I could be wrong but my understanding is that he only changed job at Monaco, he was the head of recruitment while Les Reed was the de facto football director, he got a similar job at Tottenham since they have/had someone doing Les Reed's job but I forgot his name, someone else than Levy. He then had a similar job at Leipzig and finally got a DOF job at Monaco.
Paul Mitchell - Sporting Director | Now at Newcastle
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I could be wrong but my understanding is that he only changed job at Monaco, he was the head of recruitment while Les Reed was the de facto football director, he got a similar job at Tottenham since they have/had someone doing Les Reed's job but I forgot his name, someone else than Levy. He then had a similar job at Leipzig and finally got a DOF job at Monaco.
It never ceases to amaze me how this club are willing to spend hundreds of millions on players, and then refuse to spend a fraction of that cost making sure everything behind the scenes is set up as it should be.
For half the price of Telles, we could completely restructure the recruitment at this club from top to bottom, so we don't make ridiculously expensive mistakes like Wan-Bissaka and Maguire to begin with.
Short-termism at it's finest.
For half the price of Telles, we could completely restructure the recruitment at this club from top to bottom, so we don't make ridiculously expensive mistakes like Wan-Bissaka and Maguire to begin with.
Short-termism at it's finest.
How strange that considering Woodward is gone and Arnold is handing ALL footballing matters over to Murtough.
Almost if you’re complaining for complaining sake and not seeing the bigger picture
Spot on. And the muppets on here defend them, Fletcher being a case in point. Apparently as he is young its not his fault he is inexperienced. Maybe he get back in the youth set up, earn a coaching badge and prove his worth before being considered for a promotion. In the interim we have a well experienced professional, for a fraction of one of our stupid signings. When will we ever learn...
He did well with Tottenham after leaving Southampton didn't he? Rangnick has worked closely with Mitchell so I trust his judgement re. the Leipzig stint.
No idea on the Monaco front though. Heart it went a bit tits up.
Not tk mention the structure, or lack thereof in the scouting department solely dedicated to the women's team.
We are desperate for someone to come kn and help with the structure there, and also a dedicated Director of Football for the women's team.
Well for a start there Murtough is actually MORE qualified to do the job than Mitchell. Plus there’s a post on here literally on page 4 explaining why Mitchell isn’t this saviour that people thinks he is.
Not really, overall Tottenham recruitment has been subpar, they sold their flops well but I don't know if it has anything to do with Mitchell since he was in charge of recruitment/scouting. And I have no issue with Rangnick wanting to bring him but it doesn't mean that he is particularly good, from what we have seen he is competent and has familiarity with Rangnick without being stellar.
You and @Adnan really are doing the Lord's work telling people over and over again about Murtough's credentials and why he's so well regarded. I salute you.
Tottenham's transfers took an noticeable nosedive after Mitchell left the building though. Would be interesting to hear a Spurs fans views about him but I always got the impression he was a tremendous asset to the club.
The number of people arguing for and against Mitchell is surprising to me. How much can we judge his work? How much do we even know what these guys do, who made which transfer? What do we even know about the actual day to day roles for ex of Fletcher and Mitchell if he comes?
The only decent post with actual information is
Even this post, how much does Adnan know about what Mitchell did vs what Murtough or Ashworth etc?
Just feel like this is an area we know very little of
The only decent post with actual information is
Even this post, how much does Adnan know about what Mitchell did vs what Murtough or Ashworth etc?
Just feel like this is an area we know very little of
This is an incredibly odd take to throw out there in the middle of a behind the scenes restructure. What you’re complaining about is literally what the club is in the middle of doing and… you’re complaining about them doing it?
Fact is Murtough is very qualified to do the job he has. Fletcher we don’t even know what his role is so how could you possibly get annoyed by that (I know I know) and we are restructuring, yet people are out here approaching an aneurysm because their preferred “head of recruitment” probably won’t get the role.
It’s wild to imagine people getting so pent up about a potential new head of IT or something.
Not really. It's a similar mix of good and bad, in fact you can also look at their previous seasons to notice that there isn't a noticeable improvement after 2014. Of course our minds are caught with certain names like Alli, Son or Alderweireld but there is a boatload of dross mixed with them like Sanchez, Janssen, Sissoko, Aurier and N'jié.
are you just pretending the last year of restructuring behind the scenes hasn't happened then?
Thanks. It bothers me that people talk about Murtough the way they do regardless of how good he ends up being as the man leading United behind the scene. Unlike many people in Football and sport, he had to take the long way in order to get to his current position. It's even more baffling when you consider that Mitchell is an example of what often happens, he became MK Dons head of recruitment directly after retiring.
AFAIK Mitchell is being looked at as a head of recruitment guy, which is fine. But I cannot take anyone seriously if they suggest Murtough is more qualified than Rangnick for the DOF role. If it was upto me, Rangnick would be the DOF, and Murtough would be deputy DOF. Mitchell the recruitment guy, and Fletcher doing whatever vague shit he is supposed to do.
Yeah just reminded myself his transfers. There were a lot of punts but he brought in very good signings such as Dier, Davies, Delli Ali, Trippier, Son and Wanyama. I'd argue that Sissoko was a good buy personally.
Of course there were some over inflated purchases you're right such as Jansson, Njie and arguably Sanchez (although he was deemed a big talent at the time).
I'd still argue he'd be an asset to our set up, I'm not sure how many in similar roles have a superb record relative to his times at Southampton/Spurs/Leipzig/Monaco. There's an argument to be had that he is more knowledgeable in the role after the European experience.
