A Fair Assessment of Marcel Brands

No doubt he will be given an extension on his contract just for continuities sake.
But the next 3 years had better be much better or there won't be another extension

We often read that any manager should not be judged until 'his own team' is in place. If we follow this mantra, Brand's job is to serve the manager in any way Ancelotti dictates, presumably working to a 'required' list of super stars. The old role of Chief Scout springs to mind, indeed, the only difference is that D0Fs earn ten times the salary of Harry Cooke Jnr and his ilk ( Inflation adjusted )

I agree with Mark#3 there are serious issues round governance. The strange structure of having a DOF on the Board is a strange one and makes it even more difficult first define Brands' job description, responsibilies and accountablity.

Unese role is another conundrum. Though there has been a lot of reform of the Academies' purpose, initiated by Brands.

I think for Everton, we are very much without an identity when it comes to how to build. Brands came with the apparant task of developing that strategy - but like anything in the Premier League, a few defeats and 'long term plans' get scrapped very quickly.

So then we get caught between going for young talent, to then going for proven, developed players.

But we can't attract the best, so we have to go for those that have for some reason fallen short, in the hope they rejuvinate themselves.

Digne, Mina, Gomes, James, Sidibe, Iwobi, Bernard and Delph could all be considered of that ilk. Digne is the only undoubted success, James has his moments and could become a legend - or could become a symbol of our unbalanced team. The rest? Wouldn't be missed and we'd welcome getting our money back.

When it comes to getting young players, we've gone for Godfrey, Richarlison, GBamin, Kean. Richarlison is an undoubted success and will probably double his fee or more should he leave. The rest, well one is still adapting, one we'll probable never know due to injuries, and another a failure, but likely to at least recoup his fee if not still make a profit.

From a business point of view, the young transfers are better as the famous 'resaleable' value, but does not mean a successful Premier League team.

Many people call for the 'Dortmund' model, but I fear that (and I think the money men also think), in the PL, the risk could be too high. The cost of relegation is huge, and any drop towards the bottim 5 will see any 'plan' scrapped in the name of PL safety.

Fact is, we can't attract the best young players, and we can't attract the best established players. So we either pay sky-high wages and hope a mid-range player can develop and improve, or sign mid-level young players and hope they improve beyond expectations (like DCL). However for every Digne, there will be a Sigurdsson, Gomes. For every DCL, there will be 5-10 young players who don't make it.

Saying that, there have been players we should/could have gone for - Bowen, Eze, Maddison who had been screaming for moves from the Championship and for some reason we didn't even try. And Brands could certainly have done better in identifying players to move for. He talks a good game, but we are still a mid-table team, with a mid-table squad.

Hard to argue we are badly run, but I think that Brands is often thwarted by circumstance and by lack of commitment to a strategy.

Fran. I'm one of the pro-Dortmund type model fraternity. But not because of resale value, I think that particular point seems to be used be detractors who seem determined to miss the point. I disagree that we cannot adopt that model - largely because we already have adopted it (DCL, Holgate, Stones, Lukaku, Deulofeu, Kean, Vlasic, Lookman, Onyekuru, Branthwaite, Nkounkou and Godfrey). Instead of watching dross see out big contracts, we've actually made money on failure (Vlasic, Lookman and Onyekuru) with a potential bonanza coming from the sale of Kean. The only trouble is we've adopted this strategy at the same time as a load of others which really have failed.

I won't labour the point further here - but if of interest there's an article from me last week about how Leipzig have have gone from 3rd tier of German football with squad worth €8.03m to beating Man Utd in the Champions League with a squad worth a bit more than ours (€525m) in just 7 years. This is the period since Moyes left.

I think we should invest better, but I don't think it is as simple as 'invest in the Dortmund model'. I don't think it would translate to the Premier League.

A team of 18/19 year olds won't qualify for Europe here, they will in germany. So the best 18/19 year old want to go there before making the step to 'Big Clubs' of the Champions League Elite.

I would love us to buy a world class team for 50m, just don't think it's gonna happen.

There are a lot of unknowns. Sandro was a no-brainer transfer, cheap and on the back of a stellar season with Malaga - No one, not even on TW cried foul at the time. Moise Kean seemed like a bargain, but he turned out to be unsuited to the Premier League for whatever reason. He seems to lack awareness and confidence - agree with Carlo on that one.

