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Johan Lange - Sporting Director

robp135 said:
We were right to be critical of the January window but it’s also fair to say it’s a hard time to sign quality players.
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I didn't buy into the heavy criticism in January, or even the prior January. We would have had Semenyo if the player hadn't chosen City. Instead we bought a player in Gallagher who played his part in us staying up. Johnson crashed and burned at Palace in the same way he was for us last season. We got decent money and looked forward.

Lange is the wrong root cause for me. Our predicament was down to managers and players with a massive dose of PGMOL, not DoFs. Lange has also been smart enough to see a gap in his own team and bring Alfie Moersen onto his senior staff. Credit should be given where it is due there.

The root cause that actually hasn't been addressed is PGMOL. It's Howard Webb and half of his team that need P45s and walking out the door.
 
harr1984 said:
Who says he has anything to redeem himself for? No one on here knows how it was 'working' last season internally regarding recruiting, just because some on here decided he was the poster boy for everything going wrong doesn't really mean anything....
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So no blame to be attached to JL for the TF hire, waiting too long to fire him and then hiring Tudor, plus the squad building of last summer which completely ignored the need for a midfielder who can pass a football?
 
Ace Face said:
So no blame to be attached to JL for the TF hire, waiting too long to fire him and then hiring Tudor, plus the squad building of last summer which completely ignored the need for a midfielder who can pass a football?
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He wasn't the sole decision maker, he was part of a collective and neither you nor I know what he suggested for such decisions being made.

What we do know is there was a big internal review, and if he was anywhere near remotely responsible for a lot of what happened last season he wouldn't be here now and could very easily of been made the fall guy....
 
harr1984 said:
He wasn't the sole decision maker, he was part of a collective and neither you nor I know what he suggested for such decisions being made.

What we do know is there was a big internal review, and if he was anywhere near remotely responsible for a lot of what happened last season he wouldn't be here now and could very easily of been made the fall guy....
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1. He was touted as the guy mainly behind the TF hire with his list of 20 desirable attributes for the new manager, so it would have been mostly him and Levy as Paratici wasn't back in the building then.

2. Levy and Paratici were both gone by the time it was clear TF needed to go and yet we dithered for another month. Maybe VV was involved here but he seems to be fairly hands-off on footballing decisions judging from his time down the road, so it does appear this was, at least partially, on JL too. If he was the loudest voice in the room for hiring TF then it doesn't take a huge leap of imagination for JL to have wanted to give him as much time as possible to turn it around since firing TF would be egg on his face.

3. The poor squad building from last summer has to be laid at his door since this is his primary role. Maybe Levy was the reason why we didn't get the Eze deal done but we still failed to properly identify the areas of the squad which needed addressing, mainly a CM who can pass the ball more than five yards.

I don't blame him for the January window, even though I was not (and still am not) enamoured by the Gallagher signing, as he couldn't have foreseen both Kudus and Odobert going down for the remainder of the season. Granted getting 35 mil for Johnson seems to have been good business which he should be given credit for.

I think the hire of RDZ is the only reason why he is still in the building. This is his second-chance saloon with greater control over a larger managerial department and a greater budget to work with.

However, I don't think you can give him a pass for 1, 2 or 3 for not knowing how much he was involved as he was most definitely in the room for all of those discussions, and as the guy with the DoF title he was probably the leading voice for each decision(s).
 
Ace Face said:
1. He was touted as the guy mainly behind the TF hire with his list of 20 desirable attributes for the new manager, so it would have been mostly him and Levy as Paratici wasn't back in the building then.
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Touted by whom? The desirable attributes a list published after his appointment so could just ask easily just be a PR facing statement for the fans. At no time did he even say that they were his 20 attributes but instead they were the attributes that were identified.
Ace Face said:
2. Levy and Paratici were both gone by the time it was clear TF needed to go and yet we dithered for another month. Maybe VV was involved here but he seems to be fairly hands-off on footballing decisions judging from his time down the road, so it does appear this was, at least partially, on JL too. If he was the loudest voice in the room for hiring TF then it doesn't take a huge leap of imagination for JL to have wanted to give him as much time as possible to turn it around since firing TF would be egg on his face.
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Assumption because it fits the narrative, but it's not based on any actual evidence.
Ace Face said:
3. The poor squad building from last summer has to be laid at his door since this is his primary role. Maybe Levy was the reason why we didn't get the Eze deal done but we still failed to properly identify the areas of the squad which needed addressing, mainly a CM who can pass the ball more than five yards.
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Our inability to address specific problem areas in the squad was a reoccurring problem in the Levy era no matter who the DoF was so id suggest the pattern reveals a alte active source of the issue.
Ace Face said:
I don't blame him for the January window, even though I was not (and still am not) enamoured by the Gallagher signing, as he couldn't have foreseen both Kudus and Odobert going down for the remainder of the season. Granted getting 35 mil for Johnson seems to have been good business which he should be given credit for.

I think the hire of RDZ is the only reason why he is still in the building. This is his second-chance saloon with greater control over a larger managerial department and a greater budget to work with.

