Do Rangers need a DoF?

Do Rangers need a director of football?

  • Yes

    Votes: 181 69.6%

  • No

    Votes: 79 30.4%
  • Total voters
    260
King Kenny Miller said:
It's trendy to have one.

I doubt very much if any of the former greats would have entertained it. I'd be surprised if guys such as Shankly, Paisley, Ferguson, Smith, or Stein would have wanted or accepted one.
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Won't find me arguing with that. However, we are in a completely different era now. In these days of youth players who are millionaires and transfer budgets running to 9 digits I suspect that even those guys would have been grateful for the help. If it's good enough for today's 'greats' (Pep?) then it's good enough for us. Welcome to the new millennium!:D

One thing all those you quote wanted to do was spend time on the training pitch - in the modern era the DoF 'should' help to facilitate that.
 
People seem to get a bee in their bunnet about the DoF role. There are all sorts of weird and wonderful ideas about what they do, and what their relationship will be like with the manager. Some people have them over ruling the manager at every turn, telling him what players he is signing..... the reality it is a role that will be quite different in many clubs. DoF is a job title, the job description and remit can vary.

One thing I am sure of, is that a club of our stature, requires a Director of football, there are no other directors with a footballing background, it seems fairly obvious to me that this role is essential. The whole footballing structure, from youth level, to scouting, staff from coaches, physios, analysts etc..... needs to be managed at director level.

If we did not have a DoF, who should be ultimately in charge of the entire footballing operation? Graham Park? :eek:
 
Valley Bluenose said:
Won't find me arguing with that. However, we are in a completely different era now. In these days of youth players who are millionaires and transfer budgets running to 9 digits I suspect that even those guys would have been grateful for the help. If it's good enough for today's 'greats' (Pep?) then it's good enough for us. Welcome to the new millennium!:D

One thing all those you quote wanted to do was spend time on the training pitch - in the modern era the DoF 'should' help to facilitate that.
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You make a fair point but undermine it with those daft little smilies.

Being old school I'm sticking by my opinion that we don't need one. It's a huge salary that could arguably be spent better elsewhere in these difficult times for our club.
 
King Kenny Miller said:
You make a fair point but undermine it with those daft little smilies.

Being old school I'm sticking by my opinion that we don't need one. It's a huge salary that could arguably be spent better elsewhere in these difficult times for our club.
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There was only 1 smiley!

I'm almost 62 by the way, so as 'old school' as they come.

:D:D:D:D:D;)
 
Maradona posted today about the DoF's he has worked with through the years.

Beside being an absolute narcotic-fuelled mentalist, he knows a thing or two about football.
 
I believe we do if it is used correctly.
Director of football, he oversees the footballing infrastructure, takes a lot of the behind the scenes pressure from the manager, scouting, coaching, youth development etc.

Allows the manager to concentrate on the 1st team knowing he has someone capable looking after things behind the scenes.
 
Bluenose1979 said:
I think the question is moot. We have one, the board chose to go down that route and implement this strategy.

The question for me is whether they are genuinely committed to the reality of it or will let old-fashioned approaches we are used to ultimately over-rule it for quick results.
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What our board know about running a football club could be written on the back of a fag packet. I give you Warburton and Pedro for starters.
 
Suspect that I am not alone in admitting that I have difficulty in understanding the full remit of a director of football. Perhaps I am living in the past but take the view that an experienced and proven manager would want to appoint his own staff, reporting directly to him and would not someone else becoming involved.
 
4 months into the job, he has already revamped the scouting.
He would have been working on possible January arrivals.......all gone to shit as new manager will have different outlook than Pedro.
Targets for all positions will be getting assembled, however new manager, new approach.
He will be doing due diligence on possible managers.
This change has virtually put his work done on transfers on the back burner.
He is on to hiding to nothing due to lack of appointment, had he been in his role for any length of time he would have future managers on a list, as he should, as managers don't hang around at clubs very long nowadays. End of contract, or poor results, we should always have a back up plan.
However he is a DoF not somebody that can give the support all their answers in 4 months.
 
I voted no and think it might deter some potential managers who don't like operating under a DOF.
 
King Kenny Miller said:
It's a no from me.

Proper football manager's don't need a DOF.
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It’s not for the manager it’s risk management. First team managers come and go for a variety of reasons which creates havoc with new people brought in with changes of style and emphasis at all levels. Set up correctly the dangers of change management are mitigated bringing stability.
 
Seems to work for every other big club in Europe.

Folk naming managers from 40 years ago and saying 'aye but these guys wouldn't have stood for it' are proving the point. Football has moved on and we either adapt or die.
 
No one here knows what the job remit is, but given the business nature of football now, you wouldn't have your club without a finance director, marketing director, commercial director etc, so why wouldnt you have someone in that position for arguably the most important division of the club.

