Rudkin

[honeybradger]

54 minutes ago, Babylon said:

You can’t even get his job title right so that says all you need to know.

 

He doesn’t pick players, he’s not a scout. What part of that do you not understand? 
 

Does he pick the head of recruitment yeah, does he get invoked in strategy, he should be. Will he be involved in financials, obviously to a degree… but he doesn’t pick a player.

 

He should absolutely not be getting involved in either selecting a player and saying no to a player on the grounds of his opinion of their skill or worth. He’s not qualified to make that judgement. 

Sporting director and director of football are synonymous. You are clutching at straws to try and defend this guy.

 

A director of football is supposed to be involved in the transfer process, if that's not what he's doing then he's not a director of football.

 

If his job is as you said: to pick the head of recruitment, pick the manager, be loosely involved in strategy and be loosely involved in financials then quite frankly he should be sacked because that's not a full time job.

 

A director of football is supposed to be heavily involved with everything that goes on at the club, with the same daily demands that a manager has.

 

The whole reason that role appeared is because football became too complex for a manager to do both coaching and squad building, so the 'manager' role was split into 'director of football' and 'coach'.

 

The responsibility of the state of the squad lies entirely with the director of football at most clubs, sadly it seems that we are still 15+ years in the past and it's still the manager's job to decide what kind of player the squad needs and to contact players to convince them to sign.

[CL Fox]

20 minutes ago, Clogger_ said:

You seem very keen that Rudkin should take no accountability for significant sporting decisions? This is BS. His position requires strategic thinking, influence and judgement, but in your charitable reading he's an overpaid patsy?! LOL. Do you know him personally?

It's weird because I've met rudkin on several occasions and this genuinely seems to be his attitude to many things at the the club.

 

Couldn't comment on the rest of it...

[CosbehFox]

58 minutes ago, Babylon said:

He. Isn’t. A. Scout. He has zero experience of being a scout, zero experience of picking players. Why would anyone want him involved in that? We literally employ a team of people to make those decisions on a players ability. Having watched god knows how many hours of video or in person, pouring over data for days. And you expect him to rock up and just make a decision on a hunch or something?

 

Now, can you say he’s employed shit scouts, yeah. Can you say his strategy has been shit in allowing managers to dictate too much, yeah. 
 

But making out he should be involved in saying yes or no on a player based on HIS opinion of their level of skill, is frankly stupid. 
 

If the club wanted someone to make those decisions as the top, then they’d employ someone to make those decisions with experience of doing so. As it is, we employ a team of people below him with more experience and knowledge to suggest x or y player. 
 

Of course he’s still responsible for shit direction, but once again people saying he picked x or y player or shouldn’t have picked x or y player are just wrong. I don’t see people saying well done for any good players we sign… funny that .

 

I haven’t said he identifies players. I am saying he should have enough knowledge to be aware if that player fits the profile of what we want. Therefore we don’t end up with this weird squad of players what fit one style of player but don’t fit another managers.
 

Richard Hughes isn’t a scout, Michael Edwards isn’t a scout, Dan Ashworth isn’t a scout, loads more examples. They look at profile, they consider finance, they ring around other contacts to get a feel for the player and his attitude. 

 

There are lots of examples of DOF/Sporting Directors with scouting experience. Rudkin doesn’t have that but if he’s clever and has a good contacts book, he can as the examples above use that. 
 

LCFC as a structure is not ran in a way which is considered standard practice within football.
 

The architect of that is Jon Rudkin. There is zero synergy between department to department. That’s exactly his role. 
 

Cynically I might suggest he keeps conceding certain roles to managers to ensure he has no responsibility and he has his fall guy in situ 

Edited 2 February by CosbehFox

[Tommy Fresh]

38 minutes ago, Babylon said:

Based on other people’s selections. Deciding if they are good enough should not be under his remit. 

I imagine they do give Glover some kind of remit to work with in terms of what they want from recruitment

[foxinsocks]

45 minutes ago, Babylon said:

Based on other people’s selections. Deciding if they are good enough should not be under his remit. 

If he was concerned he would veto i am sure

[CUJimmy]

2 hours ago, Dames said:

I think in hindsight the lack of PSR sanctions will turn out to be a bad thing because by the time the next set of sanctions will roll around we will be in much deeper trouble and it will be too late. We really needed something to happen where this man had to take accountability for how the sporting operations of the club have been run instead getting off on a technicality has just made them more arrogant. 
 

We won’t be able to appoint another Maresca and the football league are salivating at the prospect of punishing us and you best believe the PL will want their pound of flesh for the embarrassment we caused them. We are heading for oblivion and it is solely the fault of this man. 

