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Franco Baldini

Jurgen the German said:
Lol don't try and give Comolli credit for that one. He was not signed as left winger, no one thought he would move to left wing let alone the advanced position he plays now. Credit where it's due for the signing, but trying to give him credit for signing him as a winger is going a bit too far.

You can criticise Arry all you like but he managed to get the best out of Lennon (who has regressed since he left) and Kaboul for example (also regressed) and we signed players like Sandro, VDV, Friedel, Parker, Palacios and Adebayor without the DoF system.

Re the youth system, I do follow them closely but it's a matter of opinion as to whether ours is any good, most of ours don't get in the team or get sold on.

Would you like to comment on the why he failed to sign a decent holding player after we sold Carrick? Or the issues it led to between managers such as Jol and Santini? It seems to me like he gets all the credit for the good things, and the bad things it's just a case of oh well, **** happens. I'm yet to see any poster actually address some of the criticisms of the system, they just want to discuss the good things.

EDIT: removed "ridiculous" description of Bale signing paragraph as it was a bit too confrontational.
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“It was Mel Johnson, who was a scout at Tottenham, who first raised Gareth’s name,” said Comolli. “He was in charge of scouting players aged between 17 and 21 and had a very good knowledge of the lower leagues.

“I made my mind up after watching him in a game against QPR when he showed outstanding offensive qualities. He was used to playing at Southampton and wanted to play at Tottenham and we said that we thought he could play left-midfield as well as at left-back.

“He wasn’t so sure at first, but I remember the United game at the start of the season and a lot of credit must go to Martin Jol, who was prepared to play him.

“The stats were just amazing. Unbelievable. We sat looking at them and thinking, ‘Wow’.

“It was not just the distance he ran, but the high-intensity sprints he did in the game. If I remember rightly he had the highest number of sprints in the match.

“What does that show? Firstly, it tells you this is not a player – he was 18 at the time – who is shy on the pitch. Secondly, it also showed that he had the physical capacity to match anyone in England because United were the best team then.”

www.express.co.uk/sport/football/38...omolli-Gareth-Bale-deal-was-a-steal-for-Spurs
 
Jordinho said:
“It was Mel Johnson, who was a scout at Tottenham, who first raised Gareth’s name,” said Comolli. “He was in charge of scouting players aged between 17 and 21 and had a very good knowledge of the lower leagues.

“I made my mind up after watching him in a game against QPR when he showed outstanding offensive qualities. He was used to playing at Southampton and wanted to play at Tottenham and we said that we thought he could play left-midfield as well as at left-back.

“He wasn’t so sure at first, but I remember the United game at the start of the season and a lot of credit must go to Martin Jol, who was prepared to play him.

“The stats were just amazing. Unbelievable. We sat looking at them and thinking, ‘Wow’.

“It was not just the distance he ran, but the high-intensity sprints he did in the game. If I remember rightly he had the highest number of sprints in the match.

“What does that show? Firstly, it tells you this is not a player – he was 18 at the time – who is shy on the pitch. Secondly, it also showed that he had the physical capacity to match anyone in England because United were the best team then.”

www.express.co.uk/sport/football/38...omolli-Gareth-Bale-deal-was-a-steal-for-Spurs
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Do you have any links to stories before Bale made the transition to a more attacking player who played further forward? Seems a bit convenient he would say this after.
 
Gutter Boy said:
If it doesn't work, why does almost every big club in Europe have one? Including City and Chelsea - the two dominant EPL clubs of this era.

Coaching and recruitment are such different roles, you just don't get the same skillset in one person, and that's before we think about capacity. Not having one is like asking an ambulance dblue-footed booby to drive a patient to hospital, and then double up as their surgeon.

Surely a committee is a sign of due diligence? Much better than a whim of an individual with a life expectancy in the role of 1.1 year (the EPL average)




The conflict between a DoF and a coach is always about timescales. DoFs look 2-5 years into the future, whereas coaches need players last weekend.

Redknapp was the beneficiary of Comolli, whereas the players didn't blossom quick enough for Jol or Ramos. In contrast, notice how just 2 years on, Walker/Naughton are the only Redknapp-era signings still at the club. We've had to have a massive overhaul because he never signed players for the medium-long term.

The solution is actually to keep a DoF in post for more than about 3 years, so a production line comes into place. That's what happens with the great DoFs like Monchi, Moggi, Begiristain, Corvino and Henrique etc.




This is key. About Arnesen's first act was to appoint John McDermott to head the academy, who in turn appointed Alex Inglethorpe as head academy coach. Those two have revolutionised our academy over the last decade.
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He was also the beneficiary of his own work he did. It Ramos's fault that he couldn't get the best out of the signings Comolli made. No one was stopping Ramos playing Ledley King in the league for example rather than the UEFA Cup, that was all his own doing.

So you don't see a problem with a DoF signing a player the manager doesn't want.
 
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Are we back to writing revisionist history on Comolli?

