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Franco Baldini

Jurgen the German said:
Can any of us really provide evidence on a lot of stuff that goes on though? Doesn't stop people criticising Sherwood for example.
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Well if the Mods were trying to stop people from criticising XY and Z im sure there'd be some evidence seeings as everything is saved and stored on site - my guess is there wouldn't be any though as i don't think that's how we run the site.

As for Baldini i think it's pretty simple, if someone wants to say he fudged up with buying XY and Z then there needs to be something that you can use to back up the idea that it was him that chose that player to be signed otherwise your position isn't really very strong
 
billyiddo said:
Well if the Mods were trying to stop people from criticising XY and Z im sure there'd be some evidence seeings as everything is saved and stored on site - my guess is there wouldn't be any though as i don't think that's how we run the site.

As for Baldini i think it's pretty simple, if someone wants to say he fudgeed up with buying XY and Z then there needs to be something that you can use to back up the idea that it was him that chose that player to be signed otherwise your position isn't really very strong
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My position is no weaker than yours or anyone else's who claims x player wasn't his choice. A lot of opinions on this site are just that.

If I am being too harsh then please say so, but it genuinely feels sometimes that the mods are mods first and fans 2nd.
 
Jurgen the German said:
My position is no weaker than yours or anyone else's who claims x player wasn't his choice. A lot of opinions on this site are just that.
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Your position is much weaker than mine because you are the one blaming him for signing players we don't know were his choices or not, whereas im neither laying blame nor praising - if you're saying it's his fault that we signed 'XYZ' then the onus is on you to say why you think he was the man responsible for choosing those players to sign, so far i have yet to see anything to back that up...


As for Mods first fans second i don't really know what you mean by that.
 
Jurgen the German said:
As are some of the MODS. You don't want anyone criticising Poch, Levy, Baldini, people even get grumpy when AVB is criticised.
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I've got no issue with you criticising Poch, Levy or Baldini. Supporting what you say would be good and coming up with a new observation or comment would be great too.
 
Jurgen the German said:
As are some of the MODS. You don't want anyone criticising Poch, Levy, Baldini, people even get grumpy when AVB is criticised.
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No.
Wrong.
Criticism with perspective is always welcome. Knee-jerking anger with an intent to win an argument (such as some the total rubbish on here post-Mickey Mouse Cup) is when you will see some mods get agitated. By the way, that is a general comment and most certainly not specifically aimed at you mate, just want to be clear on that point.

There is a massive difference.
 
Jurgen the German said:
As are some of the MODS. You don't want anyone criticising Poch, Levy, Baldini, people even get grumpy when AVB is criticised.
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I'm sorry mate, but this really seems petty...

Scara has done a great job creating a forum with real tolerance for different opinions and a free open discussion on most topics. I do occasionally visit forums for other clubs and there seems to be a stark difference to good old glory-glory.

The mods are fans and posters too. They become mods in part because they spend a lot of time on here and they're not going to just be impartial observers. If they voice opposing opinions to yourself that's not the same as them not "wanting anyone criticising X".

If you want to voice your opinion without getting disagreeing responses glory-glory really isn't the place. I really think you have to accept that some, or even most of the mods can sometimes be disagreeing with you...
 
Not a mod, but I think this forum is pretty tolerant of different opinions (see the politics thread on Random!). My take on Baldini is that he p1ssed away the Bale money on poor/over-priced players and that's why he isn't here anymore. What the exact mechanics of us signing players are, none of us can know for sure because we aren't involved in the process. But that's my 2p worth.
 
I'm not disagreeing on Baldini because I'm a mod. There's just nothing to suggest he was solely responsible for those signings and neither were poor decisions at the time. They were all promising players.
 
My take on Baldini is that Levy wanted a DoF, he was available with pedigree, Poch has come in and wants his own 'DoF' so-to-speak and thus Franco has no role anymore.
I think anyone who can get millions for Kaboul and Crapoue is a genius. If I were Sunderland I'd be looking for the recipe and seeing if there was a money-back policy, because otherwise they have been robbed. Holtby too, good money there. He found a home for Bobby where we didn't lose too much on the overall deal. Eeriness, Chadli and now Lamela can all be viewed as successful purchases. And never denounce any man who can get what was it, 10 mill from the Chinese for Paulinho? Unbelievable really.
So in fairness, he did quite a lot. I wouldn't disagree that his judgement on payers has been poor in some places, but he's not been quite as horrible as we all might have thought when we reflect upon it all calmly...
 
