If the BBC is to be believed we are appointing Alessandro Brito from Botafogo as new chief scout. Now, I know there is a vacancy but I am somewhat underwhelmed to say the least. Also, is this a little "Cart-before-the horse" bringing in somebody before a trainer is sorted out? He might of course be a scouting genius and time will tell but, the obvious questions arise as to his knowledge of Palace's traditional fishing pond i.e. the Championship or delving around in the young/talented/cheap (relatively) European scene. Our experience with promising brazilians is only bad and those that this guy has scouted for Forest that are suggested as prime successes are not imho worthy of the title.
New Chief Scout
- Topic starter JessieJ
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A valid point. He may know a lot about South America but what about Doncaster. I suppose it can work as long as we have a good network of UK / Europe based scouts. I assume that as Chief Scout he would be the one who would decide if we should pursue a player so then it becomes can he spot a talent that has been pointed out to him by a local scout?
Eagle Black.
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So what's happened to Matt Hobbs ?
Hobbs isn't a scout he's DoF. Nothing has happened to him. He's still DoF
He's spying on Wolves training ground.
Linford
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Crystal Palace set to appoint new chief scout: How will this impact their transfer activity?
Wrigglesworth played a significant role in bringing N’Golo Kante to Leicester City in 2015.
www.nytimes.com
Tldr:
Ben Wrigglesworth is expected to come in as Chief Scout, with Alessandro Brito coming in as South America Scout.
Wrigglesworth previously worked for Wolves and Leicester, being partially credited in the article as having identified N'Golo Kante, Matheus Cunha, Joao Gomes, Riyadh Mahrez, and Jamie Vardy.
He recommended Harry Wilson to Wolves too, but Pereira wasn't keen. In the end Pereira wasn't keen on Wrigglesworth and pushed him out of the club.
Dunno what to make of this, all the Wolves fans on twitter seem to be happy he is going.Crystal Palace set to appoint new chief scout: How will this impact their transfer activity?
Wrigglesworth played a significant role in bringing N’Golo Kante to Leicester City in 2015.
Tldr:
Ben Wrigglesworth is expected to come in as Chief Scout, with Alessandro Brito coming in as South America Scout.
Wrigglesworth previously worked for Wolves and Leicester, being partially credited in the article as having identified N'Golo Kante, Matheus Cunha, Joao Gomes, Riyadh Mahrez, and Jamie Vardy.
He recommended Harry Wilson to Wolves too, but Pereira wasn't keen. In the end Pereira wasn't keen on Wrigglesworth and pushed him out of the club.
Linford
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Hard to say really, without being in the room where he worked or getting a feel for him. I think there is some overlap with Hobbs at Wolves so he will have a feel for him, and I'd go out on a limb that Hobbs has picked his appointment.
I would say, as much as they've had the resources, Wolves did good business when Ben was there. Unearthed gems at low prices, sold high.
Only the last 2-4 windows they've been hamstrung financially and sold too many crucial players without replacing them. The writing was on the wall for them all season because of that, but I wouldn't exactly blame the scouting department, or not the scouts themselves anyway.
His record in identifying players at Wolves was great. He was lower down in the scouting team at Leicester, but if he can be credited with the names the article above suggests, than that boosts his record even more in a similar vain.
Agreed.
Super Agent Mendes has a huge say in players at the club. There could be an argument that the scouting staff identify a player but because he is not one of Mendes clients they are overruled and vice versa.
Hopefully that was the case here and these guys are good but weren't listened to.
Linford
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Mendes' players have largely paid off for them though. Certainly their most successful players were all the Portuguese, Brazillians, or otherwise from that market. Which made up less of the squad in recent times.
I would almost hope for the inverse; I would hope that Ben (and Matt for what it's worth) has formed and maintained a lucrative relationship with Mendes during that time and that it would carry over with them.
Sure we want want great players at the club but Wolves are a mess. We are not privy as to why but it can't be a good thing that an outsider with a vested interest has so much power at that club.
You are correct on the successes but what about the failures and mores to the point the players that the club never signed because it didn't suit Mendes. I guess we will never know. Maybe someone can have a look at the Wolves forum to see how they view him.
Linford
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From what I've seen, there has been a significant drop off in re-investment at Wolves, and that's what I put it down to personally. They are a mess now, but before that happened they weren't at all.
All the time that they were bringing in Mendes players, they were doing well. When they stopped, it turned sour. The consequences of selling without re-investment could be spotted a mile away, they always looked a much weaker proposition than before.
To me that suggests only positive about a Mendes relationship. By the way, Guardiola was sweet with Mendes too.
Canterbury Palace
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Athletic article says that Wrigglesworth was influential in signing Cunha and Gomes, both of whom are obviously class, and was a scout at Leicester and played a significant part in signing Kante. I think someone said this above but he apparently also recommended signing Harry Wilson but got blocked by Vitor Pereira who pushed him out and all of their subsequent business was done by Domenico Teti who obviously did it shambolically.
I think there's enough there to be excited, he's only 33 as well, and we have to have faith in Parish at this point.
Given that those two signings were Brazilian and we've appointed a South American scout too, you'd imagine that's a region we'll be targeting. Hopefully will be closer to Cunha than Franca.
I think there's enough there to be excited, he's only 33 as well, and we have to have faith in Parish at this point.
Given that those two signings were Brazilian and we've appointed a South American scout too, you'd imagine that's a region we'll be targeting. Hopefully will be closer to Cunha than Franca.
ASCPFC
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It's funny really, I hardly dare say it. But it doesn't seem that hard to be a scout. It seems pretty obvious who's a good player and who's not. Is that unfair of me? I reckon about half of this site's users could do it. But the other half are just wrong.
Highly recommended by Homer Simpson always banging on about Dof.
Linford
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Part of their job is to identify the ones that aren't stonkingly obvious, and therefore will be available on the cheap.
"Hidden gems" so to speak.
Stirlingsays
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Crystal Palace set to appoint new chief scout: How will this impact their transfer activity?
Wrigglesworth played a significant role in bringing N’Golo Kante to Leicester City in 2015.
Tldr:
Ben Wrigglesworth is expected to come in as Chief Scout, with Alessandro Brito coming in as South America Scout.
Wrigglesworth previously worked for Wolves and Leicester, being partially credited in the article as having identified N'Golo Kante, Matheus Cunha, Joao Gomes, Riyadh Mahrez, and Jamie Vardy.
He recommended Harry Wilson to Wolves too, but Pereira wasn't keen. In the end Pereira wasn't keen on Wrigglesworth and pushed him out of the club.
I'm just happy that we have someone at the club with the surname of Wrigglesworth.
Makes me feel like our next signings will be Wallace and Gromit.
ASCPFC
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Like when we bought the leading Championship players but no other club had noticed. Shows how poor scouting is. If anyone could be bothered to look at the Championship stats you'd find your players.
Linford
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Well, we have overhauled our scouting department since then. In fact, we barely had a department at that time, just Dougie bless him.
Those kind of names that have been mentioned above are more of the kind of thing I'm talking about. Plucking Vardy out of League One after one season, and he became who he is today, is great scouting.
Nobody knew about Kante before Leicester. Nunes may have been known as he was playing a higher level, but I can't say I knew him before Wolves.