2019/20 Marcel Brands

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ToffeeTim said:
Does anyone genuinely have faith in him to sign the right players in the right positions and at sensible prices?

I want to believe he's up to the job but I'm struggling to get enthused by the DOF model.
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DoF model is imperative to the long-term future of modern football clubs.
 
ToffeeTim said:
It creates too many layers of accountability for my liking. Managers pick who goes on the park, so I struggle to see why they shouldn't also decide who they bring to the club.
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What's the average shelf life of a manager these days? 2-3 years?

Say we bring a manager in with no DoF, he loves playing 4-5-1 with a target man, three simple industrious mids, two proper wingers and deep CB's like Keane.

Say he leaves and we bring in a new manager that loves 3-4-3 with small nippy forwards, attacking mids and more centre-backs that can play high.

We then end up with a squad that doesn't fit the new manager and means we need to buy/sell a load of players.

It's not sustainable long-term whatsoever in my eyes with modern clubs. Worked for Moyes because he was here for so long. We're seeing now how much it doesn't work when we've gone from Koeman to Silva to Ancelotti; 3 managers that want different profiles of players and stuck with players like Gylfi & Iwobi that are surplus to the current system.

To me a DoF is vital to the long-term success of a club when it's done properly (and I don't think it necessarily has thus far here).
 
Nymzee said:
What's the average shelf life of a manager these days? 2-3 years?

Say we bring a manager in with no DoF, he loves playing 4-5-1 with a target man, three simple industrious mids, two proper wingers and deep CB's like Keane.

Say he leaves and we bring in a new manager that loves 3-4-3 with small nippy forwards, attacking mids and more centre-backs that can play high.

We then end up with a squad that doesn't fit the new manager and means we need to buy/sell a load of players.

It's not sustainable long-term whatsoever in my eyes with modern clubs. Worked for Moyes because he was here for so long. We're seeing now how much it doesn't work when we've gone from Koeman to Silva to Ancelotti; 3 managers that want different profiles of players and stuck with players like Gylfi & Iwobi that are surplus to the current system.

To me a DoF is vital to the long-term success of a club when it's done properly (and I don't think it necessarily has thus far here).
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But we had a DOF under Silva and Koeman and ended up with an utterly disjointed squad. If anything we had managers targeting and signing one sort of player, with a DOF simultaneously targeting and signing completely different types of player.

Ancelotti knows football better than most, so why does he need permission from someone else to target players?
 
ToffeeTim said:
But we had a DOF under Silva and Koeman and ended up with an utterly disjointed squad. If anything we had managers targeting and signing one sort of player, with a DOF simultaneously targeting and signing completely different types of player.

Ancelotti knows football better than most, so why does he need permission from someone else to target players?
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That's why I said at the end I don't think it's being done properly so far.

Ancelotti & Brands need to agree on a player for the longevity of the club. He's not gonna be here managing in 4 years time is he.
 

ToffeeTim said:
But we had a DOF under Silva and Koeman and ended up with an utterly disjointed squad. If anything we had managers targeting and signing one sort of player, with a DOF simultaneously targeting and signing completely different types of player.

Ancelotti knows football better than most, so why does he need permission from someone else to target players?
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We have had 2 Directors of football, and 4 managers. It needs to time for the right relationship to build, like anything. Hopefully, we now have the right combination.

Brands can learn from Ancelotti as well. Just give them time to actually do what they need to do.
 
Nymzee said:
What's the average shelf life of a manager these days? 2-3 years?

Say we bring a manager in with no DoF, he loves playing 4-5-1 with a target man, three simple industrious mids, two proper wingers and deep CB's like Keane.

Say he leaves and we bring in a new manager that loves 3-4-3 with small nippy forwards, attacking mids and more centre-backs that can play high.

We then end up with a squad that doesn't fit the new manager and means we need to buy/sell a load of players.

It's not sustainable long-term whatsoever in my eyes with modern clubs. Worked for Moyes because he was here for so long. We're seeing now how much it doesn't work when we've gone from Koeman to Silva to Ancelotti; 3 managers that want different profiles of players and stuck with players like Gylfi & Iwobi that are surplus to the current system.

To me a DoF is vital to the long-term success of a club when it's done properly (and I don't think it necessarily has thus far here).
Click to expand...

I agree completely with the principle but as for it working in reality I’m not so sure. Teams have been successful because they’ve hired good managers. Liverpool weren’t successful before Klopp, and his football style is completely different to Rodgers but they had a DOF for all that period.

