Martyn Glover

[Outfox the Fox]

I guess he'll be in post now?

 

He's got a hell of a lot to sort out!

[Stadt]

We should be active in January for once.

 

It's a pivotal window because it's last chance saloon to get a fee for Soyuncu, Tielemans, Perez, Praet et al. We're in a position where a few million here and there is critical, it's a shambles.

[South Shire Fox]

Must be a few of his old Southampton lads that he can call to help us out surely..Alex Mccarthy, Nathan Redmond, Walcott?.... 👀

Edited 2 September 2022 by South Shire Fox

[AjcW]

Not going to point this as a direct criticism of Martyn, more the person who hired him, I guess i'm just curious as to why we've employed two chief scouts in a row who were involved in some of Sunderlands worst times. 

 

This, from top to bottom, is a list of the significant signings Martyn Glover made at Sunderland, Everton and Southampton before joining us....

 

Sunderland

 

Wahbi Kazri

Lamine Kone

Dame N'Doye

Emanuel Eboue 

 

Everton

 

Yannick Bolasie (30m!!!!)

Morgan Schneiderlin (27m!!!!)

Ashley Williams (14m!!!!)

Lookman (8m)

Gueye (9m)

Gylfi Siggurdson (50m!!!!!!!!!)

Michael Keane (30m!!!!)

Jordan Pickford (30m... i'll give him that one )

Davy Klassen (27m!!)

Theo Walcott (23m!!)

Cenk Tossun (22m!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Richarlison (30m... turned a profit, fair play)

Yerry Mina (30m... CHRIST)

Luca Digne (20m... turned a profit I think?)

 

Southampton

 

Danny Ings (25m!!!)
Che Adams (16m)

Moussa Djanepo (15m)

KWP (13m)

Ibrahim Diallo (12m)

Mo Salisu (12m)

Tino Livramento (26m... think they made a profit?)

Adam Armstrong (17m)

Romain Perraud (12m)

Lyanco (7m)

(I've not included his summer 22 as Jason Wilcox dealt with these)

 

The ones i've highlighted are just a rank case of 'no scouting, just agents or whoever scored a hatful in the league below' which seems to have carried on here. 

 

I guess the question has to be how on earth does someone with that record get another Premier League chief scout job? The 200m+ Everton period in particular is just horrific.

 

I think when he joined a made a few excuses for him as there's some moments in there that involved controlling managers (Big Sam) but overall it's an absolute dustbin fire. 

 

Also seems to rely exclusively on France for the majority of his oversees signings. We're seeing this a bit with France/Italy ourselves. 

 

Interestingly you could probably argue his best time has been here... which I guess is a positive for us. But this season he appears to have really reverted to type bar Bilal!

[Ric Flair]

10 minutes ago, AjcW said:

Not going to point this as a direct criticism of Martyn, more the person who hired him, I guess i'm just curious as to why we've employed two chief scouts in a row who were involved in some of Sunderlands worst times. 

 

This, from top to bottom, is a list of the significant signings Martyn Glover made at Sunderland, Everton and Southampton before joining us....

 

Sunderland

 

Wahbi Kazri

Lamine Kone

Dame N'Doye

Emanuel Eboue 

 

Everton

 

Yannick Bolasie (30m!!!!)

Morgan Schneiderlin (27m!!!!)

Ashley Williams (14m!!!!)

Lookman (8m)

Gueye (9m)

Gylfi Siggurdson (50m!!!!!!!!!)

Michael Keane (30m!!!!)

Jordan Pickford (30m... i'll give him that one )

Davy Klassen (27m!!)

Theo Walcott (23m!!)

Cenk Tossun (22m!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Richarlison (30m... turned a profit, fair play)

Yerry Mina (30m... CHRIST)

Luca Digne (20m... turned a profit I think?)

 

Southampton

 

Danny Ings (25m!!!)
Che Adams (16m)

Moussa Djanepo (15m)

KWP (13m)

Ibrahim Diallo (12m)

Mo Salisu (12m)

Tino Livramento (26m... think they made a profit?)

Adam Armstrong (17m)

Romain Perraud (12m)

Lyanco (7m)

(I've not included his summer 22 as Jason Wilcox dealt with these)

 

The ones i've highlighted are just a rank case of 'no scouting, just agents or whoever scored a hatful in the league below' which seems to have carried on here. 

 

I guess the question has to be how on earth does someone with that record get another Premier League chief scout job? The 200m+ Everton period in particular is just horrific.

 

I think when he joined a made a few excuses for him as there's some moments in there that involved controlling managers (Big Sam) but overall it's an absolute dustbin fire. 

 

Also seems to rely exclusively on France for the majority of his oversees signings. We're seeing this a bit with France/Italy ourselves. 

 

Interestingly you could probably argue his best time has been here... which I guess is a positive for us. But this season he appears to have really reverted to type bar Bilal!

I completely forgot he'd been at Everton and Sunderland too. I've never been impressed with him but this makes it pretty clear, scary!

