Recruitment

With us now targeting McKenna I think serious questions need asked about recruitment.

Brendan always goes on about signing quality but his signings have been brutal aside from a few. Since he brought in Congerton it seems to have gotten even worse, bordering on negligible. His comments about not selling Boyata because we don’t have a replacement lined up set alarms bells off.

Is it as simple as getting rid of Congerton and bringing in someone else? Not for me, we saw under Park as well how much we wasted millions on complete duds.

Think it’s about time we should go out and get a top DOF to overhaul the recruitment side of the club.

Either way Congerton needs to go.

 

I think the problem under Park was that we were expecting to pull gems out of the bargain bucket market, so we needed to think outside the box a bit. It worked very well at times.

Other times not so much.

 

Brendan brought in Congerton so the buck stops with BR, however it’s difficult to know how many targets have been identified but not pursued by the board..

 

CONGERTON OOT!

 

Who have we brought in since Congerton was put in post?

And who would be this miracle worker DOF? And lots of managers don’t like to work under one.

 

I felt under Park it was a bit flinging * at wall and hoping it sticks with the amount of players we were signing.

Under Congerton it just seems to be almost negligent.

 

Congerton is a scape goat. We’ve been signing * like McKenna long before Rodgers was appointed.

The buck stops at Lawwell.

 

Mate most top level clubs in Europe have one and managers working under one.

The only really big club who doesn’t is probably Man Utd. Top 3 biggest and richest club in the world and they’re a mess when it comes to recruitment as well.

 

So why didn’t Rodgers come out and deny he was interested in McKenna when he was asked the other week?

Hendry
Gamboa
Izzy
Compper
Boyata - wants him on a long term deal
Jozo - have him a long term deal
Lustig - gave him a new deal

There’s a problem with our team and defenders just now, and it isn’t Lawwell’s fault.

 

Aye, it could be at times but that was mostly down to the board and budget constraints. The summer we got Pukki and Amido Balde I’ve seen Lennon say they were ‘way’ down the list.

If Lenny never knew a player that suited what he wanted he’d go to Park, give a description of what he wanted and they’d compile a list out of the database. They’d check them out a bit further and then they’d go to the board for a yay or nay on whether they could afford to pursue them.

Which is why it was rather odd at times. He done wonders with it, that last 16 squad was built on a few outstanding abilities that he totally exploited, Charlie Mulgrew’s delivery, Victor Wanyama’s physicality, Sammys big pacey awkwardness etc etc.

The annoying thing is, that system with a bit more money and clout behind it (like Rodgers has) could be a gold mine for us.

 

He’s already denied knowing anything about Arzani, and effectively said he’s not behind some signings.

It’s not in his character anyway. He’ll publically welcome McKenna in, big him up then defend him if it goes bad. He wouldn’t even publically slate Boyata, after all.

 

Brendan said the other day we have failed to get "several" of his targets - that's worrying

 

Who would we get tho?

 

TBF we have Sevilla and a few others sniffing about Boyata - if anything decent comes in he will be gone!

 

Again, so why didn’t he just deny about McKenna?

 

Seems like he’s immune to criticism when it comes to recruitment tho, this shouldn’t be the case.

Such a frustrating summer..

 

I think a source of friction might be the fact Rodgers wants to spend big money on players while keeping all of the so called assets like dembele and tierney that we could sell and make a fortune, So Rodgers maybe has a choice of losing someone and spending big, Armstrong for Edouard for example or we spend our money on people like hendry etc. or loan deals because we're not selling a big player.

The board had a business model under Lennon and Deila where we buy cheap strike lucky and then sell for big money, whereas Brendan doesn't seem to want to adhere to this model opting to keep the assets in the team as long as they want to be here even if it means letting their contracts run down.

 

He covered that when he said the ‘club’ brings players in and he’s expected to develop them.

 

I don’t know but there’s a lot of clubs in Europe who I’m sure we could pay more than for the position if we were serious about it.

Max Eberl
Bruno Hübner
Jan Laursen

It doesn’t even need to be a DOF. A top scout who can be given free reign to bring in their own people in their own system.

 

So why deny Arzani?