Coluka - there was talk last Summer of Akpom leaving, Wilder did not seem interested in him, But he stayed. Its likely Scott decided to keep him. His job is to trade players and he decided not to trade Akpom. I am sure people will say it was all Carrick who boosted Akpom, if it was who recruited Carrick? Sorry there are too many things that the SD role gets involved in to say he did not impact the finshing position in a posisitive way.
With the other players the bottom line is the football director has a big say on who stays and who comes. If he didn't want Archer and Ramsay I am pretty sure they would not have come.
I do get the feeling some people are blaming Scott for our poor start, but when we do well he gets no credit.
To me the poor start should start with players not fulfilling their potential and how they have been trained, prepared, organised and motivated.
I agree Wilder was not interested in him and given his previous form we all agreed at that time. You believe Scott decided to keep him, well he was under contract and nobody was willing to buy him or loan him for an acceptable fee. He was training with the under 21’s at that time and reportedly told to find himself a new club. That isn’t the actions of a Head of Football wanting to keep Akpom, it is a case of having no choice but to do so. Thankfully, not through excellent planning on Scotts part, it worked out.
Carrick himself was recruited as a result of a conversation between Southgate and Gibson and Gibson spending time and effort to pursue Carrick, no doubt with some involvement from Scott. That involvement with Southgate was reported. I think you are giving Scott too much credit on him and not accepting Steve Gibson is occasionally seemingly hands on from time to time. Carrick confirmed he had a meeting with him recently.
As for Archer and Ramsey, of course he would want them, but they both said they chose Boro over other options as Danksy was well known to them amongst other things no doubt. You can not just assume it was initiated by Scott the credit may be due to Danksy himself as it was not that long before they came Danks was appointed (1 December). You don’t need to make a big leap to see the link, he will have had some insider knowledge of their potential availability and be seen by Villa as a trusted coach.
Of course coaching comes into things and Carrick acknowledges his responsibility in that area. However, you have to work out what level they are at and start from there, they were never going to be Championship ready, several of us made that point before a ball was kicked in anger. It was reported after the Portuguese 6 we were looking at adding proven quality to back that up. We have signed Engel, Lath, O’Brien, Greenwood and Bangura since. Only O’Brien is of known proven quality, the others were presumably assessed and thought to meet the criteria, Lath and Engel look somewhat raw to say the least Greenwood we haven’t seen enough of clearly, Bangura similar.
It has been claimed by one poster on here that someone in recruitment has left the club relating to Engel’s signing as he does not match the level assessed at. I have no idea if that is true or bunkum. Scott oversees recruitment and has the set up in place he is responsible for. If the signings prove to be of a below standard, you hold the coach responsible for not improving them, I hold the Head of the recruitment model responsible if the players can’t operate at the level needed by the coach. Now it is all very premature still there is time for levels to rise and one day hopefully take off. We are in the infancy of the intake, but football is a results business and I would expect those overseeing recruitment to have done their homework. 6 games in it looks a little flaky to say the least. I expect us to win tonight as I see Wednesdays as a soon to be league one team again at present. We will have a much clearer view come the next international break and I would hope we’d be sat with around 9-12 points by then and still in the cup. If so, then we are making some headway, if not, then the issues are indeed significant.
We don't know half.