Makes sense for the long term stability of the club to me
 
I don't think we do.

We need an inspirational manager to grab the bull by the horns & lead us out of mediocrity.

There's no room for both
 
SuperGers07 said:
No,

a DOF setup will never take off at a club such as ours in the way it is supposed to work. Our fans are impatient and put simply we probably wouldn't settle for a head coach setup with DOF overruling at every turn.

It may work elsewhere, but put simply, there's a different type of pressure at Rangers, and timmy for that matter.
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Fundamentally you don't understand the role. It is not about overruling the head coach or manager. The DOF's role is to provide a list of scouted players of rate positions that the manager says are required. He provides a list of personnel for all positions in the club. Frees the manager to concentrate on coaching the players and tactics.

So yes he is needed. Provides stability and continuity and is a way to avoid the panic transfers we have seen all to often at Rangers. Costs a lot less than botched transfers which are not cheap. The whole Pedro thing will have cost a good few million. We will likely have payoffs yet for players we shouldn't have bought and didn't fully scout. We didn't fully scout Pedro.
 
No, not in my opinion.

The Club should have the ability to put together a proper Scouting Department managed by a Chief Scout.

Craig Mulholland is the best in the business at what he does managing the Academy.

A Chief Scout, Academy Director, Head Youth Coach, First Team Manager and Managing Director should make up a footballing Board that deal with all issues a DOF handles.

They then feed back and report back to their respective teams.

A DOF is an unnecessary role and wage in my honest opinion
 
The problem is that none of us have any clue how competent the current DOF is. We know he wasn't first choice and should never have been appointed after the previous manager but he could be good, mediocre or downright terrible. We have no idea at this point which category he is in but with the boards recent recruitment record I am concerned.

This is his first big test, rumours that he championed the clown Steve McLaren do nothing for him but that is just rumours. If we don't go for McInnes who is the safe and steady option then you have to think the DOF will have influenced the final decision. I have to say I'm worried but it's a gut feeling as we have nothing to go on.
 
We need a DOF for the following reasons. Pick any 3 from 5.

1 continuity
2 stability
3 ethos
4 philosophy
5 strategy

Im not sure how it works because we appointed MA after Pedro. I guess we must be looking for another manager similar to Pedro. That being the case I wonder why we didnt just keep him in the first place.
 
If you're not a club that's going to have the same manager for years to come and a board that's hands off with transfers i think it's always worth it, having stability at the club and not throwing players away year after year from the previous manager is not the way to run. We won't know if Allen is the right man for the job until he has a couple transfer windows to see what kind of players he signs and if he works with the manager or gives the manager players he wants
 
I don't really like this role within Football.

If the players that are signed are not up to scratch it's still usually the manager that gets it in the neck anyway.

I would rather a manager came in and made all the decisions, that way if he fails there is no excuses.
 
My initial thought is no we don't but i may feel different if i actually knew what ours does day to day. I am admittedly not very clued up on that front
 
I don't agree, there is a director of football type role at all the biggest clubs in the world.

SuperGers07 said:
No,

a DOF setup will never take off at a club such as ours in the way it is supposed to work. Our fans are impatient and put simply we probably wouldn't settle for a head coach setup with DOF overruling at every turn.

It may work elsewhere, but put simply, there's a different type of pressure at Rangers, and timmy for that matter.
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I don't think the role of the director of football is to pursue and negotiate with signings, I think there is a huge misunderstanding what the role actually entails

SuperGers07 said:
Yes, ideally we'd like it to work. Maybe it will longer term. But the club's number 1 priority right now is about getting back to the top as quickly as we can within a small window.

I'd say we still need to go down the route of employing a manager, who gives his targets to the DOF who in turn pursues them.

The DOF can have control of all other aspects of the club, but certainly not the most important role at the club as the managers chair is.
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Pep Guardiola Antonio Conte Diego Simeone Carlo Ancelotti Jose Mourinho Massimiliano Allegri Joachim Loew Zinedine Zidane to name a few Managers who work under a director of football or sporting director, which is all but the same. But they're not Proper Managers of course. Who is?

King Kenny Miller said:
It's a no from me.

Proper football manager's don't need a DOF.
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Northhiglander said:
Fundamentally you don't understand the role. It is not about overruling the head coach or manager. The DOF's role is to provide a list of scouted players of rate positions that the manager says are required. He provides a list of personnel for all positions in the club. Frees the manager to concentrate on coaching the players and tactics.

So yes he is needed. Provides stability and continuity and is a way to avoid the panic transfers we have seen all to often at Rangers. Costs a lot less than botched transfers which are not cheap. The whole Pedro thing will have cost a good few million. We will likely have payoffs yet for players we shouldn't have bought and didn't fully scout. We didn't fully scout Pedro.
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I understand it alright. And we don't need it on the whole and I'll stand by that.
 
