[gazberg]

Yes, seeing this chap out the next door is the next step for me.

[Albionic]

I would give him no prep time and get him in the office and ask to see the recruitment / retention / development strategy for all playing staff including the academy, dependant upon what I see, I would make my decisions. (No cohesive plan, there is the door)

Whilst IP has not performed it could be that he has not been allowed to perform,

If retained it would be clear that its on the basis that next window MUST be a success measured against the boundaries he is given.

(Devils advocate)

[Jeremy Roland Peace]

I would give him no prep time and get him in the office and ask to see the recruitment / retention / development strategy for all playing staff including the academy, dependant upon what I see, I would make my decisions. (No cohesive plan, there is the door)

Whilst IP has not performed it could be that he has not been allowed to perform,

If retained it would be clear that its on the basis that next window MUST be a success measured against the boundaries he is given.

(Devils advocate)

i don't think we can risk a transfer window with money with him as well.

[Mikkyk]

I would give him no prep time and get him in the office and ask to see the recruitment / retention / development strategy for all playing staff including the academy, dependant upon what I see, I would make my decisions. (No cohesive plan, there is the door)

Whilst IP has not performed it could be that he has not been allowed to perform,

If retained it would be clear that its on the basis that next window MUST be a success measured against the boundaries he is given.

(Devils advocate)

Devil's advocate is not correct in this case 

My contact at the club says "I'm not sure what he actually does", which very much aligns with what most of us on here already thought.

Your plan sounds like a sensible one.

[gazberg]

I would NOT like to see Ian Pearce given ANY money. His record is atrocious.

[BalisPen]

I'm too happy to discuss P45's.

But, every aspect of the club needs looking at.

[Mo]

Patel follows some people on X who are all data driven wouldn’t be surprised to see one of them or people associated to them employed by us in some capacity . Whilst the first team is doing well there are a lot of other areas that seem slack and need a rethink or a kick up the backside .

[johnny Cash]

Patel follows some people on X who are all data driven wouldn’t be surprised to see one of them or people associated to them employed by us in some capacity . Whilst the first team is doing well there are a lot of other areas that seem slack and need a rethink or a kick up the backside .

Have to hope so. Bologna signing players like Aaron Hickey and Lewis Ferguson from Scotland for about £2m a piece, one of which sold for 20m with the other likely to go for a similar figure, suggests to me they cast their net wide looking at data too. i thought both, particularly ferguson,  should have been players we should have been in for before they moved.

[Dan]

It's always difficult assessing exactly how much he's to blame but clearly we need to make massive changes in recruitment going forward. Our policy till now has been to lazily sign known quantities from the championship on very high wages which has lead to the very unsustainable situation.

Clearly though our market has continually been premier league reserves and the championship. That's a very small market to limit ourselves to - particularly when going forward, we will not be paying wages to attract the best players. We will need to look for value elsewhere, be that lower leagues, or abroad, but we've shown zero capability of doing that. Indeed I remember someone reporting from the Mark Miles fan meeting that the club was unlikely to make signings form abroad this season with the loosened restrictions on foreign players as we didn't have the set up  for it! How much of that is Pearce or from elsehwere I don't know, but its clear we're in a increasingly limited marketed and making it very difficult for ourselves.

Realistically going forward, player sales HAVE to be a pretty big revenue stream to allow us to be competitive at this level, but currently almost no one we sign appreciates in value. That has to change. To be fair to Pearce, the clubs recruitment has been terrible ever since Ashworth left, short sighted and largely far too reliant on high wage experienced players. We've been very, very poor at scouting potential the last 10+ years. We went from the leaders in the area (though, what could have been if Peace had backed Ashworth's scouting system as an investment, like its been to Brighton, instead of the penny wise and pound foolish approach we took).

[NJS]

What seems to have happened at the end of the J Peace era is almost standard for a business owner trying to sell his business.  Propose an attractive near term order book, run down all the backroom services (cf quality control, recruitment, analysis, medical)  and make next year's profit look attractive.

Now any real businessman worth his soy sauce would have practised due diligence for more than one year out but it seems that Mr Guochuan was naïve and knew zilch about the business he was buying into.

[paulosull]

Another bluffer who needs his walking papers and hope owner clears the decks with some of these overpaid personnel who helped in clubs demise.

[tlms-p23]

Been mentioned across loads of different threads about the age and profile of players we've signed in recent years being too heavily skewed towards 28+. We had six players 30+ start the game today.

