Poll

How would you rate Luke Dowlings tenure to date (26 may 2021)

Roaring success, we'll be lucky to keep him
2 (1.8%)
Doing well given the limitations he has to work under
9 (8.1%)
Ok
16 (14.4%)
Poor, could be doing better overall
49 (44.1%)
Abject, needs to be fired or walk,
35 (31.5%)

Total Members Voted: 111

Voting closed: June 05, 2021, 12:28:58 PM

Author Topic: Luke Dowling  (Read 132010 times)

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Dexy

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Re: Luke Dowling
« Reply #275 on: January 30, 2021, 06:55:03 PM »
Dowling can pick out a decent lower league player , i'll give him that. Out of depth in the Premier League though , added to his reluctance to shop overseas . Not right for a club like us .
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Re: Luke Dowling
« Reply #276 on: January 30, 2021, 06:56:09 PM »
Allan Nyom ?

It was who bizarrely looked decent at left back but shocking at right back.
After Jones came Christian Gamboa

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Re: Luke Dowling
« Reply #277 on: January 30, 2021, 07:00:02 PM »
Dowling can pick out a decent lower league player , i'll give him that. Out of depth in the Premier League though , added to his reluctance to shop overseas . Not right for a club like us .

And that is one of the biggest issues with Dowling.

The board may set a budget which is limited but you have to find ways to make that money go further.

Our limited budget is used in an inflated British market. No wonder we do not have the funds to give the squad a make over.

That money on Karlan Grant could have been spent far more productively if it had been spent abroad. It might not have paid off but it would have been a cheaper gamble than the one we’ve taken on Grant which also isn’t paying off.

It’s short sighted and a detriment to the club.
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Re: Luke Dowling
« Reply #278 on: January 30, 2021, 07:03:36 PM »
Dowlings relative successes were established EFL players who were available on low fees. Hell even I recommended we sign Ajayi on here well before we went in for him.

The contracts given out to Austin,Grosiki etc are just daft. Does anyone above Dowling care enough to notice and sack him in the summer though

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Re: Luke Dowling
« Reply #279 on: January 30, 2021, 07:04:02 PM »
And that is one of the biggest issues with Dowling.

The board may set a budget which is limited but you have to find ways to make that money go further.

Our limited budget is used in an inflated British market. No wonder we do not have the funds to give the squad a make over.

That money on Karlan Grant could have been spent far more productively if it had been spent abroad. It might not have paid off but it would have been a cheaper gamble than the one we’ve taken on Grant which also isn’t paying off.

It’s short sighted and a detriment to the club.

Only problem is it was Slav who insisted on Grant not Dowling

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Re: Luke Dowling
« Reply #280 on: January 30, 2021, 07:05:34 PM »
Dowlings relative successes were established EFL players who were available on low fees. Hell even I recommended we sign Ajayi on here well before we went in for him.

The contracts given out to Austin,Grosiki etc are just daft. Does anyone above Dowling care enough to notice and sack him in the summer though

To be fair we gave Austin a 2 year contract a proven championship goal scorer for our 2 year promotion plan
 

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Re: Luke Dowling
« Reply #281 on: January 30, 2021, 07:22:33 PM »
Only problem is it was Slav who insisted on Grant not Dowling

Okay - use Zohore as another example..
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Re: Luke Dowling
« Reply #282 on: January 30, 2021, 07:32:53 PM »
This was the interview - quite telling in my view:

https://www.expressandstar.com/sport/football/west-bromwich-albion/2020/08/06/exclusive-mark-jenkins-on-albions-finances-post-covid-19/

“Forget the figures Villa, Sheffield United and Norwich spent last season. We are now in a different world, a completely different world.

“And the values of players have totally changed.

“Still today, nobody has any idea how much players are worth or how much their value has deteriorated.

“Speaking to agents three or four weeks ago, they were saying nobody is ringing us.

“Clubs are just going to do Bosman free transfers and loans.




The values didn’t change and nor did clubs rely on loans or bosmans.


Personally, I think Jenkins was correct.

From what I've seen today, Diange is going to be a far better player than Grant, & is going to cost a lot less.

What we did in the summer was to pay high transfer fees for low wage & high risk players, think what Jenkins proposed was low transfer fees for high wage, but low risk players.

4 players with EPL experience on short term contracts, would have made the world of difference.

IMO, that's the strategy now, probably too late.
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Re: Luke Dowling
« Reply #283 on: January 30, 2021, 07:54:34 PM »

Personally, I think Jenkins was correct.

From what I've seen today, Diange is going to be a far better player than Grant, & is going to cost a lot less.

