Everton consider creating Sporting Director role

Roberto Martinez for director of football.

Just get Jose Mourinho in!

What difference does this make?

Surely you need to make sure that you appoint the right "Sporting Director" too - so that's a double headache at times such as this.....

We need another Harry Catterick/Howard Kendall and we need to be sure the players on the payroll are there not just for the megabucks that they get these days......

The Sporting Director and Manager have to work hand in glove. It's no use having signings that the Manager does not want.

Director of Football, someone who buys useless players, survives and the manager gets sacked, see Aston Villa and Man City.

Any potential manager who would take the job and not have control over what players come and go is no good to us.

Has never really worked in the Premier league.

It is hard enough for a manager to run the squad let alone manage an opinionated sporting director.

Chelsea, Newcastle etc are full of expensive mistakes that the manager took the can for.

Never understood this Director of Football rubbish.

These jobs are ok as long as the manager has the final say. In other words, the DoF is just a glorified scout.

I'd be all for this. First of all we need to decide what our ambitions and goals are. That way the DOF and First team coach will have a clear aim. Then they can get on with their respective jobs and, if we need to change manager, the structure will be in place to do this with minimal disruption.

The Brad Pitt movie Moneyball is one of my favourites and that shows how this sort of relationship is used in baseball. I don't see any reason it couldn't work in football.

I think it's an idiotic arrangement bound, sooner or later, to end in tears since it separates powers which should lie within one person. The last thing this club needs is to buy into such a plan.

We have, for many years, been strangely afflicted by delay, confusion and indecision in much of what we do. I think that's largely been down to Kenwright's self-serving manoeuvres. Let's not create a different version of the same problem by appointing a sporting director.

It's a cop out. Choose someone of strong character and proven ability and then trust them to root out our default lameness. As David France has said, this really matters now and we have a limited window to get it right and to claw ourselves back.

I think Moshiri will oblige.

Dick Brady, I've seen that film, aside from being dull, FSG who took over the other crowd across the park are trying to apply the same principle using opts stats to guide a great deal of their recruitment, prior to Klopp. I'm not to sure how he is going to work with that type of set up.

I'm not too keen on the idea personally.

No,no and thrice no! Recipe for disaster and even more internal in-fighting.

Hard to get to the end of any sentence that begins 'The Liverpool Echo report..'

What's the point? Isn't it the same as having a chief scout who recommend's talent to the gaffer??

Spare a thought for poor Bill in his penthouse flat, tearfully flicking through his copy of Stage as he watches Oklahoma! for the fiftieth time..... 'Jenny darling, I only told him to sign the bloody cheques! I didn't think he'd actually DO anything!'

I have never understood this director of football post, and cant think of many that have been too successful. Why pay a manager £5/6 million a year then pay a director of football whatever to identify potential signings. I think the reds fans blamed Daniel Commoli for a lot of the poor buys at Liverpool, and he had previously unsuccessfully worked at Spurs. Cant imagine SAF having a director of football suggesting players to him, or any of the other great managers.
Surely the manager should control who comes in and who goes out. Not a director of football who is largely bullet proof when his signings don't work out. I wonder if Birgistan at City was responsible for their very expensive and average defenders or was it Pellegrini. Well Pellegrini has gone but Birgistan is still there.
I would like to hear when this director of football has worked successfully in the premier league.

Brian - 'I have never understood this director of football post, and cant think of many that have been too successful.'

Me neither.

Apart from the 'too many cooks' aspect, surely if you've selected the right manager, one who has the ability to identify players who will fit into his side, the club saves paying out another (presumably not inconsequential) wage.

One thing to get the sack coz you fucked up with players you bought, but you'd be pretty miffed if someone else bought them, said 'there you go' and they turned out to be shite.

'I have never understood this director of football post, and cant think of many that have been too successful.'

Txiki Begiristain (Barca)
Robert Fernandez (Barca)
Andrea Berta (Atletico Madrid)
Oliver Letang (PSG)
Fabio Paratici (Juventus)

It's a peculiarly British thing to struggle with the Director of Football role, and certainly it can be incompatible with a manager who's been brought up with the expectation of a wider degree of control (something that's more difficult to achieve in the modern game anyway).

That doesn't mean that it can't work, or be entirely effective, though. A manager able to focus exclusively on coaching and tactics, working with a Director of Football who targets and brings in players to address the needs the manager has identified.

I'd read into this that the next fella in is going to be foreign and something they are used to.

What about Joe Kinnear?! I believe he's had some experience in this role, and would be a contender for the role under Bill.

I think Roberto would have been good at this job but might not be a popular choice with many.

