I'm still suspicious that the Eisner's have someone else lined up for the summer, Cowleys are on a big bonus if we go up (still a big if) but can't see why,if you have faith in these guys,why not give them a 18 month rolling contract..I stand corrected but still a niggling doubt there
I very much doubt it Roy. They didn't want to be rushed into another long term contract which is sensible. Budgets will be a lot different if we did get promotion.
Anyone else noticed that Cowley’s title is Head Coach and not manager??? Could a Director of Football be coming on board?
Yeah Deep started a thread on it
have to ask Lincoln and Huddersfield fans if that were there job title there
There is a thread like this on TPF, apparently they worked with a Jez George who was DoF at Lincoln. He brought in Appleton when the Cowleys left and signed a long term contract last year.
I would bet that it may be the ex HuddersfieldHead of Football/ DoF David Webb who was sacked by the Chairman of Huddersfield a couple of weeks before the Cowleys were booted. He hasn't worked since and is linked with a DoF at Celtic but it hasn't happened yet.
The Huddersfield chairman basically wanted to be DoF and the Cowleys wern 't having it, so that is why they got sacked.
Still trying to work out who you are on TPF
Tbh I'm guessing it's just a modern terminology rather than anything more significant but we'll find out in the summer if they get an extended contract. However, just reading article in the Snooze that might suggest otherwise.
(22-03-2021, 11:36 AM)ForeverPompey Wrote: [ -> ]Tbh I'm guessing it's just a modern terminology rather than anything more significant but we'll find out in the summer if they get an extended contract. However, just reading article in the Snooze that might suggest otherwise.
You got a link?
(22-03-2021, 12:23 PM)Pedalo_menders Wrote: [ -> ] (22-03-2021, 11:36 AM)ForeverPompey Wrote: [ -> ]Tbh I'm guessing it's just a modern terminology rather than anything more significant but we'll find out in the summer if they get an extended contract. However, just reading article in the Snooze that might suggest otherwise.
You got a link?
Here you go...
Snooze says...
(22-03-2021, 10:09 AM)Isaac Hunt Wrote: [ -> ]Still trying to work out who you are on TPF
Secret Innit
Thanks, interesting article.
I dont see anything wrong with a DOF as long as the manager has full visibility into the process. Communication with the manager/coaches is crucial to this structure working. If decisions end up being made in silos, you can quickly run into big problems that take a long time to unravel.
But hopefully it will prevent things like signing a Downing , or a Raggett on a 3 year contract.
Agreed. As long as everyone has their role and works together it doesn't matter too much what the titles are etc. Interesting that they are keen to keep Gallen on board.
(22-03-2021, 02:12 PM)ForeverPompey Wrote: [ -> ]Agreed. As long as everyone has their role and works together it doesn't matter too much what the titles are etc. Interesting that they are keen to keep Gallen on board.
I wonder what they perceive to be the difference between a 'Sporting Director' and a 'Director of Football' ?
I can only guess that a sporting director has a much portfolio and is likely to be further distanced from the footballing side of things , so more acceptable to the head coach and less likely to step on his toes.
The key thing is that only the manager/head coach should be allowed to choose the players to be signed. Someone else making those choices is a recipe for disaster.
How does one "implement a sporting director"?
I'm not convinced. Once a dof or sd starts interfering in football team matters you might as we kiss goodbye to any harmony.
(22-03-2021, 03:05 PM)stayinupforever Wrote: [ -> ]How does one "implement a sporting director"?
I'm not convinced. Once a dof or sd starts interfering in football team matters you might as we kiss goodbye to any harmony.
It depends. I want the manager focusing on getting the players organised and ready for matchday. Not all managers have the time or ability to manage the scouting network, identify targets and negotiate contracts.
100% the manager should be involved in the identify targets discussion. However, the medium to long term planning of the squad could be better managed by someone who can do the investigative work full time.
Losing the likes of Nathan Thompson, Christian Burgess and Matt Clarke; then replacing them with absolute numpty's shows there is room for improvement in this process.
(22-03-2021, 03:43 PM)Pedalo_menders Wrote: [ -> ] (22-03-2021, 03:05 PM)stayinupforever Wrote: [ -> ]How does one "implement a sporting director"?
I'm not convinced. Once a dof or sd starts interfering in football team matters you might as we kiss goodbye to any harmony.
It depends. I want the manager focusing on getting the players organised and ready for matchday. Not all managers have the time or ability to manage the scouting network, identify targets and negotiate contracts.
