Lee Congerton appointed Head of Recruitment

[Vardinio'sCat]

 

Since when did a head of recruitment bear sole responsibility for all signings made during their tenure? I thought they ran the scouting team and then handed the recommendations/suggestions to others.

 

We have seen quite a few players coming here (in recent times) that have been explicitly linked to our managers, so how was our (then) head of recruitment responsible for them?

 

I don't really care what Celtic fans say about him, they are hardly a club on its knees, which admittedly Sunderland were. But was Sunderland all Lee's fault? our own MON also nearly got sunk by the same s**tstorm, and we still rate him.  If Top and Brendan are happy with his appointment, that is good enough for me for now.

 

Opinions can vary wildly on here on players, and we get to see their performances week in, week out. I guess it isn't surprising that the more opaque role of backroom appointments bring even less harmony.

Edited 6 June 2019 by Vardinio'sCat

[foxinsocks]

13 hours ago, TJB-fox said:

So you genuinely think Top is going to sit down and listen to what Celtic and Sunderland fans think?  If this bloke really is that awful then he’s got quite an impressive CV for someone who supposedly doesn’t know his arse from his elbow. 

 

Thank god we didn’t listen to the red flags surrounding our signings of Vardy, Schmeichel, Albrighton, Simpson and Morgan to name a few, otherwise we wouldn’t have been premier league champions. But hey, at least we wouldn’t have our head in the clouds.

It wouldnt be unreasonable for rudkin to have someone reach out to local journalists to sense check the positives coming from his scout in chief 

Edited 6 June 2019 by foxinsocks

[Ted Maul]

I suppose we've just got to get on with it and see what happens, whatever our opinion.

 

Hopefully our scouting and analytics teams are still strong enough to counteract any issues we might have with him.

[mozartfox]

4 minutes ago, Ted Maul said:

I suppose we've just got to get on with it and see what happens, whatever our opinion.

 

Hopefully our scouting and analytics teams are still strong enough to counteract any issues we might have with him.

Is the same scouting and analytics team that discovered and analyzed Slimani and Musa?

Edited 6 June 2019 by mozartfox

[murphy]

6 hours ago, Vardinio'sCat said:

 

Since when did a head of recruitment bear sole responsibility for all signings made during their tenure? I thought they ran the scouting team and then handed the recommendations/suggestions to others.

 

We have seen quite a few players coming here (in recent times) that have been explicitly linked to our managers, so how was our (then) head of recruitment responsible for them?

 

I don't really care what Celtic fans say about him, they are hardly a club on its knees, which admittedly Sunderland were. But was Sunderland all Lee's fault? our own MON also nearly got sunk by the same s**tstorm, and we still rate him.  If Top and Brendan are happy with his appointment, that is good enough for me for now.

 

Opinions can vary wildly on here on players, and we get to see their performances week in, week out. I guess it isn't surprising that the more opaque role of backroom appointments bring even less harmony.

 

 

Since their job title became 'head of recruitment' I suppose.  That is where the buck stops with recruitment, obviously.

 

  

[Xen]

9 hours ago, murphy said:

I won't quote the whole list again, but let's just take the case of Alvarez.

 

Under Congerton, Sunderland accidentally bought him by appearances triggering the clause in the loan even though they didn't want him.  Far from being free he cost 10.5m which was a lot then, especially when you're £100m+ in debt.  Sunderland tried to get out of the purchase but the CAS ruled that they had committed to it.  Alvarez never played for Sunderland again and ended up a bit part player at Sampdoria I believe even though Sunderland had paid his fee.

 

Vergini is a similar one that was purchased after being on loan but never player for them again.

 

I could go through those lists if I had a spare three hours or so, but there is good reason why many on this forum feared he might rock up here when Rogers arrived and Macia left.  Why fans of his previous clubs couldn't wait to be shot of him and why he has been put on gardening leave on three different occasions!

With Alvarez, if that's the case then that is completely outside of LC's remit. Sure, the clause would have been put in when he signed on loan which LC would have been involved in, but after that point it is the responsibility of the manager/board to ensure that clauses like that are not triggered. If Alvarez had left at the end of the loan then no-one would have questioned it, so seems harsh to blame him for that one when his hand was forced by his own club. 