I tend to agree with your conclusion, my point is more that he is competent and not much else. People shouldn't start making wild claims about how he is much better than x or y when he has himself only shown that he was average. For example I would argue that whoever has a similar job at Leicester is a more interesting target but that person doesn't have as much hype as Mitchell does.
I’d give you Wanyama at Southampton, but Wanyama at Spurs was absolutely not a good deal.
At the end of the day though as long as they do well in our specific setup I wouldn’t necessarily worry about somebodies past roles, given every setup is different. They can be from Omicron Persei 8 but as long as they find the correct right back for us then they’re fine by me. A “dead cert” like Monchi failed miserably at Roma, for instance.
The club is seemingly making a lot of positive moves in the right direction in a few things.
This move though makes too much sense to happen unfortunately. He’d be great but I just feel it’s too good to be true.
This move though makes too much sense to happen unfortunately. He’d be great but I just feel it’s too good to be true.
This lad is getting a littler desperate with this full court press.
Hes also a Manc so Im sure its a perfect set up for him
What is he going to do for the women's team though?
Wasn't Sanchez the year after Mitchell left?
Even Jansson, Sissoko and Wanyama were in that last summer where it seemed Mitchell and Levy had fallen out. The latter 2 signed after he'd walked so there's no guarantee any of those were his picks anyway.
N'Jie and Wimmer were the 2 Mitchell signings that didn't really make it at Spurs, but they made a big profit on Wimmer and got most of their money back for N'Jie.
Here is my take on Mitchell, from what I have seen he doesn't have a strong identity, he doesn't have a particular network, his recruitment doesn't follow a template. Now I don't suspect him to be incompetent because as far as I have seen which is at a superficial level, none of the clubs he worked for made boneheaded or illiogical moves, it's just uninventive moves of fairly obvious players/profiles.
If we were looking for a DOF that has shown something particular and that would on the surface look like a good fit with ETH, Campos would be the man. He has a clear network and identity built around young and technically gifted players. But the issue with him is that he is more about quantity and he really focuses on raw players with high upside which isn't necessarily a good fit for a big club.
If we were looking for a DOF that has shown something particular and that would on the surface look like a good fit with ETH, Campos would be the man. He has a clear network and identity built around young and technically gifted players. But the issue with him is that he is more about quantity and he really focuses on raw players with high upside which isn't necessarily a good fit for a big club.
The Holy 'Pep Guardiola is my idol' Trinity
Ten Hag, Van der Gaag and Paul Mitchell.
Who programmed "B.a.l.d. f.r.a.u.d" to show up as "Pep is my idol"?
Ten Hag, Van der Gaag and Paul Mitchell.
Who programmed "B.a.l.d. f.r.a.u.d" to show up as "Pep is my idol"?
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He was the head of recruitment, he takes part of the credit for the good signings and part of the blame for the poor signings.
Not for the signings of Sissoko or Sanchez he wasn't. He had already left.
Signings while Mitchell was Head of Recruitment:
Alli, Wimmer, Trippier, Alderweireld, N'Jie, Son, Wanyama, Jansson
This was said about ETH
He gave his notice in June, unless he wasn't doing his job before that which is hihgly unlikely he was also responsible for that summer.
He served his notice on the 9th August and was placed on gardening leave. He blamed it on a breakdown in working relationship with Daniel Levy.
If a head of recruitment quits because he can't work with a famously hands on chairman, I think it's harsh to then blame him for transfers that happen after he's quit. Far more likely he left because players were signed he didn't think were right, or players he wanted to sign weren't targetted.
This is all moot anyway. I agree with you that I don't believe Mitchell is any more qualified than Murtough is to be our Director of Football.
I had june for some reason. And it's not harsh, it's part of his job we can't just take the bad results away and attribute him the good ones because for all you know he was proposing worse signings or he simply had to fight too much for the ones he actually got. At the end of the day, convincing the rest of the management team is part of his job, it's not just about imposing your view but selling it.
I'm not taking away the bad results that happened under his watch.
I'm saying it's harsh to blame him for signings made after he's left, when he left because he couldn't agree on signings with the chairman. I know you like arguing the last word until everyone else backs down from the tedium but come on now - that is harsh and you know it.
Your point on convincing the rest of the management team is well made, even if the rest of that management team was Daniel Levy.
What would happen to Fletcher then?
There is a very clear and obvious difference between rating players and rating anybody else, and it's always baffled me why people develop such a strong position on how they view club staff. As has been said in this thread already, there are dozens of people around Europe that could(?) be a better fit than Mitchell. The difference? Nobody has ever heard of them, and would probably fail to name more than 2 or 3 potential candidates so they revert to the name they know and convince themselves he is the answer.
When it comes to Murtough, he hasn't had nearly long enough in this position to be evaluated by performance from people like us, but without question he certainly has the experience. The problem with adding Ten Hag AND Rangnick AND Mitchell to an organisation is that they will all have a voice and they will probably differ in opinions fairly regularly, so you end up with confusion over who is the dominant voice there and probably even some in-house jostling for position which is hugely counter-productive and exactly the kind of situation that leads to clubs like ours under achieving.
You ruined this post, which renders all the preceding good stuff worthless.
Since you made it a personal thing, I won't discuss with you anymore but I will say this, I didn't blame him for anything, he is responsibe for the entirety of his department, good and bad.
And I will say, again, he's not responsible for it after he has left.