• Dear Guest, Please note that adult content is not permitted on this forum. We have had our Google ads disabled at times due to some posts that were found from some time ago. Please do not post adult content and if you see any already on the forum, please report the post so that we can deal with it. Adult content is allowed in the glory hole - you will have to request permission to access it. Thanks, scara

General Transfer Rumour Discussion Thread

Stobbart just doesn't like him/DoFs - he's been slagging him off since day 1.

I don't remember him slagging Baldini off under AVB.

Baldini has recruited Mitchell...to work under him

You keep saying this but I thought that it was made pretty clear when he joined that Mitchell was not working to Baldini and I haven't seen anything since to contradict this. What has lead you to this conclusion?
 
Last edited:
I don't remember him slagging Baldini off under AVB.



You keep saying this but I thought that it was made pretty clear when he joined that Mitchell was not working to Baldini and I haven't seen anything since to contradict this. What has lead you to this conclusion?

Only DoF-haters in the press wanted to believe that Mitchell somehow wasn't under Baldini in the structure, but the whole point of a DoF is that they are head of football operations. Even the haters admitted that Baldini led his recruitment

Coaching, scouting, academy, medical and secretariat are then the 5 departments that sit beneath DoFs. That's the standard structure. Poch, Mitchell, McDermott, Diesel and Caplehorn are then presumably Baldini's direct reports.

Mitchell is a technical/stats guy. From the Football Manager generation. He doesn't have the oversight/networks for a director-level role like Baldini's.
 
Stobbart just doesn't like him/DoFs - he's been slagging him off since day 1.

Baldini has recruited Mitchell and Rob MacKenzie to work under him, so is clearly being backed to build his own scouting infrastructure. A DoF is a long term appointment that takes years to bear fruits (Comolli left the club in 2008, but his squad didn't mature/peak until 2010/11)

What makes you think Baldini recruited Mitchell and MacKenzie and that it was not Levy that recruited them? Based on his signings Baldini has not been impressive and I would have concerns about him being in charge of transfers this summer
 
Surely we should be quicker with Baldini around to help with the negotiations.

The exchange rate between pound and euro means our players will be difficult to shift to the Eurozone. We'll maybe need to look further afield for new homes for them
 
What makes you think Baldini recruited Mitchell and MacKenzie and that it was not Levy that recruited them? Based on his signings Baldini has not been impressive and I would have concerns about him being in charge of transfers this summer

Because Baldini is head of football operations. If Levy went above him like that, he'd surely be straight out the door.

DoF-ing is a really long term game. Baldini will have inherited a lot of deals in the pipeline and probably a load of crap scouting reports from the DoF-less Redknapp era. He's assembling a proper scouting infrastructure now so that future signings will be based on far better intelligence than the early signings.
 
Because Baldini is head of football operations. If Levy went above him like that, he'd surely be straight out the door.

DoF-ing is a really long term game. Baldini will have inherited a lot of deals in the pipeline and probably a load of crap scouting reports from the DoF-less Redknapp era. He's assembling a proper scouting infrastructure now so that future signings will be based on far better intelligence than the early signings.

Yes, it's definitely Harry Redknapp's fault that Baldini made a bunch of bad signings
 
  • Like
Reactions: DTA
Yes, it's definitely Harry Redknapp's fault that Baldini made a bunch of bad signings

Comolli said our scouting was the laughing stock of Europe during that period.

It's not Redknapp's fault per se, but a coach's interests are often counter to the long term, which is why you need a DoF
 
Article says Stambouli is in the crew of Kaboul and co - first I've heard anything like that.
 
By the way, there's also been a 3rd new recruit to Baldini's scouting network: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/stuart-metcalf/16/964/a50

So we've taken the senior performance analysts from all of Southampton (Mitchell), Leicester (MacKenzie) and Brighton (Metcalf) in the past 4 months. This is clearly something we are taking very seriously.

http://www.thetottenhamway.com/2015/04/08/tottenham-to-poach-bournemouth-head-of-recruitment/?

Also hiring Bournemouth's 'head of player recruitment', supposedly to work under Mitchell in a role that involves identifying 'elite' players in the 10-17 year old age brackets. The biggest thing on his CV so far is the identification and recruitment of Wilfried Zaha when he was at Palace.
 
Article says Stambouli is in the crew of Kaboul and co - first I've heard anything like that.

The french lads all sticking together perhaps? Or maybe Stambouli just hasn't been happy with not getting enough game time. Personally I doubt this as he played plenty after the reported split in the team. My honest belief has been that he's been suffering from a few little niggles that have not seemed to settle.
 
Article says Stambouli is in the crew of Kaboul and co - first I've heard anything like that.

Can't see it. He was only here for 2 months before the November fall-out. He then featured heavily all winter.

You hope hasthe sense to hang out with Lloris, Bentaleb and the Belgians if he's particularly keen for French-speaking company
 
Article says Stambouli is in the crew of Kaboul and co - first I've heard anything like that.

Indeed. Whether Stambouli continues to effectively be frozen out an whether Baldini is still at the club by the start of the new season will show to me whether Stobart is writing as a well-informed journo or an opinionated supporter.
 
Article says Stambouli is in the crew of Kaboul and co - first I've heard anything like that.

I can see it now, all huddled in the corner, shrugging furiously at one another and muttering in their OUTRAGEOUS, garlic-tinged accents. Probably joining all the fingertips of one hand together as well and waggling the shape about in the air at about shoulder height. No wonder he won't play them.
 
Can't see it. He was only here for 2 months before the November fall-out. He then featured heavily all winter.

You hope hasthe sense to hang out with Lloris, Bentaleb and the Belgians if he's particularly keen for French-speaking company

He was named as one of the little 'board games' club the Belgians have in a Chadli interview in January so he is a pal of theirs. I'm a little skeptical about that bit, especially since, as you say, he played frequently throughout the winter.
 
Back