[murphy]

2 minutes ago, Xen said:

With Alvarez, if that's the case then that is completely outside of LC's remit. Sure, the clause would have been put in when he signed on loan which LC would have been involved in, but after that point it is the responsibility of the manager/board to ensure that clauses like that are not triggered. If Alvarez had left at the end of the loan then no-one would have questioned it, so seems harsh to blame him for that one when his hand was forced by his own club. 

Well you might see it that way but it seems like a bizzare and unnecessary clause to have in a loan signing and perhaps a lack of communication between the playing side and recruitment, I mean who would expect a clause like that?  Head of recruitment has to take responsibility for recruitment and also for sales.  Alvarez was paid for then summarily sent packing without getting a penny back for him.

[brucey]

12 minutes ago, Xen said:

With Alvarez, if that's the case then that is completely outside of LC's remit. Sure, the clause would have been put in when he signed on loan which LC would have been involved in, but after that point it is the responsibility of the manager/board to ensure that clauses like that are not triggered. If Alvarez had left at the end of the loan then no-one would have questioned it, so seems harsh to blame him for that one when his hand was forced by his own club. 

Congerton was DOF at Sunderland, not head of recruitment.

[Xen]

6 minutes ago, brucey said:

Congerton was DOF at Sunderland, not head of recruitment.

Ah, my mistake. Fair enough, then.

[Muzzy_Larsson]

16 hours ago, brucey said:

Is the leaked list confirmed to be from the house Congerton was renting or did that get rumoured later down the line? I can't see anything about it on the original Tweet if that was the first place it showed up.

 

Would Congerton have had any motivation to leak stuff while Brendan was still at Celtic? A beef with someone?

To be fair it's all speculation and rumour that he was the leak.

 

From what I know in terms of his personality I don't think he seemed the type to deliberately leak anything, as far as I know on a personal level he got on with everyone fine at Celtic it was more on a professional level the general consensus was he was pretty useless as a head of recruitment.

 

It most definitely hasn't been him leaking the team as he won't be privy to this as he's not part of the match day staff and on a lot of occasions when the team are playing at weekends he was apparently out of the country.

[gerrytaggart]

I know this completely flies in the face of FT logic but it's probably a good idea to wait til after the summer transfer window to judge him. 

 

 

[Foxxed]

15 minutes ago, gerrytaggart said:

I know this completely flies in the face of FT logic but it's probably a good idea to wait til after the summer transfer window to judge him. 

 

 

Judging a man based on his actions rather than quickly and aggressively judging him based on our preconceived ideas seems feableminded tbh. You wanna keep your hippy sunshine shit to yourself. This is business. This is football. This is war.

[Sly]

I still don’t think he’s done that bad.

 

Some people on here want to condemn him based on issues that might have been out of his control. Bear in mind, whilst he was at Sunderland, he did try to purchase them Van Dyke before he went to Southampton. 

 

We adored Steve Walsh. The Everton fans hate him.

 

Some times stuff works, some times it doesn’t. 

 

Celtic - I personally don’t think they could have done a lot more over the past 3 seasons. They aren’t winning anything in Europe whilst they’re in a league which is equivalent to the Championship. 

 

Sunderland - started with a mess, it didn’t get any better. He was handed a poor workplace and to a degree, got out pretty quickly.

 

Hamburg - I personally think some of those signings are decent for a team of their standing. They made some money of those signings.

 

Chelsea - well thought of. 

 

Im of the opinion, people are bored and just want to winge.

[Guest SO1]

 

[majaco]

How does this fit with the thread.  Ridiculously, you have supported your opinions.

[Gerard]

19 hours ago, TJB-fox said:

Working as Head of recruitment at Chelsea, Celtic and Sunderland, yep you’re right absolutely horrific CV. Hmm

 

 

Vardy: Major issues with transfer fee.

Schmeichel: Leeds ‘reject’

Albrighton: ‘Why would Villa release him on a free if he’s any good?’

Simpson: ‘Limited wifebeater’

 

Remember now fella?

 

 

£4m worth of signings that worked out remarkably well and we were nowhere near this level so our expectations of these players were a lot less.

 

We were warned about Musa, Benalouane, Ward and Ghezzal that they were either crap or we'd seriously overpaid and they cost £50m.  No one is saying taking the opinion of fans who've seen players close up for a long period of time is infallible but if I was deciding on what players we bought alarm bells would ring when they are roundly criticised by the majority of fans.

