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Matt Crocker Returns Thread

SuperSAINT

By SuperSAINT,
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  • 2 weeks later...
Turkish

Turkish

Posted
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I was under the impression we had somebody lined up judging from Semmens’ comments at the recent forum at St Mary’s.

 

Didnt we have Paul Mitchell lined up last year, plus a few other names linked. We ended up giving Ross Wilson carte Blanche.

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Turkish

Turkish

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They article uses 'may', 'could' and 'consider', thus a long way from anything concrete.

 

Okay Matthew this telegraph article is one which is just inaccurate journalists making things up and didn’t come from the club. As opposed to this weeks telegraph article which is absolute truth.

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Matthew Le God

Matthew Le God

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Okay Matthew this telegraph article is one which is just inaccurate journalists making things up and didn’t come from the club. As opposed to this weeks telegraph article which is absolute truth.

 

1) I didn't say it wasn't accurate

2) I didn't say the journalist made it up

3) I didn't say it didn't come from the club

 

All I said was the article did not say it was definitely going to happen, just that it was a possibility. Plus in any case, Mitchell is at one of the best teams in Germany it would be difficult to tempt him back unless moving back to the UK was a large factor in his thinking.

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Matthew Le God

Matthew Le God

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Wilson would probably have paid Monaco £18m for Carte Blanche. Horrendous track record of signings.

 

I’m truly Amazed he left here with a reputation as a transfer guru. Awful record

 

They weren't all bad, he had a good number of successes. I think you can make a good case that all of the following have been good signings...

 

Cedric

Romeu

van Dijk

Redmond

Hojbjerg

McCarthy

Bednarek

Armstrong

Djenepo

Ings

 

(of course you can debate how much influence Wilson had in those deals, but we don't know)

 

Lets give him at least a little credit for the ones that worked out! ;)

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Turkish

Turkish

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1) I didn't say it wasn't accurate

2) I didn't say the journalist made it up

3) I didn't say it didn't come from the club

 

All I said was the article did not say it was definitely going to happen, just that it was a possibility. Plus in any case, Mitchell is at one of the best teams in Germany it would be difficult to tempt him back unless moving back to the UK was a large factor in his thinking.

 

I didn’t say it we’d definitely going to happen either. You asked where the claim came from so I showed you. :mcinnes:

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Hodgey

Hodgey

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Ross Wilson wasn’t behind Van Dijk (or Romeu) - although it’s part of his ludicrous self promotion that clearly a lot of bright people have fallen for, he’d barely arrived. Don’t forget he was also in charge of our now awful youth set up. And there are a fair few articles pointing out he made the Carrillo decision against his scouts advice. Overall an utter Charlatan who ****ed the best part of £200m up the wall and has set this club back a long way (and we are still literally paying for a load of his mistakes). I’ll give him Ings though - fair play on that gamble.

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stevy777_x

stevy777_x

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Ross Wilson wasn’t behind Van Dijk (or Romeu) - although it’s part of his ludicrous self promotion that clearly a lot of bright people have fallen for, he’d barely arrived. Don’t forget he was also in charge of our now awful youth set up. And there are a fair few articles pointing out he made the Carrillo decision against his scouts advice. Overall an utter Charlatan who ****ed the best part of £200m up the wall and has set this club back a long way (and we are still literally paying for a load of his mistakes). I’ll give him Ings though - fair play on that gamble.

 

I said it at the time and i ll say it again.

Ross Wilson is a huge reason as to why our recruitment went wrong over the last couple of years.

The way the media bigged him up when he moved to rangers was comical.

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Turkish

Turkish

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Ross Wilson wasn’t behind Van Dijk (or Romeu) - although it’s part of his ludicrous self promotion that clearly a lot of bright people have fallen for, he’d barely arrived. Don’t forget he was also in charge of our now awful youth set up. And there are a fair few articles pointing out he made the Carrillo decision against his scouts advice. Overall an utter Charlatan who ****ed the best part of £200m up the wall and has set this club back a long way (and we are still literally paying for a load of his mistakes). I’ll give him Ings though - fair play on that gamble.

