David Sharpe appointed Head Of Football Operations

They are not close friends.

Sparks has come out and said that he has had a few conversations with Sharpe over the years and is well aware of the good work he has done especially at Mansfield.

Good appointment in my opinion and hopefully he soon gets stuck in and sorts out the footballing side of the operation and Sparks concentrates on the commercial side of things

 

Would be good, but not going to happen

 

Sparks saying it’s something he has been wanting to add for some time! Have a day off Ryan.

Sparks doesn’t look exactly over the moon in the picture with Sharpe.

I think saying he will work alongside GA, SG and ML is just a polite way of saying “ok Ryan, I’ll take over from here”.

I think this is a really good appointment, now hopefully Rupp can give Sharpe some funds to go and expand the football operation ready in time for next season.

 

As long as Sharpe has full control and authority over all football operations (as his title suggests) then this is a good appointment. He has the experience and expertise that nobody else at the club has and needs to have free reign to remove the dead wood that won't take us forwards - starting with Gent and Alexander.

 

Don't really agree with the Gent stuff.

Unless Sharpe has his own preferred candidate for head of recruitment, honestly, I think we'd be silly to treat that position the same we do with the managerial position.

No more merry go rounds please.

 

I suppose that depends on whether Sharpe is confident enough that Gent is onboard with his idea’s and capable of implementing them from a scouting point of view.

 

It will be interesting to see who stays and who goes in the summer. If Smallwood is still here next season, I might start to doubt whether this is a good appointment!

 

Yes, let's see what Sharpe wants before we start insisting all the staff leave, leaving him with an empty shell of a club.

 

He's good friends with Jnr tho.

 

People wanted something to happen ,it has and a few immediately say not good enough.
The guy has not even got his backside in the chair yet.
I do not care how old he is, he has done a decent job at Wigan and Mansfield.
I do not care if he is mates with Sparks or not.
Its more football knowledge into the club and if it means Ryan can concentrate on non football matters , great.
Its a start, lets see where it goes.
Welcome from me, Hope it goes well, you have your work cut out.

 

Definitely agree with you here, as @Jordan pointed out earlier, Sharpe wielded the axe at Mansfield and cleared out a lot of dead wood. Exactly what needs to happen here. Be ruthless, stop offering contracts to the likes of Smallwood, Ridehalgh and Chapman. Hopefully the first person to leave is Gent, as I honestly do not see what he can offer that Sharpe doesn't give us? Surely Sharpe will look at the abysmal signings we have made (Sam Walker aside, who's signing was credit to Colin Doyle) and decide Gent is totally winging it!

 

Did Sharpe bring him a new colouring book and a pack of crayons?

 

Hasn't David Longo been running the commercial side of things for the past few years? Surely he won't want Sparks to come in and completely f*ck it up by pissing off more sponsors.

 

Great interview with Sharpe on ifollow.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if we saw in May at some time, a statement to say Gent has left the club and Sharpe just takes on the recruitment side. They'll say they had differences in visions or something like that or the new director wants to take things in a different direction to save some face. But it's hard to watch what Gent has done and assume he's suddenly going to be good with someone else to report into.

 

Good luck to him.
We can only hope he has the confidence and ability to put some structure and direction to our currently rudderless club

 

Reserving judgement to be honest
Would be very optimistic if he was replacing Sparks and overseeing a buyout of SR
Hopefully this doesn't turn out like the failed managerial appointments under the dynamic duo

 

Can't help himself can he? It's literally got to the stage where we are manning the lifeboats and he admits the ship is sinking cos he doesnt know the first thing about captaining a ship. He ain't getting no praise from me, he should have admitted this a year or two back when folk were voicing their concerns. It's a start to try and right the wrongs but I'll admit I wanted a better CEO than Sparks

 

We have to give the guy a chance to on paper it's a good appointment and the fact we ain't going up or down this year, the timing is quite good as he has time to assess things before any clear out and recruitment takes place in the summer. I think he will be ruthless though with anyone who doesn't buy into his way though. I remain cautiously optimistic for the time being

 

Is he tall or is Sparks short?