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Stuart Harvey

OakeyStokie

OakeyStokie

Midfield
Just been appointed Technical Director at Stoke to work alongside Sporting Director Jon Walters. Not quite sure on that particular cosy club and how a Technical Director works with a Sporting Director but he was at Sunderland wasn't he?

What's the story with him?
 

OakeyStokie said:
Just been appointed Technical Director at Stoke to work alongside Sporting Director Jon Walters. Not quite sure on that particular cosy club and how a Technical Director works with a Sporting Director but he was at Sunderland wasn't he?

What's the story with him?
Click to expand...
He was Head of Player recruitment and did a great job, brought in quite a few gems. Not sure how that translates into being a Technical Director (or what a technical director is to be honest)
 
OakeyStokie said:
Just been appointed Technical Director at Stoke to work alongside Sporting Director Jon Walters. Not quite sure on that particular cosy club and how a Technical Director works with a Sporting Director but he was at Sunderland wasn't he?

What's the story with him?
Click to expand...

He was Head of Recruitment. Did an excellent job and basically recruited the promotion sides. Did really well when it came to players from this country, not so much from players abroad though those signings may have come from our then Director of Football. Previously at Blackburn where he also did an excellent job.

Having two people with 'Technical Director' / 'Sporting Director' / 'Director of Football' titles seems to me like an effort to bring someone in and push someone out when they decide they only need one of them in 6 months time. We did similar last season.
 
OakeyStokie said:
Just been appointed Technical Director at Stoke to work alongside Sporting Director Jon Walters. Not quite sure on that particular cosy club and how a Technical Director works with a Sporting Director but he was at Sunderland wasn't he?

What's the story with him?
Click to expand...
Had a few misses with transfers but plenty of hits. Speakman left the club with his reputation high and I think its reasonable to say that was in large part off the back of the work Harvey had done. Very good argument that harvey was one of the most influential people getting us up to the PL from L1.

If hes overseeing player recruitment its probably an extremely good move for stoke.
 
He was head of recruitment during a very successful period for us, although we don't know exactly which signings he was responsible for.

He arrived as we transitioned to 'the model' of signing young players. The club described it as data driven recruitment but I suspect we relied more on contacts and networks than data. Our domestic signings were excellent and formed the backbone of two promotion teams from League One to the Premier League. We also signed a lot of cheap youngsters from abroad - mainly from France - who were by and large terrible and still have a few of them on the books running down their contracts.

He pushed to appoint Tony Mowbray as they'd worked together at Blackburn who was very popular here. Our recruitment in the summer before Mowbray was sacked was dire and Mowbray has been very vocal in claiming he was encouraged to pick certain players who the club had invested in. One of our foreign signings, Jewison Bennette who was a Costa Rican International and initially did well then was frozen out, claimed we had two separate recruitment teams - one led by Harvey, the other by the then Sporting Director Kristian Speakman - and was frozen out because he was a Harvey signing and the club favoured Speakman's signings. Whether there's any truth in that I don't know, but even as head of recruitment it still isn't really clear whether he was responsible for the duds or not.

Would expect him to do well though, he's clearly well connected at Championship level.
 
Did a cracking job for us and a key part of the leadership team that dragged us out of league 1 and ultimately to where we are now. He deserves a lot of plaudits, not just in the players he recruited but also for the recruitment team and processes he put in place.
Delighted he has what sounds like a cracking role with a decent sized club.
 
Interesting comments on the whole. He isn't a head of Recruitment as we already have one of those, an ex Southampton lad who worked under Les Reed.

It's been described as him being responsible for a wide range of football operations at the club, even touching on the women's team.

So not specifically Recruitment based. Sounds like we've promoted him. Just hope it isn't above his level of ability.
 
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