Next DoF

[dontcallme]

Forget the ratings for a second. Am I wrong in that we have made bad signings under him?

He was here a short time and I don't think I'm being hyperbolic in saying it's been a mixed bag.

Which club makes 100% good signings? None. It's a very weak argument.

Other posters have already listed the players we bought under him. It's one part of the job he clearly did well, so it's strange for you to fixate on that.

 

[Albertbarich]

Which club makes 100% good signings? None. It's a very weak argument.

Other posters have already listed the players we bought under him. It's one part of the job he clearly did well, so it's strange for you to fixate on that.

I know who we signed and seen the list and it's a mixed bag already said it.

 

[Led's Zeppelin]

Forget the ratings for a second. Am I wrong in that we have made bad signings under him?

He was here a short time and I don't think I'm being hyperbolic in saying it's been a mixed bag.

Yes agreed, a mixed bag.

But as long as it contains some big successes, we're doing at least as well as any other club. It's never a precise science and no one gets it right all the time, especially when the budget is not a bottomless pit.

You have to take risks.

Given the shit-show we've been enduring over the last few years, I think considerable credit is due for the successes that have enabled us to build a team that's starting to look the business now they've got a manager who lets them play.

So in summary, a good mixed bag, not a bad one.

 

[McFlash]

It's not that I don't like him but I think this illustrates my point.

He brought loads of people In. His second in command has already gone, to a championship side at that. Perkins buggered off to the scum as he wasn't happy with his role too. So yeah he restructured the back office but that was literally his job and Gab aside who looks like his doing good work none of you have any idea if the people are good (me too) but we do know that within months of him doing it , two have gone already.

I genuinely have no feelings about him either way, I just found the defences of him odd. All these disagrees and ratings for calling him a crook? He's banned! I didn't make that up or as some have decided that because he worked for us he was harshly treated. No he is banned so I fully stand by calling him because you can bet your life that if he worked for anyone else and they continued the association you lot would be calling him and that club worse.

As for signings. Take out the Juve lot which probably makes his appointment worth it alone and it is a hugely mixed bag, but going forward he doesn't have that juve cheat/tactic to use and by the way , he's banned.

And I'm sorry we don't need a fancy DOF from the continent to tell us that top Premier league players coming to the end of their deals. And as good as Biss now is , he brought him for a manager that didn't want him, as good as Porro is he brought him for a manager who leaving..

Yes good stuff has happened Sarr and Udogie stand out for me.

To summarise he has done some good, some bad but he got himself tangled up in some dodgy stuff and now he can't legally do his job so I was bemused at the defences of him henppce my posts.

But he isn't the manager I hold no emotional connection to him either good or bad, just the same as a Franco Baldini who I genuinely wouldn't know if he walked past me on the street.

To be honest, my only real gripe about Paratici is his choice of managers seems a bit shit.
I'm not too bothered about the whole ban thing because I feel a fair bit of that is him being a scapegoat for Juve and the one that took the blame.

Personally, I think he's done more good than bad, a lot more.
You've also got to think about the signings that have been made for the Academy, some real good talents have been brought in there, not to mention the apparent restructure of the way we treat the thing which enabled us to keep Mikey Moore.
We offered him a very good contract and kept him out of the grasp of some very big clubs that were circling the lad.

Yes, a couple of people have come and gone but in reality, none of us really know what they did, nor the reasons why they didn't last so again, I wouldn't really hold that against Fab.

It's an opinion thing really, as is often the case with this game we all love but as I say, for me, the improvements since he's been involved have outweighed the problems.

 

[Albertbarich]

Yes agreed, a mixed bag.

But as long as it contains some big successes, we're doing at least as well as any other club. It's never a precise science and no one gets it right all the time, especially when the budget is not a bottomless pit.

Given the shit-show we've been enduring over the last few years, I think considerable credit is due for the successes that have enabled us to build a team that's starting to look the business now they've got a manager who lets them play.

So in summary, a good mixed bag, not a bad one.

Don't disagree with that and as said before the Juve connection made his appointment worthwhile on that alone.

