One thing in the DoF role that frustrates me how often people overlook what is one of the key responsibilities of the role. Scouting is important for sure - but people in the industry are very well informed about players. Just because some of you hadn't heard of Luka Modric before we signed him doesn't mean that those involved in the game hadn't already noticed that this little Croatian kid playing for the biggest team in the country and for his national side had impeccable ball control and was running games from central midfield. It's not like Comolli "discovered" him and all of Europe's biggest clubs with their vast scouting networks had somehow managed to overlook him.
No - the REALLY key thing about a DoF is the ability to convince players to join your club. The best players will usually have multiple offers on the table. Even when one has been accepted, their agent will 9 times out of 10 be whoring them out to competitors, trying to see if he can get a better deal. The key thing for a DoF, is closing the deal. Remember that story of how Man Utd tried to hijack the Berbatov deal at the last minute but Comolli saw it through? That was good work from him. Failing to go near a defensive midfielder or to sign a Keane replacement, was very poor, and was the reason he ultimately lost his job.
Look at Baldini's work. Most of the signings haven't worked out for a number of reasons. That to me suggests poor scouting and/or poor recommendations from a manager as much as poor work from the DoF. But he has convinced some quite high profile players to join us - Soldado, Lamela, Paulinho and Eriksen were all well known and well respected players that would have almost certainly have had other offers on the table too (maybe nobody else would have paid £26m for Soldado). To join a club that wasn't in the Champions League. And whilst we missed out on transfer targets this summer, that was mostly down to Levy not making funds available to get the deals over the line - Schneiderlin for example was quite vocal about wanting to join us but Southampton refused the deal. If Levy loosens the purse strings a little and we get this Paul Mitchell bloke in to help steer him in the right direction and make sure he's closing deals for better players - I think things could work out quite nicely.
And the simple fact of the matter is - despite Southampton starting the season better than we have, we are still a club who published revenue of £147.4m in the last set of financial results (before the Bale windfall), whereas Southampton brought in £71.8m (less than half as much) over the same period. They're punching massively above their weight right now, and even if they do go the distance this year they won't be able to hold onto players like Tadic, Schneiderlin and Clyne for more than a couple of seasons if they keep playing this way. You can sell your best player for £25m and bring in a better replacement for half the price if you're very lucky, but it's very rare in football. Mitchell probably realises this and thinks it's probably best to take a bigger opportunity while his stock is high. Levy has been tight on player recruitment before but with the likes of Ramos and Redknapp he's paid big money to make management changes, as well as giving out big pay-offs to sack people. So even if it does go all tits up, AND Baldini doesn't become the fall-guy, Mitchell can expect to be financially well rewarded regardless of how things turn out.