I agree with all of this.  A 10 point deduction now is going to make no difference to the outcome of the season so we might as well have taken it on the chin.

 

Thinking ahead to next season the squad is probably good enough to push for promotion which says more about the quality of the Championship than anything else.  We might be better off taking the 10 point deduction, not getting promoted but using the season to refocus and rebuild.

[Plastik Man]

We need an effigy!

[CUJimmy]

As a senior manager for many years before I retired I was part of the team responsible for setting the goals and overall strategy.

 

Does this mean I was responsible for the day to day implementation of this?  No, we took great care to appoint experts in each area who knew far more than we did.

 

Did I hold them accountable for decisions they made?  Absolutely, and if it was a major one I would expect them to be able to justify it to me in advance.  I didn’t need to have their grasp of the detail but I had to understand it enough to question them.

 

If they failed I was accountable to people above me, that’s how senior management works.

 

I don’t see how this is different to Rudkin.  He either doesn’t have the expertise to hold people to account or he chooses not to for some unfathomable reason.

[moore_94]

There has usually always been something every season that makes him look like a clown - what else have I missed?

 

Also when you actually look at how much we have spent on players that have then been able to leave for free in the last 4-5 years... £213m!!

 

17/18

Adrien Silva - 14 seconds late

 

18/19

Danny Ward - £12m on a backup keeper

 

19/20

Ryan Bennett - only signing in January on deadline day whilst fighting for Champions League

 

20/21

Islam Slimani left for free (cost £28m)

Adrien Silva released by mutual consent (cost 22m)

 

21/22

Jannick Vestergaard

Ryan Bertrand

We genuinely signed half of the defence we stuck 9 past previously

Filip Benkovic released by mutual consent (cost £13m)

 

22/23

Sold Kasper

Fofana dragged on until the end of the window

Only signed Wout Faes

Unable to sign Lookman

1 permanent first team signing and 0 loans in

Finally decided to spend in January and spent it on shite and a fake Brazilian

Rodgers in charge for WAY too long

 

23/24

£107m worth of players left for free

Tielemans left for free (cost £40m)

Soyuncu left for free (cost £19m)

Amartey left for free (cost £5m)

Perez left for free (cost £30m)

Mendy left for free (cost £13m)

Had to sell Maddison and Barnes under their value

Conor Coady 3 year contract

 

24/25

Hired Steve Cooper

Had to sell KDH who didn't want to leave

Iheanacho left for free (cost £25m)

Praet left for free (cost £18m)

De-Cordova Reid - 3 year contract

Jordan Ayew - 2 year contract + £5m

Oliver Skipp - £20m - bench player

Caleb Okoli - £13m - bench player that might leave already

Odsonne Edouard - loan with no option to terminate and apparently expensive loan fee/wages covered

As of 2nd February whilst under serious threat of relegation again we have only signed 1 player - a back up right back for £2m

Edited 2 February by moore_94

[KFS]

3 minutes ago, moore_94 said:

There has usually always been something every season that makes him look like a clown - what else have I missed?

 

Also when you actually look at how much we have spent on players that have then been able to leave for free in the last 4-5 years... £213m!!

 

17/18

Adrien Silva - 14 seconds late

 

18/19

Danny Ward - £12m on a backup keeper

 

19/20

Ryan Bennett - only signing in January on deadline day whilst fighting for Champions League

 

20/21

Islam Slimani left for free (cost £28m)

Adrien Silva released by mutual consent (cost 22m)

 

21/22

Jannick Vestergaard

Ryan Bertrand

We genuinely signed half of the defence we stuck 9 past previously

Filip Benkovic released by mutual consent (cost £13m)

 

22/23

Sold Kasper

Fofana dragged on until the end of the window

Only signed Wout Faes

Unable to sign Lookman

1 permanent signing first team signing and 0 loans in

Finally decided to spend in January and spent it on shite and a fake Brazilian

Rodgers in charge for WAY too long

 

23/24

£107m worth of players left for free

Tielemans left for free (cost £40m)

Soyuncu left for free (cost £19m)

Amartey left for free (cost £5m)

Perez left for free (cost £30m)

Mendy left for free (cost £13m)

Had to sell Maddison and Barnes under their value

Conor Coady 3 year contract

 

24/25

Hired Steve Cooper

Had to sell KDH who didn't want to leave

Iheanacho left for free (cost £25m)

Praet left for free (cost £18m)

De-Cordova Reid - 3 year contract

Jordan Ayew - 2 year contract + £5m

Oliver Skipp - £20m - bench player

Caleb Okoli - £13m - bench player that might leave already

Odsonne Edouard - loan with no option to terminate and apparently expensive loan fee/wages covered

As of 2nd February whilst under serious threat of relegation again we have only signed 1 player - a back up right back for £2m

I actually think this time round is the worst of all. Clear that this group are completely out of their depth. The Edouard thing is grounds to be sacked alone. 
 

