As soon as it was reported in mid-May that Everton wanted a Director of Football, my initial reaction was “Please No!”.
The Premier League has not had a pretty relationship in the past with the role; In 2008, Newcastle’s Director of Football Dennis Wise signed Nacho Gonzalez on loan, against the wishes of manager Kevin Keegan, ultimately leading to Keegan’s resignation. In 2013, Spurs’ Director of Football Franco Baldini was responsible for the poor misspending of the £86 million received for Gareth Bale, with 4 of the 7 signings reportedly against the wishes of manager Andre Villas-Boas.
Other fiascos include the resignation of Portsmouth manager Harry Redknapp in 2004 following the appointment of Velimir Zajec, and the astonishing former Newcastle Director of Football Joe Kinnear in 2013.
Despite this, more research on the topic led me to realise that whilst they haven’t always been the most successful in England, the use of a Director of Football has been very effective in other leagues, most notably at Sevilla with Ramón Rodríguez Verdejo, or as he’s more commonly known, “Monchi”.
Monchi was appointed in 2000 when Sevilla were in Spain’s second tier, and his impact was astonishing. That season, Sevilla were promoted and have since gone on to win the Copa Del Rey twice and the Europa League a record five times, three of which were in consecutive seasons (2014-16).
This then made me wonder what the reasoning was behind the two differing outcomes. How come there’s never a fairy tale ending to an appointment of a Director of Football in the Premier League? What were Sevilla doing right and Premier League clubs doing wrong? Is Monchi just a rare exception to a usually disastrous role?
When I looked deeper into the roles of each of those failed Premier League Directors of Football and compared them to Monchi, I noticed that even though they were all called ‘Directors of Football’, they didn’t actually share the same responsibilities. There was one core responsibility that they all had that Monchi did not; deciding what areas of the squad needed strengthening.
At Sevilla, Monchi’s role is essentially a Chief Scout. He manages a team of scouts, who gather information of thousands of players all over the world. All this information is stored on a huge database, from which detailed statistical and analytical profiles describing the traits, strengths and weaknesses of all the players are created.
Each transfer window Head Coach Unai Emery outlined the types of players he required, e.g. I need a young ball-playing centre back, and an experienced full back who can also get up the pitch and create chances.
This information was then fed to Monchi who, from looking at the detailed database of players, can analyse who would be the player that best fits the requirements that Emery has set out. The difference in this system is that the Manager/Head Coach decided what areas of the squad to strengthen, not the Director of Football.
This is what I believe is clearly the best structure. The Manager/Head Coach, who works with the squad every day in training and manages the squad every week in competitive games, will know better than anyone what the squad needs.
It is obvious that unrest within the club will occur eventually if the Manager did not have this responsibility, as he will end up with players he did not deem necessary additions.
In this system, you get the best of both worlds. You have a manager who is solely focused on creating the best team and does not lose time on carrying out that role by scouting for potential talents to add to the squad. Instead, this job is handed over to someone whose expertise lies in recruitment, who will find the best player that fits the manager’s requested profile.
This is EXACTLY the system Everton have introduced. As Walsh explained to Everton TV in his first interview at the club:
It’s putting those foundations down; making sure that you bring in the right age, but also bringing the right attitude of player, to buy into what the manager wants to do. And Mr Koeman certainly knows what he wants, and I’m going to try and fulfil that with the players that he desires in the positions he wants.
Now, we have appointed a proven top quality manager along with a proven top quality scout working hand in hand to create the best team possible. This is without mentioning the funds available from Farhad Moshiri and a new stadium reportedly on the horizon. This really is an exciting era for Everton Football Club and it’s only just begun.
