[don1thedon]

Welcome to The Baggies Luke, here's hoping you're a great success!

[Fritzl Palace]

We certainly needed someone, as Matt Wilson said on Twitter about it, we leaned too heavily on Jenkins and Moore for recruitment this summer and I wouldn't trust either of them in that capacity.

[Baggies]

Glad we have finally got somebody in place. Hard to judge Dowling's previous success - the structure at Watford is strange with the Pozzi family clubs swapping players, and then Mendes seems to have gained a large influence at Forest so what Dowling's role was is hard to work out.

Hopefully though he is the man to put us back on the right track. He defintely seems a better choice than Terraneo who looked an odd fit from the start.

Personal preference would have been to look to Germany, or maybe head hunt a top academy director, but that was only because I wanted proof the club genuinely had spread the net far and wide with a thorough recruitment process. Dowling may well be the perfect fit so hopefully we have our man.

We do need to trust him with more responsibility than we gave Hammind however. Little point him being here unless he has a large amount of responsibility and say.

[WorcsWBA]

Welcome Luke - it's not before time that we've got an appropriate person in for this post. Let's hope he can quickly introduce some coherent, cohesive and beneficial strategies. There's a lot to put straight.

[liverbaggie]

Hey Luke,may the force be with you!

[Standaman]

I think Dowling has a big task on his hands it is plain our scouting reach is not what it used to be and while he is an experienced professional without the network in place to watch prospects there is a limit to what any Dof can do.

It was interesting that in his comments in the press he referenced where the club used to be 5 years ago as being the model that other clubs used to aspire to. It is a measure of how much ground we have lost and how poorly we have been managed but hopefully this appointment is another step in our recovery. Given the quote I would assume that his brief is to replicate the model that made us successful under Ashworth. 

[Jeremy Roland Peace]

you could say lost ground. however in reality is that from the meddling of Burton while Irvine was here and then the total destruction of the scouting department by Pulis we are back to square one and having to rebuild what we once had.

[SmethDan]

you could say lost ground. however in reality is that from the meddling of Burton while Irvine was here and then the total destruction of the scouting department by Pulis we are back to square one and having to rebuild what we once had.

While we're on the subject let's not forget the (alleged) festering boil otherwise known as David McDonough.

[Pie]

Hopefully the start of more intelligent signings via a network of scouts etc that seem to have gone AWOL over the last few years.

Good luck to Mr. Dowling

[tuamigos]

I hope he's looking for new players that will be ready to move over on Jan 1st.
Need to have an player ready to bring in if we loose Barnes

[DaveWBA]

I hope he's looking for new players that will be ready to move over on Jan 1st.
Need to have an player ready to bring in if we loose Barnes

Dack or Sawyers.

[tuamigos]

Dack or Sawyers.

Be very surprised if Blackburn or Brentford will let either of these go given their relative League positions at the moment

[koren]

We failed to find a suitable replacement since Dan Ashworth left, hopefully Luke Dowling would be the right one.

Many tasks ahead of him, the first one would be the winter transfer window. It would be decisive for our promotion chance.


 

[Standaman]

you could say lost ground. however in reality is that from the meddling of Burton while Irvine was here and then the total destruction of the scouting department by Pulis we are back to square one and having to rebuild what we once had.

It is difficult to gauge exactly what our capacity is on this front. The club directory lists the following as being the recruitment department

 RECRUITMENT MANAGER: Jonathan Gibson

SENIOR SCOUTS: Jeff Baskerville, Michael Trusson

REGIONAL SCOUT: Alan Cork

RECRUITMENT ANALYST: Matthew Belcher

Now this looks pretty thin but the club can and will engage scouts on an assignment basis to give them extra coverage so that is not the complete picture but what is significant is there is nobody responsible for European Scouting which was Tony Spearing's role up until he left in January 2015.

When Hammond was appointed I believe part of his brief was to expand the scope of our recruitment but what was the point? Although Pulis watching a couple of AFCON games on TV resulted in Hegazi and Gabir being recruited (who needs scouts when you have a couple of cans of Carling and a remote control?).

Long term this needs a major upgrade in the short term Dowling will have to make do with what we have and January could be quite a challenge. The earliest we will see any difference in our recruitment is the summer, January will be very similar to what has just happened, smart processes will take time to bed in but in the meantime he could always fall back on the collective wisdom of westbrom.com 

[A5HB]

It is difficult to gauge exactly what our capacity is on this front. The club directory lists the following as being the recruitment department

 RECRUITMENT MANAGER: Jonathan Gibson

SENIOR SCOUTS: Jeff Baskerville, Michael Trusson

REGIONAL SCOUT: Alan Cork

RECRUITMENT ANALYST: Matthew Belcher

Now this looks pretty thin but the club can and will engage scouts on an assignment basis to give them extra coverage so that is not the complete picture but what is significant is there is nobody responsible for European Scouting which was Tony Spearing's role up until he left in January 2015.

