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Franco Baldini

braineclipse said:
And you just accept that you can't actually evaluate which signings he was primarily advocating and which signings he was more technically in charge of completing, just make your decision and argue it with a staunch conviction?
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He was employed at the club during that time - and we have just established he overseas all football / transfer related events. In fact - he was pictured with most agents during the Fantastic 7 capture 2 seasons ago
 
The Ghost Of Tom Joad said:
He was employed at the club during that time - and we have just established he overseas all football / transfer related events. In fact - he was pictured with most agents during the Fantastic 7 capture 2 seasons ago
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This completely ignores my point.

I will repeat it one more time. We have a transfer committee, in such a committee there's likely going to be disagreements. We don't know what opinions Baldini has actually put forward in those discussions. It's a huge difference between "ok, Soldado, he could work. If that's who AVB wants for his system we'll go for him" and "Soldado is the right player, he's who we should go for". We simply cannot know from the outside what input and impact Baldini actually has had in each of our transfers.

Seems to me like you're looking for a spacegoat.
 
braineclipse said:
This completely ignores my point.

I will repeat it one more time. We have a transfer committee, in such a committee there's likely going to be disagreements. We don't know what opinions Baldini has actually put forward in those discussions. It's a huge difference between "ok, Soldado, he could work. If that's who AVB wants for his system we'll go for him" and "Soldado is the right player, he's who we should go for". We simply cannot know from the outside what input and impact Baldini actually has had in each of our transfers.

Seems to me like you're looking for a spacegoat.
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According to this logic - having any form of discussion on ENIC, Baldini, Poch, etc. would be pointless since we would never 'know'. I'm also pretty certain his opinion would have weighted the most with Levy should a decision require some 'swinging' - he's not exactly middle management scout.
 
Jordinho said:
The traditional old school types like Redknapp, Bruce, Pulis all sign players on whims, recommendation from agent buddies or other stupid reasons. I want the coach to identify what areas need strengthening and the scouts and DoF to come up with suggestions based on ongoing scouting. We can't wait until we need someone and then go look. Sometimes a deal will come up that is too good to turn down, then it's the coach's job to make it work. I'm very much in favour of the head coach approach. His job is to fashion a team of the players at his disposal. There should obviously be a more nuanced review of performance than purely results (or successful signings in the DoF's case).
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the coach will have a difficult job making the purchase work if the player doesnt fit into the system/tactics deployed by the coach.
 
i think right now with all the scouting/analysis changes that have been made Baldini's role will be to mainly negotiate and conclude transfers in and out. It will be Mitchell and his men who will work closely with Poch in identifying the targets and the names will be passed on to Baldini to finalise the deals. Thats the way i see it anyway.
 
The Ghost Of Tom Joad said:
According to this logic - having any form of discussion on ENIC, Baldini, Poch, etc. would be pointless since we would never 'know'. I'm also pretty certain his opinion would have weighted the most with Levy should a decision require some 'swinging' - he's not exactly middle management scout.
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They wouldn't be pointless, they just don't have to be on the level of 'sacked or not sacked'.
 
The Ghost Of Tom Joad said:
This is fantastic news as already outlined numerous times, repairing the 'damage' under Redknapp can take years - however and where does Baldini fit into all this?
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Baldini is the director level person who has oversight.

He perhaps receives different reports from Mitchell, MacKenzie, Metcalf and Esparraga (on different players, or different aspects of the same players), synthesises them and brings solutions to the transfer committee. The difference is that he now has immediate subordinates in place who he trusts, rather than those who gave him the Beatles files in his first weeks into the job.

Scouting isn't Baldini's only department. As head of footballing operations - coaching, academy, medical and secretariat come under him too.

Baldini sold Bale for a world record fee. He recruited Poch. We've had 5 academy players as the core of our side this season. And we've had no injuries all season. These are things you have to judge him on too.
 
