There’s an interesting discussion on the Who at the moment about the role of Gianluca Nani. The poster Youngie, who has proved themselves a very clued-up person when it comes to inside information, posted a long explanation of Nani’s role at the club…
Nani’s job;
Identifying players – Our scouting network is 100 times better than what it was under Curbishley or Pardew. For example we can watch any match of any team worth its sort at Chadwell Heath now, very few clubs can do that. We have scouts based all around Europe whereas in the past we used to just send our own scouts.
Developing commercial relations – See the relationship we have Cesena, Ujpest & Brescia for example. In the past we just used to be good mates with people at Bournemouth whereas we now have clear commercial relationships in place. He’s also formed a good relationship with AC Milan allowing us use of their medical facilities which are considered best in the world whilst ours are being redeveloped.
Signing players – Pretty self explanatory but having a sporting director allows him to fly abroad to meet players / clubs / agents. In the past we had to either get the player here for talks or let the manager fly out and miss taking training. Nani is also multilingual so there’s no need for translators.
Tying players down to new contracts – Again pretty self explanatory and it’s one less thing for the manager or CEO to do giving them more time to concentrate on their jobs.
Redeveloping the infrastructure of the club – See the new training ground as an example. Nani oversee a complete redevelopment of these facilities as well as the two foreign academies.
Selling players – Nani acts as a super agent and touts any player we have for sale around Europe. This wasn’t possible before as there just wasn’t enough time for the CEO or manager to do it. He heads discussions now with buying clubs particularly if they’re abroad. He’s also the first point of contact for any agents wishing to offer their player to us and is able to filter out the shit or unrealistic targets before consulting Duxbury & Zola. Likewise buying clubs will contact him as opposed to Duxbury and Nani is able to inform them of the availability of certain players without bothering Duxbury.
A link between the players agents and the CEO / manager – Again pretty self explanatory, something else that allows the manager and CEO to concentrate on their own jobs.
Appointing / identifying personnel – Nani is able to search for new staff and deal with the current staff as required.
There’s more too but they form the basis of his job.
That’s a pretty thorough description of Nani’s role, and that sort of information can only come from very high up within the club. It shows that far from being a hands-off adviser, Nani is at the very heart of everything that Duxbury and Zola are trying to achieve. It is a Director Of Football role with a very hands-on approach – it certainly would seem from that description that he certainly outranks Zola in many of the crucial areas of the running of the squad.
As I’ve written many times before, I think this structure absolutely suits a club like West Ham for one very simple reason. We aren’t big enough to guarantee the loyalty of any manager. If Zola does brilliantly he will be poached. If he does badly he will be sacked. So we need to be absolutely prepared for losing the manager for one reason or another. Nani gives us continuity, and has overhauled many weak areas of the club.
At the moment there are question marks over Nani’s contribution in terms of signings. Many of his signings come from foreign shores and have yet to really contribute on the pitch. Franco, Di Santo, Diamanti and Jimenez. Time well tell on those.
But to criticise Nani’s record on the basis of Savio’s lack of success at the club is absolutely ludicrous. Nani picked up Behrami for what was rumoured to be around £5m, and he is now worth at least £15m and is our best player imo. Ilunga cost £3m but is worth more than double that. These two bargains alone justify what Nani has been doing.
What we will have to measure in the long-term is the contribution of the young players that he has brought in. Players like Daprela, Kurucz, Nouble and others. Nobody in their right mind expects all of these to develop into premiership players, but realistically if only one of Nani’s young signings makes the grade it would justify the whole strategy.
I think the introduction of Nani is the best thing the club has ever done. It has brought us out of the footballing dark ages. If we do succeed as a club, it will be the key moment in our history. That’s how strongly I feel about it.
Recent Comments