Makes you wonder if we d signed Conor last summer would we have not bothered with Woodrow ? As the chaplin fell through the agent must have put forward Woodrow as an alternative .
Are you really suggesting that we rely on agents to recommend who we should sign? Is the order; spreadsheet, agents and then the coaching team?
In part yes . The club approach agents with a criteria for a player and the agent puts player suggestions forward that match that criteria . Id guess the "spreadsheet" is a list of attributes we are looking for as apposed to a list of all players in world football and their fitness levels / style of play etc . The latter would cost a small fortune to administer .
We don't monitor them ourselves, we buy data from companies that do - same as most other clubs. I'm no more aware of the cost than you, but my guess is it's cheaper than the cheapest member of the first team squad.
I can’t believe we have to keep going round the houses on this, but Stendel and the coaching team identify the criteria for the player (unless Stendel knows of one that already exists - see Thomas, Bahre, the giant keeper and to a degree Chaplin). The spreadsheet then gives us the players that meet the criteria. We don’t go to an agent and say ‘Got any forwards who can run 100m in less than 12 seconds and have a 85% completion rate on x, y and z?’. That would be the epitome of not having a clue on recruitment strategy.
So if an agent decides to forward a name to the club the club just dismisses the suggestion out of hand ? Or would the players data be inputted into the spreadsheet to see if said player is suitable ? Of course the club scout their own players but I'm sure they receive many suggestions from outside the club from agents / scouts . For the club to not follow up on those leads I find hard to believe .
What we’re saying is; If the player is suitable the club would already know. We start with what do we need, draw up a shortlist based on the ‘spreadsheet’ then check other criteria using other research methods which include the coaching staff checking them out, we’d only approach an agent when all the other criteria are met. Not only is this obvious, it’s been stated by the club.
Don't know if it's still the same at Oakwell as it was when MR was in charge.. Any player you recommended you were asked to submit any footage which high lighted the said player.. That was then followed up by the club by means of observation in real time and a then a written report was submitted . Which in turn was then followed by further observation by more than one person.. Requests were then made to the board.if required. To land said player... If coach / manager wanted him... In MR case most of the time the Don said no... Barnsley at the time missed out on at least 4 Portuguese under 21 year old who were willing to come on loan or sign.. All 4 went on to represent their country at u23 level 2 of which made full senior debuts....
