Our Scouting & Player identification for 1st team

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razman

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I am specifically talking about the 1st team. The hard work done at the academy level is not what I am concerned about here. That will hopefully bear fruit later.

Have been watching the spurs team this season and their stand out player has been their CB - Toby Alderweireld. His playing style is very similar to Kompany's with a very good passing range , and providing today's assist for Alli.

My question is when you have players like these available for as less as £12m and I believe he will fit right in our team , why are we looking at ( or atleast it seems like) players who are prices high in the market like otamendi & mangala - who are more defined by how much they cost us and not how much value for money they are?

It feels like we are not looking at bargain deals at all for good players like toby who is way better than otamendi and mangala this season ? ( we all hope those 2 come good )

I do agree that if we had gone for Toby , definitely being Man City we would have never got him for 12m but maybe 20m . Still a big saving on we paid for otamendi / mangala.

It's a general case I am talking about . Just giving toby as an example.

Is our player identification / Scouting system all wrong ? It definitely needs improvement IMO
 
Here's the rag one

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Go to Portugal........... get our arses slapped........return home and wait for player to get his own thread on BM and get slaughtered!
 
if Spurs had Mansour as their bankroller I highly doubt Toby Alderweireld would be sold for £12m

We have to pay a premium when we want players because of who we are.

if Spurs would of bought Mangala he wouldn't of been as much in cost, and I can guarantee a lot of this country's football fans would be fornicating over how good he is.
Our expectation levels are so much higher now than clubs such as Spurs.... if we would've beat Spurs 4-1 it would of been "a normal performance for city" written in the press...
spurs beat us 4-1 and the media go into a masturbation frenzy.

Patience is a virtue... I have time for Mangala and Otamendi. I watched Richard Dunne for many years, I can spare a few more seasons of watching a young Mangala develop in this new league.
 
Why Always Ste said:
Patience is a virtue... I have time for Mangala and Otamendi. I watched Richard Dunne for many years, I can spare a few more seasons of watching a young Mangala develop in this new league.
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Dunney was miles better than Mangala, in my opinion.

I agree with the OP though, it does seem our scouting could be better, though we also seem to regress some players - I thought Bony was going to be a great signing and big improvement on Dzeko, but it's not really happening for him.

Sometimes it just seems like all our scouts need to do is watch Sky Sports and look at the Opta stats. And stay the hell out of Portugal.
 
Why Always Ste said:
if Spurs had Mansour as their bankroller I highly doubt Toby Alderweireld would be sold for £12m

We have to pay a premium when we want players because of who we are.

if Spurs would of bought Mangala he wouldn't of been as much in cost, and I can guarantee a lot of this country's football fans would be fornicating over how good he is.
Our expectation levels are so much higher now than clubs such as Spurs.... if we would've beat Spurs 4-1 it would of been "a normal performance for city" written in the press...
spurs beat us 4-1 and the media go into a masturbation frenzy.

Patience is a virtue... I have time for Mangala and Otamendi. I watched Richard Dunne for many years, I can spare a few more seasons of watching a young Mangala develop in this new league.
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Jesus, not sure I have that much time to spare! The fella has been here 18 months and has gone backwards. If we wait 3 years the charity shop won't have him.
 
Patience may be a virtue, but we cant spend a few seasons waiting for players to develop. The level we are at, and the expectations that go with it means that players must come in and perform better than our 2 centre backs currently are.

would you be prepared to miss out on the CL and the prestige that goes along with it waiting for certain players to come good? Stand still in this league and you go backwards
 
Our scouting has been dog sh,t for years, no where nearly as good as when Mancini and Cook were in charge. Since Cook lost his job for not knowing how to reply to an email, I am assuming that it was Mancini who identified the targets we have gone backwards.
Our best team is still full of Hughes Mancini players, only Ferd looks better than what we had then.
KDB may prove to be a good signing long term but we have wasted three and a half years thats 7 transfer windows plus a hell of a lot of money without improving in fact I think we are weaker now than in 2013, we now have a better squad but a weaker first team.
 
The OP would have a valid point if every player Spurs signed was brilliant.

For every Alderwiereld there's a Lamela or Sandro. In fact Spurs have probably signed more shit than most in the last few years. Look at what they did with the Bale money.
 
