Random Arsenal Shit (When it's not worth starting a thread)

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Seems like most of the scouts have been let go.

Not allowed in the stadiums now I guess.

[GP]

I think that’s actually the strategy now. I read an article that suggested we’ve made a conscious decision to go down a more “contacts based” route, rather than the old school scouting style. More about who you know rather than what you know.

If it means more Martinelli's then great. More players with their best days behind them looking for a last big contract, then no.

Martinelli was scouted. He's one of Francis Caggigao's signings, who has just been let go.

[Ralpheroo72]

They should make Ozil tell these people to their faces.

[Letters]

Seems like most of the scouts have been let go.

They've just replaced them with one man...

[Marc Overmars]

Martinelli was scouted. He's one of Francis Caggigao's signings, who has just been let go.

Oh. Well in that case.

[Penguin]

Well the scouts responsible for us signing players like Mustafi and Xhaka deserve to go

[Mac76]

Well the scouts responsible for us signing players like Mustafi and Xhaka deserve to go

They don't deserve to go, they deserve to get their heads smashed in

[I am invisible]

Interesting... opinion on those scouting redundancies now seems to be shifting in favour of it being a smart move by Edu. The general feeling is that the previous set up was bloated and out-dated, with large, unnecessary teams of scouts in every country, going to watch players in person, and that we're moving towards something a little leaner, based around data and preliminary video assessments, before we sent anyone to watch a player in person. Guess that makes sense.

I've also heard that Caggigao and others were going beyond scouting and actually getting involved in brokering the deals, which seems unnecessary when we're hiring other people to sort out contracts.

Finally, I've seen some people suggest that adopting the 'contacts book' approach might actually be us getting ahead of the game for once? There's a growing feeling that dealing with agents is inevitable now, and that even 16/17yo nobodies from u23 sides are now well-represented in almost every league. I guess that's true when you look at kids like that Joelson at Lisbon that we've been sniffing around? Nobody's claiming that it's an ideal solution for clubs, but it sounds like me have to be pragmatic about it if we want to be in the running for the top talent.

Guess we'll have to wait and see whether we're being modernised or conned. In principal, I'm not actually opposed to this seemingly unholy alliance of data-driven scouting and super-agents - my concern is less about having to deal with agents, and more to do with the one specific agent that we always seem to go through. Hopefully this arrangement with Kia, whatever it is, will turn out to be short-term as we get this new thing up and running. Wolves had a similar arrangement with Mendes, but they're fans seem to think they're now starting to separate themselves from him a little now...

[Mac76]

My issue with the data approach is that it's exactly what leads to signing players like Mustafi amd Xhaka, whose pass completion rates are high because mostly all they do is safe little passes backwards and sideways, but they don't create anything and when they get it wrong it leads to opposition chances like we've seen countless times when one of them fucks up

[I am invisible]

My issue with the data approach is that it's exactly what leads to signing players like Mustafi amd Xhaka, whose pass completion rates are high because mostly all they do is safe little passes backwards and sideways, but they don't create anything and when they get it wrong it leads to opposition chances like we've seen countless times when one of them fucks up

That's not the data's fault - that's the arseholes who punched in the wrong parameters and/or signed-off on the players without looking. The data is just numbers - you still need competent people there to analyse it and give it context. It just means that you don't need quite so many people, and don't need to travel anywhere near as much.