But you're comparing his work to a very very low bar and going forward my point wad the bloke is banned and being that his record is far from perfect he isn't worth the hassle.

And also shows that the manager is the most important role and the one I really care about. Buying Conte Bissouma for example was a waste, buying Ange Bissouma is a game changing master stroke.

 

[joey55]

I agree he’s done a good job, but it feels like the verdict is very much in on Gil. Both Conte and Ange don’t rate him and he looks like a massive waste at £25m + Erik Lamela

I think Conte rated him, as he said he was "born to play football." That's pretty damn high praise. I just don't think he thought he was physically ready to play Prem football. But, if you have a player with the technical ability of Gil and who is also physically devleoped, clubs like Spurs aren't able to buy them from Sevilla at 20 years old. A fast and powerful Gil gets bought by Madrid or City for crazy money. As it happens, he's a skinny wimp, who can't impose himself on games, so we take a punt on him, hoping he'll be able to develop the physical side of his game. If he can, we've got a potential world beater. If it doesn't, as so far looks most likely to be the case, we lose money, but given his age and the fact he's done ok in Spain, we should get some back for him.

I seriously doubt our recrutiment team were looking at Gil and thinking "we've got a sure fire gem here." We'd have been very aware that there was a decent chance he wouldn't make it to the elite level of European football, but the simple fact is, it's not easy to compete with the big spending clubs for the best young talent, so we have to try our luck with youngsters who have more question marks over their potential. Sometimes you get a Bale, but even more often you end up with a Taarabt or GDS.

That's the kind of gamble we have to take. Sometimes they pay off and sometimes they don't. But I suspect every coach we've had since his arrival rates him on a technical level.

 

[felmani26]

Forget the ratings for a second. Am I wrong in that we have made bad signings under him?

He was here a short time and I don't think I'm being hyperbolic in saying it's been a mixed bag.

Find me a DoF/Sporting Director who hasn’t made, shall we say, an ‘unsuccessful’ signing and I’ll show you a shiny unicorn (not a euphemism).

Also, it very much depends on how you quantify a ‘successful’ signing doesn’t it? If they ultimately contribute in a meaningful way to the club progressing in an upward trajectory or perhaps sold at a profit - to which admittedly we’ve struggled massively in this regard - then there’s those criteria to consider.

Listen, Paratici certainly isn’t infallible here and has his flaws but at his time at Spurs, I think the sentiment in the majority of fans is one of he’s recruited well and by extension would happily like him to continue on an advisory/consultancy basis on the strict proviso that Ange is happy with the setup.

 

[allatsea]

I know who we signed and seen the list and it's a mixed bag already said it.

Every clubs signings are a mixed bag. Even Man City who have unlimited funds available make mistakes. But for me Paratici has made a good percentage of good or very promising signings than Spurs have made in a very long time.

 

[Led's Zeppelin]

Don't disagree with that and as said before the Juve connection made his appointment worthwhile on that alone.

But you're comparing his work to a very very low bar and going forward my point wad the bloke is banned and being that his record is far from perfect he isn't worth the hassle.

And also shows that the manager is the most important role and the one I really care about. Buying Conte Bissouma for example was a waste, buying Ange Bissouma is a game changing master stroke.

I get your point about him being banned. It’s an important consideration and very probably reason enough not to persevere with him.

But I wouldn’t confuse the argument by questioning his record of bringing in players. He has a decent record there, as most seem to agree.

By the way I think the reason Levy has persevered is because when the ban was announced, apparently to Levy’s surprise, he was half way through implementing Paratici’s plan for overhauling the entire playing and recruitment system including staff, from academy upwards, and had already spent a lot of money on it. He chose to go with the plan rather than start again from scratch.

So Levy still consults him. Whether that should extend to a de facto DOF role is another matter, and I doubt that it should.

So I don’t disagree with you. I just don’t think your argument about his recruitment record holds all that much water.

 

[azza]

I think we all agreed a mixed bag, but the argument is over whether a mixed bag is good enough or we should be aiming a bit higher. It is open to debate as its a tough job.

