New fan here, what is LCFC's long-term player acquisition strategy?

[Dan]

Like the OP's thinking. I definitely agree with the bit about transfer market inefficiency, English clubs are awful for this and that's despite having the richest league in the world (well bar China). It's a chance for clubs like us to exploit it.

[AKCJ]

I'd say that the long term strategy is obvious.

 

Problem is we've been completely neglected the present and it's why we're shite.

 

Gray, Amartey and Ndidi are three youngsters we've signed in the last year that look like they'll get to the top. Problem is that none of those three are good enough yet.

[HoustonFox]

8 hours ago, Babylon said:

I would say at the start of the summer we wanted to keep the "british" core, and by that I mean anyone who has been in our league system a while. People who know the country, are settled here already. Obviously, the prices scared us off massively with what it would have taken to get Keane (with hind sight it was worth it) and Deeney.

 

Our recruitment obviously then switched to foreign shores. I would say there has been a noticeable switch to getting in young talent, to allow them to grow. I'm absolutely fine with that idea, and I think most people were quite excited with the young players we'd been singing over say the last year. The biggest issue though is that it the whole stragergy has fallen on its arse because of how much all the experienced players we had before and those signed in the summer haven't performed.

The biggest issues I have really are that we signed too many players from abroad too quickly. Ranieri I think it's safe to say went against Walsh again in wanting Mendy over Gueye (probably a good reason for going if he's being ignored) And we've overloaded certain areas and left other short. We're full of CDM's and Front men, when we needed a no.10. Plus we've signed people and had zero faith in them like Benny and Kapustka... who frankly I'd put money also being Ranieri picks.

 

 

Don't want to start an argument but this really seems an odd statement.  If they are Ranieri picks, and he picks the team, why haven't they got near playing?  I would have thought if they were his picks, they would have been force fitted into the team / squad?  We've seen that historically, at our club and beyond, when a player is a manager pick but doesn't do the job.  There must be more to it than this... 

[HoustonFox]

15 hours ago, vanity said:

Hey all, I'm an American who has acquired a serious rooting interest in LC the last few seasons (the obvious reasons), and I've noticed a lack of coherent talent acquisition strategy. I know Vichai has made a commitment to spending more, but after losing Walsh and then watching the last two windows, all the complaints re Rudkin, and most puzzling of all the disproportionate influence CR seems to have on recruiting strategy, it all seems rather incoherent. Has there been much public discussion re how LCFC anticipates cultivating talent in the future? I have not been able to find anything concrete. The incoherence this season makes sense if I think about it, going into the season there was CL to consider, so there needed to be a balance of talent acquisition for this season as well as looking forward, but at this point, it seems equally sensible to figure out exactly what sort of players LCFC will pursue. 

 

As I see things, LCFC cannot at present attract truly elite talent like a Chelsea or a Man U. But it can certainly spend that money other teams didn't want in January on building the best scouting network and coaching staff possible. It seems to me a reasonable strategy to target (1) youth and (2) volume. Especially volume, finding youngsters with genuine promise seems as much art as science. The more young talents coming to King Power, the better the chances of finding and developing gems. And young players seem reasonably easy to flip to another team without necessarily incurring much of a loss. I know a lot of teams use a similar strategy, but I also know that English football spends less on talent development and scouting than, say, Germany. And that sort of market inefficiency can be exploited.

 

More specifically, if LCFC were to, say, look to Germany for best practices in these areas -- obv Germany drastically improved its quality of football and number of eligible national team members by investing heavily in national scouting and talent development -- and begin building out this part of the business to rival any in England, perhaps LCFC could have a good long run staying up. The club could exploit existing inefficiencies other clubs practice to build its asset pool from the ground up with a machine that may be costly to build and acquire, but would yield productive young players. If it yielded only one Premier League starter per year, it would more than pay for itself. One per season may be ambitious, but picking up the most talented young players 18-22 or so from the lower leagues around Europe, combined with exceptional training, seems likely to yield dividends.

 

So what's the scoop? I'm very curious what fans on these boards want to see (other than some more generous offers during transfer windows, CR to stop fiddling and allow all the new players to learn to play together, Rudkin's head on a pike, some tidy service for our strikers, etc. etc.). 

 

I really enjoy reading this board, you lot are great fun. Up the Foxes!

Welcome!- where in the US are you from?  There is a pretty big community here, so check out the USA Foxes page too for some more local chat. 

[Babylon]

57 minutes ago, HoustonFox said:

Don't want to start an argument but this really seems an odd statement.  If they are Ranieri picks, and he picks the team, why haven't they got near playing?  I would have thought if they were his picks, they would have been force fitted into the team / squad?  We've seen that historically, at our club and beyond, when a player is a manager pick but doesn't do the job.  There must be more to it than this... 

Because he realised they are shit?

 

Benny didn't fit any of our signings under Walsh particularly . Not a been there and done it older head, not an up and coming talent and zero stats that stood out above anything other then average.

 

Chuck in him being from Italy and our scouts previously saying we avoided that market (yeah we got cambiasso, but he's played in other leagues and used to be world class). Then alarm bells start ringing.

 

The chairman of Kapustka's other club said that Ranieri had been the man making all the calls to them asking and checking on Kapustka as the Euros were on. I found that unusual... especially when you add in the Percy article saying we never even watched him live.

 

You only have to read the old scouting articles to know our scouting used to be far more thorough than that. It stinks of someone seeing him have one good game and rushing into it to me.

[HoustonFox]

3 hours ago, Babylon said:

Because he realised they are shit?