 

[Philkeavo]

6 minutes ago, moore_94 said:

There has usually always been something every season that makes him look like a clown - what else have I missed?

 

Also when you actually look at how much we have spent on players that have then been able to leave for free in the last 4-5 years... £213m!!

 

17/18

Adrien Silva - 14 seconds late

 

18/19

Danny Ward - £12m on a backup keeper

 

19/20

Ryan Bennett - only signing in January on deadline day whilst fighting for Champions League

 

20/21

Islam Slimani left for free (cost £28m)

Adrien Silva released by mutual consent (cost 22m)

 

21/22

Jannick Vestergaard

Ryan Bertrand

We genuinely signed half of the defence we stuck 9 past previously

Filip Benkovic released by mutual consent (cost £13m)

 

22/23

Sold Kasper

Fofana dragged on until the end of the window

Only signed Wout Faes

Unable to sign Lookman

1 permanent signing first team signing and 0 loans in

Finally decided to spend in January and spent it on shite and a fake Brazilian

Rodgers in charge for WAY too long

 

23/24

£107m worth of players left for free

Tielemans left for free (cost £40m)

Soyuncu left for free (cost £19m)

Amartey left for free (cost £5m)

Perez left for free (cost £30m)

Mendy left for free (cost £13m)

Had to sell Maddison and Barnes under their value

Conor Coady 3 year contract

 

24/25

Hired Steve Cooper

Had to sell KDH who didn't want to leave

Iheanacho left for free (cost £25m)

Praet left for free (cost £18m)

De-Cordova Reid - 3 year contract

Jordan Ayew - 2 year contract + £5m

Oliver Skipp - £20m - bench player

Caleb Okoli - £13m - bench player that might leave already

Odsonne Edouard - loan with no option to terminate and apparently expensive loan fee/wages covered

As of 2nd February whilst under serious threat of relegation again we have only signed 1 player - a back up right back for £2m

That’s some rap sheet. If Jon Rudkin isn’t responsible and accountable for footballer trading at LCFC, who is?

[fairbanksh]

11 minutes ago, moore_94 said:

There has usually always been something every season that makes him look like a clown - what else have I missed?

 

Also when you actually look at how much we have spent on players that have then been able to leave for free in the last 4-5 years... £213m!!

 

17/18

Adrien Silva - 14 seconds late

 

18/19

Danny Ward - £12m on a backup keeper

 

19/20

Ryan Bennett - only signing in January on deadline day whilst fighting for Champions League

 

20/21

Islam Slimani left for free (cost £28m)

Adrien Silva released by mutual consent (cost 22m)

 

21/22

Jannick Vestergaard

Ryan Bertrand

We genuinely signed half of the defence we stuck 9 past previously

Filip Benkovic released by mutual consent (cost £13m)

 

22/23

Sold Kasper

Fofana dragged on until the end of the window

Only signed Wout Faes

Unable to sign Lookman

1 permanent signing first team signing and 0 loans in

Finally decided to spend in January and spent it on shite and a fake Brazilian

Rodgers in charge for WAY too long

 

23/24

£107m worth of players left for free

Tielemans left for free (cost £40m)

Soyuncu left for free (cost £19m)

Amartey left for free (cost £5m)

Perez left for free (cost £30m)

Mendy left for free (cost £13m)

Had to sell Maddison and Barnes under their value

Conor Coady 3 year contract

 

24/25

Hired Steve Cooper

Had to sell KDH who didn't want to leave

Iheanacho left for free (cost £25m)

Praet left for free (cost £18m)

De-Cordova Reid - 3 year contract

Jordan Ayew - 2 year contract + £5m

Oliver Skipp - £20m - bench player

Caleb Okoli - £13m - bench player that might leave already

Odsonne Edouard - loan with no option to terminate and apparently expensive loan fee/wages covered

As of 2nd February whilst under serious threat of relegation again we have only signed 1 player - a back up right back for £2m

Excellent summary. Chilling when taken as a whole. Such reckless damage to a great club 

 

[1972 Fox]

4 minutes ago, Philkeavo said:

That’s some rap sheet. If Jon Rudkin isn’t responsible and accountable for footballer trading at LCFC, who is?