 

Was Ings a gamble? He’s always been a decent enough striker, the issue was his fitness.

 

As for the others you’re right about van dirk, add Cedric and Romeu to that list of ones that joined within weeks of him being here.redmond was a well known young player, hardly a discovery, Mccarthy was signed as a back up keeper, it’s only due to the fall from grace/exposure of FF that he’s now number one. So that leaves us with Hojbjerg, Armstrong, Bednarek and Djenepo.

 

He’s an absolute fraud, story goes he was basically running the show by himself and making all the decisions towards the end, he didn’t like the fact he was going to be reined in so decided to jump at the chance of a move, not before he’d spunked a shed load of cash of crap.

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Turkish

Turkish

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I said it at the time and i ll say it again.

Ross Wilson is a huge reason as to why our recruitment went wrong over the last couple of years.

The way the media bigged him up when he moved to rangers was comical.

 

Transfer guru, makes me laugh even now. He’ll probably do alright at rangers as the bar is much lower to succeed, you could be a competent championship player and do well in a good team in that league, so he’ll leave there with an enhanced CV.

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  • 9 months later...
egg

egg

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58 minutes ago, SuperSAINT said:

Interview with him here:

https://theathletic.com/2203450/2020/11/17/southampton-director-of-football-matt-crocker-interview/?source=user_shared_article

Cheers. That's a superb read. He's got obvious passion and vision. It's good to read that the change from an u23 team to a B team is much more than a name change, and takes us back to where we once were, namely developing first team players. He's a great acquisition and it looks like we're back on track after a few years going backwards. 

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saintjimbo83

saintjimbo83

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Great read. Pretty much means if you are a young player out on loan, you don't have a future at the club.

I get the logic too, why send a player to a league 2 club that plays a completely different style to our first team when the 'B' team are playing the exact same style week in, week out. 

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SO16_Saint

SO16_Saint

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Matt Crocker started his role as Southampton’s director of football in February, just six weeks before COVID-19 brought football — and society — to a grinding halt. But as he closes in on completing his first year in the job, it’s clear to see he hasn’t allowed the global pandemic to get in the way of his work.

In less than 12 months, Crocker has built a solid relationship with first-team manager Ralph Hasenhuttl, helped create and implement the “SFC Playbook“, overseen the rebranding of the under-23s to a B team, overhauled the scouting department, devised a five-year plan for the women’s team and been instrumental in taking Staplewood, the club’s training facility, to the next level.

Those improvements to Staplewood haven’t come cheaply, though. Southampton have invested over £1 million in recent months to ensure it remains one of the best campuses around.

“From the first walk around it looked as though there had been a neglect of some of the academy facilities,” Crocker tells The Athletic, in what is his first interview since returning to Southampton. “Considering we are a Category One academy, some of those didn’t feel like high-performance environments to me. I don’t mean high-performance in the sense of fancy doorknobs, but actual functionality. I wanted it to smell of hard work.

“We’ve spent the last four months, even though we’re going through COVID, investing over £1 million in developing some of the academy facilities. There were some glaringly obvious things that needed changing.

“We’ve just developed a brand-new sports science and analysis office space. The guys were in a really small, poor, outdated facility that I didn’t think was fit for purpose. We developed a bigger, better facility for them to collaborate as teams and I think it’s much better.

“We’re in the process of adding six purpose-built changing rooms to the academy because we were short on space. There is also a big rehab and medical lab that will be for the academy and women’s and girl’s programmes, which will be based down the bottom of Parks Farm. Before that, it was just a small Portakabin, really.

“We are trying to make sure that all the facilities aren’t just singing and dancing. They have to be fit, functional and breed hard work. I want people to be excited about being here.”

