Everton to poach Brighton talent scout in surprise scoop
Media sources are claiming Everton are on the verge of pinching a senior executive from Premier League rivals Brighton and Hove Albion.
The online publication Football Insider say that an agreement has been reached for Lee Sargeson to move from the South Coast club to Everton.
Apparently, Sargeson will be heading up the Blues’ scouting network and also will be working on transfer policy too.
If true, then this could be an interesting development.
Brighton are an exemplar of how to effectively and cannily run a football club with limited financial resources and attractiveness as compared to other more established clubs.
They have stabalised their place in the Premier League and have built competitive sides by cleverly finding and molding relatively unknown young talent and then selling those players on for a big profit.
This season the Seagulls are solidly mid-table and have produced some stunning results, beating league leaders Arsenal, fellow Londoners Chelsea and even better, Liverpool twice, while playing some superb football.
Brighton also had the difficulty of losing their much-admired manager earlier in the season when Graham Potter left for Stamford Bridge. They coped seamlessly and it hasn’t adversely affected them at all.
Just a few weeks ago, the Seagulls underlined the gulf between the sides when they hammered the Toffees’ 4-1 at Goodison Park in arguably the lowest point of the campaign so far.
Sargeson’s potential appointment also comes just a week after a catastrophic transfer window in which, as we all know, not a single new player was signed.
Most of the spotlight for that dreadful failure was focused on the owner and board at the club, and rightly so.
However, some of the blame probably does lie with Director of Football Kevin Thelwell. After all, he has been in post for over a year now and surely had plenty of time to plan for new recruits in the run-up to the transfer window.
In particular, last year’s World Cup was a perfect oppportunity to prepare for making some quick and early swoops once the window opened.
But, once January rolled around there was nothing happening, despite the urgent need for the Toffees’ to act fast and get a signing or two in.
The days went on and despite almost endless rumours linking Everton with this player and that, no one arrived through the gates at Finch Farm. Meanwhile, results continued to spiral downwards under Frank Lampard’s management.
I began to think that perhaps nothing was happening on the transfer front was because the club were mulling over changing manager and didn’t want to spend the limited funds available.
Then, came the news that Villarreal’s forward Arnaut Danjuma was on the verge of moving to Merseyside on loan.
Of course, just after all that Lampard was finally removed from his post and Danjuma decided to go to Spurs’ instead.
His replacement Sean Dyche arrived (eventually) and had essentially a day to get new talent in. It was a ludicrous situation for the new manager and once more made Everton a laughing stock in the Premier League.
While all this was going on, the Blues’ transfer strategy seemed to go out of the window as player after player decided to go elsewhere. So, in the end they appeared to be after almost anyone in the desperate attempt to get a forward or two in.
Anyway, after that latest fiasco at this club, perhaps Sargeson will be able to do a better job in the summer of finding and securing the affordable players this club will need to move forward. That’s assuming the Toffees’ stay up of course.