 

As for Congerton you only have to look at his record in hindsight and he's overseen the transfer of more bad players than good ones. I'm only hoping that there is more to him coming here than meets the eye and BR wouldn't have him here if he thought he was incompetent as he appears to be at a glance of his record. 

[Muzzy_Larsson]

8 minutes ago, Gerard said:

 

£4m worth of signings that worked out remarkably well and we were nowhere near this level so our expectations of these players were a lot less.

 

We were warned about Musa, Benalouane, Ward and Ghezzal that they were either crap or we'd seriously overpaid and they cost £50m.  No one is saying taking the opinion of fans who've seen players close up for a long period of time is infallible but if I was deciding on what players we bought alarm bells would ring when they are roundly criticised by the majority of fans.

 

As for Congerton you only have to look at his record in hindsight and he's overseen the transfer of more bad players than good ones. I'm only hoping that there is more to him coming here than meets the eye and BR wouldn't have him here if he thought he was incompetent as he appears to be at a glance of his record. 

I think this post is spot on, everyone has an opinion and some figures/topics can split opinion.   Everyone can look at those list of players subjectively and analyse whether they are good or bad signings.  The point with Congerton is however, he doesn't even split opinion, he's universally derided everywhere he's been, you won't find a Sunderland, Hamburg or Celtic fan with a good word to say about the guy's ability in terms of recruitment, that's where the concern would be for me if I was a Leicester fan.

 

I've said countless times previously in this thread that I was very much in the "let's wait and see" and "in Brendan we trust" camp at the same stage of LC's tenure at Celtic, head buried in the sand, ignoring all the evidence that was right in front of me so I can appreciate others on here doing the same.

 

I guess some perspective is also needed, while I don't think the guy will be a success at Leicester, for a whole host of valid reasons, that doesn't mean to say Leicester can't be successful over the same period, in spite of his presence.  If he's marginalised and used within a very methodical structure at Leicester, basically as an old fashioned head scout who watches players and passes their names on to the footballing department, then any damage he can do may be minimal.

[Wymsey]

So Jon Rudkin won't be the scapegoat now, if potential signings don't start off well, then?

[Jobyfox]

In some ways football fans always have someone at the club who is lauded and someone who is made the scapegoat for anything that goes wrong. This, despite us not always truly understanding what goes on behind closed doors.

 

Taking Leicester as an example. Steve Walsh (scout) could do no wrong. John Rudkin can do no right. I’ve even seen people insist that signings were “a Pearson signing” or a “Rudkin signing” when they haven’t worked out and a “Walsh signing” when they have. 

 

Now SW is rightly praised for helping to build the 15/16 side. He did, however, preside over an incredibly poor summer of recruitment in summer 2016 - and Rudkin was also present before and after that miraculous season. There are elements of grey in both cases. 

 

Now I’m not saying that Congerton is being unfairly criticised. To be honest the appointment doesn’t fill me with confidence. But Sunderland were poor for a long time and continued to be poor well after Congerton’s time there. Also, Celtic aren’t anywhere near as important as their fans think they are and will struggle to attract the talent they probably think they’re entitled to.

 

Maybe the fans of these clubs needed a scapegoat. I hope so anyway. 

[Muzzy_Larsson]

14 minutes ago, Jobyfox said:

In some ways football fans always have someone at the club who is lauded and someone who is made the scapegoat for anything that goes wrong. This, despite us not always truly understanding what goes on behind closed doors.

 

Taking Leicester as an example. Steve Walsh (scout) could do no wrong. John Rudkin can do no right. I’ve even seen people insist that signings were “a Pearson signing” or a “Rudkin signing” when they haven’t worked out and a “Walsh signing” when they have. 

 

Now SW is rightly praised for helping to build the 15/16 side. He did, however, preside over an incredibly poor summer of recruitment in summer 2016 - and Rudkin was also present before and after that miraculous season. There are elements of grey in both cases. 

 

Now I’m not saying that Congerton is being unfairly criticised. To be honest the appointment doesn’t fill me with confidence. But Sunderland were poor for a long time and continued to be poor well after Congerton’s time there. Also, Celtic aren’t anywhere near as important as their fans think they are and will struggle to attract the talent they probably think they’re entitled to.

