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JuanVelasco

Why dont we have a 'Director of Football'?

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Huddersfield have got one, Stoke City have got one, Bristol Rovers have got one, Peterborough have got one, Reading have got one......

Almost every club in the country has a former manager on the board as a director of football.

Now, where is the significance in this? Dave Bassett described the role as:-

" ..... a buffer. The director of football is answerable to the board but there to assist the manager. He''s experienced in football and there to help the board members who don''t have that experience."

Why does this board of directors, including the two that have just left, feel that it had enough football knowledge in a boardroom of five non footballing directors to oversee the appointment of a football manager?

Surely a good football director could see that appointing Grant was a mistake, and that spending £1.8m of the Earnshaw money on Jamie Cureton and David Marshall was going to be a mistake?

Delia and MWJ are 100% responsible for the failure to appoint a knowledgeable manager to oversee key footballing matters. It is clear that commercial activities have always been the focus within the boardroom.

Why is it that clubs throughout English and European football see it as essential to have a very knowledgeable footballing brain on the board of directors, whereas we see it only necessary to have solicitors and businessmen with money? This very simple failure symbolises everything that we have done wrong at this club. A solicitor negotiating contracts for a start.

Lee Clark was appointed at Huddersfield by a director of football who had been an academy coach, football scout, and very successful non league player. He knows his football.

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"Almost every club in the country has a former manager on the board as a director of football."Sorry, but that is just not true.

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There really isn''t as many as you think, also just look at Newcastle for the problems that can happen when you have someone in that role at the club.

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Director of Football, i thought that was more of a continental thing?

I know Spurs got rid of their''s and Newcastle adopting that sort of structure which resulted in Keegan leaving ended up religating them.

Germany have quite a unique way of doing things however, they have a manager that focus'' soley on the team and preparing them for the next match while a 2nd manager focus''s on off field activity and transfers, however that''s also proven flawed as Wolfsburg won the title while having Felix Magath doing everything.

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[quote user="LQ"]"Almost every club in the country has a former manager on the board as a director of football."

Sorry, but that is just not true.


[/quote]

Doesn''t mean it is''nt a good idea though! I argued this with ND exhaustively but he totally missed the point. What was worse though was his commnet that ......''Delia and michael are regular visitors to Colney and know what''s going on''!!!  His words, not mine.

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[quote user="Karl Pilkington"]Isn''t that what John Deehan does???[/quote]

No hes the chief scout!

He did it at Northampton for three years though.

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[quote user="LQ"]"Almost every club in the country has a former manager on the board as a director of football."

Sorry, but that is just not true.

[/quote]

Well Peterborough have one, so thats good enough for me, and good enough for the son of Sir Alex Ferguson, and good enough for the England Under 21 international goalkeeper that should be playing in front of us next year.

Arsene Wenger is one of the biggest advocates of the ''Director of Football'' role. Sir Alex Ferguson has got on just fine with Sir Bobby Charlton who is on the Manchester United board.

I think you will find that almost all successful clubs have at least somebody with football experience on their board, they might not be called a ''Director of Football'', but that is fine, as long as we have a ''Director in touch with football''.

 

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[quote user="JuanVelasco"]

Surely a good football director could see that appointing Grant was a mistake, and that spending £1.8m of the Earnshaw money on Jamie Cureton and David Marshall was going to be a mistake?

[/quote]Grant was a rubbish appointment for sure. But to be honest I''m not sure a director of football at the time would agree with your assumption about those two players. Cureton was awesome the season before we signed him with a proven track record in the football league, whilst Marshall was an ideal replacement for the previous keeper. That''s hardly the worst duo you could spend money on. Who knows, with better coaches at the helm their tenure''s here could''ve been more successful.

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we dont have one and seemed to coped fine

half the time it just causes conflict between manager and the director of football

i think what you should be asking - why dont we have a good manager?

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[quote user="we8wba"]

we dont have one and seemed to coped fine

half the time it just causes conflict between manager and the director of football

i think what you should be asking - why dont we have a good manager?

[/quote]

We have a crap manager because:-

1) We havent got an owner who put £30m into the club.

2) We havent got one of these owners because Delia would not sell us for £10, unlike the great Sir Jack Hayward - a true fan.

3) We havent got a Director that knows anything about Football.  Hence the reason a Director of Football would be a good move for us.

Serious we8wba, you may wonder why people give you stick on here, but you know all this stuff already. If you could just use your brain before posting. You are on here enough to know who Peter Cullum is, who Delia Smith is, and why we 1) dont have any money and 2) dont have a good manager.

If you arent going to think like a Norwich fan, then why bother trying to talk with them.

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[quote user="JuanVelasco"][quote user="we8wba"]

we dont have one and seemed to coped fine

half the time it just causes conflict between manager and the director of football

i think what you should be asking - why dont we have a good manager?

[/quote]

We have a crap manager because:-

1) We havent got an owner who put £30m into the club.

2) We havent got one of these owners because Delia would not sell us for £10, unlike the great Sir Jack Hayward - a true fan.