We were pretty successful in the past without one. Unless the board can spell out what he does that we don’t already do and how it improves us then I say no.
 
I am inclined to say yes, A clubs board is generally made up of fans with most money or businessmen looking to make money see EPL, where is football going to be in five years time as fans we don't know but behind the scenes there will be discussions on future of European tournaments, at home is there a change coming in league set up we need to plan ahead both on the park and off it.
The DoF is new to us and we want to see quick results or information about what is happening, with 1st manager its pretty clear whether its working or not by results on park, we have no barometer to judge Mark Allan with yet which sparks questions.
 
Yes for me.We have started down this road so we really should see it out.The appointment if our next manager will possibly give us a pointer in the DOF long term prospects.
 
AllanD said:
And how on earth is he doing that? What do you know that we don't about the goings on in at the club and whats really going on with the managerial search? Or are you just throwing a tantrum like a child without having a real clue?
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Already answered this question in this thread.
 
irvine96 said:
Waste of time and money IMO.Mark allen ???????
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Do you know what he’s done or not done? The last I read he’d been working on a scouting network among other things. All sounded very positive. Lack of daily updates doesn’t indicate nothing is being done.
 
I don't thin they should have to much involvement in first team affairs. They should oversee the rest of the club and be there to assist the manager in first team affairs , like if a manager wants a position filled they come back with a list but manager decideds who we go for.
Having a manager responsible for someone else's signings doesn't sit right with me
 
Bigbroonbear said:
I don't thin they should have to much involvement in first team affairs. They should oversee the rest of the club and be there to assist the manager in first team affairs , like if a manager wants a position filled they come back with a list but manager decideds who we go for.
Having a manager responsible for someone else's signings doesn't sit right with me
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That does raise a question though. Are they the manager's signings, or the club's?

Because it really should be the latter. I know some players will only go to certain clubs because of the manager, but that's a pretty flawed strategy to have for transfer dealings.
 
strider said:
That does raise a question though. Are they the manager's signings, or the club's?

Because it really should be the latter. I know some players will only go to certain clubs because of the manager, but that's a pretty flawed strategy to have for transfer dealings.
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So do you think pep, Jose , sir Alex , wenger , conte or even Brendan has a dof coming to them and saying I've seen 4 players that I like here they are if it turns out they don't do well your getting the sack .
Or
Do you think they identify a position or player they would like and ask the dof to see what's available then they decide if they will be good enough for his first team squad
Look at Liverpool with balloteli that just doesn't work for anyone.
If that's the route rangers are going down then we are in trouble might work at some European clubs were the demand isn't as high but won't work with us imo . I worry we have people in boardroom think they can have an involvement in signing mangers and players because they play championship manager dof buying and picking first team players is a step in that direction I think
 
Bigbroonbear said:
So do you think pep, Jose , sir Alex , wenger , conte or even Brendan has a dof coming to them and saying I've seen 4 players that I like here they are if it turns out they don't do well your getting the sack .
Or
Do you think they identify a position or player they would like and ask the dof to see what's available then they decide if they will be good enough for his first team squad
Look at Liverpool with balloteli that just doesn't work for anyone.
If that's the route rangers are going down then we are in trouble might work at some European clubs were the demand isn't as high but won't work with us imo . I worry we have people in boardroom think they can have an involvement in signing mangers and players because they play championship manager dof buying and picking first team players is a step in that direction I think
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Actually, yes, some of them have worked under that sort of system.

Mourinho certainly did at Real Madrid.
 
I voted no, but I think it is helpful to have a man in charge of recruitment and the non-first team aspects of the playing side

What we appear to be seeing at present (although its mostly hearsay) is severe teething difficulties as to the remit of the role - I feel at least until we are on top again the manager decision is not one the DoF should hold the casting vote on - he hasnt been at the club for long enough and gained a suitable enough grounding in what we need as a club. If we are to believe his favoured candidate is Steve McLaren then i'd have to honestly question his fitness for this role

Rangers manager is a tough, tough gig, so any old coach wont be suited to it
 
strider said:
Actually, yes, some of them have worked under that sort of system.

Mourinho certainly did at Real Madrid.
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Pep has Begiristain at Barca & Man City and Sammer at Bayern. Mourinho had Valdano at Madrid.

Conte had Emenalo at Chelsea. Rodgers had a fucking transfer committee at Liverpool
 
You are dealing with a total different player and there is no way he didn't have final say or identify who he wanted, more worked with dof not under him same at Bayern. bit different do you want James or what about Declan John
 
It doesn't really matter if we like the idea or not. The Board does and they have hired one. Now it is up to the Ist team manager to get on with him.

You cannae fart against thunder,guys.
 
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