Edwin van der Sar has been approached to become Director of Football

Adnan said:


He's tried playing DoF and it's been bad for the club.
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Which is not surprising. Being the CEO(leading the administrative side of an entity) and being the head of an other department require different knowledges and mentalities.
 
JPRouve said:
Which is not surprising. Being the CEO(leading the administrative side of an entity) and being the head of an other department require different knowledges and mentalities.
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Agreed.

The moment he had to make decisions on the football side of the club without a DoF in charge, he's shown a real inexperience on how to lead on the football side of the club due to his lack of experience. And like you say it's not a surprise either if his role at Ajax on the administrative side is understood.
 
flameinthesun said:
Probably need longer than 6 months to judge a "reconstruction" of a club.
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He has been leading the club for more than 6 months. You kind of hope that he didn't start the "reconstruction", 6 months ago.
 
I remember there was a tool on this forum trying to belittle for when I said Edwin would be a bad choice as a DoF as he's a CEO.


Wonder if they'll show themselves up now?!
 
Adnan said:
Agreed.

The moment he had to make decisions on the football side of the club without a DoF in charge, he's shown a real inexperience on how to lead on the football side of the club due to his lack of experience. And like you say it's not a surprise either if his role at Ajax on the administrative side is understood.
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I don't know if it's just a lack of experience. When you look at sports in general, the difference between a good, average or bad technical decision maker isn't experience. The good ones appreciate things differently, they are wired in a way that allow them to do things in a way that works in a particular context.

As an example someone can be very good at dealing with certain things like having to find new cheap and average players every 18 months, while someone else may be good at finding players that need developing but have a higher ceiling. Someone may be good at dealing with super agents while someone else may be good at dealing with independent scouting networks. Finding high level coaches and building a high level coaching staff isn't necessarily something that everyone can do.

And you see that in literally all sports, successful teams generally don't do things the same way which explains why you rarely see a DOF or one of his subordinate move to an other club/league and find success.
 
JPRouve said:
I don't know if it's just a lack of experience. When you look at sports in general, the difference between a good, average or bad technical decision maker isn't experience. The good ones appreciate things differently, they are wired in a way that allow them to do things in a way that works in a particular context.

As an example someone can be very good at dealing with certain things like having to find new cheap and average players every 18 months, while someone else may be good at finding players that need developing but have a higher ceiling. Someone may be good at dealing with super agents while someone else may be good at dealing with independent scouting networks. Finding high level coaches and building a high level coaching staff isn't necessarily something that everyone can do.

And you see that in literally all sports, successful teams generally don't do things the same way which explains why you rarely see a DOF or one of his subordinate move to an other club/league and find success.
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What I meant was that Van der Sar never had the experience of leading the multiple departments on the football side of the club in a DoF capacity to begin with and wanted to have a go at being a CEO/DoF according to the below tweets.




 
Adnan said:
What I meant was that Van der Sar never had the experience of leading the multiple departments on the football side of the club in a DoF capacity to begin with and wanted to have a go at being a CEO/DoF according to the below tweets.




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I know what you meant. My point was that even with experience, there is nothing suggesting that he will be good at it.
 
JPRouve said:
I know what you meant. My point was that even with experience, there is nothing suggesting that he will be good at it.
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That's true, but without having a understanding of the structural and staffing requirements on the football side of the club, it makes it difficult for anyone who has no prior experience in such a role to begin with.

Like Dan Ashworth says in the podcast linked below. The structure on the football side of club is like a big wheel with 7 departments, and his job is to align and connect to those departments, where everyone is working together. I'm not sure that is the case at Ajax anymore with Overmars leaving.


https://trainingground.guru/articles/dan-ashworth-inside-the-mind-of-a-technical-director
 
I have no idea if how he’s done in Ajax, but all that tweet says is that he signed that coach without consulting the DF he was going to hire, and carried the responsibilities with Hunterlaar and some other guy. It’s hardly indication that he’s done an awful job
 
Adnan said:
Agreed.

The moment he had to make decisions on the football side of the club without a DoF in charge, he's shown a real inexperience on how to lead on the football side of the club due to his lack of experience. And like you say it's not a surprise either if his role at Ajax on the administrative side is understood.
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Indeed. And prior to being CEO he was Marketing Director, which is even further from the football side.
 
Sky1981 said:
To be fair Ed might work well with SAF. Actually most DOF would work well with SAF
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Really? That’s a hell of an assumption.

He’d been around for ever, was massively liked and respected even by bitter rivals, and could call on a vast global support network to help him with signings. Imagine Ed pestering him to sign a player just because his agent had been on the phone telling Ed what a great idea it would be. That would have irked SAF no end.
 
Revaulx said:
Really? That’s a hell of an assumption.