Crocker is no stranger to Southampton. In fact, you could argue he’s part of the tapestry. He first joined the club in 2006 as their academy manager after doing an impressive job at Cardiff City, where he oversaw their move from a small youth programme to a full-blown academy.

During his first seven years at St Mary’s, he helped countless players achieve their dreams of becoming professional footballers. His remit was to oversee all aspects of the club’s youth set-up, including player development and coaching.

Players such as Gareth Bale, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Luke Shaw and James Ward-Prowse all passed through the academy when Crocker was in charge. His success on the south coast led to the FA offering him the chance to take ownership of the pathway for the England youth national teams from under-15s to under-20s.

His crowing moments arguably came in 2017 when the under-17s (boasting players such as Phil Foden, Jadon Sancho and Callum Hudson-Odoi), and the under-20s (including Kyle Walker-Peters, Dean Henderson and Dominic Calvert-Lewin) won their respective World Cups. And if that wasn’t enough, the under-19s (with Reece James, Mason Mount and Ryan Sessegnon) also won the European Championship that year.

But his time with the FA ran its course, which saw him return to Southampton in his first director of football role.

The groundwork for his appointment started when one club official went out of their way to speak to Crocker at an England game. They wanted to get a feel for what the former academy boss was about.

And the rest, as the saying goes, is history.

“I’ve always liked projects,” Crocker explains. “When I look back to my early days at Cardiff City, it was a long-term project to get them academy status. I then had the opportunity to come to Southampton as the academy manager at a difficult time for the club as we had just been relegated from the Premier League.

“We worked to become the first club to get Category One status, and that was a good project. England DNA was a blank sheet of paper, and there was an opportunity to align a pathway from the junior teams to the senior teams, working with people like Dan Ashworth and Gareth Southgate.

“But for my personal development, this is a role I’ve always wanted. I feel like I’ve worked through my career to be in a position to do this type of role. And to do that at a club I know, and in an area where I’ve lived for 15 years, is great.

“It just felt like a really great opportunity for me and the time for another project. It was about creating a culture and philosophy that will stand the test of time and move us forward.”

Before being offered the role, which had arisen in light of Ross Wilson leaving for Rangers, Crocker had several chats with Martin Semmens, Southampton’s chief executive. It became clear early on that they shared the same values to help create a successful environment.

The club were keen to appoint a figure whose sole focus was to execute a long-term strategy. They didn’t need someone to come in and be the wheeler-dealer-type director of football.

But how do you become a director of football at a Premier League club without experience in that particular department?

“I spent two years doing a technical directors’ course,” says Crocker. “I sat through that with 10 other wannabe technical directors and the whole format of the course gives you opportunities to do case study visits with people already in the role.

“One thing to point out is that it’s different at every single club. Some clubs have a director of football that is a trader: they fly all over the world doing deals that could be seen as the sexy stuff. But that’s not my strength.

“The conversation I had with Martin Semmens was very much about me being a behind-the-scenes strategy and process person. I’m someone that makes sure we hold ourselves accountable to the processes and plans we have in place. My job is to have one eye on helping Ralph (Hasenhuttl) win today, but the other eye on making sure we win in the future.”

After highlighting areas which needed improvement, Crocker was able to start implementing the changes he felt would make the biggest difference when it came to long-term success.

High up on the agenda was switching the under-23s to a B-team model.

“Quite early on in conversations with Martin, before I was fortunate enough to be offered the role, there were things we had talked about,” Crocker added. “One of those was around this opportunity to connect the academy with the first team more.

“It felt like there had not been a dip, but a change in philosophy that had developed. Ralph came in and had put down a really firm style of play for the first team. From watching the under-23s the previous season when I was at the FA, the style of play looked very different (to the first team).

“What that means is that you are not necessarily able to prepare the players to have the full toolkit, so when they do step up to train and play with the first team, they understand the style and system and what’s required of them physically, tactically and mentally.