You'll gave to ask @Babylon to answer that one, as it's not Rudkin according to him.

[Philkeavo]

2 minutes ago, 1972 Fox said:

You'll gave to ask @Babylon to answer that one, as it's not Rudkin according to him.

@Babylon?

[lanefox]

6 minutes ago, 1972 Fox said:

You'll gave to ask @Babylon to answer that one, as it's not Rudkin according to him.

I'll do there for response for them, you can't read

[lanefox]

4 minutes ago, Philkeavo said:

@Babylon?

I'll do there response for them , you can't read

[davieG]

36 minutes ago, CUJimmy said:

As a senior manager for many years before I retired I was part of the team responsible for setting the goals and overall strategy.

 

Does this mean I was responsible for the day to day implementation of this?  No, we took great care to appoint experts in each area who knew far more than we did.

 

Did I hold them accountable for decisions they made?  Absolutely, and if it was a major one I would expect them to be able to justify it to me in advance.  I didn’t need to have their grasp of the detail but I had to understand it enough to question them.

 

If they failed I was accountable to people above me, that’s how senior management works.

 

I don’t see how this is different to Rudkin.  He either doesn’t have the expertise to hold people to account or he chooses not to for some unfathomable reason.

Agree, I managed a New Product Development Team I had a manufacturing/production background but the team included high ranking software engineers which I had a  limited knowledge and i relied on them completely to produce quality and timely outcomes.

 

Ditto

Did I hold them accountable for decisions they made?  Absolutely, and if it was a major one I would expect them to be able to justify it to me in advance.  I didn’t need to have their grasp of the detail but I had to understand it enough to question them.

 

If they failed I was accountable to people above me, that’s how senior management works.

 

As for Rudkin he does seem to be  the stereotypical Teflon Man

[5waller5]

2 hours ago, Babylon said:

You can’t even get his job title right so that says all you need to know.

 

He doesn’t pick players, he’s not a scout. What part of that do you not understand? 
 

Does he pick the head of recruitment yeah, does he get invoked in strategy, he should be. Will he be involved in financials, obviously to a degree… but he doesn’t pick a player.

 

He should absolutely not be getting involved in either selecting a player and saying no to a player on the grounds of his opinion of their skill or worth. He’s not qualified to make that judgement. 

Blah

Edited 2 February by 5waller5
Can’t be arsed

[Philkeavo]

9 minutes ago, lanefox said:

I'll do there response for them , you can't read

I beg your pardon?

[Clogger_]

Is Top keeping Rudkin in place purely as a firewall? After all, it'd be *really* embarrassing if your 'influencer' mates heard the fans calling "Top out!" Much less damaging to the ego if Rudkin attracts our ire!

Edited 2 February by Clogger_

[Dames]

6 hours ago, Babylon said:

Based on other people’s selections. Deciding if they are good enough should not be under his remit. 

I actually think it should to an extent. With all the issues we’ve had in recent years why was the Conor Coady deal in particular not scrutinised even more? We lumped a fortune on the bloke who hasnt seriously been part of any managers plans and would have been very clear he wouldnt have been the type of profile player Maresca was looking for. 
 

The bloke is asleep at the wheel and dining out on the Maguire transfer from way back. The amount of money thats been wasted and hamstrung the club as a result is insane. 

[DezFox]

Truly truly the pits. For me completely on top the Nepo baby. Hate everything we do now. Hate it. 

[Wasyls Pec Deck]

4 hours ago, moore_94 said:

There has usually always been something every season that makes him look like a clown - what else have I missed?

 

Also when you actually look at how much we have spent on players that have then been able to leave for free in the last 4-5 years... £213m!!

 

17/18

Adrien Silva - 14 seconds late

 

18/19

Danny Ward - £12m on a backup keeper

 

19/20

Ryan Bennett - only signing in January on deadline day whilst fighting for Champions League

 

20/21

Islam Slimani left for free (cost £28m)

Adrien Silva released by mutual consent (cost 22m)

 

21/22

Jannick Vestergaard

Ryan Bertrand

We genuinely signed half of the defence we stuck 9 past previously

Filip Benkovic released by mutual consent (cost £13m)

 

22/23

Sold Kasper

Fofana dragged on until the end of the window

Only signed Wout Faes

Unable to sign Lookman

1 permanent signing first team signing and 0 loans in

Finally decided to spend in January and spent it on shite and a fake Brazilian

Rodgers in charge for WAY too long

 

23/24

£107m worth of players left for free

Tielemans left for free (cost £40m)