3) We havent got a Director that knows anything about Football.  Hence the reason a Director of Football would be a good move for us.

Serious we8wba, you may wonder why people give you stick on here, but you know all this stuff already. If you could just use your brain before posting. You are on here enough to know who Peter Cullum is, who Delia Smith is, and why we 1) dont have any money and 2) dont have a good manager.

If you arent going to think like a Norwich fan, then why bother trying to talk with them.

[/quote]i do agree in our postion,  only because Gunn is cr@p and to have him at the helm making decisions is scary! but Delia needs puppets as she has to control tightly, as we seem to have 250 thousand as a tranafer kitty!

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director of football is over complicating matters

no need for league one team to require one in my opinion

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We have better ways of spending any available money. How about a tall striker who can hold the ball to get others into the play and score a decent number of goals each season.

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[quote user="Yellow Rider"]

[quote user="LQ"]"Almost every club in the country has a former manager on the board as a director of football."

Sorry, but that is just not true.


[/quote]

Doesn''t mean it is''nt a good idea though! I argued this with ND exhaustively but he totally missed the point. What was worse though was his commnet that ......''Delia and michael are regular visitors to Colney and know what''s going on''!!!  His words, not mine.

[/quote]

If accurate, this just about says it all.

More details of your debate with Neil Doncaster would interest many of us I suspect.

OTBC

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This is just all kinds of crazy.Firstly didnt the board get in Stringer to help us appoint a new manager with Grant?In addition to that we did have a director of football once upon a time - Hamilton and look how badly that went!Yes it can work but the problem in this country is that the directors of football have often stuck their noses into the football side of the club too much.It is also like having two managers. The director of football may say that a player is not worth as much as the manager is willing to pay or wanting to pay to outbid other teams. This can lead to problems in the relationship between the two. Ideally you need them to have accepted the responsibilites of each others role and respect eachother before a season starts.Newcastle getting in Dennis Wise was a big misstake. He has too much of an ego to be in that role, you need an old steady hand to be in that position who understands the role of the manager and when to be involved with that side of things and when not to be. Dalgleish has done that well in the past and if it were not for his illness Sir Bobby would be another that is good at that as well.For us it may not pull off but someone like Rioch would be a good person in that role. Possibly Deehan.Like I said it is a difficult thing to get right and it can upset the moral and spirit behind the scenes.

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[quote user="we8wba"]

we dont have one and seemed to coped fine

half the time it just causes conflict between manager and the director of football

i think what you should be asking - why dont we have a good manager?

[/quote]I have to admit there''s something in what you say. If Grant had turned to be a better manager things would look very different now. Equally you could argue that a Director of Football might have recommended a different candidate.

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We''ve got a shed load of non-football Directors.....

Why spoil things......

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I tad dis-appointed with Stringer''s role (my all time fav City Manager). Obviously he is getting on now but I thought he was pivotal in previous management appointments. He knows his stuff but we got it wrong obviously. My suspicion is Delia put quite a lot of faith in his views with the Grant/Roader appointments (but I clearly cannot be sure about this). We require fresh blood in this area, so the Board is more football aware.

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i firmly believe the buck should stop with the manager .

who do you blame when things go wrong and you have a director of football at your club .?

how could you blame a manager if the players he has are not the players he wants ?

was that not went wrong at newcastle and kevin keegan left because of this .

whats the point of having a manager who cant field a team he want to play ?

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[quote user="JuanVelasco"]

Why does this board of directors, including the two that have just left, feel that it had enough football knowledge in a boardroom of five non footballing directors to oversee the appointment of a football manager?

[/quote]If I remember correctly, the board did bring in outside help, who had football experience, to help them select the manager - for Grant and Roeder.  I can''t remember who it was though, but if that person was had the title "Director of football" do you really think that they would have made a better decision?

I don''t think a director of football will solve the problem.

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[quote user="chicken"]This is just all kinds of crazy.

Firstly didnt the board get in Stringer to help us appoint a new manager with Grant?

[/quote]You were right, it was Stringer... http://norwichcity.myfootballwriter.com/full_article.asp?i=4694

"You can accuse the board of lacking football knowledge – but Dave Stringer was brought in to advise, and I believe the opinions of other people in the game were canvassed too."

 

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[quote user="JuanVelasco"]

Huddersfield have got one, Stoke City have got one, Bristol Rovers have got one, Peterborough have got one, Reading have got one......

Almost every club in the country has a former manager on the board as a director of football.

[/quote]Which would be true if there were ten clubs in the country.

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[quote user="we8wba"]

director of football is over complicating matters

no need for league one team to require one in my opinion

[/quote]

Of course not mate, Peterborough have failed miserably in the last couple of years because they have ''over complicated'' things havent they?

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[quote user="we8wba"]

director of football is over complicating matters

no need for league one team to require one in my opinion

[/quote]

Of course not mate, Peterborough have failed miserably in the last couple of years because they have ''over complicated'' things havent they? And

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