Tottenham Talk - Scouting


Tottenham Talk - Scouting



Hello folks and welcome to the home of sensible views at THBN.

There are constant complaints about the Tottenham scouting system from fans who seem to think we should discover and sign every player.

Obviously, that isn't possible, some may not wish to come or feel they will get greater opportunity elsewhere. That rationale seems to go out the window when you listen to some opinions.

I'm assuming you have all heard of Monchi, he was linked with us and there were suggestions that Daniel Levy tried to bring him to Spurs before he left Sevilla for Roma.

His basic approach is to start with a small number of countries, build the scouting infrastructure and gradually work out to increase your scope.

It reminds me of the Amazon approach. Amazon devised a system to sell books. Instead of high profit, they went for high volume, lots of different books being sold by lots of people. Once they had that system in place and it proved to be successful, they simply applied it to other areas and products to become the largest company in America.

Scouting seems to chop and change but really, Spurs need to devise a quality-based system and then expand it county by country or region by region. Do we cast the net so wide that we reduce the quality of our scouting?

The system should remain in place, not change with staff and using a Director of Football's scouting system, as per Damien Comolli when he was with us, means you are at their mercy. 

If they decide to leave you have to start again, but with a quality system they have to adhere and tap into, you don't. You just change the personnel operating within your quality system. The system is the most important aspect, not the men within it.

I would question whether we have that quality system in place. The other aspect is of course the actual recruitment, an area I think we need work on.

Regular readers will have heard me talk of the Kaisen system many times, small changes in every area of the club and its players constantly results in huge advances in relatively short spaces of time. Spurs are certainly not maximising that, but we have taken giant strides forward none the less.

If you buy a player at their peak, then the only way for that player is down, when really you want players on the way up to their peak. You then need to move them on before they get too far into the downslope.

That period is relatively small. If a player is at their peak at 27-28, how long do they stay at that plateau? Until they are 30? 31? There are exceptions, Ronaldo has stayed at a high level but someone like Jan Vertonghen has been poor this season, a drop from his usual standards.

That does beg the question at what age you should buy a player and explain why we look to youth.

Let's listen to Monchi for a minute.

“When you work with younger teams, there’s always this dichotomy, this division between result and development. I’ve always been firm on this. I’ve always been very consistent in showing people that the most important thing was player development. The results come later, because the more the player improves, the better the results will be.”

Now I should point out he is referring to academy players there but in this financial world, that, to varying degrees at different clubs, applies to senior football too.

And there we have the problem with the what it now fan. Money restricts what you can spend so the more your club generates the better position they will be in.

Personally, I don't think it is very difficult to make Tottenham the richest club in the world.I believe that doubling our income for starters is quite straightforward but we don't have people with the same visions as I have at the club.

I do applaud what Daniel Levy is doing and his vision to make us comparable with Real Madrid and Barcelona both on and off the pitch, but even though we have increased income to help, we are still restricted financially and could go a lot further even faster.

That pressure would be alleviated somewhat with a high-quality scouting network and my pets, the Sports Psychologists working on player mentality as a regular part of training. Players that wanted to improve would soon embrace it, those who don't you'd sell.

That becomes part of the attraction of signing for Spurs, a club innovating and being at the cutting edge of science-based training and people-centric training methods.

Back to our scouting.

Monchi built Sevilla's scouting to the point where they were major in 30-35 top leagues. By that I mean they could gather sufficient data and have players watched often enough to be valuable.

“I always thought that the more times we were able to watch a player, the easier it would’ve been to make decisions. Knowledge is the basis for all scouting work.”

Overstretch yourself and quality diminishes so a scouting department has to grow as more leagues are covered. What is the cost of scouts compared to players?

What is the cost of sports psychologists compared to players? They should be used as part of scouting too, it shouldn't be left to amateurs to mentally assess a player before making a buying decision.

A club philosophy should be to reduce the risk of any purchase as much as possible. Every factor should be taken into account.

If you apply the Kaisen approach to our scouting, I'm sure we would improve our end result no end.

When you bring in a Sporting Director or Director of Football, the title you give them is irrelevant, they must be able to understand exactly what the manager is looking for in a player. It is no good simply appointing someone who has done a good job at another club, unless they understand your manager they will not succeed.

How can you reduce the risk? By appointing someone who has worked with your manager before perhaps. That would explain why we have been heavily linked with Lille sports director Luis Campos.

Understanding what type of player the manager wants and getting them are two different matters, mistakes are made. 

Generally, a manager will give his requirements to the scouting team via the Director of Football and then let them get on with it.

They come back to him with a list of players and discuss the best options. Then finances have to get involved, those players are valued, their potential valued and the list arranged in best financial order.

From thee it is a question of combining those two "best" lists to come up with an overall list to begin working your way through when a player in that position is required.

You hear fand saying we should prioritise this position first when perhaps a free agent becomes available.I encountered this only yesterday over Mario Götze.

Clubs work for the long-term, they constantly scout all eleven positions so are always ready with a list should they need to buy. Now whether you can convince someone to sign or you believe waiting for another window will make a more suitable player available is another thing altogether.

Players are assessed all season long and decisions made in April and May to create the final list in order of preference for each position, whether required or not as you never know what may happen during a window..

Monchi has instigated a Research and Development Department at Sevilla which employs mathematicians, physicists, specialized engineers and analysts. The sports science route is not one we are going to suddenly pull away from so you either fully embrace it or fight against it and get left behind.

That means looking to the future, looking at every aspect of club running both on and off the field and every aspect of player development, including the mind.

A scout needs to be trained within your system, not left to go and do his thing, his way. The maverick approach is fraught with pitfalls.

Scouting today and in the future is and will be scientific first, visual second to confirm or deny the scientific date.

If you can apply a set of data requirements to each position on the field then data analysts can pour through data to find players who match as closely as possible that criteria. Equally, if you could do the same for potential and reduce that to a data set, scouting becomes simpler.

Mentality is going to come into that equation, again you will look for players with the right mentality data set so why not start now? If you can improve what the brain tells the feet to do to improve a skill, why don't you improve the organ making the decisions?

Computers improve, computer memory and what it can perform improves, so why can't you make the same advancements with a players brain to produce better results?

Talking nonsense, football is a game, well sorry, this is exactly what Monchi is trying to achieve at LaLiga side Sevilla.

Football is a business, a game, and a sport last to clubs, to fans, it's the opposite.

Clubs live in the future, fans live in the past. That isn't a criticism by the way.

Thanks for reading once again and thanks to new readers for your visit.

If you would share the article about your Tottenham circle on your social media accounts it would be appreciated.

Stay safe everyone.

COYS
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