“There was definitely a void between those two styles of play. I guess one of the big wins was to come in and really remove the under-23s from the academy and place it as a B team connected to the first team.

“We developed the SFC Playbook with a style of play, all the sessions that we do from a first-team perspective, and the position-specific profiles that are required for each of the six positions across the team, and we made sure we aligned that with the B team.”

The “six positions” refer to the six roles in Hasenhuttl’s 4-2-2-2 — the goalkeeper, full-backs, centre-backs, defensive midfield pair, attacking midfield pair and strikers. Aligning that philosophy with the youth set-up has eased the transition between the two teams.

“There is a much closer connection, and there are far more young players stepping up to train with Ralph. I know it sounds like this should happen at every club, but it doesn’t.

“Academies can be seen as a club within a club, and the biggest thing we wanted to do as a starting point was to connect the top of the academy with the first team. That’s not disrespecting the academy because we have a player development system that has stood the test of time.

“It just felt like there was change needed at the top to really align that style and philosophy and connect it to the first team.”

It would be fair to point out that switching to a B team raises questions about where the club sees them going. At the moment they play in the Premier League 2, but if the English Football League allowed top-flight sides to play in the lower divisions, is this something Southampton would want to do?

“That’s not a consideration for us. The one thing I wanted to look at was to create an environment where our young players can see they are one step away from the first team,” he said. “That one step might be a small step if you are performing really well. But we also wanted to point out that you could be miles away.

“You may have some players who think they are really close to the first team. The physical data that we can now map against every training session and the game data in terms of positioning and what they should be doing are sometimes miles and miles away!

“Now we’ve got those metrics aligned we can sit down with a player and be brutally honest and say, ‘This is where you actually are, and you are miles away. But what we can do over the next three to six months is come up with a plan and hone in on making a difference to the things that will get you closer to the first team’.”

james-ward-prowse-southampton-matt-crock
Saints hope more academy players can make a first-team impact like James Ward-Prowse (Photo: Getty Images)

While discussing the pathway from B team to the senior squad, Crocker made it clear that loaning out young players, except in special circumstances, will be a thing of the past.

The club’s director of football doesn’t see the value in sending an 18-year-old out on loan when he has all the tools to succeed at Southampton, especially now there is a B team that emphasises closing the gap to the first team.

“If you look over the last 10 years, our statistics tell us, in the main, that the players come through our academy, train with the first team, join the first-team squad and then play for the first team,” says Crocker. “Very rarely have we had successful players who have gone on loan and then come back. We have moved away from the loan system. The B team will be our strongest asset. Ralph and his staff will be at their games, and the players will get a sense that these games actually matter and will help them get closer to the first team.

“On the odd occasion we will do loans, but that won’t be because an agent has said, ‘He’s 18 now and needs to go on loan’. That’s just ridiculous. I sometimes hear this suggestion they should be sent on loan to grow up. If we haven’t helped them grow up in the last 10 years at the academy, then we haven’t done our job properly.

“There is no point in us sending an 18-year-old kid — no disrespect — to a League Two club if they don’t play similarly to us. I’m not sure what we would get out of that unless there is a specific, physical or mental reason for us to do that.

“Maybe a player does need to go and experience a different culture and environment or maybe just needs to spend some time away from his mum and dad to go and live independently. But in the main, we can do that here and keep a closer eye on them.”

As well as putting the wheels in motion to overhaul the club’s under-23s, Crocker was also working on changing the way decisions are made by staff members.

He felt the process had become too convoluted and needed streamlining. This resulted in a clear direction being set, which not only empowers people to make important decisions, but also encourages an element of ownership if things go wrong.

“When I was first here, we used to have a really clear, simple structure,” says Crocker. “But it had become really complicated in terms of who could make decisions, who reported to who, does everyone know the five-year plan and what the objectives are?

“It felt like all of that really needed simplifying. I’d like to think we’ve spent the last eight months really making sure people have roles and responsibilities that are clear and simple.