I think the most a DOF can do is provide managers with talent to use. Whether that’s through reshaping the academy or through improving scouting etc. A bit like Chelsea have done, you create a squad of top players then if a manager can use them, they get fired, and one comes in who will get the best out of them. Conte couldn’t be any different to Hiddini Sarri or even Mourinho but they’ve all had success because almost every player Chelsea buys is a good player, and they’ve brought through good players also.
 
Saint Domingo said:
I agree completely with the principle but as for it working in reality I’m not so sure. Teams have been successful because they’ve hired good managers. Liverpool weren’t successful before Klopp, and his football style is completely different to Rodgers but they had a DOF for all that period.

I think the most a DOF can do is provide managers with talent to use. Whether that’s through reshaping the academy or through improving scouting etc. A bit like Chelsea have done, you create a squad of top players then if a manager can use them, they get fired, and one comes in who will get the best out of them. Conte couldn’t be any different to Hiddini Sarri or even Mourinho but they’ve all had success because almost every player Chelsea buys is a good player, and they’ve brought through good players also.
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Yeh I think that's the issue we're having. I've written this (below) a few times now in how I think a club with a DoF should run but it's not how it has thus far:

TL;DR - We’re gonna be just fine.

I’m a big fan of Brands and I’m a big fan of the DoF model but only when it is utilised correctly. I understand the frustrations with some on his transfer business or the business he didn’t do but I think we need to take a few steps back and assess the situation and the bigger picture.

For a DoF to be successful there needs to be a symbiotic relationship between him and the manager but there also needs to be a clear long term plan in place. In my opinion Brands never wanted Silva but Moshiri had the say in that and we’re still paying the price for that and for the Koeman/Walsh era. We currently have a squad assembled to meet the needs of about 3 managers who all play a different style of football which is just a horrid situation to be in.

I honestly believe if we’d have been fortunate enough to be able to bring Ancelotti in when Brands joined our squad would be in much better shape. I think it was actually a really shrewd move holding out on transfers this January (2020) because I think they’d have only been short-term solutions that would become a problem further down the line. We forget Ancelotti has only been here 6 weeks ish and his relationship with Brands is at its nascent. They will both still be learning the sort of player required going forward and I don’t think the thorough scouting will have been in place for a manager brought in a couple of weeks before a window opens.

The way I see a DoF working is that he comes into a club alongside a long-term manager who then decides the sort of playstyle and player profile he wants. The DoF then has a clear idea of what to buy/grow to help the manager be successful. If we need a left-back then we’ll have a list of left-back profiles to go for or we look to the academy. If the academy needs a left-back and there’s nothing coming though the age group below: sign a left-back for the academy. The reason them lot, regrettably, work so well is because Klopp enforced 4-3-3 and he is strict in the profile of player he wants. They buy carbon copy replacements and they grow carbon copy replacements in the academy whilst selling those that will never fit Klopp’s plan.

I believe this Summer is going to be the complete wiping of the slate with a lot of players out of contract and a lot that are on their last year. Ancelotti will have had 6 months to imprint his style and Brands will have had 6 months to look for players that fit this style. The likes of Iwobi would not have been bought last year if Ancelotti was in charge as they don’t really fit his system.

It’s a shame the Euros fall when they do but I’m confident we will have a prosperous summer and a great 2020/21 season.
 
Saint Domingo said:
I agree completely with the principle but as for it working in reality I’m not so sure. Teams have been successful because they’ve hired good managers. Liverpool weren’t successful before Klopp, and his football style is completely different to Rodgers but they had a DOF for all that period.

I think the most a DOF can do is provide managers with talent to use. Whether that’s through reshaping the academy or through improving scouting etc. A bit like Chelsea have done, you create a squad of top players then if a manager can use them, they get fired, and one comes in who will get the best out of them. Conte couldn’t be any different to Hiddini Sarri or even Mourinho but they’ve all had success because almost every player Chelsea buys is a good player, and they’ve brought through good players also.
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I listened to a podcast from a football analyst of Liverpool who was basically responsible for putting forward salah. Klopp didn’t want him at first and they went through a top ten of players in that role. Klopp was persuaded to punt on salah but it wasn’t the DOF, it was an analyst guy who had some stats up. It’s crazy how it all works now and who knows who is to blame, praise should something work out. All I know is that the club as a whole should be run as a team and I feel that Everton has been disjointed for a while now. I don’t know whether brands and Ancelotti are good together but if they are, then that’s the key....
 

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