@Adnan did you rate Bout? You had a good insight into how our scouts were.
Fair to say we didnt reap rewards of it though.
Bout was a match analyst/assistant under both LVG and Jupp Heynckes, and from what I've read, Jupp Heynckes didn't want him to leave when LVG called, whilst he (LVG) was in his second stint as the head coach of the Dutch NT.
And as
@JPRouve mentioned earlier, i've provided evidence from various different journalists about the managers post Fergie signing players who the club's own recruitment staff had vetoed as not being good enough.. And the most high profile of the lot was Harry Maguire due to the ridiculous price tag. And according to Daniel Taylor, Maguire wasn't deemed any better than the CBs already at the club in a piece from 2018. That then caused Mourinho to go into self sabotage mode and he was telling the press that he was a mere head coach now and not a manager. But Woodward still went ahead and signed Maguire for Ole and Phelan. And we have to remember that it was under Phelan that Maguire became a mainstay at EPL level and captain. And that was due to Phelan being the first team manager at Hull City.
And tbh with you I don't see this as a big deal because like I've said in the past, it's all about aligning recruitment towards the head coach's methods. But unfortunately for us we've had managers who we've allowed far too much control to, where they've signed players on the back of their personal recruitment staff. And when you do that in the present day, you have failed to align recruitment, and short term gains won't make up for long-term pains. So i'm fully expecting more than capable replacements to come in, who in conjunction with a DoF/head coach model will see us recruit to a guiding principle.
And as far as development goes in the game, I've never seen development on the football side as good as what the French have done at developing talent at academy level, and the German development when it comes to structuring clubs from the recruitment to data analytics etc. And what we have in common with them is that we've adopted their methods in England, where according to Dan Ashworth and numerous others, we improved our youth development by copying the French and the Clairefontaine approach, which saw us win the u17/u20 world cups. And according to the same people, we also adopt the German DoF model and combine it with the French approach to developing talent.
Sorry for digressing slightly, but I thought i'd share my thoughts on development, which is ultimately what the goal is and what we hope will lead to a challenge on all-fronts in the future.
