2020/21 Marcel Brands

[catcherintherye]

Scouts

And what was wrong with the old scouts?
Edit- I didn't mean it in an arsey way, just generally interested.

 

[larbert toffee]

And what was wrong witb the old scouts?

 

[PhilM]

I think people are making a lot of excuses for him, whether they are right or not is yet to be seen.

I’m not convinced, but a decent summer window with deals coming in early and the positions we are desperate to fill being filled; will help change my mind.

I think there's a fine line sometimes been excuses and reasonable points. He inherited an ageing, underwhelming but oversized squad with a hefty wage bill.

To reduce the size of the squad and the wage bill, while simultaneously improving the squad, is not an envious task; mix in the COVID crisis and FFP.

For me, we need to be asking 'has he achieved said goals?' before moving onto 'could he have done it more effectively?'

As you say,

 

[Bluestar]

I think there's a fine line sometimes been excuses and reasonable points. He inherited an ageing, underwhelming but oversized squad with a hefty wage bill.

To reduce the size of the squad and the wage bill, while simultaneously improving the squad, is not an envious task; mix in the COVID crisis and FFP.

For me, we need to be asking 'has he achieved said goals?' before moving onto 'could he have done it more effectively?'

As you say,

I think really, they are not excuses, they are severe constraints. You also need to be add in the transfer ban that the club received.

I think the hardest part of it all is moving on players on huge contracts without the losses impacting FFP too much, whilst attracting a higher calibre of player.

I feel we have turned a corner. Whilst there are still some bad days, the squad is better than it was and it feels to me like we are on a better trajectory.

I think more attention will be given to the youth teams and developing talent.

 

[Zatara]

Must say i'm a little bit confused as to how you can have an 'Academy Director' and then a 'Director of Football' who wants control over the academy. I've never worked in a company where a group director reports to anyone other than the head of the company. It seems a very odd setup.

Director is just a title...in some places vice president is higher than director and vice versa.

Id say though Brands is basically running the playing side of the club and everyone reports to him.

The commerical and other stuff would be handled separately with everyone reporting to the CEO in theory but i wouldnt be surprised if Sasha, DBB and Brands all have relatively equal standing under moshiri.

 

[Lanolin]

Director is just a title...in some places vice president is higher than director and vice versa.

Id say though Brands is basically running the playing side of the club and everyone reports to him.

The commerical and other stuff would be handled separately with everyone reporting to the CEO in theory but i wouldnt be surprised if Sasha, DBB and Brands all have relatively equal standing under moshiri.

Yes but usually the titles mean something within the company. If brands’ title was vice president that would be relevant, but it’s not, it’s director. As I said, I’ve never come across a company where a director reports to another director. The only way it makes sense is if they’ve given unsworth’s role a title it doesn’t deserve, which would be a bit embarrassing to be honest.

 

[catcherintherye]

Yes but usually the titles mean something within the company. If brands’ title was vice president that would be relevant, but it’s not, it’s director. As I said, I’ve never come across a company where a director reports to another director. The only way it makes sense is if they’ve given unsworth’s role a title it doesn’t deserve, which would be a bit embarrassing to be honest.

The stuff around Unsworth and the academy really confuses me (hence why you can see the questions being asked). As you say "head of academy" would have been far more logical.

There are lots of rumours that there is a bit of a powerplay around the academy, which to be honest I tend to give thebenefit of the doubt to the club on. But it all seems rather odd.

Unsworth being director of coaching, and also Under 23's manager. It smacks of an organisation where people are pulling in different directions.

The other thing with that title, is he's recently been given it. So I would be interested to know what motivated that.

 

[Lanolin]

The stuff around Unsworth and the academy really confuses me (hence why you can see the questions being asked). As you say "head of academy" would have been far more logical.

There are lots of rumours that there is a bit of a powerplay around the academy, which to be honest I tend to give thebenefit of the doubt to the club on. But it all seems rather odd.

Unsworth being director of coaching, and also Under 23's manager. It smacks of an organisation where people are pulling in different directions.