The Ghost Of Tom Joad said:
According to this logic - having any form of discussion on ENIC, Baldini, Poch, etc. would be pointless since we would never 'know'. I'm also pretty certain his opinion would have weighted the most with Levy should a decision require some 'swinging' - he's not exactly middle management scout.
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No. What I've been saying has been about Baldini, and with the time span in discussion here (so far less than 2 years). To which you've provided no counter argument. And no, trying to extend my point of view to a ridiculous extreme beyond what I've actually said does not an argument make.
 
indianspur said:
i think right now with all the scouting/analysis changes that have been made Baldini's role will be to mainly negotiate and conclude transfers in and out. It will be Mitchell and his men who will work closely with Poch in identifying the targets and the names will be passed on to Baldini to finalise the deals. Thats the way i see it anyway.
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Quite possibly. However I don't think it's unreasonable that a significant number of new people were coming in regardless to fill the (suggested) voids in our scouting department and that this is quite simply adding manpower to support Baldini. At this point I really don't see how we can know either way.
 
indianspur said:
i think right now with all the scouting/analysis changes that have been made Baldini's role will be to mainly negotiate and conclude transfers in and out. It will be Mitchell and his men who will work closely with Poch in identifying the targets and the names will be passed on to Baldini to finalise the deals. Thats the way i see it anyway.
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I don't think any of the Mitchell/MacKenzie/Metcalf/Esparraga do bigger picture stuff though. They are all quite technical people.

Mitchell's big thing is his suped-up Football Manager algorithms. At Southampton Les Read was the one who took his data and did something with it.

Baldini also still seems to have his fingers in the pies regarding youth signings - Azzaoui, Yahaya and Lazar were his under-the-radar signings last summer
 
Gutter Boy said:
I don't think any of the Mitchell/MacKenzie/Metcalf/Esparraga do bigger picture stuff though. They are all quite technical people.

Mitchell's big thing is his suped-up Football Manager algorithms. A Southampton Les Read was the one who took his data and did something with it.

Baldini also still seems to have his fingers in the pies regarding youth signings - Azzaoui, Yahaya and Lazar were his under-the-radar signings last summer
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Yeah. Although I won't pretend to know what will happen with Baldini this summer I think the new additions hired so far more add up to Baldini staying. When we've hired a DoF/"primary" technical director in the past it's been someone with a significantly higher exposure and with more experience than Mitchell. (Arnesen, Comolli, Baldini all that experience in that role at least). And unless someone like Mitchess has been brought in to effectively replace Baldini (perhaps with others taking over parts of his role) it seems strange to make hirings like that before the new guy is in place.

I think a more likely explanation is that some of Baldini's power and responsibility has been distributed like indian suggested above.
 
Gutter Boy said:
Baldini sold Bale for a world record fee. He recruited Poch. We've had 5 academy players as the core of our side this season. And we've had no injuries all season. These are things you have to judge him on too.
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Levy sold Bale - let's not kid ourselves

Sherwood integrated most of these Academy players (as much as it pains me to admit), not Baldini

How is Balidni responsible for injures?
 
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braineclipse said:
This completely ignores my point.

I will repeat it one more time. We have a transfer committee, in such a committee there's likely going to be disagreements. We don't know what opinions Baldini has actually put forward in those discussions. It's a huge difference between "ok, Soldado, he could work. If that's who AVB wants for his system we'll go for him" and "Soldado is the right player, he's who we should go for". We simply cannot know from the outside what input and impact Baldini actually has had in each of our transfers.

Seems to me like you're looking for a spacegoat.
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Sums it up spot on.
 
braineclipse said:
No. What I've been saying has been about Baldini, and with the time span in discussion here (so far less than 2 years). To which you've provided no counter argument. And no, trying to extend my point of view to a ridiculous extreme beyond what I've actually said does not an argument make.
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I've read this post numerous times to no avail - care to elaborate?
 
After a couple of days of the Italian media trying to work out who Franco Baldini had an eye whilst at Fiorentina's game this week, things have dramatically changed. Tuttomercatoweb have claimed an exclusive and said Baldini didn't attend the Europa League game against to scout talent for Tottenham Hotspur, they reckom he instead went to the match for pleasure and with one eye on his future.

The Tottenham Hotspur sporting director is from the Florence area and Fiorentina's current manager Vincenzo Montella is something of a protégé since the pair were together at AS Roma. It wouldn't take a detective to work out that a similar role at Fiorentina would be quite attractive for Baldini.

Tuttomercatoweb say that Tottenham are unhappy with Baldini because they don't think the Gareth Bale money was invested to have the impact it should have done. The Italian website claim it as an exclusive which either means they've heard it from a fresh source or they exclusively read Spanish newspaper Marca recently.

Earlier this month we covered a report from Marca which said that Baldini was set to get the boot at Tottenham Hotspur this summer because the club weren't happy with the financial performance of transfers in recent seasons. Not enough players have held or increased their value.

http://sportwitness.ning.com/forum/...dini-travels-home-and-prepares-tottenham-exit
 
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