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Paul Mitchell To Leave Saints


Saint-Armstrong

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As you say, the club will be in a good position to get a high quality replacement. But I think the main worry is that Paul Mitchell knows Southampton's transfer targets for the next few windows, if he leaves he'll take that knowledge with him and Spurs might be bidding rivals for those players.

 

You're right, I can see how that might be a worry. Our chances of getting the next Dusan Tadic or Sadio Mane are reduced when we're competing with a club with greater financial clout.

 

But, given that Spurs operate under a different business model to Saints, wouldn't they be targeting different players?

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So if he leaves for Spurs does that mean he'll also take some of the staff that work with him too?

I enjoyed the recent video of what happens behind the scenes, the black box etc, but I also felt a little uncomfortable about displaying our "know how" so publicly. It's like showing off your really nice house in a neighourhood of burglars.

 

My take was that how we went about running our academy and recruiting system was very much common sense but it does take political will from the board to provide the cents behind the sense. Showing that off wasn't a problem and enhances the club's reputation.

 

The only secret sauce was the bespoke Black Box player growth and target prioritisation system that was only talked about but not shown in action. Mitchell being the head of recruitment would have played a significant role in providing inputs to the development of that system. He can very well spill the beans now for Spuds to commission their own Black Box. Secret sauce and all..

 

And that's why I'm more concerned about losing him. We're not losing our top secret transfer target list. We're losing the "proven" secret recipe on how to assess and bring talent from inside and outside the club into the first team.

 

Spuds now have a chance to replicate that and develop many more of their own transfer targets suitable to their own play style and squad.

 

I just hope that the yobbos cock it up. Having the recipe is half, the other half lies in having the right chef with the skill to prepare the dish.

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It's one thing bringing in players, but the big question will they gel with the existing misfits. Could yet be another under achiever in different circumstances, as with Pochettino landing on his feet with a made for him setup at Southampton but struggling at Spurs where the players don't seem to get it..

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So this sudden interest in Mitchell has come after the defeat to Stoke? Utter tosh. Why would he move now after being the architect of a significant part of Staplewood, his team and the facilities? And to a club in turmoil? If Mitchell goes then he's not of the right stuff for Saints anyway.

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Why don't football clubs put non-competition clauses in their employee's contracts? My employer does by default. They rarely enforce it in practice, but it's there. If ever, for example, the VP of Marketing tries to switch to a direct competitor, they'd invoke the clause, because our company doesn't want him sharing our market research and competitor analysis with our rivals. It's effective for six months after leaving our company. Football clubs should make their off-field staff sign something similar, preventing from working for a team in direct competition for a similar period. Paul Mitchell could leave Saints, but not work for another Premier League team until the clause expires.

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Why don't football clubs put non-competition clauses in their employee's contracts? My employer does by default. They rarely enforce it in practice, but it's there. If ever, for example, the VP of Marketing tries to switch to a direct competitor, they'd invoke the clause, because our company doesn't want him sharing our market research and competitor analysis with our rivals. It's effective for six months after leaving our company. Football clubs should make their off-field staff sign something similar, preventing from working for a team in direct competition for a similar period. Paul Mitchell could leave Saints, but not work for another Premier League team until the clause expires.

 

Let's hope we have something like this in place already. For a club that prides itself on attention to detail you'd think we've already done this.

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Why don't football clubs put non-competition clauses in their employee's contracts? My employer does by default. They rarely enforce it in practice, but it's there. If ever, for example, the VP of Marketing tries to switch to a direct competitor, they'd invoke the clause, because our company doesn't want him sharing our market research and competitor analysis with our rivals. It's effective for six months after leaving our company. Football clubs should make their off-field staff sign something similar, preventing from working for a team in direct competition for a similar period. Paul Mitchell could leave Saints, but not work for another Premier League team until the clause expires.

 

From what I've heard (not claiming to be an expert, if someone genuinely is I will happily stand corrected) the issue with these clauses is that they are extremely difficult to enforce in practice.

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Everyone assuming he's gone. Just spoke to the guy from the journalists on sky sports and he said not sure whether Mitchell will want to go and not certain at all.

 

Of course everyone assumes that. We're little old Saints and when bigger clubs come calling of course everyone wants to jump at the chance. We have no ambition.

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What really irritates me is the statement from the London-centric press that Spuds are "A big club"

They certainly were but the " Glory, Glory, Allejulah" days are long gone and they have even nicked The Saints go Marching in!!

We have a superb demographic and heavily populated economic base in South Hants, and there is no reason why we can't be just as big.

South Hants is certainly not a rural backwater anymore.

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So this sudden interest in Mitchell has come after the defeat to Stoke? Utter tosh. Why would he move now after being the architect of a significant part of Staplewood, his team and the facilities? And to a club in turmoil? If Mitchell goes then he's not of the right stuff for Saints anyway.

 

I think it was the promotional video for Staplewood that did it.;)

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What really irritates me is the statement from the London-centric press that Spuds are "A big club"

They certainly were but the " Glory, Glory, Allejulah" days are long gone and they have even nicked The Saints go Marching in!!

We have a superb demographic and heavily populated economic base in South Hants, and there is no reason why we can't be just as big.

South Hants is certainly not a rural backwater anymore.

Wonder how many of no longer live in the 'catchment' area Camb?

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Camb, I would disagree with you.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbes'_list_of_the_most_valuable_football_clubs

 

If they were in any other league, chances are that they would be CL the whole time. Their problem is that there are 5 bigger teams than them in this country.

