Pat Murphy on Mel Morris

[Sexydadbod]

Just now, G STAR RAM said:

I'm not misunderstanding you at all. You obviously watch alot of football. Therefore if you are saying that our signings are good I would expect that you have taken into consideration about how they will improve our squad rather than if they have played well at previous clubs.

I do watch a football but believe it or not I've not gone to the likes of Norwich or angers 10-15 games to identify which players would be good or bad because that's not my job. Members of the recruitment team get to watch these players live, many many times before deciding whether to suggest them. Bare in mind that footballing scouting is a full time job like any normal job. Am I right in saying that for your own personal job you have become somewhat of an expert in it? That's applicable to football scouting, these guys in our recruitment team are meant to be specialists in their jobs! Taking into account holidays etc, these guys would be expected to be scouting 150-200 days a year. Surely they would be able to come up with better suggestions than Johnson if they were doing their jobs properly? I'm not knocking Johnson as a player but I would like to see us sign some gems. What happened to us signing the likes of Bryson for almost nothing?

[G STAR RAM]

5 minutes ago, Angry Ram said:

Possibly my favourite post of the year. 

 

Busted!

In fairness to Bris he did later say he wasn't sure how BJ would fit in with our team.

For saying so many people knew how poor our recruitment was though I could not find too many people complaining about our signings at the time.

In fact reading back through the transfer threads from back then is quite hilarious. Amazing how quickly the views on Rush and Morris changed! 

[Ewe Ram]

24 minutes ago, McLovin said:

This has been repeated many times on here but Nigel Clough would have been a brilliant director of football but he'd never come back.

Can I have that in writing? Please never let that come to pass. 

[G STAR RAM]

4 minutes ago, McLovin said:

I do watch a football but believe it or not I've not gone to the likes of Norwich or angers 10-15 games to identify which players would be good or bad because that's not my job. Members of the recruitment team get to watch these players live, many many times before deciding whether to suggest them. Bare in mind that footballing scouting is a full time job like any normal job. Am I right in saying that for your own personal job you have become somewhat of an expert in it? That's applicable to football scouting, these guys in our recruitment team are meant to be specialists in their jobs! Taking into account holidays etc, these guys would be expected to be scouting 150-200 days a year. Surely they would be able to come up with better suggestions than Johnson if they were doing their jobs properly? I'm not knocking Johnson as a player but I would like to see us sign some gems. What happened to us signing the likes of Bryson for almost nothing?

So how can you be so sure that you would recruit better players if you have absolutely no experience?

The answer is you can't, and that is why saying such things is silly and will just make people laugh at your posts.

I'm sorry but if you are going to pass judgement on signings at least have the balls to stand behind your original judgement rather than change your mind when they don't turn out how you hoped.

[Sexydadbod]

Nigel Clough may not be the best of managers but he is brilliant at identifying players. When he was here he used to get really involved with players suggestions. Other managers since then have been less hands on and have left that to the recruitment team. Clough got the likes of Keogh, Bryson, Russell, Forsyth and Martin in who are some of our most important players.

[Sexydadbod]

7 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

So how can you be so sure that you would recruit better players if you have absolutely no experience?

The answer is you can't, and that is why saying such things is silly and will just make people laugh at your posts.

I'm sorry but if you are going to pass judgement on signings at least have the balls to stand behind your original judgement rather than change your mind when they don't turn out how you hoped.

I'm 99% sure that if I had the resources available that our recruitment team have like the statistical analysis, player performance ratings and got to speak to former teammates, former managers and got to watch players play many, many times whilst doing this for 150-200 days a year I wouldn't have done worse than what we have now as I would grow to be a specialist in that job. No players can be a guaranteed success but the main purpose of the scout is to identify players who would be value for money that would fit the team otherwise there would be no purpose for them. Any managers  would be able to identify well known players like Vydra,Johnson,Weimann, Shackell,Bent. Footballing scouting isn't rocket science, in fact I'd suggest that it's nowhere near as hard as jobs in general society like being a doctor, lawyer , accounting dentistry etc. If it was so hard then explain why Steve McClaren's son and Mel Morris' family member are involved with that?