Soyuncu left for free (cost £19m)

Amartey left for free (cost £5m)

Perez left for free (cost £30m)

Mendy left for free (cost £13m)

Had to sell Maddison and Barnes under their value

Conor Coady 3 year contract

 

24/25

Hired Steve Cooper

Had to sell KDH who didn't want to leave

Iheanacho left for free (cost £25m)

Praet left for free (cost £18m)

De-Cordova Reid - 3 year contract

Jordan Ayew - 2 year contract + £5m

Oliver Skipp - £20m - bench player

Caleb Okoli - £13m - bench player that might leave already

Odsonne Edouard - loan with no option to terminate and apparently expensive loan fee/wages covered

As of 2nd February whilst under serious threat of relegation again we have only signed 1 player - a back up right back for £2m

For me if I had to pick one single failing it has been all these assets that left for nothing. This has seriously hampered our ability to reinvest and meant there has been almost no room for error with the signings we have been able to make. I imagine it is also a driver in giving stupid contracts to players because the leverage is with the player (as their agent probably knows we’re desperate). Hence you go from letting a Tielemans go for nothing to giving the likes of BDCR and Ayew silly contracts. It has been a recurring theme over a number of years.

[reynard]

When the club sacked Terry Robinson this was the statement on the BBC website.

Robinson was appointed in July 2013 with a remit to "provide strategic input to the club's football operations at all levels, driving the consistent implementation of the club's football philosophy".

 

I can't believe Rudkin's remit would be essentially any different. I think the key for me is at all levels.

 

I'd say he'd failed pretty much to do that. The consistent failure to get youth players out on decent loans is well documented on here. I'd say there is no cohesive football management within the club. There is no progressive path from youth team to first team. We've had managers of various age groups not seemingly in tune with each other. The high level of the fitness team assembled under Pearson seems to have been largely dismantled. The scouting set up appears to not function and we don't appear to be even active in various parts of the world, notably South America, where other teams have had success.

He sanctioned the sale of Drinkwater (admittedly a decent sale for us) before securing his replacement in Silva which he failed to register by 14 seconds. Frankly he should have been sacked after that.

The ultimate test to his success as a director of football can only lie on the pitch.  Here again though we have enjoyed  big successes we've failed in recent years resulting in one and probably a second relegation. This can only be judged as a failure  and one which, as the person with overall responsibility for all things football at all levels, sits firmly on his desk.

 

Unfortunately sacking him now will make little difference to this season as we've wasted two transfer windows completely unless tomorrow changes that. Highly unlikely to happen though.

 

In his defence there have been some great times but his time at the club has run its course and he should go, if not now, at the end of the season. However, I doubt our owner has either the nous or balls to fire him.

 

[JimmyC74]

2 minutes ago, reynard said:

When the club sacked Terry Robinson this was the statement on the BBC website.

Robinson was appointed in July 2013 with a remit to "provide strategic input to the club's football operations at all levels, driving the consistent implementation of the club's football philosophy".

 

I can't believe Rudkin's remit would be essentially any different. I think the key for me is at all levels.

 

I'd say he'd failed pretty much to do that. The consistent failure to get youth players out on decent loans is well documented on here. I'd say there is no cohesive football management within the club. There is no progressive path from youth team to first team. We've had managers of various age groups not seemingly in tune with each other. The high level of the fitness team assembled under Pearson seems to have been largely dismantled. The scouting set up appears to not function and we don't appear to be even active in various parts of the world, notably South America, where other teams have had success.

He sanctioned the sale of Drinkwater (admittedly a decent sale for us) before securing his replacement in Silva which he failed to register by 14 seconds. Frankly he should have been sacked after that.

The ultimate test to his success as a director of football can only lie on the pitch.  Here again though we have enjoyed  big successes we've failed in recent years resulting in one and probably a second relegation. This can only be judged as a failure  and one which, as the person with overall responsibility for all things football at all levels, sits firmly on his desk.

 

Unfortunately sacking him now will make little difference to this season as we've wasted two transfer windows completely unless tomorrow changes that. Highly unlikely to happen though.

 

In his defence there have been some great times but his time at the club has run its course and he should go, if not now, at the end of the season. However, I doubt our owner has either the nous or balls to fire him.

 

best case is he is moved sideways and a new sporting director / asst sporting director comes in the summer but I will believe it when I see it.

 

You might think anyone with any self esteem would have walked before now / Top suggested a sideways move - lets face it he has enough job titles / responsibilities under KP.  You can only imagine the levels of negativity to him through the end of the season if things carry on in the direction they are.