To quote from your Post an Ajax type model where Eirk Ten Hag works wonders on a fraction of the budget we have and has a team that plays with an identify and verve. Davy Klaessen suits this team playing with identity and verve, yet is regarded as a Brands failure. Ajax played at Anfield last week, losing narrowly and the rookie Liverpool keeper was Man of the Match, with Klaessen playing a key role.

Chemistry, management style, team tactics and player confidence are key components. Some transfers work and others don't. Some players are deemed a success by some and not by others. Gana's primary role was as a ball winning midfielder, a role in which he excelled and was one of the League leaders. Best ball winner I have ever seen in a blue shirt. Many on this site moaned about his lack of passing range, but he was as good as anyone else we had and is sorely missed now.

Brands has been hamstrung to some degree during his time here. I think Moshiri just seems to want a Director of Football to negotiate transfers. Moshiri was dead set on bringing Koeman in even before a DOF appointment (I wonder if that's why it was a struggle to appoint a DOF considering what we now know of Koeman's personality!) Walsh, when appointed, seemed subservient to Koeman.

Silva was already lined by the time of Brands's appointment and we did not hear of any other candidates interviewed. After Silva's sacking, candidates seem to have been randomly cobbled together by Moshiri and Kenwright. Moshiri said we needed an experienced manager to meet expectations, seemingly going against the strategy started with Brands's appointment.

Hard to achieve anything substantial with the first team with no consistent strategy. Moshiri gives off the vibes of a rich bored guy looking for excitement and that does not lend itself to careful strategy. It makes you wonder why Brands has been okay without having a wider remit. Is the money and exposure of the Premier League enough for him?

Are we talking about Everton and, if so, which person has been at the top-brass table throughout, now, according to the owner, with a newly enhanced role there?

There are 6 significantly better squads above us, and each club in that category has at least as big a budget. So, with our inferior squad and modest budget, how do we catch up?

By the way, I'm not proposing that we play 18/19 year olds. I'm proposing we buy 18 to 21 year olds and ready them gently for the first team. This will involve loans and careful introduction to the first team football.

This sounds arsey but it's not supposed to be. I'm doing a virtual beer tasting and it's removed my powers of articulation.

Also to pursue Zaha, and then spend about £30M+ on Iwobi on the last day of the window, was a panic buy by Brands, considering we were also pursuing Bowen at Hull, a natural winger, who joined Moyes later for £20M.

In my opinion, he hasn't been a success. Richarlison, probably our best signing, was down to Silva.

But no mention of Branthwaite, Nkounkou? Mind you Carlo seems to have forgotten about them too, so you're in good company!

I use the expression "Too many cooks spoil the broth" and that applies to directors, Chairmen/Owners and the succession of different managers all with very different philosophies and backgrounds. Is it any wonder that the club is drifting.

Rather than Dortmund I would look at the Wolves or Leicester models. They all sing the same song from top to bottom and the owners are all at one with the manager. They play in a consistent way and recruit players (on the cheap) that fit their profile.

The real success in recruiting top class footballers is not with a Director of Football, it is with the scouts at grass roots level who work every day to find the best young talent out there. All a manager or DOF does is rubber stamp the scouts report.

I get the feeling Moshiri only appointed Brands to the board as his balancing act with Black Bill and he is not 100% behind Brands right now. Other than that, if you are as rich as Man Utd, you pay £89 million plus per player to buy a team and, as we can see, even that is no guarantee of success.

Chelsea started the adventure of getting all the best young talent years ago and then loaned them out to other clubs. I think they had as many as 40 young players out on loan a couple of seasons ago.

We need only look back at Sir Alex Ferguson's version of the "Busby Babes" which was the last top class success Man Utd had.

We need a period of sustained consistency and the patience to wait up to 5 years to see it bear fruit because there is no doubt the plan is not working right now.

Ferguson started it off with his Busby Babes and was just lucky enough to have a talented squad of youngsters. After getting their success, they just started to buy the best players and continued to be the best in Europe. Other teams started to get extremely rich owners to buy top players and started to catch up and overtake Man Utd.

What Ferguson got at Man Utd was continuity in his job as manager; since he has left, Man Utd are just one of the top 6 in the Premier League who can't get stability, as they chop and change their managers, as they expect instant success.