What we did in the summer was to pay high transfer fees for low wage & high risk players, think what Jenkins proposed was low transfer fees for high wage, but low risk players.

4 players with EPL experience on short term contracts, would have made the world of difference.

IMO, that's the strategy now, probably too late.
Yes, Grant looks a poor signing. On paper he looked ok and I bought into his stats but, if he'd been scouted properly, he is never a centre forward. Another one down to poor recruitment.

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Re: Luke Dowling
« Reply #284 on: January 30, 2021, 08:04:25 PM »

Personally, I think Jenkins was correct.

From what I've seen today, Diange is going to be a far better player than Grant, & is going to cost a lot less.

What we did in the summer was to pay high transfer fees for low wage & high risk players, think what Jenkins proposed was low transfer fees for high wage, but low risk players.

4 players with EPL experience on short term contracts, would have made the world of difference.

IMO, that's the strategy now, probably too late.

The signing of Diange is what the club should have pursued in the summer. The fact we have taken such a short sight approach to recruitment has proven costly for a number of reasons. The fact in your eyes that Diange looks an improvement on Grant is testament to the summer approach being wrong.

You can claim that Jenkins was correct - but he is equally culpable for the approach that was taken. He knew what it required to have a successful window given he was apart of the Ashworth era. He was a part of a group who turned their backs on affordable markets to pursue an expensive, high risk market in the UK - even prior to our promotion.

I’d say we were living a champagne lifestyle on a Prosecco budget. But I’m not sure the signings we made would constitute champagne to be honest !! We ended up with Prosecco at a champagne cost
« Last Edit: January 30, 2021, 08:07:29 PM by LiamTheBaggie »
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Re: Luke Dowling
« Reply #285 on: January 30, 2021, 08:08:32 PM »
The signing of Diange is what the club should have pursued in the summer. The fact we have taken such a short sight approach to recruitment has proven costly for a number of reasons. The fact in your eyes that Diange looks an improvement on Grant is testament to the summer approach being wrong.

You can claim that Jenkins was correct - but he is equally culpable for the approach that was taken. He knew what it required to have a successful window given he was apart of the Ashworth era. He was a part of a group who turned their backs on affordable markets to pursue an expensive, high risk market in the UK - even prior to our promotion.

I’d say we were living a champagne lifestyle on a Prosecco budget. But I’m not sure the signings we made would constitute champagne to be honest !!

With the greatest of respect Liam, at that time Jenkins had retired, he was only acting as an advisor to the club.
Ken was CEO, I can only assume Ken chose to ignore Jenkins advice.
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Re: Luke Dowling
« Reply #286 on: January 30, 2021, 08:15:12 PM »
With the greatest of respect Liam, at that time Jenkins had retired, he was only acting as an advisor to the club.
Ken was CEO, I can only assume Ken chose to ignore Jenkins advice.

The planning for promotion would have been happening prior to Jenkins retirement - to not future plan for all eventualities merely highlights their incompetence.

I really don’t see Ken acting against the advice of Jenkins given he was wet behind the ears and new to the role.

I honestly believe that Jenkins thought they could take advantage of the market due to the pandemic. That would have been the advice and he left Dowling and Ken to pick up the pieces. Unfortunately neither of them had the foresight to change approach - partly because the foundations were not there to scout abroad because of Dowling and his pro British market approach. We were then stuck down an cul-de-sac  that we really could not get out of.
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Re: Luke Dowling
« Reply #287 on: January 30, 2021, 10:39:39 PM »
Seems to me that Dowling, like a number of the players bought in, is decent working in the Champ but just out of his depth at the top level.  It should not have needed Allardyce to come in and point out that we needed quality at CH, DM and CF.   And it shouldn't have taken Allardyce to come in for us to look at the European loan markets.   If BS's arrival does nothing else, shaking up the recruitment strategy might leave a legacy worthwhile.

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Re: Luke Dowling
« Reply #288 on: January 30, 2021, 10:49:44 PM »
Yes, Grant looks a poor signing. On paper he looked ok and I bought into his stats but, if he'd been scouted properly, he is never a centre forward. Another one down to poor recruitment.

Grant will get us back up though.  How much is that worth?

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Re: Luke Dowling
« Reply #289 on: January 30, 2021, 11:25:12 PM »
Seems to me that Dowling, like a number of the players bought in, is decent working in the Champ but just out of his depth at the top level.  It should not have needed Allardyce to come in and point out that we needed quality at CH, DM and CF.   And it shouldn't have taken Allardyce to come in for us to look at the European loan markets.   If BS's arrival does nothing else, shaking up the recruitment strategy might leave a legacy worthwhile.