“There were around 150 staff last time I was here, and now it’s over 400 across the club. Everything has just grown exponentially. But when you grow, you sometimes lose that sense and understanding of what we are here to achieve.

“I just felt that some of the messages had become a bit diluted around being a club that develops players through our system, and that is fundamental to our long-term success.

“Simplifying the structure was a good way to do that. Size was a key thing but also what are we actually here to do? I put that at the forefront of everyone’s minds and not necessarily just a vision about their own departments. It was about the club as a whole and how their department fits into the wider vision of the club.”

By changing certain operations off the pitch, Crocker saw another way to impact the success on it. This came in the form of restructuring Southampton’s scouting operation.

Eagle-eyed supporters will have noticed several advertisements for scouting jobs being posted on the club’s website. Don’t worry, they didn’t lose all their scouts overnight. Instead, Crocker saw a way in which the process could be streamlined to benefit both Hasenhuttl and the academy at the same time.

“Spending the first three months listening and learning to understand how our recruitment team works and operates, from an academy and first-team perspective, it felt like there were some glaring opportunities,” says Crocker. “When I arrived, the academy recruitment and senior recruitment were very different. There were different processes and different ways of working. The first thing was a no-brainer: we needed to connect those and have consistent processes of what we look for. We wanted one clear, overarching recruitment strategy.

“The second thing I noticed is that we used a hell of a lot of consultants. No disrespect, but when people are consultants, it’s not necessarily a full-time job. You can’t hold them accountable.

“One of the key drivers was ‘less is more’. We could have 30 consultants or 10 full-time scouts. If you have 10 full-time scouts, they can come into the club more and understand our philosophy, our way of working, the position-specific requirements, they can sit with Ralph and pick his brain about what we are looking for.

“We can then make sure they go to the games we want them to go to, and the reports are written in a certain way. We can bring them into the club for training and to monitor and help develop them by giving them individual programmes. We can really hold them accountable.

“It really was a no-brainer to go from 30 to 10. Those 10 are working full-time and will understand ‘The Southampton Way‘. Previously, it was a case of being sent reports and scouts saying, ‘We’ll see you when we see you’. That’s not good enough, and we need to move forward.”

As part of the bigger recruitment picture, Crocker is creating a player insights department. This will be data-led but will be crucial to how Southampton identify and sign players in the future.

“In our new set-up, there will be a player insights department, and their job is to either confirm or deny the views and opinions of the scouts,” he explains. “Scouts have got a craft eye and will recommend players on our style and system of play. But what we want to do is create a data system that then enables us to track and monitor those players with clear physical and tactical metrics.

“So, for example, if you are talking about a central midfield player, then you would want to know how many duels they win across a game. We can then compare that with players already in our system from a B-team and first-team perspective.”

ralph-hasenhuttl-southampton-matt-crocke
Crocker has loved working with Ralph Hasenhuttl (Photo: Getty Images)

One other recruitment-related perk that Crocker brings to the table is an extensive knowledge of the best young players in England. For a club such as Southampton, which prides itself on its academy, to have access to his expertise in this way is dynamite.

Asked about his involvement in recruitment, Crocker says: “My job is to make sure every player we consider goes through the fundamentals of where we’ve been in the past. My job is the processy bit. The sexy bit of what scouts go out and do to identify the players just isn’t me.

“I’ve been fortunate to work at the FA for six years and watch these players live, so I have got an opinion on them. But that’s not where my greatest value is going to be. My greatest value is making sure that with every financial decision we make, the board and owners are confident we’ve done our due diligence, and we have a way of working that hopefully enables us to achieve success in the future.”

Despite returning to Southampton with a glittering CV, Crocker tells The Athletic that he was still apprehensive about meeting Hasenhuttl.

After all, his relationship with the Austrian is going to be crucial when it comes to implementing a long-term strategy. However, Crocker quickly realised that there wasn’t going to be a better manager to work with, especially when it’s your first job as a director of football.

