Christopher Vivell | Appointed director of recruitment on short term deal

He was hired in Oct 22 and fired in June 23, which means he had the Jan 23 transfer window. In that window (via lookup in wiki), they purchased:
Badiashile, striker Fofana, Santos, Mudryk, Madueke, Gusto, Enzo Fernandez and Jimmy-Jay Morgan

If I remember right, negotiations for Mudryk and Fernandez were directly managed by his Boehlyness himself. The rest were actually decent buys. Now, how much of this involves Vivel, I'm not sure.

Most of the rumours at the time was that there were just too many people appointed and the powers that be preferred Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart's vision, which didn't leave much room for Vivell to really do anything.

I don't recall there being any drama, just too many cooks.
 
Most of the rumours at the time was that there were just too many people appointed and the powers that be preferred Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart's vision, which didn't leave much room for Vivell to really do anything.

I don't recall there being any drama, just too many cooks.
Was he hired by your new owners or was he an Abramovic hire?
 
Jeeze ETH will have some stable of big hitters to support him

Just need to give them 18-24 months to bed in. Then we can see how Erik does after another 4-6 windows with a proper structure around him that's also been fully bedded in.
 
Are you muthafluffers ready
For the new shit?
Stand up and admit
Tomorrow Ashworth’s coming
This is the new shit
Stand up and admit
Do we get it? no
Do we want it? yeah
This is the new shit
Stand up and admit

:confused:
 
I honestly don't understand why you need about 10 people above the manager just to be able to get a few good signings through door and be successful these days. Its madness. Surely there must be days where these people do absolutely feck all and have nothing to do. Whoever does the scouting now must have it so sweet. "i know what ill do, hop on FM and see whose got -9 potential, book a flight and go and see them, i always wanted to go to Chile actually, tick it off the bucket list.... What wonderkids does FM say they have at the minute?"
 
I honestly don't understand why you need about 10 people above the manager just to be able to get a few good signings through door and be successful these days. Its madness. Surely there must be days where these people do absolutely feck all and have nothing to do. Whoever does the scouting now must have it so sweet. "i know what ill do, hop on FM and see whose got -9 potential, book a flight and go and see them, i always wanted to go to Chile actually, tick it off the bucket list.... What wonderkids does FM say they have at the minute?"
Look at our latest 10 years and you’ll understand why we need them.
 
CEO : Berrada
DOF : Ashworth
Technical Director :Wilcox
Recruitment Director : Vivell

This is the new team, did I get that right?

You missed one and its an easy one to miss because he was a Murtough appointment but it's actually:

CEO: Berrada
DOF: Ashworth
Deputy DOF: Andy O'Boyle
Technical Director: Wilcox
Director of Recruitment: Vivell.

Based on O'Boyles previous work I would suggest he is fitness and medical related.
 
I honestly don't understand why you need about 10 people above the manager just to be able to get a few good signings through door and be successful these days. Its madness. Surely there must be days where these people do absolutely feck all and have nothing to do. Whoever does the scouting now must have it so sweet. "i know what ill do, hop on FM and see whose got -9 potential, book a flight and go and see them, i always wanted to go to Chile actually, tick it off the bucket list.... What wonderkids does FM say they have at the minute?"

Running a football club and its operations is a lot more than just transfers.
 
I honestly don't understand why you need about 10 people above the manager just to be able to get a few good signings through door and be successful these days. Its madness. Surely there must be days where these people do absolutely feck all and have nothing to do. Whoever does the scouting now must have it so sweet. "i know what ill do, hop on FM and see whose got -9 potential, book a flight and go and see them, i always wanted to go to Chile actually, tick it off the bucket list.... What wonderkids does FM say they have at the minute?"