Ian Pearce is the chief scout not Dowling and the biggest problem getting quality players in, is the inability or refusal to pay the going rate to sign them. Dowling is begging and borrowing for players this window just like he did in the summer. That involves being last in the queue and needing to try to structure deals creatively to avoid paying anything upfront. Hence Allardyce hasn’t signed a centre back and hasn’t signed a defensive midfielder. Nor has he been able to bring in better quality full backs. We are also less attractive to players now given we are 19th.

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Re: Luke Dowling
« Reply #290 on: January 30, 2021, 11:48:37 PM »
Grant will get us back up though.  How much is that worth?

Will he? It didn’t quite work out that way at Huddersfield. Besides, Sheffield Utd will have a strike force of McBurnie and Brewster next season backed up by McGoldrick and Sharp - 4 players proven at that level, plus Mousset and Burke. If any forward is going to rip up the league next year it will be one of theirs.I suppose that’s a different conversation though.

My biggest issue with Dowling is everything he does just feels very run of the mill. We had one of the biggest budgets in the championship last season and so Dowling was able to get away with being run of the mill as we could spend our way to promotion (relative to our rivals). Even then though the biggest success was a Bilic man in Matteus Pereira who probably played a bigger role than anyone else last season.

This year without the luxury of being a big fish in a small pond, Dowling has been unable to offer a strategy on how to close the gap on the clubs who have bigger budgets. There was no “outside the box” thinking, he just tried to beat richer clubs at their own game which just doesn’t work. Even more criminal though is that I am yet to see much evidence of any long term planning either. While other clubs are hoovering up players who are 18 -20 with an eye on the next few years, we have instead forked out millions on blokes who have had the one good season or bought others on short term deals.

Bilic deserves some of the blame of course - as we have seen this month the manager does have influence on the strategy as well, particularly on which positions we target and it will be Bilic who didn’t feel we needed to prioritise a defensive midfielder or full back, who publicly took responsibility for the decision to push to bring back together last seasons flawed, flagging squad and who eventually dug his heels in over Karlan Grant despite the fact that he wasn’t a centre forward and was actually just another form of Callum Robinson (without the versatility). Dowling however should have the final say in his role and he signed off on these decisions, while making some poor calls of his own (I agreed with his stance on Hegazi if you look at it in isolation, but probably not when you take into account the Kipre/Ivanovic farce earlier in the window - failing to sign a top quality centre half that both manager and tech director could agree on so instead getting 2 poor choices).

I think the ship has probably sailed for us now, but if we are going to reestablish ourselves in the premier league in the next couple of years, we need somebody at the helm who has fresh ideas and who gets more right than he gets wrong. That man isn’t Dowling.
« Last Edit: January 30, 2021, 11:52:10 PM by Baggies »
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Re: Luke Dowling
« Reply #291 on: January 30, 2021, 11:49:57 PM »
Ian Pearce is the chief scout not Dowling and the biggest problem getting quality players in, is the inability or refusal to pay the going rate to sign them. Dowling is begging and borrowing for players this window just like he did in the summer. That involves being last in the queue and needing to try to structure deals creatively to avoid paying anything upfront. Hence Allardyce hasn’t signed a centre back and hasn’t signed a defensive midfielder. Nor has he been able to bring in better quality full backs. We are also less attractive to players now given we are 19th.

Luke Dowling is Ian Pearce’s boss and has ultimate responsibility for all football operations, including the scouting department.
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Re: Luke Dowling
« Reply #292 on: January 30, 2021, 11:56:01 PM »
Will he? It didn’t quite work out that way at Huddersfield. Besides, Sheffield Utd will have a strike force of McBurnie and Brewster next season backed up by McGoldrick and Sharp - 4 players proven at that level, plus Mousset and Burke. If any forward is going to rip up the league next year it will be one of theirs.I suppose that’s a different conversation though.

My biggest issue with Dowling is everything he does just feels very run of the mill. We had one of the biggest budgets in the championship last season and so Dowling was able to get away with being run of the mill as we could spend our way to promotion (relative to our rivals). Even then though the biggest success was a Bilic man in Matteus Pereira who probably played a bigger role than anyone else last season.

This year without the luxury of being a big fish in a small pond, Dowling has been unable to offer a strategy on how to close the gap on the clubs who have bigger budgets. There was no “outside the box” thinking, he just tried to beat richer clubs at their own game which just doesn’t work. Even more criminal though is that I am yet to see much evidence of any long term planning either. While other clubs are hoovering up players who are 18 -20 with an eye on the next few years, we have instead forked out millions on blokes who have had the one good season or bought others on short term deals.