[Sexydadbod]

Football scouting really isn't as hard as some on here are suggesting. Some people on twitter who have interest in football have gone into professional scouting just by expressing their views and club employees managed to stumble around their account , says it all. Mel Morris' family member and Steve McClaren's son are involved with it at our particular club

[G STAR RAM]

10 minutes ago, McLovin said:

I'm 99% sure that if I had the resources available that our recruitment team have like the statistical analysis, player performance ratings and got to speak to former teammates, former managers and got to watch players play many, many times whilst doing this for 150-200 days a year I wouldn't have done worse than what we have now as I would grow to be a specialist in that job. No players can be a guaranteed success but the main purpose of the scout is to identify players who would be value for money that would fit the team otherwise there would be no purpose for them. Any managers  would be able to identify well known players like Vydra,Johnson,Weimann, Shackell,Bent. Footballing scouting isn't rocket science, in fact I'd suggest that it's nowhere near as hard as jobs in general society like being a doctor, lawyer , accounting dentistry etc. If it was so hard then explain why Steve McClaren's son and Mel Morris' family member are involved with that?

So out of interest, when you are passing judgement or commenting on our new signings, what do you base your opinion on?

Let's be honest, most of the stats you could want to know about potential signings are readily available at the click of a button.

[nottingram]

19 minutes ago, McLovin said:

Football scouting really isn't as hard as some on here are suggesting. Some people on twitter who have interest in football have gone into professional scouting just by expressing their views and club employees managed to stumble around their account , says it all. Mel Morris' family member and Steve McClaren's son are involved with it at our particular club

Why don't you go and do it then? If it's so easy, do it

[Ewe Ram]

Something is nagging at the back of my mind here:

when the prodigal son Nigel Clough was here, did we have a recruitment department? 

[Day]

8 minutes ago, Ewe Ram said:

Something is nagging at the back of my mind here:

when the prodigal son Nigel Clough was here, did we have a recruitment department? 

Simon Clough and I seem to recall Andy Garner being sent to watch games up in Scotland a fair bit

[rynny]

1 minute ago, David said:

Simon Clough and I seem to recall Andy Garner being sent to watch games up in Scotland a fair bit

Martin Taylor went to watch games as well.

[Mafiabob]

1 minute ago, rynny said:

Martin Taylor went to watch games as well.

True that, a regular down the racecourse

[RoyMac5]

1 hour ago, G STAR RAM said:

So why did you not raise the issue about these signings making us 'unbalanced' at the time?

Is that what fans do? I'm sure some might have said that, but so what? Its the end result that matters, which is why you have 'experts' in the jobs such as manager, scout or whatever. So we can look back and say stuff like, what a storming signing that was, good job!

[North East Ram]

Being a scout isn't all that to be honest and folk are reading too much into it. I don't where 200 days a year comes from either. I had the opportunity to be a scout a few years back but turned it down. It was only approx 50 days per year but after 4 years in the cubs I'd just had enough. Standing in a line to get inspected by your peers every Tuesday night is a mugs game. I much prefered riding my bmx around the village with me mates and causing a bit of mischief. Not sure how old Mac's son is but he must be a bit old for all that shenanigans. 

[G STAR RAM]

1 minute ago, RoyMac5 said:

Is that what fans do? I'm sure some might have said that, but so what? Its the end result that matters, which is why you have 'experts' in the jobs such as manager, scout or whatever. So we can look back and say stuff like, what a storming signing that was, good job!

No, looking back through the threads, the majority of the players were saying how great the signings were. Yet 1 year later were saying how the signings were poor and how bad the recruitment had been.

[Mafiabob]

5 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

No, looking back through the threads, the majority of the players were saying how great the signings were. Yet 1 year later were saying how the signings were poor and how bad the recruitment had been.

