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Johan Lange - Sporting Director

Bishop said:
Maybe if we had signed Raya who is far more confident on the ball, a far better user of said ball and a lot more commanding in his box then maybe Ange wouldn't have suffered the same number of defeats, he might well still be in the job. If you recall it was Vicario's weakness at commanding his box (exposed against Emirates Marketing Project in the Cup) that directly led to the many, many easy goals we too easily conceded in the second half of Ange's first season.

That's when the performances and results tailed off. That's when the rot (in terms of Ange. The wider rot has been present for years) started to set in and truthfully was never addressed. We just kept doing the same things game after game and hoping something different would happen this time.

It's all a degree of cause and effect. Not signing a player here or there doesn't make a dramatic difference, but it makes a difference in subtle ways. With Raya we probably finish 4th in his first season, that leads directly to probably making better signings that summer (Ange's second season transfers were a disaster imo). Which means we have a better year last season and again maybe that means Ange has a reasonable season in the league, we'd still have the injuries but we'd also have quality fresh blood. Some sort of Top 8ish finish and he keeps his job and the club feels like it's progressing rather than stagnating.

This is a situation where that time worn adage "buy cheap, buy twice" has really reared it's ugly head into place.
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You know I always value your opinions but I'm not sure I agree with that, to be honest.

There's no evidence that finishing 4th instead of 5th would have made a difference in terms of new signing. We're in the Champions League and our recruitment policy has been less than stellar.

Also, I'd argue that Vicario is a much better shot-stopper than Raya. Raya is a better all-round keeper, but assuming he would do everything Vicario did plus the things he does well sounds like fantasy booking. Much as loathe him, there was a whole ecosystem to Ange's tactics, and big one-on-one saves from the keeper, I think, played a role because they gave the whole team a boost. Take that away and you create other problems.

I still think the problem lies with hiring managers with very specific yet contrasting systems/tactics (Conte, Postecoglou...).

I do agree with you on the 'ripple effect' though but, for me, it's more of an attitude/mentality issue than actual ability. The signs have been there for a long time (the team 'rebelling' against Mourinho, rejecting Espirito Santo and Frank...). Unfortunately, when it suits us, the fans, we're happy to ignore the problem. Now that we are on the brink of relegation, people realise it's a huge issue but it's too little, too late.
 
billyiddo said:
I'm wary of going in two-footed on Lange without knowing more of what his role entails. If he is heading up player identification and then passing on to Vinai/the higher ups to pursue deals then I'm not sure the vitriol aimed at him is warranted.
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Agreed. A lot of speculation, but ultimately we can't really know for sure.

What seems clear is that he wasn't really trusted to be the lone DoF and probably that shouldn't be his role going into the summer either. But he can still be good at things he does well and useful to us.
 
Bishop said:
We've always had decent scouts, we've always identified players with massive potential. What we've rarely done is actually go in for those players with confidence. The list is ginormous, the likes of Cavani, Suarez, B Fernades, Moutinho, Veloso, Lookman, A Gomes, Hazard, Cahill, Grealish, Dias etc etc etc were all identified by our scouting teams prior to their big moves, we just never believe in our scouting enough to actually complete the deals.
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Think it's difficult to know for sure where the problem lies (or has been across different times with different people in charge).

To me it's also on the entire "transfer committee" including on those who do the scouting to not just identify players with massive potential, that should in theory at least be the lowest bar for a scout to do. But to also identify which players we should go in for with confidence, with a willingness to pay big money for that individual.

What we have seen in recent years, including when Lange has at the very least been here, is that we have gone after at the very least young talented players with seeming confidence. If those singings have been an important part of his job here I quite like what he's done on the whole on that side.

If it was him pushing for Frank and Frank to stay. It was him arguing that we didn't have to go for more quality passing players deep... That would for me be a clear sign that he needs to not have those responsibilities going forward. The "not panicking" in January thing being another thing to potentially hold against him. But I'm not sure that was ever even imagined as being his job when he came in?
 
Bishop said:
Maybe if we had signed Raya who is far more confident on the ball, a far better user of said ball and a lot more commanding in his box then maybe Ange wouldn't have suffered the same number of defeats, he might well still be in the job. If you recall it was Vicario's weakness at commanding his box (exposed against Emirates Marketing Project in the Cup) that directly led to the many, many easy goals we too easily conceded in the second half of Ange's first season.

That's when the performances and results tailed off. That's when the rot (in terms of Ange. The wider rot has been present for years) started to set in and truthfully was never addressed. We just kept doing the same things game after game and hoping something different would happen this time.

It's all a degree of cause and effect. Not signing a player here or there doesn't make a dramatic difference, but it makes a difference in subtle ways. With Raya we probably finish 4th in his first season, that leads directly to probably making better signings that summer (Ange's second season transfers were a disaster imo). Which means we have a better year last season and again maybe that means Ange has a reasonable season in the league, we'd still have the injuries but we'd also have quality fresh blood. Some sort of Top 8ish finish and he keeps his job and the club feels like it's progressing rather than stagnating.

This is a situation where that time worn adage "buy cheap, buy twice" has really reared it's ugly head into place.
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Maybe...

Agreed on that "buy cheap, buy twice" as a principle. But it's also true that we needed a rather massive turnover of players at that time and weren't in a position to sufficiently get enough players in without some cheaper options being chosen.
 
Mr Gogolak said:
You know I always value your opinions but I'm not sure I agree with that, to be honest.

There's no evidence that finishing 4th instead of 5th would have made a difference in terms of new signing. We're in the Champions League and our recruitment policy has been less than stellar.