He’d been around for ever, was massively liked and respected even by bitter rivals, and could call on a vast global support network to help him with signings. Imagine Ed pestering him to sign a player just because his agent had been on the phone telling Ed what a great idea it would be. That would have irked SAF no end.
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Would love to have been a fly on SAF office wall.
 
Sky1981 said:
There's no good dof or ceo. Just good manager and luck of the cycle
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I think there's more to it than a single director or a CEO, its more a single minded commitment to a process and doing things in a consistent manner as a club-wide operation. A club like Brighton are a living example of this. They lost their technical director, manager and recruitment staff within the span of a year and continue to motor on, unearthing good players and consistently beating the likes of Liverpool this season.
 
Wednesday at Stoke said:
I think there's more to it than a single director or a CEO, its more a single minded commitment to a process and doing things in a consistent manner as a club-wide operation. A club like Brighton are a living example of this. They lost their technical director, manager and recruitment staff within the span of a year and continue to motor on, unearthing good players and consistently beating the likes of Liverpool this season.
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I agree with you about a consistent approach, and I understand what you're trying to say about Brighton, but I think it's too early to say if their new TD and rec. staff will find gems like their previous ones were.
 
Pretty much highlights what I’ve always been saying. The most important job at the club is the manager.
 
Mainoldo said:
Pretty much highlights what I’ve always been saying. The most important job at the club is the manager.
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no. it’s the cleaner as without them you’d be stuck trying to pee the poo stains off the stairs.
 
Varun1 said:
I agree with you about a consistent approach, and I understand what you're trying to say about Brighton, but I think it's too early to say if their new TD and rec. staff will find gems like their previous ones were.
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Yeah I was going to say this. They’re essentially at the moment still able to just carry on with all of the previous lots work, this is when they’re looking at what’s next that’s what they’ll really be judged on.

That being said, De Zerbi was a great hire, his Sassuolo were great.
 
Wednesday at Stoke said:
I think there's more to it than a single director or a CEO, its more a single minded commitment to a process and doing things in a consistent manner as a club-wide operation. A club like Brighton are a living example of this. They lost their technical director, manager and recruitment staff within the span of a year and continue to motor on, unearthing good players and consistently beating the likes of Liverpool this season.
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Lfc was hailed as having all that. Dof. Ceo. Even owner. Now they're as bad as Gillet and Hicks.
 
Wednesday at Stoke said:
I think there's more to it than a single director or a CEO, its more a single minded commitment to a process and doing things in a consistent manner as a club-wide operation. A club like Brighton are a living example of this. They lost their technical director, manager and recruitment staff within the span of a year and continue to motor on, unearthing good players and consistently beating the likes of Liverpool this season.
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Completely agree. It's a way of doing things on the structural side of the football club which is important and it involves a group of people on the football side who work together with the head coach to develop the team and strategize for the mid to long-term. Working together with the head coach is the key, hence the likes of Klopp, Guardiola and ten Hag have enjoyed success and longevity.

Woodward's biggest mistake imo was that when the recruitment structure was complete and modernised in 2016/17, and it was said by people within the football industry to be very impressive as far as the calibre of scouts that had been brought to the club from around Europe and the world. He then allowed Mourinho to operate independently from the club's newly formed recruitment department which caused him a issue and a transfer committee was born. Similar to what happened with Rodgers at Liverpool. And Mourinho and the scouts were constantly at loggerheads with vetos flying around.
 
Sky1981 said:
They're the same owner, turns out theyr'e only as good as the manager they "luckily" found

There's no magic formula for 99.9% of football club. You just survive till y ou find your magic Manager
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To a degree yes, but it also helps having the right people to make the crucial decisions. Brighton seem a good model of that, they lose Potter yet look better than ever. Woodward was clearly the main culprit holding this club back for the best part of a decade, he would have likely brought in Poch instead of Ten Hag. Its no surprise our transfer strategy has vastly improved now he's fecked off too.
 
Liverpool found a manager (Klopp) who came in and worked with the existing structure which helped the club going forward. Klopp took charge of the first summer window in 2016, and signed mostly players that were either associated with the German or Austrian Bundesliga and it wasn't until the summer of 2017, that the Liverpool football department started signing players using the Klopp formula of targeting players for a high intensity playstyle without sacrificing the technical elements.

Edwards before that point was widely ridiculed.
 
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Van der sar has now gone into panick mode and is offering the DoF role around to German candidates like Sven Minslintat who was previously at Arsenal in a head of recruitment capacity.
 
Adnan said:
Liverpool found a manager (Klopp) who came in and worked with the existing structure which helped the club going forward. Klopp took charge of the first summer window in 2016, and signed mostly players that were either associated with the German or Austrian Bundesliga and it wasn't until the summer of 2017, that the Liverpool football department started signing players using the Klopp formula of targeting players for a high intensity playstyle without sacrificing the technical elements.

Edwards before that point was widely ridiculed.
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so wouldn’t you say that hes learned since then?
 
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