The other thing with that title, is he's recently been given it. So I would be interested to know what motivated that.

Yeah that’s exactly how I was looking at it.

 

[catcherintherye]

Yeah that’s exactly how I was looking at it.

Is your conclusion (which is my take) it's symptomatic of an organisation with different points or power empire building? Is there any other reason why we've gone down this root?

I mean I can almost get away from "it's just a title" if Unsworth had been here like 15 and always had that title and it was one of them. But they've given him that title on Brands watch.

 

[Rob17896]

We literally had the equivalent of a second division player tied to a 5 year contract on the best part of £80k a week

An 29 year old, technically poor right winger tied to a long contract, £120k a week, contract

An extremely poor, ageing french midfielder, already booted to the reserves at Man Utd, tied to a long £120k a week contract

It was gross negligence from Steve Walsh with the inflated squad and wage Bill he left us with

Do you mean wage bill or are you blaming Bill?

 

[chippy1722]

Does his new deal mean he has to work full time or is he back on Furlough.

 

[Lanolin]

Is your conclusion (which is my take) it's symptomatic of an organisation with different points or power empire building? Is there any other reason why we've gone down this root?

I mean I can almost get away from "it's just a title" if Unsworth had been here like 15 and always had that title and it was one of them. But they've given him that title on Brands watch.

Yeah I think I said on here at the time that unsworth’s new title appeared - by accident or design - to take power away from brands. I’d previously thought the whole contract thing was a formality and that was the first time I thought oh maybe he really is going. If this move just gives the power back to brands, 6 months later or whatever it is, then it does seem a bit like a power struggle. As you say, if it was like a legacy title then that would be different, but the way it’s happened just seems weird. Basically the way I see it, either there’s a bit of contention about who has responsibility for what, or we’ve given unsworth a paper title which doesn’t actually reflect his position at the club. Neither of those things are great really.

 

[davek]

FOUR MORE YEARS!
FOUR MORE YEARS!

 

[Quadvod]

Our next few signings simply have to possess pace - we can’t be buying anymore one paced players for this league - they just get exposed when the game opens up and we’ve already got too many in the squad

 

[catcherintherye]

Yeah I think I said on here at the time that unsworth’s new title appeared - by accident or design - to take power away from brands. I’d previously thought the whole contract thing was a formality and that was the first time I thought oh maybe he really is going. If this move just gives the power back to brands, 6 months later or whatever it is, then it does seem a bit like a power struggle. As you say, if it was like a legacy title then that would be different, but the way it’s happened just seems weird. Basically the way I see it, either there’s a bit of contention about who has responsibility for what, or we’ve given unsworth a paper title which doesn’t actually reflect his position at the club. Neither of those things are great really.

And both things, at least on the surface seem to reflect an inability to take big decisions for fear of upsetting people.

I mean if it's a paper title it's almost worse to me. If hes that insecure that bothers him, we shouldn't really want people like that working for us (obviously worth noting the "if" is important here).

I'm similar with you really. You here drip drip things, and I tend to ignore them, but then you start adding them up and you then wonder. Brands not signing a contract till late on, Unsworth having his own budget, players being kept on for years too long, Kenwright/DBB apparently liking Unsworth and growing wary of Brands, Unsworth getting a new and contradictory title, Moshiri essentially absent from the day to day running of the club etc.

I mean none of it is good. Neither, frankly is having a director of academy coaching being the same fella who manages the 23s. I would have thought they were 2 different jobs.

My own gut feeling is, after 2.5 years Brands has said he wants to run the academy, which is well within his remit. People have felt Unsworth would get in a huff, and rather than deal with the issue and advise Unsworth his job is to develop lads from 17-21 for the first team, weve tried to placate him.

I'm not even a massive Unsworth critic. On the whole I find a lot of the criticism of him is simplistic and comes from a utopian view of how football should work (mainly based around loaning all young players and discarding anyone senior). I think I hes a good coach and improves players. But I do find the whole episode a bit odd. It's not his role to kick off if the DOF wants to make changes within the academy.

I mean hes done ok in the role, but by no means enough to throw his weight around.