You have to have stability to be successful and, for a long time, Everton have not had it. Now we have an owner who is willing to back us, we are behaving the same as Man Utd in chopping and changing managers. It took a long time and money for Chelsea, Man City, Arsenal and the rest of the top 6/7 to start winning the leagues and cups but the foundation had to be built.

Everton are starting to build the foundation with the Director of Football, who works with the manager, and yes not all players he has bought have been the best, but he was pushing for these players who the manager recommends, or letting the manager be aware of other young players who will be able to adapt to the manager's philosophy.

Teams that get mentioned – Wolves, Leeds, Liverpool – all have managers who have been their managers for 3 or 4 or more years building a team and a squad. With Ancelotti, Brands has a manager who is aware of what he needs to stabilize the club and his philosophy for players he will need for the future.

Wolves, having assembled a quality side through close connection with agents, are now buying expensive top class youth like Ait Nouri and Fabio Silva and local cheap youth like Matheson. They needed players like Jiminez, Boly and Moutinho to get them settled but still bought in the likes of Vinagre, Neves and Traore. Leicester have been buying the likes of Benkovic, Tielemans, James, Soyuncu, Maddison, Gray, Kapustka etc for some time.

The sorts of players we would buy in the German type model would include the likes of McNeil, Cantwell, Aarons, Olise etc not just highly rated foreign talent like Veron and Hlozek.

It is basically a model designed to guard against the accumulation of deadwood.

However, I believe that he turned a corner this season. Branthwaite and Nkounkou are the type of players I expected, Godfrey is an investment, and the way he played hardball with Allan, Doucouré and Rodriguez (on a free?) was excellent. I think his hand was forced due to the current finances; however, it has forced him to go back to his principles.

I am more enthused going forward now than his first two seasons.I now hope he stays.

The jury is still out on Brands for me. He seems good at the PR – the way he treated Moise Kean's mum springs to mind – but his transfer dealings are patchy at best.

Two of the best signings of recent years have been Allan and James and both of these are purely down to the pulling-power of Ancelotti.

It doesn't bear dwelling on what a wasted opportunity the last few seasons have been. When you look what the RS paid for Salah, Mane, Jiota, Milner, Robertson and what we spent on the likes of Sigurdsson, Klaassen, Bolasie, Walcott, Tosun, Pickford etc. For years, we were crying out for investment and we've blown the best chance we've had of bridging the gap since we messed up the Kings Dock.

I hoped Marcel would recruit players that meant we had a distinct playing style but I still don't know what brand of football we're trying to play. It is still too pedestrian and vulnerable at the back.

I'd like to see Ancelotti given a few more transfer windows before he is judged. I'm questioning whether we need Brands though.

I would point out though that Gibson, Bowler and Markelo cost nothing like £15 mill, my estimate over the years is about £4 mill initial fees for all three and, as none have made the first team, I doubt of it's been much in terms of add-ons. And of course all three were bought before Brands arrived, so nothing to do with him.

I would agree that the path for our youngsters is not a clear one; again, this existed pre-Brands and still does. The most frustrating example for me was Gibson who looked promising at left-back for England youth, yet we played right-back Cucu Martina there when Baines was injured a few years ago. If he really was/is that bad that he can't be developed, he should have been sold.

But those issues are largely down to the manager, who should be the one developing them from U23 standard to first team standard. If we were constantly playing in Europe or close to winning trophies I could understand not wanting to disrupt a winning, experienced team and a reluctance to develop and play youngsters.

So far this season, Brands has done exactly as I'd hoped: rearranged the structure below the first team and bought in four young players in Godfrey, Branthwaite, Nkounkou and Seedy Jagne for a total cost of about £22 mill with the first three starting first team games already. Only time will tell if this is successful, so let's give him that time.

Finally, Mounchi is mentioned, as a successful DoF. Shockingly, he played for Sevilla, has spent most of his days at the club, and was given about 5 years to implement his plans. Maybe there are lessons we can learn from Monchi re ex-players being involved and giving DoFs time.

Ali Dael

"I'm in all day."

Also there's is not a "A team of 18/19 year olds"; they have a well chosen bunch of pros like Witsel, Delaney, Can, Hummels, Reus etc to marshall the youngsters.

As Robert T says it is a model that Wolves and Leciester have tried to emulate. And with some success.

I think our biggest problem has been that the recruitmen of those senior professionals has not been good enough. The likes of Sigurdsson, Rooney, Bolasie, Delph, Gomes, Doucore, Allan, Tosun, Walcott have all come in during their late 20's or beyond on big wages or for big fees and almost all of them have failed to really make a notable impact (so far). All of them have or will be sold for a loss as well which of course does not help us moving forward.