 

[dontcallme]

I think we all agreed a mixed bag, but the argument is over whether a mixed bag is good enough or we should be aiming a bit higher. It is open to debate as its a tough job.

Literally everyone's transfer record is a mixed bag.

As per a previous post, in 2 and a half years we bought:

Romero
Sarr
Bentancur
Kulusevski
Bissouma
Udogie
Porro
Vicario
Van de Ven
Maddison

Not all Paratici but that's 10 first team players for reasonable fees. If we carry on with this model, we'll be in good hands.

 

[Misfit]

Literally everyone's transfer record is a mixed bag.

As per a previous post, in 2 and a half years we bought:

Romero
Sarr
Bentancur
Kulusevski
Bissouma
Udogie
Porro
Vicario
Van de Ven
Maddison

Not all Paratici but that's 10 first team players for reasonable fees. If we carry on with this model, we'll be in good hands.

Keep bagging us the Bentancurs, Udogies, Kulsevskis and Vicarios please Pat. Cracking undervalued players from a proven league.

 

[Tucker]

Forget the ratings for a second. Am I wrong in that we have made bad signings under him?

He was here a short time and I don't think I'm being hyperbolic in saying it's been a mixed bag.

I switched off as soon as you started ranting about Bryan Gil being a flop. You very clearly have an axe to grind and are twisting things to be far worse than they are/were.

Also, it’s funny how you pin all the bad signings on Paratici, but several of the good ones on Gabbianini. Who was it that brought Gabbianini in?

As for the mixed bag comments, I think that’s skewing things too. There have definitely been more hits than misses, while some players are yet to have had the chance to develop and show their stuff. Before the start of this season, you’d likely have been lambasting Sarr in much the same way as you have Gil.

Let’s look at his signings:

Romero - undoubtedly a hit.
Gollini - miss
Emerson - overall a hit
Sarr - Promising young player who’s now showing his worth to the team.
Gil - Promising young player who’s not had the chance to show his worth to the team yet.
Kulusevski - immediate hit, we couldn’t have finished 4th that year without him.
Bentancur - ditto
Richarlison - So far a miss, but caveated by the fact last year was a catastrophe.
Bissouma - Hit. He’s a huge part of the way we are playing right now.
Udogie - ditto.
Spence - miss Caveated by the fact it was a Levy special that neither he nor Conte really wanted.
Lenglet - miss, but a cheap punt.
Forster - hit, stood in admirably last season when Lloris was injured.
Porro - hit. A classy player who having a real positive impact on the team.

I’m only seeing three clear misses there, with the jury very much still out on Richarlison and Gil. Even if we decide to be harsh and count them as failures, that’s still a majority of hits during his time at the club. The guy clearly knows how to get deals done, and put structures in place so that out scouting team is able to find the right players.

 

[$hoguN]

It really should be Gab with Paratici returning in a senior role after his ban concludes

 

[JUSTINSIGNAL]

I think Conte rated him, as he said he was "born to play football." That's pretty damn high praise. I just don't think he thought he was physically ready to play Prem football. But, if you have a player with the technical ability of Gil and who is also physically devleoped, clubs like Spurs aren't able to buy them from Sevilla at 20 years old. A fast and powerful Gil gets bought by Madrid or City for crazy money. As it happens, he's a skinny wimp, who can't impose himself on games, so we take a punt on him, hoping he'll be able to develop the physical side of his game. If he can, we've got a potential world beater. If it doesn't, as so far looks most likely to be the case, we lose money, but given his age and the fact he's done ok in Spain, we should get some back for him.

I seriously doubt our recrutiment team were looking at Gil and thinking "we've got a sure fire gem here." We'd have been very aware that there was a decent chance he wouldn't make it to the elite level of European football, but the simple fact is, it's not easy to compete with the big spending clubs for the best young talent, so we have to try our luck with youngsters who have more question marks over their potential. Sometimes you get a Bale, but even more often you end up with a Taarabt or GDS.

That's the kind of gamble we have to take. Sometimes they pay off and sometimes they don't. But I suspect every coach we've had since his arrival rates him on a technical level.