“I didn’t know Ralph, so those first couple of opportunities were to talk football and see there was some alignment,” Crocker said. “It was great to see somebody who cares passionately about winning also wants to leave a legacy and develop a club by seeing a philosophy that flows all the way down through the academy.

“It was music to my ears because that’s my background and where my skills lie. I have to make sure we have got the right processes, strategies and plans in place to enable us to be successful on the pitch. To be able to have a unique project like the Playbook early on meant we all got together over three months to develop an internal point of reference.

“Working closely with Ralph, I can see he has a real passion for not just winning today, but also for helping us be a sustainable club in the future. He sees the bigger picture, and there is no greater example of that than when he watched the B team play against Man City after going top of the Premier League the night before.

“He is so passionate about the B team. I’m watching him on the sideline kicking every ball. His enthusiasm is infectious. He can clearly see we are aligning our young players to play the same way as the first team. He has invested his time into that, and I have to pinch myself sometimes.

“To have someone who runs the first team programme show that level of commitment to the B team and young players is music to my ears. It means that when I do the job of selling the club to a young player and his family, I can tell them to come and watch our B team. They will see how passionate Ralph is that it sells itself.”

Ultimately, Crocker won’t be judged on what happens tomorrow. His track record will be scrutinised further down the line when enough time has elapsed to judge it fairly.

Over the duration of his interview with The Athletic, it’s obvious to see why Southampton identified him as the director of football to take them forward. He breeds enthusiasm and has the achievements to support the changes he wants to make.

But where does he see Southampton in five years?

“I view myself as the gatekeeper of the football philosophy and culture. It’s not that I own it, because it’s not mine. It belongs to the club and the manager in that position. But my job is to protect it and make sure that’s it thriving not just for today but also the future.

“What success looks like in the future is that we have a team like we have today, which is a dynamic first team. A team that pushes boundaries and does things differently because if we are going to compete, we are never going to have financial riches of the top-six clubs. We need to think differently to them.

“We want a sustainable long-term first team that has a really strong football philosophy and football culture. Beneath that, we should be making sure that the B team is strong and we have B-team players pushing those first-team players. There might be times where, strategically, we may sell a first-team player to create some opportunities or because we’ve got a younger player coming through.

“We want to get to a stage where we are almost three-deep in every position. That sustainability long term is the key bit. On top of that, we want to grow our women’s programme. When you look at where our women’s programme is (currently fourth tier), we have got aspirations to be in the (top-tier) Women’s Super League in five years.

“It’s also about reflecting our community. Some of the work that’s been done by the club during lockdown reflects the type of club we want to be in the future. Supporting our community is one of those key attributes and makes us a bit different from other clubs.”

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sadoldgit

sadoldgit

Posted
Posted (edited)

Krueger and Crocker are doing/did different jobs.

Strange to hear Crocker talk about the youth team set ups playing differently. Weren’t we told some time ago that the teams would all be playing the same way to aid progression? No surprise to hear that the plot had been lost. Good to hear that he has been busy working away behind the scenes since February and that there is lots of positivity again within the club. 

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trousers

trousers

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9 minutes ago, MarkSFC said:

Thanks SO16_Saint for posting that. 

It feels like we are very lucky with the managers we have; Ralph, Matt, Martin and Toby. 

Lets hope we get a prolonged stay from all of them, a new owner and build something special!

I'm coming around to the idea that having a dormant/inert owner such as Gao is potentially better than having someone putting their oar and money in willy nilly. I sense that the likes of Hassenhuttl and Crocker thrive on the challenges this type of ownership presents.

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niceandfriendly

niceandfriendly

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4 hours ago, MarkSFC said:

Thanks SO16_Saint for posting that. 

It feels like we are very lucky with the managers we have; Ralph, Matt, Martin and Toby. 