 

Maybe the fans of these clubs needed a scapegoat. I hope so anyway. 

In the main Celtic fans don't have a problem or any delusions of grandeur in terms of the players we can attract, most fans are behind the policy of buy unknowns for a low fee and sell them on for a high fee, so much so everyone was pretty amazed when we got Dembele.

 

We've adopted this policy long before Congerton arrived and will continue to do so now he's gone, we're happy to take the hit of 2-3 duds for every gem we unearth.  The problem is since Congerton arrived it's been dud after dud after dud with a lot of the signings failing to even play more than a handful of games they are so bad and the result of which is the biggest wage bill in our history (almost 50% higher than three summers ago), even with Rodgers and his salary gone.

Edited 6 June 2019 by henrik_62

[murphy]

5 hours ago, Foxxed said:

Judging a man based on his actions rather than quickly and aggressively judging him based on our preconceived ideas seems feableminded tbh. You wanna keep your hippy sunshine shit to yourself. This is business. This is football. This is war.

We have years of ineptitude to judge him on.  He didn't just spring out of nowhere last week.  It is perfectly reasonable to have concerns about his appointment due to his career to date.

 

We have no choice but to wait and see how he does at Leicester but having an opinion on his appointment is perfectly valid.  This is a Leicester City forum, having opinions is kind of the whole point.

[Foxxed]

20 minutes ago, murphy said:

We have years of ineptitude to judge him on.  He didn't just spring out of nowhere last week.  It is perfectly reasonable to have concerns about his appointment due to his career to date.

 

We have no choice but to wait and see how he does at Leicester but having an opinion on his appointment is perfectly valid.  This is a Leicester City forum, having opinions is kind of the whole point.

Look, I'm just worried that if we spend all our time bitching now then when he does buy a dud we won't have enough energy to viciously contemn the player before he's even played.

Edited 6 June 2019 by Foxxed

[WigstonWanderer]

These reports from fans of his previous clubs are worrying but whilst I typically respect their judgment of players that they see week in week out, the back room workings of clubs (and particularly the decision making processes) are much more opaque, and fans views may not be as reliable regarding the staff involved.

 

Look how Rudkins reputation has swung around in recent years without anyone seemingly knowing for sure exactly what part he’s played in transfers.

[Ric Flair]

On ‎06‎/‎06‎/‎2019 at 03:09, Vardinio'sCat said:

 

Since when did a head of recruitment bear sole responsibility for all signings made during their tenure? I thought they ran the scouting team and then handed the recommendations/suggestions to others.

 

We have seen quite a few players coming here (in recent times) that have been explicitly linked to our managers, so how was our (then) head of recruitment responsible for them?

 

I don't really care what Celtic fans say about him, they are hardly a club on its knees, which admittedly Sunderland were. But was Sunderland all Lee's fault? our own MON also nearly got sunk by the same s**tstorm, and we still rate him.  If Top and Brendan are happy with his appointment, that is good enough for me for now.

 

Opinions can vary wildly on here on players, and we get to see their performances week in, week out. I guess it isn't surprising that the more opaque role of backroom appointments bring even less harmony.

He was the Director of Football wasn't he at Sunderland? So he was responsible for the actual signing of the players, maybe had overall say on who they should bring in too. His other roles have been purely on the scouting and recommendation of players, nothing to do with the amounts paid etc. If Sunderland have mucked up in forgetting about clauses being triggered etc then that's his gig and that's a horror show. He strikes me as the sort of man who eats a sandwich with a knife and fork and still gets it down him.

[Vardinio'sCat]

12 hours ago, Ric Flair said:

He was the Director of Football wasn't he at Sunderland? So he was responsible for the actual signing of the players, maybe had overall say on who they should bring in too. His other roles have been purely on the scouting and recommendation of players, nothing to do with the amounts paid etc. If Sunderland have mucked up in forgetting about clauses being triggered etc then that's his gig and that's a horror show. He strikes me as the sort of man who eats a sandwich with a knife and fork and still gets it down him.

 

Hold on a minute, who was the head of recruitment at Sunderland?

 

You can't hold the DoF responsible for signings at one club, then the HoR at the next, just because it suits your argument.