Also, I'd argue that Vicario is a much better shot-stopper than Raya. Raya is a better all-round keeper, but assuming he would do everything Vicario did plus the things he does well sounds like fantasy booking. Much as loathe him, there was a whole ecosystem to Ange's tactics, and big one-on-one saves from the keeper, I think, played a role because they gave the whole team a boost. Take that away and you create other problems.

I still think the problem lies with hiring managers with very specific yet contrasting systems/tactics (Conte, Postecoglou...).

I do agree with you on the 'ripple effect' though but, for me, it's more of an attitude/mentality issue than actual ability. The signs have been there for a long time (the team 'rebelling' against Mourinho, rejecting Espirito Santo and Frank...). Unfortunately, when it suits us, the fans, we're happy to ignore the problem. Now that we are on the brink of relegation, people realise it's a huge issue but it's too little, too late.
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I fully accept that I'm off in the realms of maybes and what ifs with that post. For me Raya is an all around net positive in comparison to Vicario that I do think that we end up in a more positive position with him between our posts.
 
braineclipse said:
Agreed. A lot of speculation, but ultimately we can't really know for sure.

What seems clear is that he wasn't really trusted to be the lone DoF and probably that shouldn't be his role going into the summer either. But he can still be good at things he does well and useful to us.
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I am perfectly comfortable going in two-footed on him. Very poor. We need to have better in that position. He has been a chief architect of where we currently are.
 
braineclipse said:
Agreed. A lot of speculation, but ultimately we can't really know for sure.

What seems clear is that he wasn't really trusted to be the lone DoF and probably that shouldn't be his role going into the summer either. But he can still be good at things he does well and useful to us.
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monchi replaced him at villa and has done so much better for them

how did we miss out on monchi? for a while we seemed to want to be a sevilla copycat
 
Bishop said:
Do we actually know what we want? Hiring the man who essentially made Sevilla a force would be too intelligent a decision to make. Yet we had the "best Chairman in the Game" 🤣🤣🤣
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I wonder what Frank Arnesen would say today, if he reflected about his short tenure with Levy ...
 
Who’s Bournemouth’s DOF? They seem to have a good strike rate. Huijsen. Semenyo. Kerkez.

And now Kroupi who has the 3rd best goals to minutes in the league this season and Rayan who looks a massive powerful talent cutting in from the right.

Rayan signed in January btw for £24m when we sold Johnson in that position and didn’t replace.
 
Benny_Lad said:
Who’s Bournemouth’s DOF? They seem to have a good strike rate. Huijsen. Semenyo. Kerkez.

And now Kroupi who has the 3rd best goals to minutes in the league this season and Rayan who looks a massive powerful talent cutting in from the right.

Rayan signed in January btw for £24m when we sold Johnson in that position and didn’t replace.
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We were heavily linked with Rayan too, but either chose not to finalise, or Bournemouth beat us to him
 

Spurs step up hunt for sporting director with checks on Winstanley and Freedman​


Club want replacement for Fabio Paratici to have significant say in who they appoint as manager in the summer.


Tottenham Hotspur have stepped up their hunt for a new sporting director with checks believed to have been made on a number of potential candidates including Paul Winstanley and Dougie Freedman.

Winstanley is contracted to Chelsea until 2031 and is not expected to quit the Stamford Bridge club, while Freedman only joined Al-Diriyah, in Saudi Arabia’s second tier, last year.

Telegraph Sport understands the pair are among a number of possible candidates that checks have been made on through external sources working on behalf of Spurs.

It is believed that Tottenham would ideally like to agree a deal with a new sporting director in time for them to have a say on the identity of the next permanent head coach.

It remains to be seen whether that is possible, given Tottenham are involved in a Premier League relegation battle, but the club have started the process and hope to start speaking to candidates.

Spurs want to replace Fabio Paratici, who left the club to join Fiorentina last month. Johan Lange is the remaining sporting director at Spurs, but has faced criticism for the club’s recruitment.

Freedman is best known for his work at Crystal Palace, where he was credited with signings such as Eberechi Eze, Marc Guéhi, Michael Olise and Adam Wharton. He was also heavily involved in the appointment of head coach Oliver Glasner.

Given he only joined Al-Diriyah last year, there are doubts over whether Freedman would be interested in the Spurs job or could leave his current post.

Winstanley has been sporting director at Tottenham’s London rivals Chelsea since November 2022 and, along with the club’s other recruitment chiefs, has been involved in the signings of Cole Palmer, Moisés Caicedo, Estêvão Willian and João Pedro. He has also helped the club hire a number of head coaches, including Enzo Maresca and Liam Rosenior.

Chelsea rewarded their sporting directors, including Winstanley, with new contracts that run to 2031, following their Club World Cup success last summer and there is currently no expectation he will leave Stamford Bridge.

Tottenham hired Igor Tudor as head coach after sacking Thomas Frank, with the club waiting until the summer to make a permanent appointment, when they believe there will be a bigger pool of candidates available to them. That has left the door open for a potential return for Mauricio Pochettino, who worked with Winstanley for a season at Chelsea.

Having overseen defeats in his first two games as interim head coach, Tudor is still hoping to be boosted by the arrival of his trusted long-term assistant Ivan Javorcic.

Javorcic’s arrival at Spurs is believed to have been held up by work-permit issues, but there is now optimism that he could soon take up a role in Tudor’s backroom team.

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Priority #1 for the summer is to find a new DoF and put Lange back in his Head of Scouting role, in which to be fair he has done an ok job at [ducks for cover].
 
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