done really well in the transfer market. Pleat gets a lot of brick, but a lot of the players we signed under Arnesen were players we'd followed, once Pleat revamped our scouting in the early 2000's

Not sure this follows really. The Pleat era was also pretty much the entire Graham and Hoddle era (and a bit of Gross). Not many success stories in the transfer market over that period! And those that were, were very much established premiership players: Kanoute, Sheringham, Ziege, Keane, Poyet...Sherwood (at a push!). On the flip side, you've got Ben Thatcher, Perry, Leonhardsen, Rebrov, Freund, Richards, Postiga, Toda, Bunji, Redknapp, Acimovic, Blondel, Korsten.... I don't see much value there! To be fair, I'm not sure how much of that can actually be blamed on Pleat. Most of his supporters spent that era denying he had anything to do with most signings, apart from a grudging acceptance that Andy Booth on loan under Graham was properly his recommendation!

As for the players signed under Arnesen that had been 'followed' before - isn't that a bit of coincidence? We never signed that quality under Pleat for 6 years but he leaves and we do? Which just suggests to me that he was actually part of the problem. There is nothing to say those players would have signed had Pleat stayed. In fact, the opposite is true. Many others of a similar ilk had slipped through the net over the Pleat years despite the fact we were 'following' them. What is to say the same wouldn't have happened with Lennon, Huddlestone etc? I really couldn't give a toss about following. That should be par for the course for a club like Spurs. It is getting it done that is key and Pleat didn't. Except when the clubs we were meant to be competing with didn't want them, ie Etherington, Davies, Doherty, McEwan... can't think why they weren't interested! Hilarious, at the time, that we thought Pleat had landed a load of stars for the future for a knock down price.... and in the end, it was only thanks to Simon Davies that we didn't make a loss on them!
 
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