can nottingham forest afford to continue with thier transfer committe?

[mot828]

With Nottingham Forest preparing for next season in the Championship, one change they may wish to consider is doing away with their transfer acquisition committee.

The club currently employ a strange set-up, whereby and potential signings that manager Billy Davies wants to make goes through a committee, which includes football consultant David Pleat, chief executive Mark Arthur and chief scout Keith Burt. The committee then discuss the targets with Davies and go from there; however things don’t always run smoothly. As the committee asks the manager to list a number of targets and should the first option not be viable, it can end up with the club signing a player that wasn’t actually needed that badly.

Davies hit out at the committee when they signed George Boyd on-loan from Peterborough in March. Davies said:

“He wasn’t one of the main targets; we all know who they were, with regards to Pratley, Moses and Shorey.”

He continued: “What you always do is give a board two or three different options for each position and if you can’t get the ‘number ones’, you obviously move onto the second and third options. But as far as I’m concerned, we’re still a little bit short with regards to squad depth and what is required.”
The reason as to why the committee exists is because the board deemed that previous managers had wasted transfer funds. However Billy Davies has proved himself to be a more than capable manager, not just during his time at Forest. Therefore they should seriously consider about disbanding the committee, as the last thing they want to do is lose a manager like Davies who has taken Forest forwards very quickly in just

18 months at the club. Although Davies did get criticised for some of his signings whilst at Derby County, it must be remembered that he got them promoted, and too soon as well which meant that he had to sign scraps that nobody else wanted in order to give them a chance of staying up.

 

[The_City_Is_Ours]

Pointless thread - wrote as if nobody on here knows what the TAP is!! Plus this has been gone over a million times

 

[earthworm]

The thing is, the TAP is a filter, to stop Davies signing overpriced crap, which he has done in the past, as well as sign quality. I can't see the problem here.

Plus, Davies in his latest interview said he understands. He knows its Doughty's club, the bloke can do what the hell he likes with it.

 

[incapable hulk]

I do think davies supposed issues with the panel get blown out of all proportion.

 

[yam]

Yes get rid of the TAP. I want to see more Platt-like wasting of millions of pounds.

The days when you could "do a Clough" and go out and sign a player and then tell the chairman have long gone.

 

[Matt90]

The TAP is there to prevent Davies from signing the Eddie Lewis', Claude Davies' and overpriced crap of this world. It does a good job in the summer and I am still confident that we will see new players coming in, perhaps those that we have heard about in the media or perhaps completely unlinked players.

 

[Hoax]

Every club has a TAP in some way or form. Even if the manager and chairman were the only two involved in the purchasing then that would be a TAP. Why cant people grasp this fact? because they believe what they read in the shitty media.

 

[Tutts]

Every club has a TAP in some way or form. Even if the manager and chairman were the only two involved in the purchasing then that would be a TAP. Why cant people grasp this fact? because they believe what they read in the shitty media.

 

[Flaggers]

With Platt et al as your guide, and the bargain signings of Gunter, Majewski, Anderson & co., isn't the question: "Can Nottingham Forest afford NOT to continue with their transfer committee"?

 

[Rigler]

What Flagman said. ^

 

[Waterfordtrickie]

The case for/against TAP

For: Continue with TAP and have a financially sound Football club playing in the premier league within 2 years.


Against: Dump TAP and sign every overpriced Tom Dick on huge long term contracts.
Sink back into the doldrums of 3rd tier football within 3 years and risk going into administration.


Choose wisely!

 

[RRRREDUN]

What Flag said. I'm fed up with this constant criticism of the TAP. Every club has one; ours does a good job. Any targets who don't come here will have chosen NOT to. Nothing to do with the TAP. I don't want us to break the bank for every player we may want. Premier clubs (even minnows like Blackpool/Wigan/Blackburn etc) will always be able to pay higher wages than us. If you want to moan at anything, moan at Sky which has single-handedly ruined football.

 

[mot828]

ok ok i admit its a bit of a stupid thread

 

[uNco]

ok ok i admit its a bit of a stupid thread

your only wasting your own time

 

[xbaz]

i saw an interview with harry redknapp the other day where he said he had a list of targets, handed it to the board and they sorted out the money - some he would get, some he wouldn't because the finance wasn't right. implication - that's the way things are nowadays.

billy may want to run the place like cloughie did but it's not going to happen.

 

[earthworm]

The real question is why the f*** have the media, and the fans, latched on to the TAP so much? Why does ours get all the negative press if every bogger else has got one?

Is it Billy drawing attention to it? I mean, did Redknapp gibber on about advising and recommending in less than glowing tones in that interview somebody mentioned?

Is it just the fact that we bothered to name ours Transfer Acquisition Panel (and now TAP), a poncy and bureaucratic sounding name for something every other club has anyway, making people think we're somehow burdened with something new fangled and w**ky?

 

[Col]

The real question is why the f*** have the media, and the fans, latched on to the TAP so much? Why does ours get all the negative press if every bogger else has got one?

Is it Billy drawing attention to it? I mean, did Redknapp gibber on about advising and recommending in less than glowing tones in that interview somebody mentioned?