Difficult to know exactly who has final say on transfers, and how influential Pearce's voice is, but since he joined as Head of Recruitment in November 2018, these are the players we've signed aged 28 and over:

18/19

Tyrone Mears
Wes Hoolahan
Bakary Sako
Stefan Johansen (loan)
Jefferson Montero (loan)

19/20

Charlie Austin
Ali Al Habsi
Kamil Grosicki
Lee Peltier

20/21

Branislav Ivanovic
Robert Snodgrass
David Button
Mbaye Diagne (loan)

21/22

Andy Carroll
Adam Reach
Jordan Hugill (loan)

22/23

Martin Kelly
Jed Wallace
Okay Yokuslu
Eric Pieters
Nathaniel Chalobah
Tom Rogic
Marc Albrighton (loan)

23/24

Yann M'Vila
Andi Weimann (loan)

-------

Having had a quick look, we've only signed 4 players who were broadly unknown in the UK since Pearce arrived. As far as I know, all are attributed to Bilic (Pereira and Krovinovic were both his picks) and Allardyce (Yokuslu and Diagne). Big Sam's football might have been outdated but his knowledge of foreign markets and record of foreign signings is famously outstanding.

Most of our major signings have been from mid-table clubs in the second tier - see Ajayi, Furlong, Townsend, Bartley, Sawyers, Zohore, Swift, Wallace, Grant, Mowatt, Reach.

It's difficult to know who is signing players - the various managers, Dowling or Pearce - but as a club, it's an absolutely honking track record.

This summer, the club has a once in a decade opportunity for a squad reset, with 6 or 7 big earners out of contract and 2 or 3 others who we might be able to sell for a reasonable fee.

Who knows how it'll pan out this summer, but history says we don't seem to place much importance on buying athletes, pace or youth!

[gazberg]

Depressing list. Can't believe he's still here

[DevonInStripes]

Needs to be sent packing asap.

[Mo]

I think there will be changes and we will see a director of football in place and a shift towards more analytical decision making . Patel follows a lot of specialists in this field on X .

[BalisPen]

One of the real culprits of our predicament.

Big contracts for players on frees, for a reason, and who will perform when they need their next contract.

[FallOutBoy]

You do have to remember that Luke Dowling was also here for a lot of those signings, and we know all about him.

If we can get a director of football in it will be interesting to see what happens; from next season we'll be even more reliant on picking up good players for little or nothing.

[BalisPen]

You need someone who hasn't got it comfortable enough to bring his son on board for the sit on the shaft west brom train.

Someone, who is prepared to look at data and watch lots of videos and send our limited resources (scouts) to watch players who already been thoroughly researched already.

Someone who is hungry to prove themselves, and isn't the comforts zone to sign freebies who make the management think he is doing great when in reality he saddling us with players not good enough and out for there biggest payday.

That kind of person will more likely be poached after the slightest bit of progression he achieves, but we must have the foresight to have his number 2 takeover or take someone else's proven employee.

[wba_1996]

Look at the comments from page 1 of this thread. That was back in 2018 and we’re still in the exact same boat.

Pearce, and everyone in the recruitment team going back to Dan Ashworth’s departure, have been abject failures and have had a major hand in this club ending up on the brink of administration. Now Lai has gone, they’re by a mile the biggest problem at this club.

Have we made a profit on a single signing in the last decade besides Pereira? And he was a Bilic signing.

[Dexy]

You look at Sheffield Wednesday and the young powerful players they have scouted ( Ugbo from the French 2nd tier) and then look at us with the likes of Chalobah .
Depressing , something has to change in the Summer.

[DevonInStripes]

People come and go but whatever reason Pearce has seemed untouchable. If the owner has his finger on what changes to need to be made then surely Pearces record will be more than enough to see him gone .

[Mikkyk]

I think it will be a good indicator to us fans as to whether Patel actually knows what he's doing as to whether Pearce is shafted or retained in summer

[SmethDan]

Wouldn't mind being a fly on the wall to watch what he does on a day to day basis.

I'd have little fear of getting swatted that's for sure as he'd have to spot me first  .

[tlms-p23]

People come and go but whatever reason Pearce has seemed untouchable. If the owner has his finger on what changes to need to be made then surely Pearces record will be more than enough to see him gone .

For my money he has benefitted from the chaos and instability around him. Managers in and out, the never-ending chopping and changing behind the scenes has meant Pearce/recruitment has been down the priority list each time we've had a re-shuffle.

Williams, Terraneo (remember him?), Jenkins, Dowling, Ken Xu, Gourlay, and hewhomustnotbenamed at the top.

With new managers every 6-9 months, many of them have come in with their own ideas around transfers (Allardyce, Bilic, Ismael certainly did... I'm actually not sure how involved CC is, couldn't put my finger on what CC is after in a player).

Hope Patel has a new structure lined up based on a direction and vision for the club.

[gazberg]

For my money he has benefitted from the chaos and instability around him. Managers in and out and the never-ending chopping and changing behind the scenes and Pearce/recruitment has been way down the priority list.

Williams, Terraneo (remember him?), Jenkins, Dowling, Ken Xu, Gourlay, and hewhomustnotbenamed at the top.

With new managers every 6-9 months, many of them have come in with their own ideas around transfers (Allardyce, Bilic, Ismael certainly did... I'm actually not sure how involved CC is, couldn't put my finger on what CC is after in a player).

Hope Patel has a new structure lined up based on a direction and vision for the club.

Yep, he's kept his head down while chop and change goes on around him.  Would hope once the season ends we see a new setup behind the scenes too.