Accountability

[Birdman1811]

Sam was extremely impressed with Dowling in January apparently, considering budget and where we were. We git pretty much what the manager said he needed.

They worked well together, do that again in the summer and we'll smash the Champ.

[Remi_Moses]

The DoF and manager have to have a working partnership for clubs to stand a chance. The best managers are only as good as the transfer budgets ATM and they only keep the job for 18 months (approx) unless the win cups and titles. We shouldn't be upset about changing managers it's normal. It's our club strategy and planning that's lacking IMO. Our recruitment team consists of 17 people (on our payroll) that doesn't include scouts. Our return on investment in that department is shocking, we are never going to buy great players so we have to find them or develop them. We were fantastic at it in the 60s, 70s and 80s but alas we have steadily got worse. Now it's directly connected with our position in the game.
Without massive investment or a return to consistently finding hidden gems boing boing is now our level.

[Bortolazzi's Barnet]

As the blame game to our inevitable relegation gathers pace the problem of accountability is brought into sharp focus. Lots of ‘itk’ rumours abound who brought which player to the club, who let which player go etc. 

The Director of Football system inevitably leads to a muddying of the water with regards to who is responsible for what whilst the head coach or managers head is placed firmly on the block regardless of their input. I’m not a Luddite with regards to how football works but the system leads to just as many problems as it solves. If you have a poor DoF you will struggle regardless of the quality of manager, so essentially you have to get two key roles right rather than one for a club to be successful. 

I’m not suggesting a manager should have autonomy over transfers or the football department but I do think that the lack of individual accountability is the potential risk of having layers of management. How many times can a DoF appoint the wrong manager / first team not perform and still continue for years at a club whilst at the first time of struggle the manager is sacked? 

The biggest plus of having a DoF system is stability and long term strategy but at first team level that can just as easily lead to long term failure as the same old mistakes are made regardless of who the manager is.

Btw this isn’t a criticism of our club or DoF just an observation of the rather football operates now. Is there a better way of doing things when the ahem ‘football department’ operates at different speeds from long term planning for youth team players, to short term success at first team level? I don’t think at a club like ours getting the balance right is at all easy.

On a related note I was astounded to find out Garlick ended-up at the FA and is now at Arsenal!

I don't half wish we'd have got Ashworth back.

AS for the DoF model it can work but the manager must ALWAYS have the final say.

[Birdman1811]

Garlick is one of top football administrators in the world. Never a full DoF though.

[Bortolazzi's Barnet]

Definitely not! Though I think that is what he was both at the FA and now at Arsenal!

[Ministry Of Silly Signings]

As the blame game to our inevitable relegation gathers pace the problem of accountability is brought into sharp focus. Lots of ‘itk’ rumours abound who brought which player to the club, who let which player go etc. 

The Director of Football system inevitably leads to a muddying of the water with regards to who is responsible for what whilst the head coach or managers head is placed firmly on the block regardless of their input. I’m not a Luddite with regards to how football works but the system leads to just as many problems as it solves. If you have a poor DoF you will struggle regardless of the quality of manager, so essentially you have to get two key roles right rather than one for a club to be successful. 

I’m not suggesting a manager should have autonomy over transfers or the football department but I do think that the lack of individual accountability is the potential risk of having layers of management. How many times can a DoF appoint the wrong manager / first team not perform and still continue for years at a club whilst at the first time of struggle the manager is sacked? 

The biggest plus of having a DoF system is stability and long term strategy but at first team level that can just as easily lead to long term failure as the same old mistakes are made regardless of who the manager is.

Btw this isn’t a criticism of our club or DoF just an observation of the rather football operates now. Is there a better way of doing things when the ahem ‘football department’ operates at different speeds from long term planning for youth team players, to short term success at first team level? I don’t think at a club like ours getting the balance right is at all easy.

On a related note I was astounded to find out Garlick ended-up at the FA and is now at Arsenal!

I don't half wish we'd have got Ashworth back.

AS for the DoF model it can work but the manager must ALWAYS have the final say.

Think with Ashworth, he had a massive database of players / coaches etc. If a manager desperately wanted a left back or winger etc, Ashworth could name several, and ask the manager if he wanted a particular one.  Remember someone seeing Ashworth at Birmingham Airport one Friday, said he was spending the weekend in The Czech Republic and Eastern Germany looking at players that had been recommended.

[SW4Baggie]

Do we know for sure the brief that Dowling has from a signing perspective?

Is it Dowling’s job to determine signings, or is it his job to ensure the best deals are struck? This is the crucial point in determining his performance and level of blame this summer.

Dowling got a deal for Grady at £12m which was seen as an absolute bargain, and managed to pull off a hell of a transfer on paper for Grant given the corner Bilic backed him into and the inflation driven by Watkins £33m move.

If rumours are to be believed, we’d also identified Okay and Diagne and Bilic said no, instead wanting Krov.

If Dowlings role is to overrule the manager and cause division by not delivering the targets he wants, then he’s failed...

---

As the blame game to our inevitable relegation gathers pace the problem of accountability is brought into sharp focus. Lots of ‘itk’ rumours abound who brought which player to the club, who let which player go etc. 

The Director of Football system inevitably leads to a muddying of the water with regards to who is responsible for what whilst the head coach or managers head is placed firmly on the block regardless of their input. I’m not a Luddite with regards to how football works but the system leads to just as many problems as it solves. If you have a poor DoF you will struggle regardless of the quality of manager, so essentially you have to get two key roles right rather than one for a club to be successful. 

I’m not suggesting a manager should have autonomy over transfers or the football department but I do think that the lack of individual accountability is the potential risk of having layers of management. How many times can a DoF appoint the wrong manager / first team not perform and still continue for years at a club whilst at the first time of struggle the manager is sacked? 

The biggest plus of having a DoF system is stability and long term strategy but at first team level that can just as easily lead to long term failure as the same old mistakes are made regardless of who the manager is.

Btw this isn’t a criticism of our club or DoF just an observation of the rather football operates now. Is there a better way of doing things when the ahem ‘football department’ operates at different speeds from long term planning for youth team players, to short term success at first team level? I don’t think at a club like ours getting the balance right is at all easy.

On a related note I was astounded to find out Garlick ended-up at the FA and is now at Arsenal!

I don't half wish we'd have got Ashworth back.

AS for the DoF model it can work but the manager must ALWAYS have the final say.

Think with Ashworth, he had a massive database of players / coaches etc. If a manager desperately wanted a left back or winger etc, Ashworth could name several, and ask the manager if he wanted a particular one.  Remember someone seeing Ashworth at Birmingham Airport one Friday, said he was spending the weekend in The Czech Republic and Eastern Germany looking at players that had been recommended.

The database was very much the brainchild of DA... we were one of the first to embrace data and data based external scouting, we turned it off when Ashworth left and McDonut brought his own excel file. By the time we’d rebooted it a couple years later other clubs had not only overtaken us in terms of infrastructure but the data was horribly out of date - hence signing Ideye.

Interesting that Paul Thompson and SGM fell out over this a decade previously.... PT wanted to build a database using reviews to track and identify players where Gary liked using his dad and the Cortina. Ultimately that worked well for us too, but amazing to see how much things have changed in the last couple decades.

[Johnnykayeengland]

Brian Clough will be turning in his grave.