Is it just the fact that we bothered to name ours Transfer Acquisition Panel (and now TAP), a poncy and bureaucratic sounding name for something every other club has anyway, making people think we're somehow burdened with something new fangled and w**ky?

Bingo! It's purely because Billy is using it as a barrier if things go tits up. "It ain't me, it's TAP wot dunnit"

 

[us_red]

Load Of Bollocks, imagine Sir Brian under the same regime, we would have never won nothing back in the 80's because he would have walked.

Any business is a gamble, give Billy 5-8 million to get who he wants & theres a good chance you'll get 40 million back.

 

[sammy the snake]

the post should have read "can the club afford NOT to have a TAC"

My view is that we don't want to be home to Mr Cockup when Football looses it's commercial appeal to investors.

We have seen massive injections of cash in the prem from foreigners creating a footy bubble, when that bubble goes bang Forest need to strong position to compete. Forest are in it for the long run, gradual self sufficient success is the answer.

Who wants to bailed out by Yanks, or consortium's of Bedouin tribesmen?

Billy needs to get a grip, he's a temporary football manager of a division 2 football club. History tells us, managers have an average shelf life of just 4 seasons in this league. Will Mr Doughty put our club in jeopardy to our narcissistic football manager?..NOPE

 

[Super-Garth]

Mr Cockup
Yanks
Bedouin tribesmen

Can any of these fellows play left back?

 

[Ravi]

Creating a Transfer Acquisitions Panel is probably the best decision ND has made since becoming owner. In hindsight it seems so obvious but football, as in many other walks of life, has had a 'this is the way we have always done it and no one questions whether it's the best way' mentality.
The old model of appointing a manager, allowing him to get rid of a large proportion of the playing staff (usually for knock down prices) and then buy a load of new players (usually for over-inflated prices) was ridiculously wasteful. The manager's focus was inevitably short term and when he was evetually sacked, or left if he did a good job, the whole boom and bust process started again.
Most managers have a success rate of scouting and buying players which is not much better than chance, yet this backward way of running a football club continues even now. Clough and Taylor bucked the trend because they were actually good at buying players and improving their value, but that ability is exceedingly rare.

Since the AP came into being it has brought a clear long term strategy to buying players (no manager could be expected to think beyond the short term), with experienced scouting (Pleat et al.), and a policy of never paying inflated prices on transfers or wages. It's no coincidence that our 'fortunes' on the pitch have seen an upturn in the last four or five years (afterall it's signing better players that improves a clubs results), and whilst the AP stays the upturn (trend not necessarilly every individual season) will continue long after the current manager has been sacked or gone to another club. At last I believe ND has hit on a winning strategy for a successful future for the club.

 

[sammy the snake]

Totally agree with you Ravi

Believe me the financial fire-storm that will be engulf footy in the next years will really sort out the deadwood.

Football will soon have to adhere to the same rules that apply to any other business.
For that reason alone, ND is bang on. Sure we all want success, and that is why ND got in BD, but BD needs to do the his job he's paid to do. Manage the team that the club can afford. Simple really, but if Billy don't like the way the club is set up, there are many other clubs simply itching to be thrown into financial chaos.

Billy is an employee of Nottingham Forest, not a shareholder, director, or even fan

 

[Tutts]

The real question is why the f*** have the media, and the fans, latched on to the TAP so much? Why does ours get all the negative press if every bogger else has got one?

Is it Billy drawing attention to it? I mean, did Redknapp gibber on about advising and recommending in less than glowing tones in that interview somebody mentioned?

Is it just the fact that we bothered to name ours Transfer Acquisition Panel (and now TAP), a poncy and bureaucratic sounding name for something every other club has anyway, making people think we're somehow burdened with something new fangled and w**ky?

Spot on. If Billy was just talking about 'The Board' then nobody would give it a second thought.

 

[Strummer]

Creating a Transfer Acquisitions Panel is probably the best decision ND has made since becoming owner.

Absolutely spot-on post, and I would agree 100%.

Football nowadays isn't a so much "just a sport" any more, it's a business. A ruthless, professional, money-orientated business. And we have a genuine business-man in Nigel Doughty running the club.

We all know about the so-called "Big-4" (whomever is in that bracket this season) and their huge budgets, and huge debts.

Fans of Chelsea and Manchester City will no doubt point to their owners and say that their expenditure is a drop-in-the-bucket for the likes of Abramovich and Sheikh Mansour. Maybe it is, but for all their investment, are City really going to be happy finishing fifth?

Meanwhile, in the real world, Forest have, for the last few seasons, consolidated and built steadily.

And that's the way it has to be done for a club of our size and (loyal) fanbase.

Too many clubs are over-stretching themselves to try and compete (I'm looking at you, Portsmouth and Cardiff) and no business can be run solvently with policies like that. Hopefully, Mr. Doughty is running the club in a sensible manner, albeit with cash injections were he sees fit.

And therefore, as Sammy the Snake alludes to in his post, we will still have a club to support in ten years from now, and it will - hopefully - be a very successful one.