Mark Allen - Will History Be Kinder To Him?

Drumchapel-Bear

Drumchapel-Bear

Well-Known Member
He wasn't very popular when he was with us and took a lot of stick from a lot of our fans for our recruitment but will history be kinder to him?

McGregor
Goldson
Barisic
Helander
Davis
Arfield
Kamara
Aribo
Kent

The vast majority of our key players were guys brought in by him. You could even give him Roofe as well because we were keen to sign Roofe when he was leaving Leeds if Alfie left at the time.

Obviously there have been a few misses as well in the transfer market but that is bound to happen when you are shopping in the bargain basement. The only player we spent a decent fee on under him who has bombed was Grezda I think?

Mark was the guy who identified Gerrard as a potential candidate to become our manager as well.

Did he get far too much stick in hindsight when you look at the market value of some of the players he brought in now and how far the club has progressed under the manager he identified?

Wherever he is down South at the moment, I'm sure he's looking on from afar very pleased with his work at us.
 
Think it was more him as a person than his work that put a lot of people off him.
IIRC he was on the park celebrating in UFA and a lot of folk were wondering wtf was going on, also rumours he was a bit of a dickhead towards certain people at Rangers (unsure how true).

He laid the foundation for Ross Wilson to come in though and as you pointed out was involved in laying the groundwork for many key players for us. Clearly someone who is very good at what he does and isn't scared of a long term project, fair play to him.
 
Drumchapel-Bear said:
He wasn't very popular when he was with us and took a lot of stick from a lot of our fans for our recruitment but will history be kinder to him?

McGregor
Goldson
Barisic
Helander
Davis
Arfield
Kamara
Aribo
Kent

The vast majority of our key players were guys brought in by him. You could even give him Roofe as well because we were keen to sign Roofe when he was leaving Leeds if Alfie left at the time.

Obviously there have been a few misses as well in the transfer market but that is bound to happen when you are shopping in the bargain basement. The only player we spent a decent fee on under him who has bombed was Grezda I think?

Mark was the guy who identified Gerrard as a potential candidate to become our manager as well.

Did he get far too much stick in hindsight when you look at the market value of some of the players he brought in now and how far the club has progressed under the manager he identified?

Wherever he is down South at the moment, I'm sure he's looking on from afar very pleased with his work at us.
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McGregor and Davis don’t count.

Known quantities.
 
Drumchapel-Bear said:
He wasn't very popular when he was with us and took a lot of stick from a lot of our fans for our recruitment but will history be kinder to him?

McGregor
Goldson
Barisic
Helander
Davis
Arfield
Kamara
Aribo
Kent

The vast majority of our key players were guys brought in by him. You could even give him Roofe as well because we were keen to sign Roofe when he was leaving Leeds if Alfie left at the time.

Obviously there have been a few misses as well in the transfer market but that is bound to happen when you are shopping in the bargain basement. The only player we spent a decent fee on under him who has bombed was Grezda I think?

Mark was the guy who identified Gerrard as a potential candidate to become our manager as well.

Did he get far too much stick in hindsight when you look at the market value of some of the players he brought in now and how far the club has progressed under the manager he identified?

Wherever he is down South at the moment, I'm sure he's looking on from afar very pleased with his work at us.
Click to expand...
I believe Dave King identified Gerrard, with Allen making the formal approach.
 
I don't have a gripe about Allen - think his work was fine.

Bigger picture discussion though is since we adopted the DoF model has our recruitment ever been better?

Other than Grezda I can't think of anyone who has completely bombed.

A couple of the freebie punts like Hastie haven't worked out and it's probable buying one better player rather than the glut of wingers (Hastie, Stewart, Jones & Barker) that appeared last summer would have been a better use of resources.

Other than that the recruitment has been excellent both in terms of talent and value. I doubt there's a player in our first team squad who we wouldn't get our money back on at least.
 
Drumchapel-Bear said:
He wasn't very popular when he was with us and took a lot of stick from a lot of our fans for our recruitment but will history be kinder to him?

McGregor
Goldson
Barisic
Helander
Davis
Arfield
Kamara
Aribo
Kent

The vast majority of our key players were guys brought in by him. You could even give him Roofe as well because we were keen to sign Roofe when he was leaving Leeds if Alfie left at the time.

Obviously there have been a few misses as well in the transfer market but that is bound to happen when you are shopping in the bargain basement. The only player we spent a decent fee on under him who has bombed was Grezda I think?

Mark was the guy who identified Gerrard as a potential candidate to become our manager as well.

Did he get far too much stick in hindsight when you look at the market value of some of the players he brought in now and how far the club has progressed under the manager he identified?

Wherever he is down South at the moment, I'm sure he's looking on from afar very pleased with his work at us.
Click to expand...

Goldson - known to Gerrard
Kent - known to Gerrard
Kamara - staring him in the face
Davis & Mcgregor - probs nothing to do with him, old club connection
Barisic - played vs us

i was a 'fan' at the time but in hindsight a lot of it was very lazy stuff.
 
Mark Allen will be remembered by me for the bullshit he talked. The mystery to me is why so many bought it. He actually said he identified players who fitted our ethos, philosophy and footballing strategy.
 
He done his job but has been upgraded, he seemed to like the spotlight a bit too much IIRC.