I was excited about Brands. He seems like a smart guy, he certainly carries himself well and his record in Holland was pretty impressive.

Whilst he was certainly an improvement on Walsh (who did terrible damage to us in his era) he has still bought his fair share of duds. Perhaps that is due to bad judgement or perhaps that is due to his hands being tied by governance structrures. Either way I struggle to look at any transfer window that we've had where i've felt truly optimistic about the business we've done. A big part of that may be constantly changing managers. Its hard for a DOF to find the right balance in the playing staff when the manager and his style and needs keeps changing. Though a top notch DOf (with according power) would ideally recruit a consistent style of manager to suit the players acquired rather than vice versa.

Excellent article, you've seen right through that shiny blue veneer that the new corporate EFC faces the world with.

There's not whole lot I can add other than to say I wish I'd written it!

Being on the subject of DOFs and Brand in particular I'll add a few thoughts.

Firstly, money! money! money! Brands would have been offered a hell of a lot more to come to us than stay in the land of windmills, this would have softened any blows he may have taken concerning professional pride in any encroachment of his duties with us, that he may have had full control of at his previous club.

I feel his duties were made clear to him at the beginning.

Brands if he is anything, he's a pro and he seems quite savvy to me, that being said, I can appreciate his train of thought at his interview for EFC. He's thinking I'll take the money and run and if this goes sour because they're encroaching on my duties, I'll keep quiet and when interviewed for my next club, I'll tell the truth. EFC took my powers away and I could only play a bit part, just look at my marvelous achievements at PSV, that's the real me!

And he's right, there's no reason he shouldn't leave us with reputation intact and a nice new club. He couldn't lose when he joined us and he knew it!

I'm putting a greater % of the blame at Moshiri's feet for not allowing the DOF to do his job. Just like Walcott on the pitch, Brands was there but never really turned up.

How is Moshiri to blame for Brands not being allowed to do his job? All Moshiri did was give him the money to spend; he didn't buy players like Mina, Delph, Iwobi, Bernard & Co – Brands did.

You've only mentioned the players that didn't work out for us, to balance your list I'll include some that did or are looking good to succeed: Digne, Richarlison, Branthwaite, Nkounkou, Godfrey.

It's the like of the last three players that this club should be building success on. All Directors of Football make good and bad choices.

Bernard it's often forgotten was a freebie and will be sold on for a fee, good business and I don't regard him as a failure, we can't lose on him.

As for Moshiri's blame, I've said I agree with the article. It might be worth reading again in case you've missed something.

The other three in your list, Brands got wrong; poor judgement.

I don't disagree with you, he brought in some good young players, and got rid of a lot of dead wood. I personally like Bernard, and disappointed that Carlo hasn't given him more game time, especially in Sigurdsson's role, but I can't see us getting a fee for him.

Okay, he got him on a free, but his salary is £120k a week, I think they'll just be glad to get him off the books.

I'm old school and believe the manager is No 1 and gives the DOF the list of players he wants, and he then negotiates the deals, and the DOF recruits the young players.

When you compare Ancelotti to Brands, Ancelotti has played in one of the greatest team ever and won all there is to win as a player. Ancelotti as manager has won all there is at the biggest clubs and Brands has not. It's logical anyone would choose Ancelotti to have the final say.

The thing is though, DOFs are paid to take a view that puts the club's long-term prospects first and managers live in the here and now. In the modern game, it's not the done thing anymore to allow a manager to write his own cheques now when he might not be here next week?

It would certainly be nice to know who's actually in control at EFC; I wouldn't be surprised if it was the tea lady.

I do think Bernard has shown enough to get a few £M back on him. It would surprise me if there wasn't a German club or two having a look at him. Their league is a step down in the physical aspects and pace; he'd do well there.

So what's a "pro" to do?

Sit back I suggest, take it easy, see out your exorbitant contract and, when contract renewal comes around, just see if the gruesome twosome are stupid enough to re-employ you.

If they don't you'll likely get a contract elsewhere and, given that European agents and players probably equate us with the likes of Ossasuna, Atalanta, Twente Enschede and other also-rans, you might just be able to improve your career prospects a la Klaassen and Lookman.

Fans aside, who in our club is worried about their futures?