Very sensible post

 

[McFlash]

I switched off as soon as you started ranting about Bryan Gil being a flop. You very clearly have an axe to grind and are twisting things to be far worse than they are/were.

Also, it’s funny how you pin all the bad signings on Paratici, but several of the good ones on Gabbianini. Who was it that brought Gabbianini in?

As for the mixed bag comments, I think that’s skewing things too. There have definitely been more hits than misses, while some players are yet to have had the chance to develop and show their stuff. Before the start of this season, you’d likely have been lambasting Sarr in much the same way as you have Gil.

Let’s look at his signings:

Romero - undoubtedly a hit.
Gollini - miss
Emerson - overall a hit
Sarr - Promising young player who’s now showing his worth to the team.
Gil - Promising young player who’s not had the chance to show his worth to the team yet.
Kulusevski - immediate hit, we couldn’t have finished 4th that year without him.
Bentancur - ditto
Richarlison - So far a miss, but caveated by the fact last year was a catastrophe.
Bissouma - Hit. He’s a huge part of the way we are playing right now.
Udogie - ditto.
Spence - miss Caveated by the fact it was a Levy special that neither he nor Conte really wanted.
Lenglet - miss, but a cheap punt.
Forster - hit, stood in admirably last season when Lloris was injured.
Porro - hit. A classy player who having a real positive impact on the team.

I’m only seeing three clear misses there, with the jury very much still out on Richarlison and Gil. Even if we decide to be harsh and count them as failures, that’s still a majority of hits during his time at the club. The guy clearly knows how to get deals done, and put structures in place so that out scouting team is able to find the right players.

The best thing there is that two of the misses were loans, so we weren't lumbered with them.
The third, Spence, has Levy's fingerprints all over it so I'm not going to cast shade on Fab for that one either.

Ok, the jury is still out on Bryan and Richy but I think it's fair to say that we haven't actually signed a proper flop under stewardship.

 

[Tucker]

The best thing there is that two of the misses were loans, so we weren't lumbered with them.
The third, Spence, has Levy's fingerprints all over it so I'm not going to cast shade on Fab for that one either.

Ok, the jury is still out on Bryan and Richy but I think it's fair to say that we haven't actually signed a proper flop under stewardship.

Richy could yet prove to be a flop, but equally could still turn it around. I still think there’s something to work with there, and he could well end up being a Lamela type player that comes on as a disruptor to help change games or see them out.

Like you say, it’s silly to hold the likes of Gollini or Lenglet against him as they were clearly stop gap signings, and that was reflected by the deals we did for them.

 

[-Afri-Coy-]

I switched off as soon as you started ranting about Bryan Gil being a flop. You very clearly have an axe to grind and are twisting things to be far worse than they are/were.

Also, it’s funny how you pin all the bad signings on Paratici, but several of the good ones on Gabbianini. Who was it that brought Gabbianini in?

As for the mixed bag comments, I think that’s skewing things too. There have definitely been more hits than misses, while some players are yet to have had the chance to develop and show their stuff. Before the start of this season, you’d likely have been lambasting Sarr in much the same way as you have Gil.

Let’s look at his signings:

Romero - undoubtedly a hit.
Gollini - miss
Emerson - overall a hit
Sarr - Promising young player who’s now showing his worth to the team.
Gil - Promising young player who’s not had the chance to show his worth to the team yet.
Kulusevski - immediate hit, we couldn’t have finished 4th that year without him.
Bentancur - ditto
Richarlison - So far a miss, but caveated by the fact last year was a catastrophe.
Bissouma - Hit. He’s a huge part of the way we are playing right now.
Udogie - ditto.
Spence - miss Caveated by the fact it was a Levy special that neither he nor Conte really wanted.
Lenglet - miss, but a cheap punt.
Forster - hit, stood in admirably last season when Lloris was injured.
Porro - hit. A classy player who having a real positive impact on the team.

I’m only seeing three clear misses there, with the jury very much still out on Richarlison and Gil. Even if we decide to be harsh and count them as failures, that’s still a majority of hits during his time at the club. The guy clearly knows how to get deals done, and put structures in place so that out scouting team is able to find the right players.