100% the manager should be involved in the identify targets discussion. However, the medium to long term planning of the squad could be better managed by someone who can do the investigative work full time.
Losing the likes of Nathan Thompson, Christian Burgess and Matt Clarke; then replacing them with absolute numpty's shows there is room for improvement in this process.
No sporting director is going to stop players wanting to move on to better themselves and IMO nobody but the manager should pick the replacements because it is his job on the line if they don't work out.
Thompson understandably turned down a new contract because he had a championship move lined up, Burgess knew before Christmas he would not be re-signing because he fancied a new challenege in a new country if we did not go up, and no-one could hope to keep Clarke once a premiership club came knocking. No sporting director or director of football would make a blind bit of difference to those scenarios.
"Burgess knew before Christmas he would not be re-signing because he fancied a new challenge in a new country"
It's worked out very well for him too. His team are already champions and will be back in the top division for the first time in 48 years.
"No sporting director is going to stop players wanting to move on to better themselves"
That's where you're wrong, Deep. Our contract policy actively encourages players to seek alternatives as we dont renew prior to their last year of the contract.
We as a club were not on top of it and it's been a disaster for our defense, both in terms of good players leaving and in terms of not being organised enough to identify & land adequate replacements.
It's a huge problem and to dismiss it as "There's nothing you can do about it" is idiotic.
(22-03-2021, 05:31 PM)Pedalo_menders Wrote: [ -> ]"No sporting director is going to stop players wanting to move on to better themselves"
That's where you're wrong, Deep. Our contract policy actively encourages players to seek alternatives as we dont renew prior to their last year of the contract.
We as a club were not on top of it and it's been a disaster for our defense, both in terms of good players leaving and in terms of not being organised enough to identify & land adequate replacements.
It's a huge problem and to dismiss it as "There's nothing you can do about it" is idiotic.
We don't have a contract policy as such .... outside events have forced us to adopt a certain stance in the last two seasons but my point was that no different policy would have prevented any of the three you named from leaving.
The problem you have identified is that the replacements have not been good enough. That's a fair criticism but that is nothing to do with having a sporting director or not. The person making the choice is the only thing you can blame for that, and a manager is no more likely to make that mistake than a sporting director. In fact less so as he is always going to be an experienced football professional whereas a sporting director could easily not have a playing background. All managers will have a mixed record of succesful and unsuccesful signings because no-one can know for certin how things will turn out, but lets have those decisions being made by the person whose job is on the line. Why should a manager get the sack for poor results if he is given players he did not choose and did not want ? Far better to employ a manager who makes good choices.
Isnt the whole point of a sporting director to have someone who is better at identifying players? Whatever system is currently in place is not working (to put it politely).
If you dont have early conversations with players about their contracts, what are they going to do? They're not going to sit on their hands counting down the days til they can sign on the dole. Having just 1 person who understands that you dont want player churn in defense would be nice.
If you believe the rhetoric from the club, then that's your decision. I find it hard to believe Burgess was pushing for a move. Thompson got completely done over by his agent. If either of these players had had a contract extension offer prior to their last year, I think it highly unlikely that either would have left.
The fact is, that it puts you on the back foot straight away. Why arent we identifying players we want to keep and making it the harder choice to leave? We're making it the easy choice.
I'm glad we agree that recruitment is crap. A DOF would be working with the manager to get him the best available players for his needs. How is that not a good thing? The problem comes when you think the DOF outright dictates what players come in., without any say from the manager.
(22-03-2021, 08:08 PM)Pedalo_menders Wrote: [ -> ]Isnt the whole point of a sporting director to have someone who is better at identifying players? Whatever system is currently in place is not working (to put it politely).
If you dont have early conversations with players about their contracts, what are they going to do? They're not going to sit on their hands counting down the days til they can sign on the dole. Having just 1 person who understands that you dont want player churn in defense would be nice.
If you believe the rhetoric from the club, then that's your decision. I find it hard to believe Burgess was pushing for a move. Thompson got completely done over by his agent. If either of these players had had a contract extension offer prior to their last year, I think it highly unlikely that either would have left.
The fact is, that it puts you on the back foot straight away. Why arent we identifying players we want to keep and making it the harder choice to leave? We're making it the easy choice.
I'm glad we agree that recruitment is crap. A DOF would be working with the manager to get him the best available players for his needs. How is that not a good thing? The problem comes when you think the DOF outright dictates what players come in., without any say from the manager.