Part and parcel of the football fan mostly G Star......

[Ewe Ram]

14 minutes ago, David said:

Simon Clough and I seem to recall Andy Garner being sent to watch games up in Scotland a fair bit

So it seems that Nigel Clough got credit for being amazing at spotting players but he had a recruitment team that has not been credited? Can it be that there a few Nige tinted specs being worn? 

[Sexydadbod]

43 minutes ago, nottingram said:

Why don't you go and do it then? If it's so easy, do it

Because I don't want to and don't have a firm enough passion to do so. Again it isn't rocket science if normal people from Twitter have had the opportunity to become professional scouts. Bris said himself he did a bit of scouting on the side. 

59 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

So out of interest, when you are passing judgement or commenting on our new signings, what do you base your opinion on?

Let's be honest, most of the stats you could want to know about potential signings are readily available at the click of a button.

I base my opinions like a lot of people on here, read what the fans of their previous clubs have to say on other forums and what I've seen of them if we have been able to play them. Stats are part of it, I know the people from squawka put a lot of effort into that aspect but unfortunately I can't afford going around the world and watch players play and watch players play live and quite frankly I wouldn't want to unless it was my professional job to do so. You still haven't answered my question that if it was so hard then why is Mel Morris employing family members to do it? A lot of people laugh at the use of football manager but many high profile clubs use it.

[Day]

43 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

No, looking back through the threads, the majority of the players were saying how great the signings were. Yet 1 year later were saying how the signings were poor and how bad the recruitment had been.

Been doing the same this morning....

On 02/09/2015 at 15:51, Bris Vegas said:

If you were Mel Morris, where would you expect/demand this Derby team to finish? What is acceptable?

Now the window is over, we have a fairly good team I must say. There are a few areas which still need a look at, but there really should be no excuses for a decent season now. 

I mean, let's be honest. You don't spend 20m on top of a team which finished eighth only to classify eighth again as acceptable.

For me it has to be top six. Even if we lost in the playoffs, a top six finish and a bit of positivity and Clement should be given another crack.

I just can't see how anyone can now deem a finish outside the top six is acceptable. If we finished 19th last season, and added 20m, then you could perhaps just about get away with an eighth placed finish.

But we haven't come from a bad position. If someone like Brighton or Charlton, who were pretty bad last season, overatake us despite spending 20m less then something or someone needs removing from their post.

This is not a pop at you Bris at all, if you look in the Nathan Tyson signing thread you will find some gems from me!

The summer of 2015 is what comes under the microscope a lot, £30m wasted, yet at the time most were reasonably happy, Bris and Sage called out a couple of signings Weimann and Bent and Ince, the majority were happy. 

In the topic where I've quoted Bris there's a poll on expectations, 9 members out of 172 believed we should be top 6, 71 top 2. How can that be possible with a unbalanced squad?

Of course people can be critical now, there is absolutely nothing wrong in changing your mind after seeing them play, but saying you can do better is ridiculous and shows a complete lack of understanding of the game you claim to be so knowledgable of.

As I've said earlier, writing names on a bit of paper is easy, every single one of us can do that even Boycie, probably not fair example to use with his experience in writing trains down on a pad, but who else was given a Argos at Xmas and asked to write a list for Santa? Santa then ultimately got to select from that list what to buy. 

Football is a little more complecated than that, clubs have to agree to sell, a fee negotiated, the player has to want to come, you might have to battle with another club, he might demand too much money, he could be a right ******** off the pitch, the worst in training you will ever see. 

To say you can do this from a TV set in Mexico or if you didn't have a 9 to 5 job is ridiculious it really is, especially how hindsight is used so much in some cases. It's that kind of arrogance which is seeing replies like these. Nobody likes a know it all. Let's just be football fans for a change, watch the game we love without embarrassing ourselves as much as possible.

Saying that can I just put it on record that I could be a better astronaught than those up there now, prove me wrong. If I wasn't scared of heights or had this forum to moderate I would be awesome.