Our Sporting Director

I'm still not entirely sure what his role extends to and how much responsibility he has, but it's surely a huge summer ahead for Mladen Sormaz to step up and prove himself.

When he started work at the club, we were right in the running for automatic promotion and we all know how it then ended. Collins has taken the blame, but how much is Sormaz responsible?

Only speculation, but you can wonder if a poor working relationship between him and Collins could've led to the latter's departure.

 

Ah good, we're already gunning for the new director of football, before his first transfer window. I was worried for a minute there.

 

Nothing wrong with posing questions as to accountability of someone in a very well paid, influential position.

I obviously hope he's a roaring success but he has a big job to do.

 

"I'm not sure what he does or how he does it, but what if he's doing it wrong? Just asking questions."

This forum is beyond parody sometimes.

 

Beyond parody says the person who posted in reply to a topic they have no interest engaging in! That's irony right there...

I opened a discussion so someone more knowledgable might be able to shed light on it. That's what a forum is.

 

I'm absolutely interested in engaging with this topic, that topic being random speculation. A forum is for the free and open exchange of opinions, personally I think I've made my position clear, it's utterly ridiculous and pretty unhelpful to begin speculating in this way, but yes let's wait and see if someone with direct knowledge of the relationship between Neil and Mladen shows up shall we?

 

He's done two things since he's been here. Sacked Collins with one game to go, and flew his replacement over and offered him the job without realising he wasn't qualified to work here.

 

To give him the benefit of the doubt his role there would be to identify Hammerman but the club secretary will be the one responsible for doing the checks and paperwork, his qualifying factors needed 36 months out of the last 5 years and he's was on something like 32-34 months plus 4 months at the begining of the proscribed period where he was head coach of the woman's national team (10 years total at that job), I'd assume the club probably attempted to have that as a qualified period.

It's common practice for a target to come over and sign in person then be subject to additional checks once the relevant details have been submitted and it's become common place to apply for mitigating circumstance appeals across a lot of industries post Brexit but is also becoming more and more difficult to have appeals actually correctly looked at and properly processed by the home office.

To answer the OP his main job is essentially head of recruitment where he sets out the remit for what type of players we identify but as a director of football he also needs to fit them into a club philosophy playing style that will then be replicated by current and future head coaches and the academy to ensure talent that is home grown can also smoothly transition into the 1st team. The hope is he then becomes the final decider that's always at oakwell along with input from the head coach rather than the board (which I suspect is part of why we also leave things so late) and he choses where the playing budget is spent. It would essentially remove the need for the board having direct involvement. They essentially will sign the checks and set the budget for him to use.

 

Why would he be in anyway linked to a drop in form.Genuine question.

 

At half time against Bolton he walked into the dressing room, kicked Pines in the knee and told them under no ******* circumstances were they to run into the box following an opposition penalty.

This is of course speculation, and I await someone closer to the situation to add further detail

 

Thanks for making your position clear that you think my thread is utterly ridiculous, much appreciated.

Hope you've got something more productive to spend your weekend doing x

 

Cheers, that's an interesting overview of what the role is and hopefully it will pay off. I've thought for a while that we seem to sign players who either don't always fit into what we need, or alternatively a lot of the same kind of player in each position rather than having a balance. Someone whose role it is to rectify that would be good.

The sticking point I don't quite get is who decides the 'philosophy of playing style'. How much is that the decision of each the Head Coach or the Sporting Director?

 

Id personally hope that it's a hybrid decision between the incoming head coach and the director of football that then becomes the foundation for our core principles. It would then be evolved over time as the inevitable next head coach comes in but we'd try to maintain a head coach that is at least able to coach that style of play.

 

I haven't even heard him talk yet, that seems like normal though

 

Why does everyone except the players take the blame.

 

In all fairness I’ve been pointing out the coincidence of the appointment of a sports director and our drop in form this year. It isn’t necessarily the fault of the Sports Director though, it may have more to do with Collins reacting to us having one. Either way the HR department need to iron out the responsibility of each, so we don’t have internal divisions and it will be hard to recruit a strong head coach if it isn’t done.

This could be what Duff is driving at if he’s asking for complete control. Nobody has complete control the running of a board takes teamwork and it is just as important in the boardroom as it is on the field.

 

Because the players are our saleable assets.
It'd be no good saying that such-and-such player or players were to blame for being useless and crap. No money in that !

 

Nah, he's crap. You heard it here first.

 

Big summer ahead for the newly appointed gentlemen. Spectemur Agendo they said. Well other than pumping money in to keep us going and appointing Duff, I’m struggling to find something noteworthy that they’ve actually done. Despite making the PO’s, I’d say we regressed on the pitch, with what some say was the worst and most boring football they’ve seen. We’ll see, but I’m not holding my breath.