Ultimately on Baldini he was let go...

But the circumstances are quite different to when Commoli was let go. We have the head coach appointed under Baldini still in place. We have much of the backroom staff and scouting network still in place. Of course we still have all the changes to the youth team setup made under Baldini still in place.

I guess it had to be his failures with the Bale money... Perhaps a combination of Baldini wanting a change himself, not unheard of for a man his age to look towards something a bit difference. Again the difference between the Comolli situation highglights why I think it might have been a bit different to just a sacking. Him being kept on over the transfer window is another one. Could anyone imagine that happening with Comolli?
 
Ledley King as DoF

German clubs tend to employ ex players in such a role
 
I suspect that the apparent haste in spending the Bale money was to stop AVB throwing his toys out of the pram at the sale of his best player. I have no proof of this just a hunch of course. In the end Baldini did well to get rid of players like Capoue and Soldado but he was unfortunately tainted by their purchase in the first place what ever the extent of his hand in it. For the record I think that Jurgen is normally a very fair poster. I also have a lot of time for the mods on this site too even if I don't always agree with them.
 
2 things that I think show Baldini to actually be quite successful:

1. Despite losing our best player, we have managed to finish in the same position and indeed make a cup final despite having a manager merry-go-round;
2. As @milo pointed out, if you consider Bale's departure to have been a fait accompli, then the squad that we have now is stronger than the one that was there at the time.

Yes he made some mistakes, but they were not expensive mistakes. He's also been made some good purchases, a number of whom outweigh the financial losses on the "mistakes". Compare our purchases against any other clubs' and it will be favourable.

As for the chat about mods etc... All I can say is that this site is far better than any other that I have been to, and that is partly down to the mods. They quite rightly only get involved when discussion turns insulting, or is continuous and based on little "fact". That is how mods should be, imho.
 
Gutter Boy said:
It's the biggest privately-funded infrastructure project in Europe. It will need Levy's full attention for the next 3 years.

Cortese was Chief Executive at Soton - he still worked under a Chairman (Liebherr). It's no different to how Dein worked under Hill-Wood, Rick Parry under Moores, Kenyon under Abramovich etc. He also still lives in Hampshire and hasn't taken up a permanent role since 2014.

People have been saying for years we should go for a CEO, rather than a DoF. Perhaps now we've got a team of senior (but not director level) scouts in Mitchell, MacKenzie, Metcalf and Esparraga, there's enough footballing brains already in the committee?
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Where do you get info about our scouting network?
 
metalgear said:
Where do you get info about our scouting network?
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There was just lots of press early this year (sort of December to May time) about Baldini was going out and recruiting a team of the best young technical scouts from across the country and beyond.

We appointed:

Rob MacKenzie from Leicester as Head of Technical Scouting (https://www.linkedin.com/pub/rob-mackenzie/26/43/a94; https://twitter.com/MacRob85)

Paul Mitchell from Southampton as Head of Recruitment and Analysis (https://www.linkedin.com/pub/paul-mitchell/67/4b2/4ba)

Stuart Metcalf from Brighton as Head of Performance Analysis (https://www.linkedin.com/pub/stuart-metcalf/16/964/a50)

Adrian Esparraga from Malaga as Senior Southern European Scout (https://twitter.com/aesparraga)
 
Gutter Boy said:
A player who was never even involved in a transfer of his own? And never played abroad, so has no contacts at the big European clubs?
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and your point is?:)

i was half joking, but if you look at German clubs they tend to appoint ex players in these types of roles so why cant we.

how about David Ginola then;) Has been involved in transfers-tick.....played abroad-tick.....has contacts at big european clubs-tick...is a handsome devil and expert schmoozer -big tick
 
milo said:
Those appointments look to me like Mitchell building his team. It was notable that the club said that Mitchell did not report to Baldini when he was appointed.
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The club never said that. Goal.com said that.

To my eyes, Mitchell, MacKenzie and Metcalf look like peers heading up parallel teams. Their job titles are all 'Head of..', compared to Baldini who was a Director.

I think people overstate Mitchell's role, because he came from Southampton (where he also used to report to their DoF, Les Reed). He's obviously brilliant with all his data and stuff, but he's also only in his early 30s and not that long out of playing (I appreciate Comolli was very young to become DoF too, but he'd been working as a scout since his early/mid-20s).
 
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