 

That's actually a useful list to refer to the next time we debate 'who is a bigger club than who'.

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If we want to keep him we can easily afford to. When you compare staff wages to player wages if we think he is worth it double his wages is no problem. I personally think the buying record is mixed as someone else posted before. When you add it up its almost one good one against one bad one.

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Camb, I would disagree with you.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbes'_list_of_the_most_valuable_football_clubs

 

If they were in any other league, chances are that they would be CL the whole time. Their problem is that there are 5 bigger teams than them in this country.

 

Newcastle are 20th on the latest list. Are they a big club? They've never won anything, or even come close since the late 90s.

 

AFAIK all a non competitive clause gives an employer is the right to insist that an employee takes paid gardening leave for 3 to 6 months.

It might be useful for one transfer window but no more.

 

That's long enough to keep them away from immediate transfer targets and for the club to reorganise and replan before they have a chance to do any damage.

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What really irritates me is the statement from the London-centric press that Spuds are "A big club"

They certainly were but the " Glory, Glory, Allejulah" days are long gone and they have even nicked The Saints go Marching in!!

We have a superb demographic and heavily populated economic base in South Hants, and there is no reason why we can't be just as big.

South Hants is certainly not a rural backwater anymore.

 

Nope. It's an urban backwater where if someone farts, there's a five hour gridlock affecting two thirds of the region.

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Who are the five bigger teams then?

 

Why not look at the Forbes list.

 

There are of course various ways of measuring who is "bigger" than who. In this case, and you may or may not agree, big and rich (or rather, their value) are synonymous. I guess that is a fairly accepted way of seeing which company is bigger than another.

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Yup. I agree. Wigan Athletic are much bigger than NUFC as they won the FA Cup a couple of years ago.

 

Not really sure what you're getting at here. Newcastle have neither had a one off win like Wigan, nor do they regularly compete near the top or challenge for honours. They just have a decent-sized fanbase and a large stadium. If Morgan was to leave for Newcastle, I doubt anyone would accept the 'big club' excuse because they are not one.

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Very odd though. In any other business he would have clauses in his contract stating that he can't work for a direct rival in this type of role.

This thought had occurred to me too. After all, he is privy to information that could benefit a direct rival business. Sometimes though there are cases like this brought to court where the employee who leaves claims that this is what he does for his line of work and that he cannot reasonably be expected to do other types of work that he isn't as suited to. I suspect that the situation is similar to that of a manager, and a clause preventing them from working for a rival club wouldn't hold water.

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I can distinctly remembering Alan Pardew saying that when he arrived there was no scouting network, he never had any info on the Swindon game and said that however long he stayed with us he would make sure anyone following him in would never be in that situation again. I suppose RL had to get rid of them because of the finances. Just proves how far we have come in the last few years, thank you Markus.

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I thought it was only going tobe for a year, where did you see that? Would be ammusing if they were stuck out there for a few years.

 

It's going to take longer than a year to build their answer to the Emirates. Besides they still don't have the land as it's going to litigation.

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It's going to take longer than a year to build their answer to the Emirates. Besides they still don't have the land as it's going to litigation.
But they don't need to move grounds for the full construction of a new ground. Do you have a link to them moving from WHL for more than a year or not?
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Alex Crook was on Talksport tonight. Seemed fairly confident that Mitchell won't go to Spurs, not really based on anything other than why? Money was the only positive they could come up with, against stadium problems, rumoured takeover again on the horizon & dealing with levy himself.

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Alex Crook was on Talksport tonight. Seemed fairly confident that Mitchell won't go to Spurs, not really based on anything other than why? Money was the only positive they could come up with, against stadium problems, rumoured takeover again on the horizon & dealing with levy himself.

 

Alex Crook came across very well putting a very good light on things at the club these days. Let's hope what he says comes to pass.

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Problem with Crook is he just doesn't really know anything that a normal fan doesn't, he just transcribes press conferences.

 

Mirror article with his name on it saying Saints wouldn't welcome an approach for Mitchell....no **** Shurlock.

 

I can't remember a single story that Crook has ever broken on Saints that hasn't been somewhere else first.

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What we need to hope that is in his contract is a restrictive covenant. It is this express clause that will stop him going to work, and more importantly, share knowledge. In practice they are hard to police and the courts do not like them to be overly onerous. If one is in his contract, you could reasonably expect protection until the end of the January transfer window, but not the summer. Unfortunately, because we appear to work 18 months in advance, if he goes, his knowledge would still be current. I agree with the sentiments, Spurs and Levy are c*nts!

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Its just bullshine PR to appease their own fans, same as wheeling out Klinsmann to back MoPo for years not months and today's Spuds PR release about them being taken over by the Carlyle Group. Now if you ever worked in Finance you know Spuds are on the verge of being the worlds richest team, or its more bullshine to placate the fans. Even today's news states Saints would have to agree to a Mitchell switch.

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Its just bullshine PR to appease their own fans, same as wheeling out Klinsmann to back MoPo for years not months and today's Spuds PR release about them being taken over by the Carlyle Group. Now if you ever worked in Finance you know Spuds are on the verge of being the worlds richest team, or its more bullshine to placate the fans. Even today's news states Saints would have to agree to a Mitchell switch.

 

They never wheeled out Juergen. He is a mega star that played for Spurs who happens to be local at the mo. I doubt levy had anything to do with it

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They never wheeled out Juergen. He is a mega star that played for Spurs who happens to be local at the mo. I doubt levy had anything to do with it

Klinsmann is only here because someone has paid him to stop Saints finishing in the top four.

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