A very good thread and something I've said for years. We should be identifying players BEFORE they reach a £30-40 million figure. Sorry but I fail to see value for money in Otto or Manga at the moment and I'm absolutely convinced we could have found at least equal for a lot less of an outlay. Just think we are a bit lazy in this respect regardless of the fact we have money. We were linked with Stones for 2.5 mill in Roberto's time and Everton have just bought a lad from Bury.........what's the betting we'll be bidding £25 million for him in 12 months time.....
 
It's almost as if we can't afford to gamble on cheap players who most of the time won't make the grade, because we are constantly fighting for titles instead of hanging around pointlessly in midtable. Developed players cost money, but developing players yourself costs points. One of those things we can afford, the other we can't.
 
BigOscar said:
It's almost as if we can't afford to gamble on cheap players who most of the time won't make the grade, because we are constantly fighting for titles instead of hanging around pointlessly in midtable. Developed players cost money, but developing players yourself costs points. One of those things we can afford, the other we can't.
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So we gamble £40 and £28 mill instead? Developing players can go on loan. We do need to spot players like Stones earlier but equally we have to stop gambling on expensive players and buy better.
 
There is probably no right answer as any new player (cheap or expensive) can be either a worldy or a flop. I guess our stance is that there are more worldy's the higher up the cost model. For every prince you sign, there will be many frogs.
 
masterwig said:
The OP would have a valid point if every player Spurs signed was brilliant.

For every Alderwiereld there's a Lamela or Sandro. In fact Spurs have probably signed more shit than most in the last few years. Look at what they did with the Bale money.
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i only used toby as an example and am not all concerned who spurs have bought . Another player we are linked with sane from the german club...50m odd for a 19 yr old ! ...yes maybe he is on Pep's list and maybe worth it but we need to improve our scouting in the sense that we identify players before they are worth ridiculous fee !
 
With Alderweireld playing for So'ton last season you would think we'd have been able to evaluate him to a good level. Last season their defence was solid, this year not so much and obviously miss him. I know they lost Clyne and Schneiderlin too but individually he looked good and I heard good things from So'ton fans and neutrals. I believe So'ton had a clause in place with Atletico but I guess he preferred Spurs and the price was increased.

I just question our transfer policy at times when we continue to put defenders and defensive midfielders down the pecking order. We have four full backs who are at least 30, lack speed and aren't very balanced, either excel defensively or going forward. We bring in cut price midfielders like Fernando and Javi Garcia, yet to replace the quality that Barry and at times De Jong offered us. I do think Delph is a good addition, if only he can stay fit.
 
We do seem to have spent an awful lot on players that haven't improved the first team. There's a litany of second rate but expensive signings going back many years, but in recent times when it seems we could have gone for better, we've settled for average at best.

Rodwell, Javi Garcia, Fernando, Willy, Bony, Maicon, Sinclair, Mangala ... I'm sure there's others probably best forgotten.

We've never adequately replaced Barry, De Jong or Tevez.

I wish, given the resources and stated ambition, we'd bite the bullet, grow a pair and stop fucking about like we're embarrassed to upset UEFA or the giant European clubs, and go balls out for Neymar, Müller, Lewandowski, Bale and Stones. Maybe we wouldn't get all of them, but even one or two of those would probably win us the title.
 
Jack Wills said:
We do seem to have spent an awful lot on players that haven't improved the first team. There's a litany of second rate but expensive signings going back many years, but in recent times when it seems we could have gone for better, we've settled for average at best.

Rodwell, Javi Garcia, Fernando, Willy, Bony, Maicon, Sinclair, Mangala ... I'm sure there's others probably best forgotten.

We've never adequately replaced Barry, De Jong or Tevez.

I wish, given the resources and stated ambition, we'd bite the bullet, grow a pair and stop fucking about like we're embarrassed to upset UEFA or the giant European clubs, and go balls out for Neymar, Müller, Lewandowski, Bale and Stones. Maybe we wouldn't get all of them, but even one or two of those would probably win us the title.
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If you were loaded you wouldn't go shopping at Aldi for bargains would you? You'd go to Waitrose or somewhere.

One thing I'm surprised about however, is our scouts didn't manage to realise Otamendi was half decent when they were over in Porto watching Mangala.
 
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