Lets hope we get a prolonged stay from all of them, a new owner and build something special!

To be fair to the bloke we've hired Ralph, Crocker & Semmens while he's been the owner. We're seemingly on the up in all areas of the club, maybe turbulence and change isn't what we need right now? Not saying he's the perfect owner, you'll understand.

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skintsaint

skintsaint

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Sounds great and good for our short-medium term future.

Questions is when RH goes, do when then have to hire another manager who plays his teams the same way? Limits our options somewhat. Or does someone new come in then we change everything to accommodate their way of playing? Would take a while to sort out.

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Saint_clark

Saint_clark

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13 hours ago, saintjimbo83 said:

Great read. Pretty much means if you are a young player out on loan, you don't have a future at the club.

I get the logic too, why send a player to a league 2 club that plays a completely different style to our first team when the 'B' team are playing the exact same style week in, week out. 

I mean, this is something that happened years ago under Reed. He gave an interview where he said they didn't see the point in loaning players out because you're learning a different way etc etc, but about a year later that got discarded as they realised there's still huge value in a seasons first team experience, regardless of who it's with. 

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egg

egg

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7 hours ago, trousers said:

I'm coming around to the idea that having a dormant/inert owner such as Gao is potentially better than having someone putting their oar and money in willy nilly. I sense that the likes of Hassenhuttl and Crocker thrive on the challenges this type of ownership presents.

Yep. Throughout his time here, he's hired some very good people, got rid of those who weren't performing, stayed out of the football side and left it to the grown ups, not embarrassed us with tweets and other public facing nonsense, and generally kept us on the straight and narrow. The only thing he hasn't done is sunk tens/hundreds of millions into buying players, but nobody with sense would do that. With that said, we've had cash injections (loans) to help us along and it must be that Gao has either provided that or arranged it. 

I wouldn't want to see anyone come in and meddle with our current set up. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. 

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Turkish

Turkish

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5 hours ago, skintsaint said:

Sounds great and good for our short-medium term future.

Questions is when RH goes, do when then have to hire another manager who plays his teams the same way? Limits our options somewhat. Or does someone new come in then we change everything to accommodate their way of playing? Would take a while to sort out.

Dont worry, we have a secret file of managers who fit exactly our model that we've been tracking for years and we know exactly who we want when Hassenhuttl goes.

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SKD

SKD

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Posted
4 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Dont worry, we have a secret file of managers who fit exactly our model that we've been tracking for years and we know exactly who we want when Hassenhuttl goes.

We even give them 6-12 months notice so they can leave/get sacked from their current role and save us a small £ on compensation.
 

it’s why we’re always so relaxed. 

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hypochondriac

hypochondriac

Posted
Posted (edited)
10 hours ago, sadoldgit said:

Krueger and Crocker are doing/did different jobs.

Strange to hear Crocker talk about the youth team set ups playing differently. Weren’t we told some time ago that the teams would all be playing the same way to aid progression? No surprise to hear that the plot had been lost. Good to hear that he has been busy working away behind the scenes since February and that there is lots of positivity again within the club. 

Yes I am entirely aware of that thanks for pointing out the obvious. The point is that whilst both had different roles, both of them have spoken about the club whilst beong employees. If you read what krueger used to say and then what an actual football person says like Matt then the difference is night and day. We are very lucky to have someone who very clearly knows exactly what they are talking about. 

Edited by hypochondriac
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sadoldgit

sadoldgit

Posted
Posted
28 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Yes I am entirely aware of that thanks for pointing out the obvious. The point is that whilst both had different roles, both of them have spoken about the club whilst beong employees. If you read what krueger used to say and then what an actual football person says like Matt then the difference is night and day. We are very lucky to have someone who very clearly knows exactly what they are talking about. 

My point was and still is that Chairmen and CEO’s speak very differently to DofF who are more hands on to the technical side of things so it is pointless comparing the two. If you want to compare Krueger compare him to Semmens. 

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