However, I don't think you can give him a pass for 1, 2 or 3 for not knowing how much he was involved as he was most definitely in the room for all of those discussions, and as the guy with the DoF title he was probably the leading voice for each decision(s).
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I'm neutral on Lange, so don't misunderstand me I have no intention on defending him however he has become the whipping boy and all of our ills are laid at his feet as if Levy, Vinai, Paratici (yes in his advisory role) and others didn't all play their part. Clearly those are involved internally don't actually think he's the cause of all ills as it stands.
 
Bishop said:
Touted by whom? The desirable attributes a list published after his appointment so could just ask easily just be a PR facing statement for the fans. At no time did he even say that they were his 20 attributes but instead they were the attributes that were identified.
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It was JL who did the press-facing interviews stating how TF was the option who ticked most of the boxes on his list of desired attributes. Yes I do have a narrative that I am overlaying on this but if he’s in the DoF role then this is a decision that he should have been leading on. Otherwise what was he promoted for?
Bishop said:
Assumption because it fits the narrative, but it's not based on any actual evidence.
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True. None of us know the facts but the most probable answer here is that the DoF leads on the football decisions as that is his primary role, and the identification and subsequent hiring of the coach/manager is almost certainly top of that list. Add on that the fact he was interested in bring TF to Villa, you have to admit that in this case 2+2 does indeed equal 4. Even if it wasn’t solely his decision, you just can’t give him a pass on this.
Bishop said:
Our inability to address specific problem areas in the squad was a reoccurring problem in the Levy era no matter who the DoF was so id suggest the pattern reveals a alte active source of the issue.
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I do believe Levy was involved last summer but as the highest ranking executive in charge of football decisions, including identifying areas of improvement in the playing squad, again he simply had to have been heavily involved.

Even of it was TF’s decision to bring in players who weren’t going to improve the squad, as the DoF, JL should have a) disagreed and not gone after those players, and b) not hired a manager who was going to play a terrible system to begin with.
Bishop said:
I'm neutral on Lange, so don't misunderstand me I have no intention on defending him however he has become the whipping boy and all of our ills are laid at his feet as if Levy, Vinai, Paratici (yes in his advisory role) and others didn't all play their part. Clearly those are involved internally don't actually think he's the cause of all ills as it stands.
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True. Levy is guilty for a lot of our past, as is Paratici. I don’t know enough about VV yet but they all hold a level of responsibility for recent performances. But this doesn’t mean JL gets a pass simply because we don’t know the level of his involvement. And two of those names were gone by Xmas so cannot be laid any blame for the extended time we gave TF nor the hiring of Tudor.
 
Ace Face said:
It was JL who did the press-facing interviews stating how TF was the option who ticked most of the boxes on his list of desired attributes. Yes I do have a narrative that I am overlaying on this but if he’s in the DoF role then this is a decision that he should have been leading on. Otherwise what was he promoted for?

True. None of us know the facts but the most probable answer here is that the DoF leads on the football decisions as that is his primary role, and the identification and subsequent hiring of the coach/manager is almost certainly top of that list. Add on that the fact he was interested in bring TF to Villa, you have to admit that in this case 2+2 does indeed equal 4. Even if it wasn’t solely his decision, you just can’t give him a pass on this.


I do believe Levy was involved last summer but as the highest ranking executive in charge of football decisions, including identifying areas of improvement in the playing squad, again he simply had to have been heavily involved.

Even of it was TF’s decision to bring in players who weren’t going to improve the squad, as the DoF, JL should have a) disagreed and not gone after those players, and b) not hired a manager who was going to play a terrible system to begin with.

True. Levy is guilty for a lot of our past, as is Paratici. I don’t know enough about VV yet but they all hold a level of responsibility for recent performances. But this doesn’t mean JL gets a pass simply because we don’t know the level of his involvement. And two of those names were gone by Xmas so cannot be laid any blame for the extended time we gave TF nor the hiring of Tudor.
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I'm not suggesting you give him a pass, I'm suggesting that as you don't actually the intricacies of how the work is done it's pointless as a fan from the outside apportioning all or the majority of the blame on one man unless we are specifically told his part in it all.

He's the DoF it's his job to face the public, whether that means any statements that come from him are solely from him or are more likely the company line we will never actually know unless informed otherwise
 
Bishop said:
I'm not suggesting you give him a pass, I'm suggesting that as you don't actually the intricacies of how the work is done it's pointless as a fan from the outside apportioning all or the majority of the blame on one man unless we are specifically told his part in it all.

He's the DoF it's his job to face the public, whether that means any statements that come from him are solely from him or are more likely the company line we will never actually know unless informed otherwise
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Agree he may not have been solely the person responsible but he must take as much a share of the blame as anyone else.

Anyways my post yesterday was about if he is on a resurrection arc this postseason, and regardless of how you see his role in last season’s results, given the Tonali signing on top of Fernandes, he has gone up in my estimation of him.
 
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