When Hammond was appointed I believe part of his brief was to expand the scope of our recruitment but what was the point? Although Pulis watching a couple of AFCON games on TV resulted in Hegazi and Gabir being recruited (who needs scouts when you have a couple of cans of Carling and a remote control?).

Long term this needs a major upgrade in the short term Dowling will have to make do with what we have and January could be quite a challenge. The earliest we will see any difference in our recruitment is the summer, January will be very similar to what has just happened, smart processes will take time to bed in but in the meantime he could always fall back on the collective wisdom of westbrom.com 

I do remember hearing or reading Garlick talking about this  few years ago actually. He was saying that years ago under the likes of Dan we had a huge number of scouts and watched a massive number of players. This gave us a huge amount of coverage but really limited the level of detail as there just wasn’t time.

When Pulis arrived, he asked to reduce the number of scouts and the areas we looked at so that we would be able to watch a smaller pool more closely. It means we’d watch less players, but we would end up with more detailed information. I’d imagine the current set up is in line with this strategy. In reality, we probably need something in the middle.

[Albionic]

Its a competitive game both on and off the field, meaning to be the best we need the best / smartest operations, to find the best quality in the world you have to scour the world.

Before someone says it, we will never be the best because of resources, but we DO need to be better than those we are competing with, If we currently consider our competition to be Dirty Leeds / Boring Boro / Mensheep....  we have to ask is our recruitment better than those guys?

Leeds, basket case chopping and changing every few months, but seems the latest owner is bringing some stability, larger resources than us, therefore we have to out smart them

Boro, I almost typed "an interesting one" how ironic!!, we know what TP wants (Big / Brit, Biddable) will he find it? the pool is getting smaller and more expensive, but, TP does what TP does, we need to out smart him - tough ask over 46 games

Derby, Fat frank has been backed to the hilt and there are some parallels to Darrens situation, I personally doubt DM will have the resources available to him that Lampard will - need to outsmart them

If we can finish this season competing with these 3 it will be either because we kept enough quality post relegation, or, because everyone at the club (on & off pitch) has combined to out perform the opposition, I think we can run them close but it will be fine margins which decide how this season plays out IMO.

[Standaman]

I do remember hearing or reading Garlick talking about this  few years ago actually. He was saying that years ago under the likes of Dan we had a huge number of scouts and watched a massive number of players. This gave us a huge amount of coverage but really limited the level of detail as there just wasn’t time.

When Pulis arrived, he asked to reduce the number of scouts and the areas we looked at so that we would be able to watch a smaller pool more closely. It means we’d watch less players, but we would end up with more detailed information. I’d imagine the current set up is in line with this strategy. In reality, we probably need something in the middle.

I remember Garlick saying that. Of course it was absolute bilge at the time and hasn't aged well. All you need to do to increase the depth of the scouting is to focus the scouts on fewer players rather than reduce the number of scouts. It is the DoF or Head of Recruitment who sends the scouts to look at players they don't wander around taking in random games on the off chance that something good might happen.

On the appointment of Pulis there was less requirement for scouting the whole focus was on British based players who were in the view of the club known quantities. Equally the fall out from the McDonagh debacle when the scouts had specifically warned the club that some of the signings were absolute duds but were over ruled meant that some of the relationships between the key personnel had become strained and it was inevitable that the scouts moved on.

However we are where we are. Even one recruitment analyst can generate a huge pool of potential leads from a combination of data and video but that does require to be followed up with boots on the ground to get a complete picture of a player who we might invest £m's in. It should never be forgotten that a scouting network is relatively cheap whereas players are expensive and ruinously so when they flop.   
 

[tommcneill]

Good luck to him hope it works out and he can help bring some success

[paulosull]

Great having position filled let's hope the owner backs him iin transfer market.

[beechyboy90]

I hope he is lining up replacements for Barnes in case Leicester recall him. Also a right back option and possibly another centre back.

[BalisPen]

Welcome to the Albion Luke.

I hope you use the force wisely to get us up and above the dark side (villa).

[paulosull]

Luke has had first interview and reading between the lines doesn't look like owner is remotely interested in pushing the boat out to fund transfers in January  .

[leeiswba]

Luke has had first interview and reading between the lines doesn't look like owner is remotely interested in pushing the boat out to fund transfers in January  .

Seriously how many times do we have to go through the fact that Lai's money is stuck in China 

[johnny Cash]

Seriously how many times do we have to go through the fact that Lai's money is stuck in China 

That is also speculation, is it not?

[leeiswba]

That is also speculation, is it not?

There is plenty of arcticles about the communist party in China stopping money leaving the country. There was also a meeting last January where a select few had a meeting with John Williams who stated that he was struggling to get money out of China. It is also the reason that Dr Tony up the road had to sell up and why Villa were in trouble because he could not pump anymore of his own money into the club to cover the losses such as tax bills, all his money was stopped from leaving China.