Wilson is in the background, Mark seemed to be always in and around Gerrard’s shadow.

Come to think about it did Gerrard not ask for more autonomy off the back of that?.

No ill feelings towards to the man & I felt the board handled his ‘upgrading’ absolutely brilliantly.
 
Drumchapel-Bear said:
Nice spin that David but Gerrard wouldn't be here without Allen planting the seed in Dave Kings head.
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Hmm. I’ll politely disagree there.

i strongly suspect that when the time comes for someone to write the book on Rangers resurgence, the effect of those who worked with him speaking will be the opposite of what the OP asked.
 
David Edgar said:
Hmm. I’ll politely disagree there.

i strongly suspect that when the time comes for someone to write the book on Rangers resurgence, the effect of those who worked with him speaking will be the opposite of what the OP asked.
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Obviously I don't know the guy personally and didn't work with him but appreciate there were noises around him being arrogant etc but the debate is more around the fruits of his labour.

He signed a lot of good footballers for us who have become huge assets on our balance sheet. He also facilitated the appointment of the manager who is driving our resurge.

As a Rangers Fan, the most important thing to me is having a good team on the pitch and winning things I honestly couldn't care less if he was the biggest arsehole in the world behind the scenes.
 
I've a feeling, and I'm sure others will know more, that as the club always wanted Ross Wilson as first choice, they came to an arrangement with Allan once he was available rather than Allan walking out on us.
 
Drumchapel-Bear said:
Obviously I don't know the guy personally and didn't work with him but appreciate there were noises around him being arrogant etc but the debate is more around the fruits of his labour.

He signed a lot of good footballers for us who have become huge assets on our balance sheet. He also facilitated the appointment of the manager who is driving our resurge.

As a Rangers Fan, the most important thing to me is having a good team on the pitch and winning things I honestly couldn't care less if he was the biggest arsehole in the world behind the scenes.
Click to expand...
Drumchapel-Bear said:
Obviously I don't know the guy personally and didn't work with him but appreciate there were noises around him being arrogant etc but the debate is more around the fruits of his labour.

He signed a lot of good footballers for us who have become huge assets on our balance sheet. He also facilitated the appointment of the manager who is driving our resurge.

As a Rangers Fan, the most important thing to me is having a good team on the pitch and winning things I honestly couldn't care less if he was the biggest arsehole in the world behind the scenes.
Click to expand...

He left the club in a better place than he found it and for that I’m grateful. I just don’t think his reputation will significantly strengthen with time. Wish him all the best in future, think the change has had a benefit.
 
Leo_Ger said:
Did Allen not hire Andy Scoulding or was he in the plans already?
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''The former Liverpool and Valencia analyst joined Gers just over two months ago as part of a new scouting department under director of football Mark Allen.''

www.thescottishsun.co.uk

Rangers scout reveals two things he changed when he started the job

ANDY SCOULDING has revealed the changes he made after taking up the role of head of scouting at Rangers. The former Liverpool and Valencia analyst joined Gers just over two months ago as part of a …
www.thescottishsun.co.uk www.thescottishsun.co.uk
 
He was useless at shifting dead weight and also never used the loan system to our advantage to get out players into SPFL teams as Wilson has done this season.
 
David Edgar said:
Again, known to SG. Had always been identified as part of team along with Gary Mac, Culshaw, Beale etc.

But again in fairness, a hire on MAs watch so he certainly could point to that.
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I think the timing might be a bit off there mate. Scoulding pre-dates Gerrard at the club.

One of the problems I think with assessing Mark Allen is the murkiness about the role and the remit of it. While other people might have done the ground work or came up with an idea, was it ultimately him that facilitated it or signed off on it? I don't know, but I think it's difficult to entirely assign successes to others if that was his role. If he was sensible enough to put people in the right positions and trust their work correctly then to me that still deserves credit and is a shared success.

A comparison would be how Gerrard delegates to his coaching staff but ultimately carries the can for making the ultimate decision. Is that how the role of Director of Football at the club similarly works? I don't know enough to say for sure.

I think the signings made under his tenure when lined out in the OP seem impressive. However, there are some definite misses in his time and his biggest flaw seems to be his struggle to move on deadwood and free up wages.

In comparison, Ross Wilson by having a firmer background in recruitment seems to have a more independent knowledge of players and has been an improvement on moving players on which has facilitated improving the depth of the squad this season.
 
From an outside perspective, an appointment that assisted in the start of the rebuild and modernising process.

Given the utter mess we were in, there were always going to be failures during this time. At the very least a foundation was created that then persuaded Wilson to leave Southampton after previously turning us down.

Ultimately, though, the success of the signings is down to SG and our coaching staff. They have improved each individual immensely.
 
I think overall he gets a pass mark, but I suspect there wasn’t many DoFs who were willing to start from scratch, and as Mark was an academy manager, he seen it as a step into the DoF world, and Rangers seen he could structure the set up. He seems to have set decent foundations, and Ross seems to be getting things done without any problems, so that’s all good to me.
 
David Edgar said:
Hmm. I’ll politely disagree there.

i strongly suspect that when the time comes for someone to write the book on Rangers resurgence, the effect of those who worked with him speaking will be the opposite of what the OP asked.
Click to expand...
100% agree with David here.
 
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