Just to add to this that even a 50% hit rate is very good in terms of football recruitment, the above is around 70+% hit rate already.

 

[JamieSpursCommunityUser]

Have I upset the fabio paratici fanclub here ? The votes..He's a crook!

No, I'm a Spurs fan first and foremost. Though I think we have a very different takes on FP's role, responsibilities, autonomy, and performance.

Gollini at the time was spoken about as being seen as lloris' successor and whilst financially it was no great loss he was utterly atrocious. Awful player.

We weren't going to replace our best GK of the PL era with a cheap loan no.2.

We did that so we could sign Romero with the post Covid budget he was given. Any thing else was PR to attract and encourage the player.

Gil so far has been such a waste of money that last season he played for the club we gave 20 odd million to, aswell as Eric Lamela who we also gave them. He might come good, might but so far he looks miles off and I suspect had he been fit he would have been another one on loan.

Not every 20 year old will work out but hardly a terrible signing. May come good yet, or we'll probably get our money back. Don't really get the issue.

Lamela had a year left and with his injuries had no cash bids, we weren't likely to extend, nor was he guaranteed to either just to sit on the bench.

Spence another disaster. Conte didn't want him, neither does Ange and he is now on his second loan.

Levy signing by all accounts. Talented player but bad fit. Will probably get our money back.

Richarlison was totally non effective last season and despite starting as first choice hasn't looked any better this. That's sixty million quid. Although I suspect he wasn't a Paratici pick, I'll expand on that in a sec.

Club over pay-ed to give Conte one of his picks. Otherwise decent £30-40m forward. Unfortunate with Injuries.

Lenglet another waste of space, as was Danjuma.

Another cheap loan option after ENIC blocked any more big signings (and the remainder of the £150m "injection) mid way through last summer window, having failed to attract unrealistic offers for our loan army.

Again, best sources tell us Danjuma was another Levy signing

If you take away the Juve deals of which I include Romero his major success has been Udogie who looks an absolute steal. And that again brings me back to the Richarlison. Both of them came from the Pozzo group which is also where our chief scout comes from so he has clearly played a huge role on both with his inside track.

He has a mixed record at best and that's with the ability to take advantage of the chaos at Juventus, plus he is banned from football.

To be honest my overall point is he has a team of scouts who likely pick and others were chosen by managers, I just don't think he is all that important. He's banned anyway not sure why folks want to defend him so much.

I hope the chief scout whose name I always mess up gets promoted. Sounds like he does deserve it.

The primary job of the DOF is to build and manage the sporting structure. Ours had been terrible for years. Who do we want to do that? Paratici with his scouting background? Or Levy our resident Land Economist?

So it doesn't matter which individual scout found or pushed for which individual player, someone has to hire the scouts and implement a structure for talent ID and transfer target /strategy with all this information.


The following things happened under FP's time.

1. Our scouting structure was transformed and vastly improved from First team down to Academy.

2. In addition to hugely improving our first XI we added Phillips, Logan, Egan-Carter, Keeley, Ashcroft, Sayers, James, Lankshear, Soonsup-Bell. Some will become first team players, most won't, but we're improving our chances. Several will be sold for profit.

3. He pushed the club to smash it's Academy pay structure that has kept Moore, Olusesi, Dorrington, Donley. Previously we'd been loosing our best prospects to Europe, United, Southampton, and Sunderland.

4. He negotiated complex and competitively sought deals to sign Romero, Udogie, and Sarr for peanuts.

I agree it's fair to question the football style, and whatever went on at Juve. But overall the job he's done for us has been excellent.

Loosing Kane without the above having taken place in the background would have put us in big trouble.

As it is by adding Ange to a highly promising and improving squad, skilled and reliable recruitment structures, and a conveyor of youth talent, we're in a much better position.

 

[robertgoulet]

Im honestly not even that fussed about the accusations leveled at FP from Juve. Even if they’re true they are miles away from “bad” stuff going on with other clubs, owners and players.