da betsson： The director of football role is one that is much maligned by both managers and supporters within this country.
da supremo： Whilst hugely successful on the continent, the English game has never adjusted to a set-up and system which in fact goes a long way to ensure stability in the club’s development and transfer policy. The English attitude is that a football manager should be responsible for every aspect of the running of the club; it is a short sighted view in my opinion.
Tottenham are the classic example of where this set-up has proven to work and pay dividends. Being a Spurs fan and watching the club go through a high turnover of managers and subsequently players, we were continually wasting millions of pounds, year on year, and little development was happening on the pitch, as well as off it. It was a complete vicious circle that the likes of Sugar and Levy were facing and one that in time would have left to financial woe in the future. A change of set-up was desperately required to turn this tide and the appointment of Frank Arnesen in 2004 was arguably the turning point in Tottenham’s recent history. Arnesen was the trouble shooter that Tottenham desperately needed and in his short spell at the football club he changed every aspect of it.
A club that was renowned for spending big money on experienced, and in some cases over the hill players, was now buying some of the finest young English talent in the game. The philosophy was simply – to buy young players cheaply that could provide 5 or 6 years service, before selling them on at profit safe in the knowledge that a young replacement was already waiting in the wings. The role of the director of football is to ensure that there is a conveyor belt of excellent players at the coach’s disposal was maintained. It was Arnesen that brought the likes of Huddlestone, Dawson, and Lennon to the football club, for a combined fee of around £4.5m – one can only imagine how much they would be worth now. Unfortunately Comolli failed to build on the foundations laid by Arnesen in pretty much every aspect and I often wonder whether Tottenham would have made it to the Champions League sooner, had Arnesen and Jol remained at the helm. The success of this set-up is solely based on the relationship between the director of football and head coach, something that Comolli was never to have with either Jol or Ramos. Despite the poor relationship’s the transfer policy was maintained and although there were expensive flops, the sales of the likes of Carrick, Berbatov and Keane, ensured that the club’s finances remained balanced.
While Tottenham no longer operate with a director of football, they have a chairman who has learned the valuable lessons and philosophies that Arnesen initially brought to the football club. Harry Redknapp may have the freedom to run the playing side of the club; however it is Levy that oversees the purchasing of players and will only spend big money on those players that have a potential sell on value. It is no shock to me that NESV have decided to address the reckless spending at Liverpool and look to introduce their own director of football to the club and while Damien Comolli certainly wouldn’t have been my choice, given what went on at Tottenham, the set-up is ideal for any football club seeking stability on and off the pitch. Arnesen got Tottenham on the straight and narrow in such a short space of time and it is no coincidence that his time started the general ascendency that the club has enjoyed in the years since.
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