Bilic deserves some of the blame of course - as we have seen this month the manager does have influence on the strategy as well, particularly on which positions we target and it will be Bilic who didn’t feel we needed to prioritise a defensive midfielder or full back, who publicly took responsibility for the decision to push to bring back together last seasons flawed, flagging squad and who eventually dug his heels in over Karlan Grant despite the fact that he wasn’t a centre forward and was actually just another form of Callum Robinson (without the versatility). Dowling however should have the final say in his role and he signed off on these decisions, while making some poor calls of his own (I agreed with his stance on Hegazi if you look at it in isolation, but probably not when you take into account the Kipre/Ivanovic farce earlier in the window - failing to sign a top quality centre half that both manager and tech director could agree on so instead getting 2 poor choices).

I think the ship has probably sailed for us now, but if we are going to reestablish ourselves in the premier league in the next couple of years, we need somebody at the helm who has fresh ideas and who gets more right than he gets wrong. That man isn’t Dowling.

Couldn’t have said it better myself absolutely spot on.

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Re: Luke Dowling
« Reply #293 on: January 31, 2021, 03:37:41 AM »
How does Luke Dowling have knowledge of football players that's superior to the actual WBA Manager?

Someone like Allardyce has been in football all of his life as a Player and Manager, he is 66 years old!

The Manager should not be reliant on Dowling for advice on actual signings.

He really is just a link man between Manager and Board, and this is required because many of the board are Chinese and living over there.

If we look at Bilic, then promotion was secured on 22nd July.  In less than 2 months we were starting the EPL season.  Many players were signed with the aim of getting out the Championship.  However, I accept he was too loyal to some namely Sawyers, Livermore, HRK, Austin etc.

If we look at Allardyce, he has picked some of the weakest players continually (Livermore, Sawyers, Grant, HRK).  Why haven't low cost signings been made earlier in January?



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Re: Luke Dowling
« Reply #294 on: January 31, 2021, 08:13:25 AM »
In defence of Dowling, even though Pereira may well have been Bilic's signing, Dowling would almost certainly have been involved in the terms of the deal i.e. the option to buy for £8m which should be making us a very healthy profit at some stage (probably the summer).
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Re: Luke Dowling
« Reply #295 on: January 31, 2021, 09:21:34 AM »
How does Luke Dowling have knowledge of football players that's superior to the actual WBA Manager?

Someone like Allardyce has been in football all of his life as a Player and Manager, he is 66 years old!

The Manager should not be reliant on Dowling for advice on actual signings.

He really is just a link man between Manager and Board, and this is required because many of the board are Chinese and living over there.

If we look at Bilic, then promotion was secured on 22nd July.  In less than 2 months we were starting the EPL season.  Many players were signed with the aim of getting out the Championship.  However, I accept he was too loyal to some namely Sawyers, Livermore, HRK, Austin etc.

If we look at Allardyce, he has picked some of the weakest players continually (Livermore, Sawyers, Grant, HRK).  Why haven't low cost signings been made earlier in January?

I think you are viewing the role of the head coach in the same way it was in the 1990's and early 2000's and misunderstanding the clubs set up.

Below is a link about Villa's version of Luke Dowling - sporting director Johan Lange.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/worldfootballindex.com/2020/08/johan-lange-who-is-aston-villas-new-sporting-director/amp/

Here's a video of Luke Dowling (with added chair poses 😂) explaining his old role of head of recruitment at former clubs - similar to what he does here but now his role also incorporates other areas of responsibility as well.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Zyq4I8CU3Fk

Finally, below is a write up of the sporting directors working in the premier league a few years ago.

https://www.90min.com/posts/6272660-profiling-all-15-directors-of-football-in-the-premier-league


Sam Allardyce is the head coach. He doesn't have the old Alex Ferguson or Gary Megson role of picking the team AND managing scouting and recruitment - he is purely in charge of on pitch affairs. He will have an influence on who we sign and may also make the odd phone call to his agent mates, but he has himself said only this week "I don't know what's happening with Ahmed Musa, Luke Dowling deals with that".
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Re: Luke Dowling
« Reply #296 on: January 31, 2021, 10:20:04 AM »
Dof's in English football are still a little misunderstood and the balance of power between the head coach and dof is often out of whack. Too frequently even doyens of the sports press seem to think the Dof is there to get the players in that the Head Coach identifies and we get the tiresome debate about whether the coach really wanted the player or which party to attribute a signing to.

Even experienced continental coaches make the mistake. It was one of reasons Conte wanted to work in England because he thought he would get more influence over player recruitment. In truth that would be the case at many English clubs, but absolutely not at Chelsea where you get the players you are given and you succeed with them or they move onto someone who will. That is how it works and generally it has worked for them.