[AjcW]

8 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

I completely forgot he'd been at Everton and Sunderland too. I've never been impressed with him but this makes it pretty clear, scary!

Actually over 300m spent at Everton. I guess we could call ourselves fortunate that we've got **** all money?  

[-sodapop]

I don't think it's a coincidence that the last three clubs he's been at are in the bottom 4 and full of shite players that they can't shift.

[filbertway]

It was a recruitment company we used to hire Glover as well wasn't it?

[Mickyblueeyes]

He’s failed considerably when under pressure. No idea how we go from Macia who was very highly sought after exceptional scout. To congerton and now Glover.

[AjcW]

My opinion on what's actually gone on would probably get deleted but lets just say I get strong Mandaric/Redknapp vibes.... purely coincidental that Glover has worked for Big Sam twice i'm sure...

[Les-TA-Jon]

The club can talk all it wants about PSR hampering our ambition or ability to compete, but it's not forcing us to make dud after dud signings, on big money and wages, that often don't meet the priorities at the time and sometimes fall out of favour almost immediately. 

 

All these players we signed and then almost instantly were deemed not good enough or barely played: 

 

 

And when we only had Faes (bombscare) Coady (not good enough) Vestergaard (not suited to a relegation battle when you have to defend a lot) as CBs and only Ricardo (made of glass) and Justin (also injury prone) as RBs why did we sign only Okoli in defence and waste money on Skipp? 

Edited 16 January 2025 by Les-TA-Jon

[honeybradger]

Why did i get the idea that Glover was an ex-youth scout at Man City that identified talent like Sancho for them? To be fair Fatawu and Hermansen were good finds but the other transfer business we have done under him makes more sense now.

[AjcW]

7 minutes ago, honeybradger said:

Why did i get the idea that Glover was an ex-youth scout at Man City that identified talent like Sancho for them? To be fair Fatawu and Hermansen were good finds but the other transfer business we have done under him makes more sense now.

That's the team who replaced him at Southampton  

[-sodapop]

1 minute ago, Les-TA-Jon said:

The club can talk all it wants about PSR hampering our ambition or ability to compete, but it's not forcing us to make dud after dud signings, on big money and wages, that often don't meet the priorities at the time and sometimes fall out of favour almost immediately. 

 

All these players we signed and then almost instantly were deemed not good enough or barely played: 

 

It's truly dire seeing all of our signings for half a decade laid out like that.

 

Other than Fofana, Hermansen, El Khannous, Fatawu and maybe Castagne, none of these players have been consistently good enough and permanent transfers.

 

That's generously 5/27 - add in Lookman and Buonanotte as good loans and Winks as a good signing for the Championship - about one in four players being good enough. Just not even close to good enough.

 

And then from the misses - is there even one name on that list that we're going to get more money for than we paid? How many will we make our money back on? Cannon, maybe Okoli if we're lucky?

 

[AKCJ]

That list is frightening. All players that any Premier League fan could name you. Doesn't feel like much work goes into his scouting.

 

That trend obviously continued this summer with the likes of Skipp, Ayew, BDCR, Edouard and Buonanotte.

[Plastik Man]

I think it all goes back to the structure of the club.

 

What is his role? How much influence does the manager have?

 

It's been suggested that our recruitment relies heavily on the maneger, and who he brings in (Rodgers/Congerton, the Spanish guy we had before that, hadn't he worked with Ranieri at Sevilla?), and Enzo appears to have had an active role in summer 2023 when we had good recruitment, on the whole.

 

Last summer Skipp is the one that really stands out. It surprised most of us. I suppose we thought Soumare was on the way out, Ndidi injury prone, and too much reliance on Winks. And Cooper valued EPL experience. 

 

Was Skipp Cooper's pick? If so it didn't take him long to drop him!

 

Unfortunately Skipp doesn't appear to add much of any attribute other than being an extremely expensive squad filler. But is Glover just finding what he is told to? How much of a philosophy do we have? That surely comes from the top?

 

 

 

[Ric Flair]

Interested for @Viva take on this 😂

[Parker Pen]

32 minutes ago, AjcW said:

Actually over 300m spent at Everton. I guess we could call ourselves fortunate that we've got **** all money?  

This is a massive problem for us without a doubt,  both him and Congerton definitely don’t cut the mustard. Sunderland, Southampton and Everton all reeling from some hefty signing fees and contracts from players that haven’t performed to the expected levels.

[coolhandfox]

I get the impression that recruitment is very much manager-led without a clear underpinning strategy.

 

Our best recruitment period was general under our PL era was during Puel's tenure which built on the foundation of the Pearson era to create a top 6 squad.  

 

It was pretty poor under Rodgers, with the odd gem, Enzo seemed to breathe new life into it and seemed to have doubled down on Cooper's requirements for PL experience.

 

This season we spent 70m, only one is a starter in BEK.

 

We need a DOF and a new head of recruitment to create a new strategic plan to move us forward. 

