Scout The Scouts

[bristolcitysweden]

Scouting is not a easy thing. The recent pre U21 European Championship tournament played in Sweden was scouted by 50 clubs. Most players are already signed by the big clubs. That suggests scouting has to start a lot earlier. In most countries I believe there are pedegree clubs. Clubs with limited economic resources that still are up there each and every year. The secret is that they know how to do their scouting. In Sweden that club is Halmstad Boll Klubb (City once played them on a pre season tour). So why don't we scout the scouts? Scout Halmstads and similar teams in other countries boys teams from say 13 years old. Would pay off in the end I'm sure. Arsenal once signed the unknown Fredrik Ljungberg from Halmstad Boll Klubb. The Bristish equivalence is probably Crewe or maybee Stockport??

Thoughts??

[RED4LIFE]

Aye, you are right, but to have that sort of scouting network costs a lot of money.

Also, if they are good players, the big fish will have a dossier on them by the time they are 11-12 anyway. Look at Arsenals scouting, they can pick up unknown players from nowhere and turn them into world beaters (Toure, Eboue, Fabregas), and that is down to the fact they have the money to employ people all over the world to keep an eye on a player anywhere. They also have feeder clubs in the likes of Belgium and Holland that enables these players to gain Work Permits to play in England, which City just cant compete with.

Personally, Gary and Pete Johnson should just play Champ Manager, we could have picked up Kim Kallstrom (Halmstad or Gotenburg) and Arjen Robben (Groningen) for peanuts.

[bristolcitysweden]

Aye, you are right, but to have that sort of scouting network costs a lot of money.

Also, if they are good players, the big fish will have a dossier on them by the time they are 11-12 anyway. Look at Arsenals scouting, they can pick up unknown players from nowhere and turn them into world beaters (Toure, Eboue, Fabregas), and that is down to the fact they have the money to employ people all over the world to keep an eye on a player anywhere. They also have feeder clubs in the likes of Belgium and Holland that enables these players to gain Work Permits to play in England, which City just cant compete with.

Personally, Gary and Pete Johnson should just play Champ Manager, we could have picked up Kim Kallstrom (Halmstad or Gotenburg) and Arjen Robben (Groningen) for peanuts.

We are Bristol City not Arsenals. We can do it better. Ryanair and the train don't cost a fortune.

Always believe.

[Nibor]

There was a long interview with Pete Johnson on World in February where he talked about scouting and how it works. It's worth a look if you have access. From the interview, the issue with scouting isn't really money, it's time, understanding and trust.

Gary Johnson is the one with the final say on signing a player and he ultimately can only watch a few games and see a few videos - there just isn't enough time. He has to rely largely on the judgement of others to put the right players in front of him and that takes a great deal of trust. The people doing the scouting have to understand exactly what the manager wants on the pitch and off it and that takes a long time to build up. Right now it's Keith Millen and Pete Johnson who have that. From what Pete Johnson was saying they work with other scouts and they get players referred to them by agents and recommendations from other people. From what I recall they are working on building up the network but it's more a work in progress.

I think he said he watches hundreds of games a year both in person and on TV so he does get to see an awful lot of players and some of the gems we've picked out like Elliott, Noble, Carle show that it's working.

[GrahamC]

I'm also pretty sure that Pete Johnson was taking in the U21 tournament mentioned at the start of this thread.

[bristolcitysweden]