Dowling has made the mistake of appointing two relatively high profile coaches to the role while their recruitment might be regarded as a feather in his cap but that has made his life more difficult particularly as both are fairly canny operators in the media and have managed to saddle him with the blame for some of their tactical inadequacies. 

Maybe that is a lesson in itself "high profile" is not the same as "good" . Ultimately the Dof is the Head Coach's boss and the tail should not wag the dog.

Some of the criticism leveled at Dowling is justified and maybe a franker series of discussions with Bilic over the summer would have resulted in different criticism but maybe we might be in a slightly better place than we are now maybe he might have been able to save Bilic from himself. All of this is what might have been.

There are lessons to be learned but while Dowling is in post it is difficult to see them being learned and the appointment of Allardyce would suggest that haven't been

The club will no doubt go through yet another reboot. We might fire everybody and yes that satisfies fans need for a head on a stick but it also pitches out the door a lot of hard won experience. I am not sure where I sit on this, one last chance at redemption perhaps. 
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Re: Luke Dowling
« Reply #297 on: January 31, 2021, 11:25:16 AM »
You make some good points Stan, as Dan Ashworth had to learn from his early mistakes, but there have been precious few suggestions that Dowling is learning.

You could point to the fact he is starting to get players loaned out, but then I look at Harper at the start of the season and Edwards, Kipre and Field now.

You could point to us looking to Europe this Jan but that seems to have had Allardyce's influence as well.

The best option for me is hiring a good continental sporting director with a proven track record.
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Re: Luke Dowling
« Reply #298 on: January 31, 2021, 11:55:03 AM »
I think you are viewing the role of the head coach in the same way it was in the 1990's and early 2000's and misunderstanding the clubs set up.

Below is a link about Villa's version of Luke Dowling - sporting director Johan Lange.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/worldfootballindex.com/2020/08/johan-lange-who-is-aston-villas-new-sporting-director/amp/

Here's a video of Luke Dowling (with added chair poses 😂) explaining his old role of head of recruitment at former clubs - similar to what he does here but now his role also incorporates other areas of responsibility as well.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Zyq4I8CU3Fk

Finally, below is a write up of the sporting directors working in the premier league a few years ago.

https://www.90min.com/posts/6272660-profiling-all-15-directors-of-football-in-the-premier-league


Sam Allardyce is the head coach. He doesn't have the old Alex Ferguson or Gary Megson role of picking the team AND managing scouting and recruitment - he is purely in charge of on pitch affairs. He will have an influence on who we sign and may also make the odd phone call to his agent mates, but he has himself said only this week "I don't know what's happening with Ahmed Musa, Luke Dowling deals with that".

I have heard countless people on here blame Bilic for poor Summer signings such as Grant, Ivanovic, Diangana, Kipre etc.  So in reality every failed transfer is the fault of Luke Dowling and not the Manager.

I fail to see why Dowling has more influence over signings than the Manager.  The Manager is the expert, not Dowling.

I suppose its Dowling fault over Allardyce for the selection of Livermore, Sawyers, Grant, HRK, Furlong, Gibbs over the last few weeks!

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Re: Luke Dowling
« Reply #299 on: January 31, 2021, 12:21:17 PM »
I have heard countless people on here blame Bilic for poor Summer signings such as Grant, Ivanovic, Diangana, Kipre etc.  So in reality every failed transfer is the fault of Luke Dowling and not the Manager.

I fail to see why Dowling has more influence over signings than the Manager.  The Manager is the expert, not Dowling.

I suppose its Dowling fault over Allardyce for the selection of Livermore, Sawyers, Grant, HRK, Furlong, Gibbs over the last few weeks!

I mean if you want to keep saying this and not read the links in the post which say exactly the opposite, then i'm not sure what else to say. For what it's worth, if we are going to ignore their actual job roles and decide who is responsible based on what suits our own agenda, then I think it's Keiron Gibbs fault as his scouting and negotiating are just not up to scratch. It doesn't matter that it isn't Gibbs job, i'm just going to say it because facts don't matter.

As for the blame on Bilic, he said in interviews that Ivanovic was his signing. Reading between the lines, Dowling failed him with the signing of Kipre who Bilic didn't want. Nobody....Nobody has blamed Bilic for Kipre. Diangana was part of a strategy that Bilic has said in the media was his choice to bring the old gang back together and Grant seems to be a joint endeavour between club and Bilic and the local press have suggested Bilic dug his heels in (I don't particularly blame Bilic alone - it was Dowling too).
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