08 Sep 2026 17:46:00
Ed1, hope all is well your side. Question regarding the vacant sporting director role. It seems inevitable that the 1892 Consortium will take over shortly.
1) Do you think Amit Bhatia will have a major say in who is appointed? Surely FSG shouldn't be making such an important long term appointment if they're going to be parting ways with the club within the next 12 months.
2) Would you favour appointing a sporting director from outside the club, or would you prefer us to promote from within? Personally, I'd like someone who isn't currently tied to the club, and especially not Julian Ward.
If we do go down the internal route, I think Pedro Marques should not be overlooked. Externally, there are a number of standout candidates, with Tiago Pinto and Markus Krösche being two that stand out to me. The dream would be Luís Campos, but I think that is just that, a dream.
{Ed001's Note - the consortium will want a say, they didn't buy in to let others make the decisions for them.
I just want the best candidate for the role, whoever that is. Clearly that is not Ward.}
08 Sep 2026 18:21:58
Ed1, completely agree. Just get the best candidate for the role.
For me though, there are a few areas the new sporting director really needs to address.
Firstly, we need to become much more decisive in the transfer market. We seem to take an eternity to close deals for our primary targets and that needs to change.
Secondly, we've become extremely poor sellers in recent years. We need someone who can maximise the value of outgoing players and manage the squad properly so that we aren't continually leaving ourselves incomplete or imbalanced.
Another big one for me is getting back to identifying and signing talent at source. Too often, we seem to scout talented young players, watch the likes of Brighton and Bournemouth take the chance on them, and then come back two or three years later looking to pay three or four times the price. If our scouting department identifies the talent and we believe strongly enough in the player, we need to be prepared to act earlier.
Lastly, we need to stop being such a soft touch when it comes to contracts. Allowing valuable players to continually get into the final stages of their contracts, leaving the club with very little leverage, cannot keep happening.
None of this sounds particularly revolutionary, but I'd like a sporting director who is decisive, plans ahead and builds a balanced squad rather than constantly leaving obvious problems to be addressed further down the line.
08 Sep 2026 19:02:21
Alonso, the problem with saying buying players at source Brighton, Bournemouth and Brentford, who seem the best 3 clubs at doing it, is a totally different expectation on them players going to them clubs.
They have a time to develop something players don’t have at bigger clubs.
We do sign younger players as well. I would say Jacquet, Laoni, Munoz are all them players. Even Will Wright, Rio Nyoni, as well as the two young CBs we signed and keeper all come into that.
09 Sep 2026 06:42:19
Agree on most points. For a club like ours though, we can't afford to be giving too many minutes to unproven kids. Regardless of price, we have to focus primarily on players that present the least amount of risk in terms of them developing quickly and having a positive impact on the team.
Players like Barcola, Wirtz, Anderson, Rice, etc may be labelled by some as too expensive, but they were all not yet in their prime and already performing. On the flipside, you have players like Munoz or Sangare who are priced way cheaper than their current output, I'd argue Bouaddi as well due to experience vs age.
Signings like Brughmans worry me because we are purely paying for potential. Letting players leave for free is a massive problem. The way wages are distributed needs addressing, some players are overpaid compared to the rest of the team and this doesn't represent their value to the team/output. We did used to be quite good sellers though, idk what has happened lately in that regard.