- He was ****, and pointing out one or two smart buys (that were relatively obvious) don't change that.
- He was **** because he didn't align the needs/wants of manager with buys, or a playing style/strategy

The club has come a long way under Levy in terms of good buys (vs. previous decade+)

- We have seen some very good players - Carrick, Modric, Berbatov, VDV, Bale, Lloris, Eriksen, etc.
- The buy/sell model has allowed us to keep competing despite being badly handicapped from a money doping perspective against other clubs.
- Even the "bad" buys can be excused as the inevitable failure in football that is part of the risk (e.g. Soldado)

My issue today with Baldini and/or whoever bought the last major set of players is the balance, to end up with Sandro/Capoue/Bentaleb/Mason/Carroll/Dembele/Paulinho/Chadli/Lennon/Townsend/Lamela/Siggy/Holtby/Eriksen all in the squad at same time (yes, we have since sold/loaned out 4 of those), and still be a significantly unbalanced midfield is tough to understand. I struggle to see the vision/strategy.
 
i don't think you accuse people of revisionism if they have been saying the same thing about Comolli since he left tbh
 
Jordinho said:
“It was Mel Johnson, who was a scout at Tottenham, who first raised Gareth’s name,” said Comolli. “He was in charge of scouting players aged between 17 and 21 and had a very good knowledge of the lower leagues.

“I made my mind up after watching him in a game against QPR when he showed outstanding offensive qualities. He was used to playing at Southampton and wanted to play at Tottenham and we said that we thought he could play left-midfield as well as at left-back.

“He wasn’t so sure at first, but I remember the United game at the start of the season and a lot of credit must go to Martin Jol, who was prepared to play him.

“The stats were just amazing. Unbelievable. We sat looking at them and thinking, ‘Wow’.

“It was not just the distance he ran, but the high-intensity sprints he did in the game. If I remember rightly he had the highest number of sprints in the match.

“What does that show? Firstly, it tells you this is not a player – he was 18 at the time – who is shy on the pitch. Secondly, it also showed that he had the physical capacity to match anyone in England because United were the best team then.”

www.express.co.uk/sport/football/38...omolli-Gareth-Bale-deal-was-a-steal-for-Spurs
Click to expand...

A blind man watching Southampton at the time would have spotted him
 
@thespursweb: Franco Baldini joins in the Tottenham backroom staff post-match love-in
[vine]OOHmdwDhbHp[/vine]
 
billyiddo said:
i don't think you accuse people of revisionism if they have been saying the same thing about Comolli since he left tbh
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Spot on. I think the obvious weakness with him not identifying the right targets for the first team is very widely accepted and I can't remember anyone on here disputing that, or saying that he should come back or that they wished he didn't leave. That doesn't invalidate the good signings he did make that unsurprisingly took a bit longer to come good.

Modric THFC said:
A blind man watching Southampton at the time would have spotted him
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Spottet him as a talent, yes. Spotted him as someone who was worth what we had to pay for him, perhaps, perhaps not. A lot of PL managers and scouts with worse than blind eyesight if that's the case. Spotted him as someone that would become a superstar, give me a break.

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I think the overall point with bringing up Comolli is that most of his successful signings did take time to come good. Baldini should be given time for his signings to do something similar. I don't think the same problems that were there with Comolli are there with Baldini.
 
Sometimes

jesus_perez.jpg


is sat on the bench staring into the middle distance, and looks a bit like

brick-tamland-photo.jpg
 
Hahaha....This guy deserves his own thread... Is he the one called Jesus and what does he actually do?
 
I do not care what any of the intellectuals think, this guy has left us with a completely disjointed and lop sided squad.

Directors of football might be good at spotting players who will emerge in the future but it should be left to the coach to decide who he needs in his team. As for this talk about he also overseas the academy and medical side of the club, rubbish I have some knowledge of how a football club runs and those departments have there own managers and have to give reports to the board on a yearly basis.

Every time we have a director of football every time we have a side that is awful. How many times till Levy learns?
 
we signed a lot of this ****e before we appointed baldini, levy is more culpable than anyone else for all of this
 
Jurgen the German said:
Do you have any links to stories before Bale made the transition to a more attacking player who played further forward? Seems a bit convenient he would say this after.
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I know this post was a made a month ago but to be fair I do remember Chris Hughton saying a few days after signing Bale that Martin Jol saw him as starting off at left back but eventually being pushed into left wing. Chris Hughton also said that it wasn't beyond the realms of possibility that one day he might be played as a striker rather than a left back. Sounded a bit far fetched to me at the time but looking back they were spot on.



Anyway, Baldini needs to go. Awful signings all round. Can't believe we are paying him a very healthy wage to do a job like this. If you gave a monkey a 100 million pounds in two years he'd come back to you with a much better looking squad then the one Baldini has.
 
japenesegardenlover said:
I do not care what any of the intellectuals think, this guy has left us with a completely disjointed and lop sided squad.

Directors of football might be good at spotting players who will emerge in the future but it should be left to the coach to decide who he needs in his team. As for this talk about he also overseas the academy and medical side of the club, rubbish I have some knowledge of how a football club runs and those departments have there own managers and have to give reports to the board on a yearly basis.

Every time we have a director of football every time we have a side that is awful. How many times till Levy learns?
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Hear ****ing hear =D>

Why is it such a radical line of thinking that the manager picks the players and the DOF basically just negotiates the deal and spots players for the manager to take a look and not thrust them upon him? I was not AVB's biggest fan and I never hid that fact, but people said he had to go as his relationship with Levy deteriorated so drastically, can you really blame the guy when less than half of the 7 S Club players we signed were not even his choice?
 
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