Because football transfers had become a multi million investment with players being given salaries that would make them multi millionaires in record time. Salaries are a huge issue these days. Varane costed us 34m in a fee and another £17,680,000 per year in salary not including bonuses


  1. Do we need a player in that position?
  2. is the player we might like interested?
  3. What is his character and attitude?
  4. Is he injury prone?
  5. Would the manager want him?
  6. Is that player in line to the club's policy?
  7. what is the fee and how is going to be structured throughout the years?
  8. What about the add ons? (bonuses if the player or the club reaches certain milestones)
  9. who is/are the agent/s?
  10. what is the agent's signing on fee bonus?
  11. what is the player signing on fee bonus?
  12. who owns the image rights (Dybala for example is available on peanuts but no one would dare touching him precisely because of that)
  13. the salary, the bonuses and how are they going to be structured (will the player get a pay cut if the club doesn't qualify to the CL? how many games will he need to play to get bonuses? Is the club obliged to play him for X amount of games
  14. Any minimum fee clauses? How is that going to be structured? Who and when can it be activated?
  15. Any gentlemen agreement (lets say the clause is activated in 2 year time however a big club comes in offering the same amount of money now. Would the club accept it despite not being written in the contract?. A good example for that is Bremer)
Such deals take months to complete hence why I believe we're still relying heavily on ETH this summer window.

Not to forget that Bargains are rare and there's a very small time window available before they are either snapped by someone else or another club becomes interested thus creating a bidding war
 
Wow. We went from Arnold+Murtough to 4 world class operators. Very impressive so far. Can’t wait to see what this lot do in the transfer market.
They can do things other clubs can only dream of. Watch this space.
 
I honestly don't understand why you need about 10 people above the manager just to be able to get a few good signings through door and be successful these days. Its madness. Surely there must be days where these people do absolutely feck all and have nothing to do. Whoever does the scouting now must have it so sweet. "i know what ill do, hop on FM and see whose got -9 potential, book a flight and go and see them, i always wanted to go to Chile actually, tick it off the bucket list.... What wonderkids does FM say they have at the minute?"
You know I agree. I also question the use of superfluous goalposts and nets. Rolled up jumper(s) just as effective.
 
I honestly don't understand why you need about 10 people above the manager just to be able to get a few good signings through door and be successful these days. Its madness. Surely there must be days where these people do absolutely feck all and have nothing to do. Whoever does the scouting now must have it so sweet. "i know what ill do, hop on FM and see whose got -9 potential, book a flight and go and see them, i always wanted to go to Chile actually, tick it off the bucket list.... What wonderkids does FM say they have at the minute?"

See the last 10 years or so? it's to avoid that.
 
This feels like a panic move. Like we've got some of our top people in place and realised that we have no decent scouting network and random targets including ones that EtH wants. We've then decided to just get someone in over the summer to help us out through sheer panic.
Feck me, some of you are just head cases :lol:
 
This feels like a panic move. Like we've got some of our top people in place and realised that we have no decent scouting network and random targets including ones that EtH wants. We've then decided to just get someone in over the summer to help us out through sheer panic.
I'm convinced some of you are AI.
 
Because football transfers had become a multi million investment with players being given salaries that would make them multi millionaires in record time. Salaries are a huge issue these days. Varane costed us 34m in a fee and another £17,680,000 per year in salary not including bonuses


  1. Do we need a player in that position?
  2. is the player we might like interested?
  3. What is his character and attitude?
  4. Is he injury prone?
  5. Would the manager want him?
  6. Is that player in line to the club's policy?
  7. what is the fee and how is going to be structured throughout the years?
  8. What about the add ons? (bonuses if the player or the club reaches certain milestones)
  9. who is/are the agent/s?
  10. what is the agent's signing on fee bonus?
  11. what is the player signing on fee bonus?
  12. who owns the image rights (Dybala for example is available on peanuts but no one would dare touching him precisely because of that)
  13. the salary, the bonuses and how are they going to be structured (will the player get a pay cut if the club doesn't qualify to the CL? how many games will he need to play to get bonuses? Is the club obliged to play him for X amount of games
  14. Any minimum fee clauses? How is that going to be structured? Who and when can it be activated?
  15. Any gentlemen agreement (lets say the clause is activated in 2 year time however a big club comes in offering the same amount of money now. Would the club accept it despite not being written in the contract?. A good example for that is Bremer)
Such deals take months to complete hence why I believe we're still relying heavily on ETH this summer window.