The whole point of a director of football may include some responsibility for recruitment (although I would still argue that no club at our level has ever sucessfully used this system), but to go back to my original question what is the whole point of a Sporting Director ? What is the difference ? To me Sporting Director sounds like the sort of job someone with a Sports Management degree might apply for, not necessarily someone with playing experience and not therefore someone that I would want to be involved in the identifying of players to be recruited.
IMO the only person who should have that responsibility is the one who gets sacked when they don't work out. How is that not right ?
And Burgess said when he left that he made the decision to go before Christmas and signed a pre-contract agreement with his new club, which is why we had to ask their permission to play him in the play-offs. He was quite happy with the contract offer Pompey made but had already made the decision to move on. Unless your are arguing that players should never be allowed to go into the last year of their contract (in which case good luck with moving the likes of Downing) what could the club have done any better ? Burgess always knew he was wanted here and would be offered a new deal and that staying was an option open to him. And he chose to move on. And having a DOF or Sporting Director would not have made a blind but of difference.
"To me Sporting Director sounds like the sort of job someone with a Sports Management degree might apply for, not necessarily someone with playing experience and not therefore someone that I would want to be involved in the identifying of players to be recruited."
Are you deliberately being obtuse? Of course if you hire someone unqualified to do the job, it's going to fail. It doesnt matter what structure you have.
"Unless your are arguing that players should never be allowed to go into the last year of their contract (in which case good luck with moving the likes of Downing)"
Again, you seem to want to apply some sort of rigid rule to all players? No. You need to look at the balance of the squad, which areas need continuity, match that up with when players contracts are renewing and ensure you dont have all your best defenders leaving at once.
Burgess's contact was allowed to run down to a stage where he was free to talk to other clubs. This is the point you are missing. This shouldn't be happening with specific players you want to keep. Obviously we dont want to keep Downing so you can let his contract wind down.
Similarly, if you have only 1 1st team starters contract in 1 area of the pitch renewing in 1 window, you can take the chance of letting it run down and maybe see if there are better alternatives. However what is happening is that several players in 1 area of the pitch all have their contracts running down and every single one of them can start looking for offers.
If you take into account the squad planning I mention above, you look can see you are heading for trouble if you dont tie down the right players early enough.
(23-03-2021, 01:30 PM)Pedalo_menders Wrote: [ -> ]"To me Sporting Director sounds like the sort of job someone with a Sports Management degree might apply for, not necessarily someone with playing experience and not therefore someone that I would want to be involved in the identifying of players to be recruited."
Are you deliberately being obtuse? Of course if you hire someone unqualified to do the job, it's going to fail. It doesnt matter what structure you have.
"Unless your are arguing that players should never be allowed to go into the last year of their contract (in which case good luck with moving the likes of Downing)"
Again, you seem to want to apply some sort of rigid rule to all players? No. You need to look at the balance of the squad, which areas need continuity, match that up with when players contracts are renewing and ensure you dont have all your best defenders leaving at once.
Burgess's contact was allowed to run down to a stage where he was free to talk to other clubs. This is the point you are missing. This shouldn't be happening with specific players you want to keep. Obviously we dont want to keep Downing so you can let his contract wind down.
Similarly, if you have only 1 1st team starters contract in 1 area of the pitch renewing in 1 window, you can take the chance of letting it run down and maybe see if there are better alternatives. However what is happening is that several players in 1 area of the pitch all have their contracts running down and every single one of them can start looking for offers.
If you take into account the squad planning I mention above, you look can see you are heading for trouble if you dont tie down the right players early enough.
My whole point is that they would not be unqualified to do the job if the Sporting Director role was an administrative role. Which is may well be. We know roughly what a Director of Football does, but we do not know what they envisage the role of Sporting Director to cover. There must be a reason they have chosen to call it a Sporting Director and not a Director of Football, which is far more common parlance.
And Burgess, or any other player, is always free to talk to other clubs in the last year of his contract. So I repeat, are you saying the club should have a policy of never letting players that you choose enter the last year of any contract. How are you going to make that happen when a player wants a new challenge at the end of his contract ? But more to the point of this thread what difference would having a Sporting Director make to this ? He would have to follow the current policy of the club just the same as Jackett & Brown & Catlin have had to do. You can disagree with that policy if you like but I really don't see why you think that having a Sporting Director would suddenly fix it to your satisfaction.
Me? I'd rather the club was run sensibly when it came to finance, we know only to well the results of the opposite of that.