 

We have been horrific sellers, losing the likes of Soyuncu, and Tielemans for free, and Barnes and Maddison for less than they are worth. We could have got 3-4m for Iversen a year ago he leaves for free in the summer. 

 

We currently have a squad without a decent fullback, winger or striker.

[Guest Lako42]

Nothing dodgy about us at all 

 

 

The Rodgers son link and signing half of the 9-0 Soton defence was just genius. 

[Tommy G]

Here he is last night, last ditch attempt to get a banning order and relieved from all duties 

[SK3Blue]

16 minutes ago, coolhandfox said:

I get the impression that recruitment is very much manager-led without a clear underpinning strategy.

 

Our best recruitment period was general under our PL era was during Puel's tenure which built on the foundation of the Pearson era to create a top 6 squad.  

 

It was pretty poor under Rodgers, with the odd gem, Enzo seemed to breathe new life into it and seemed to have doubled down on Cooper's requirements for PL experience.

 

This season we spent 70m, only one is a starter in BEK.

 

We need a DOF and a new head of recruitment to create a new strategic plan to move us forward. 

 

We have been horrific sellers, losing the likes of Soyuncu, and Tielemans for free, and Barnes and Maddison for less than they are worth. We could have got 3-4m for Iversen a year ago he leaves for free in the summer. 

 

We currently have a squad without a decent fullback, winger or striker.

Good points made. 
 

It was quite well documented that Nige would look for a certain type of personality when bringing in players, no big time Charlie’s, grafters etc, he established a football bloodline with Steve Walsh. It all seems to have fallen apart post Puel. 

[Aleksz]

Thing is, when you’re a head of recruitment you get tarnished with the brush of every single signing made, when football clubs don’t really work like that, especially when a lot of it can be manager led as @coolhandfox points out. Or in some cases there will be agents in Rudkins ear too. There are many chefs to spoil the broth.

Look at last summers business for example, it’s pretty damn clear that Ayew, Skipp and Reid were Coopers doing. There was huge murmurs that Cooper was putting his foot down and demanding for premier league experience and he spoke about them all personally. There was also word that Cooper and Okoli shared the same agent. 

We can sit here and add him to a scapegoat list all we like but none of us will really know what he’s responsible for. Thought he/they really did well for summer 2023 (Apart from the slight over pays for Cannon and Coady) and that actually switching to what seems to be a more manager led approach for summer 2024 seems to have ruined that good work a bit. 
 

 

 

[Iwebema]

32 minutes ago, coolhandfox said:

I get the impression that recruitment is very much manager-led without a clear underpinning strategy.

 

Our best recruitment period was general under our PL era was during Puel's tenure which built on the foundation of the Pearson era to create a top 6 squad.  

 

It was pretty poor under Rodgers, with the odd gem, Enzo seemed to breathe new life into it and seemed to have doubled down on Cooper's requirements for PL experience.

 

This season we spent 70m, only one is a starter in BEK.

 

We need a DOF and a new head of recruitment to create a new strategic plan to move us forward. 

 

We have been horrific sellers, losing the likes of Soyuncu, and Tielemans for free, and Barnes and Maddison for less than they are worth. We could have got 3-4m for Iversen a year ago he leaves for free in the summer. 

 

We currently have a squad without a decent fullback, winger or striker.

It is an interesting topic, I think its a bit of both, I'm not entirely convinced Cooper knew Okoli or BEK, but I may be doing him a disservice.

 

I think what we most likely do is ask the manager what type of player he wants in what position and then we go an aquire them. But there is certainly evidence of managers demanding certain players join, rodgers from memory was obsessed with fofana, enzo wanted casadei and senesi (january signing that didnt materialse was that his name?) 

 

This is what made the cooper signing so bizarre, we recruited a team built to play enzo ball, rewarded vestergaard with a 3 year deal whose positive attributes are to play in that type of system and then bought in cooper, signed players for him that were just experienced runners and now we wonder why (well I think the board and those around it are wondering why) the team is unbalanced and struggling.

 

There's no football direction outside of wanting to play decent "attractive" football, that's as in depth as the thinking has gone. We are winging it manager to manager, signing to signing.

 

As for the last point on the running down of contracts, that alone in isolation of everything else would not happen to a proper club. Or at least not one that had to of known if was playing with PSR fire and couldn't afford to let assets depreciate and leave. Theres no real forward thinking to how we operate other than the current season we are in at the time, we don't think beyond it. 

 

Just repeating myself alot the last 24 hours, I'm just really annoyed 😅 but until we see major changes we won't get close to being a stable premier league team, we are on a downward trajectory, perhaps another couple of yoyo seasons while some of the parachut payments are there and we have some players hanging over from the premier league days, but once the money starts to dry up and the quality of player continues to dwindle, I struggle to see how we won't just become another failed prem team.

[foxfanazer]

Let's face it, no scouting has been done for the likes of Skipp, Ayew, Reid, Coadyetc. the least imaginative signings possible