Depends on the parties involved. The old school Fergie types are a dying breed. 30 years ago being a manager meant showing up in your tracksuit and yelling at mud covered players all week long. Once in a while you might meet an agent at a motorway cafe, exchange bags of cash and negotiate a trade. These days you've got media responsibilities, sports scientists throwing stats at you, far more players on your squad, more powerful agents, and 24/7 media scrutiny.

Frank De Boer as the new gaffer.
Ronald De Boer as D.O.F...simples!.

Makes sense.

David Moyes for Director of Football? Would that be acceptable if he was prepared to do the job?

Dennis Wise

Robin

It's all very well reeling off successful foreign clubs, but what have there Directors of Football done to aid that?

Barca DoF- "Sign Suarez, keep Messi" Genius!
Atleti DoF- "Give Simeone a new contract" Genius!
PSG DoF- "Sign a CB for €45M and pay our CF €400k p/w." Genius!

I might hand my CV in.

Patrick (24), the DoF is responsible for transfers. What star players has DM ever signed? Sure he signed some rough diamonds from lower leagues, but that isn't exactly what we need right now.

Patrick, I might prefer it in reverse (Moyes as coach and someone else as DoF) but I rather we have other candidates for both positions.

Depends on hiring the right guy for the position.

Who was the fellow worked with Ferguson all those years? And Clough's right-hand man?

It doesn't have to be a one-man show. Back then, either.

Most important take-away from this report is Moshiri taking the reins.

Moyes might be better as a scout or coach

James

Are you talking about Brian Kidd?

Kieran; it would be Phelan or Muelenstein at Utd.

Peter Taylor with Clough

Worked brilliantly at Newcastle, didn't it....

Stupid idea, if you ask me; and if you can't trust a manager to bring his own players in, why bother appointing him in the first place?

If Frank de Boer was told Moyes was coming in as Sporting Director, he wouldn't touch us with the arse end of a shitty stick.

I think Moshiri has now got a handle on how much of a Heath Robinson club Bill has been running. A Sporting Director would be needed regarding contracts and the like as the BHS killer has had away back to his yacht. And you wouldn't let Elstone negotiate a new home broadband contract for you.

As was said earlier, this is to show the world who is running the club.

Ferguson also had Archie Knox with him for a while, but he chose who would work alongside him not the board. Whereas most of the DOF have been a board appointment not the managers and there is the difference.
Yes there is a lot more for the managers to deal with, but they no longer sort out player contracts or a lot of peripheral jobs they used too.
For me the manager should say who comes and who stays and should stand or fall by those decisions. But more and more I read about managers not having the final say yet has to carry the can if things go wrong.

I seem to remember Harry Catterick saying that every Monday morning he had to see John Moores to give him a run down on the week's events. Don't ever remember either giving any detail of what was said at these meetings and surely this should be one of the Managing Director's duties.
A management level in between seems unnecessary and only serves to protect one or both of the parties involved. Shouldn't the Chief Scout be someone in whom the manager has complete confidence?

Joe Kinnear did a marvellous job at Newcastle I suspect someone from Sunderland recommended him.
He certainly knew how to insult players.

If the job is fixer and bagman for the Manager's wish list, give him a fancy title if it works.

If it's to foist on the Coach, somebody else's wish list based on stats, you-tube, one season wonder or whim etc...and then tell the Coach - If he doesn't fit, you're a Coach; Coach him so he does - If he's not what we need - No

I don't believe the DoF should just be the transfer negotiator.

The DoF role makes perfect sense if you take the view that the club needs a long term footballing strategy (just as they do a commercial strategy). The DoF then takes responsibility for ensuring everything is aligned to that strategy. Every hire, including your managers, would need to fit in with your plan.

Managers come and go - if you did a 180 with every managerial appointment then you would never stop spinning or rebuilding. I would actually like to see it accepted that some managers are good at different things. You might hire an Allardyce to stave off relegation, a Moyes to give you some stability, then move onto a proven winner to take the next step. All could be let go having completed their job successfully, as opposed to the Peter Principle that we seem to adhere too... If he's done well, we should keep him on and see if he can do something he's never done before. Wouldn't happen in business, shouldn't happen in football.

As Gavin Johnson says, I think that kind of DoF role is a much better fit for Roberto Martinez than the manager role.

This all depends on the club, manager and the type of DoF you're looking for...

Under Moyes he constructed his own list of potential targets, having several lists of standards and potential prices etc so he could identify his targets based on his budget (read this somewhere...he was quite fanatical about it)...

Moyes sent his scouts out to construct these lists but had massive amounts of input in it...

I then assume BK took over the negotiations (this wasn't mentioned in the article I read, so it's only an asdumption)...

Therefore Moyes had full control.

i was always under the impression that the manager sweet talked the targets into signing for the club...

A DoF just seems to confuse the situation. If Moyes can do the targeting and has good use of scouts, then a better manager should be able to do it too....