 

Benny didn't fit any of our signings under Walsh particularly . Not a been there and done it older head, not an up and coming talent and zero stats that stood out above anything other then average.

 

Chuck in him being from Italy and our scouts previously saying we avoided that market (yeah we got cambiasso, but he's played in other leagues and used to be world class). Then alarm bells start ringing.

 

The chairman of Kapustka's other club said that Ranieri had been the man making all the calls to them asking and checking on Kapustka as the Euros were on. I found that unusual... especially when you add in the Percy article saying we never even watched him live.

 

You only have to read the old scouting articles to know our scouting used to be far more thorough than that. It stinks of someone seeing him have one good game and rushing into it to me.

So is it someone or Ranieri just picked them as someone he wanted to buy?  I think it is more paucity in scouting quality rather than Ranieri insisting on people being signed, or else they would be straight into the team after a single training session? 

[Struwwelpeter60]

10 hours ago, sm1 said:

Apparently Ranieri watched Kaputska at the Euros and was smitten. He contacted him personally and convinced him to sign

That explains perfectly, why he is playing all the time

in PL and CL.

[Babylon]

15 minutes ago, HoustonFox said:

So is it someone or Ranieri just picked them as someone he wanted to buy?  I think it is more paucity in scouting quality rather than Ranieri insisting on people being signed, or else they would be straight into the team after a single training session? 

Ranieri picked Mendy, I think there is enough info to be sure about that and he's dropped him to the bench. So he won't necessarily just play people he's chosen, just because he did.

 

It's all guess work of course, but I'd wager they were picks from someone within his close circle... unless he's doing a Sven and taking calls from agents and letting them point people his way.

[EGBFitness]

I think there's a long term plan in place, when you look at the side there is a lot of youth with huge potential - Ndidi, Amartey, Gray, Kapustka, Chilwell, Musa. That's without naming players such as Drinky, Mahrez, Kasper who are still approaching their prime and youngsters we have signed for the youth sides. 

 

The potential of the club could be huge but of course isn't a certainty as not every player may reach their full potential or could also depend on the clubs position. 

 

Our problem has been failing to build on the short term by investing in proven quality to keep the club challenging and feels we have chosen to invest in the future and stick with the current crop of players failing to recognise where some players are in terms of their career. 

[Struwwelpeter60]

5 minutes ago, EGBFitness said:

I think there's a long term plan in place, when you look at the side there is a lot of youth with huge potential - Ndidi, Amartey, Gray, Kapustka, Chilwell, Musa. That's without naming players such as Drinky, Mahrez, Kasper who are still approaching their prime and youngsters we have signed for the youth sides. 

 

The potential of the club could be huge but of course isn't a certainty as not every player may reach their full potential or could also depend on the clubs position. 

 

Our problem has been failing to build on the short term by investing in proven quality to keep the club challenging and feels we have chosen to invest in the future and stick with the current crop of players failing to recognise where some players are in terms of their career. 

I fear, the signing of  so many young players, has nothing to do with some

master plan for the future of LCFC.

The explanation is, I think, much simpler: young players are cheaper than

"proven quality" players. 

[spaghettilegs]

Where is the USA forum? I need to try and find a decent bar in new york to watch the sevilla home game!

[Ian Nacho]

On 03/02/2017 at 01:29, vanity said:

Hey all, I'm an American who has acquired a serious rooting interest in LC the last few seasons (the obvious reasons), and I've noticed a lack of coherent talent acquisition strategy. I know Vichai has made a commitment to spending more, but after losing Walsh and then watching the last two windows, all the complaints re Rudkin, and most puzzling of all the disproportionate influence CR seems to have on recruiting strategy, it all seems rather incoherent. Has there been much public discussion re how LCFC anticipates cultivating talent in the future? I have not been able to find anything concrete. The incoherence this season makes sense if I think about it, going into the season there was CL to consider, so there needed to be a balance of talent acquisition for this season as well as looking forward, but at this point, it seems equally sensible to figure out exactly what sort of players LCFC will pursue. 

 

As I see things, LCFC cannot at present attract truly elite talent like a Chelsea or a Man U. But it can certainly spend that money other teams didn't want in January on building the best scouting network and coaching staff possible. It seems to me a reasonable strategy to target (1) youth and (2) volume. Especially volume, finding youngsters with genuine promise seems as much art as science. The more young talents coming to King Power, the better the chances of finding and developing gems. And young players seem reasonably easy to flip to another team without necessarily incurring much of a loss. I know a lot of teams use a similar strategy, but I also know that English football spends less on talent development and scouting than, say, Germany. And that sort of market inefficiency can be exploited.

 

More specifically, if LCFC were to, say, look to Germany for best practices in these areas -- obv Germany drastically improved its quality of football and number of eligible national team members by investing heavily in national scouting and talent development -- and begin building out this part of the business to rival any in England, perhaps LCFC could have a good long run staying up. The club could exploit existing inefficiencies other clubs practice to build its asset pool from the ground up with a machine that may be costly to build and acquire, but would yield productive young players. If it yielded only one Premier League starter per year, it would more than pay for itself. One per season may be ambitious, but picking up the most talented young players 18-22 or so from the lower leagues around Europe, combined with exceptional training, seems likely to yield dividends.

 

So what's the scoop? I'm very curious what fans on these boards want to see (other than some more generous offers during transfer windows, CR to stop fiddling and allow all the new players to learn to play together, Rudkin's head on a pike, some tidy service for our strikers, etc. etc.). 

 

I really enjoy reading this board, you lot are great fun. Up the Foxes!

Of all the clubs you take an intest in! Good on you though.