Not to forget that Bargains are rare and there's a very small time window available before they are either snapped by someone else or another club becomes interested thus creating a bidding war

The vast majority ofthose considerations could be done in a meeting inmy ,unch hourandthe majority of the rest onlycome into play once negotiations take placeand nearly allthe rest are decisionsthemanager should be making.

I get the operations side of a club are huge now,but in terms of transfers personally find the number of people hired madness. And theargument others are putting of "just look at our transfer history the last 10years"...maybe naive, but that isnt primarily through lack ofthese people in place....sure I am not speakingfor myself here, but virtually every window post Ferguson it is obvious at the time we havent cleared outclose to the numbers we have,wehave vastly overpaid on nearly every transfer,generally givenfar too much in wages compaedto what the plahers were reportedly on.....but far simpler than athat, we have made BAD transfers.

Forgetting feesand wages I genuinely could ount in my fingers and not use them up, players I thought at the time were good signings, yet not enough bones inmy body to count the players surprised we werent interested in.

And hay we have these people in place yet two of the three hottest rumours are Dutch and one is yet another playerd for Ten Hag. Is that signifiant change?
 
Most of the rumours at the time was that there were just too many people appointed and the powers that be preferred Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart's vision, which didn't leave much room for Vivell to really do anything.

I don't recall there being any drama, just too many cooks.

Yes I remember this vaguely where everyone at Chelsea was trying to do the same job before you got a structure in place. If he's in this decent a position at the age of 37, he can't be all that bad.
 
Why do I have a feeling that he will try to push and bring us players from the Leipzig setup ?
 
Why do I have a feeling that he will try to push and bring us players from the Leipzig setup ?
Maybe because they have some very good players/talents in the right age profile? It's not as if players like Sesko haven't been discussed a lot already on here.
 
Is it not a little bit concerning we are bringing someone in for this transfer window? I'd of hoped our targets were lined up and initial contact already being made by now.
I think there are two possible explanations:
The good one: there is a lot of planned transfer activity this summer and the club needs help to do all the negotiations (that would also explain the short term deal with Vivell)
The bad one as you say: Nothing properly lined up, quick fixes needed to get it all on track
 
I think there are two possible explanations:
The good one: there is a lot of planned transfer activity this summer and the club needs help to do all the negotiations (that would also explain the short term deal with Vivell)
The bad one as you say: Nothing properly lined up, quick fixes needed to get it all on track

The bad one is what I had in mind, but hopefully you are right with the first point....
 
Is it not a little bit concerning we are bringing someone in for this transfer window? I'd of hoped our targets were lined up and initial contact already being made by now.

no, it means we’re actually being proactive and acting on what we need in the here and now.

we’ve gone from ETH having murtough to having a team of people who are actually footballing people.

In 4 months they’ve made some serious moves.
 
Vivell will be coming in with how own data / own preferences. I wonder how that dovetails with our thoughts.

He might think De Ligt, Ugarte and Zirkzee are rubbish.
 
Why do I have a feeling that he will try to push and bring us players from the Leipzig setup ?
Players like Lukeba, Simakan, Haidara, Dani Olmo or Openda who would all improve us? Nice! (although asking fees would be an issue).
 
I think there are two possible explanations:
The good one: there is a lot of planned transfer activity this summer and the club needs help to do all the negotiations (that would also explain the short term deal with Vivell)
The bad one as you say: Nothing properly lined up, quick fixes needed to get it all on track

I think there is a third explanation as well.

I think Ratcliffe being a businessman has maybe seen that we buy expensive and sell cheap, players that is.

Yet other clubs, including City and Chelsea etc, buy young players cheap. These players don't even get a game for the the first team but then are sold for a lot more. Generating cash flow.

It's something I've always felt we need to do too.
 
I think there is a third explanation as well.

I think Ratcliffe being a businessman has maybe seen that we buy expensive and sell cheap, players that is.

Yet other clubs, including City and Chelsea etc, buy young players cheap. These players don't even get a game for the the first team but then are sold for a lot more. Generating cash flow.

It's something I've always felt we need to do too.
That's of course true, but totally unrelated to signing Vivell?