Interview With Zigor Aranalde (An Albion Related Thread!)

[Stat Man]

Quite a rarity to have an Albion related thread, so if anyone cares, here is an interview with our new-ish scouting Señor.

News & Star | Carlisle United | Latest | Former Carlisle Utd ace Zigor Aranalde appointed Brighton chief scout

I'm assuming this is a new interview looking at the time stamp, apologies if it is old news

*Look out for the story in tomorrow's Argus if it is new*

 

[8ace]

Cheers, interesting read.

The photo is one for "Up the arse corner"

 

[dingobruce]

Quite a rarity to have an Albion related thread, so if anyone cares, here is an interview with our new-ish scouting Señor.

News & Star | Carlisle United | Latest | Former Carlisle Utd ace Zigor Aranalde appointed Brighton chief scout

I'm assuming this is a new interview looking at the time stamp, apologies if it is old news

*Look out for the story in tomorrow's Argus if it is new*

Thanks for that!

Really good to hear this comment:

“Now I work for Brighton and this is of course my priority. I have been back to Spain to watch games and there are a lot of interesting players there who you can get on quite good conditions. But we have to choose the right ones. You cannot put together a squad of foreign players. We have to find the right balance. It is a big opportunity for me. Let’s see if I am good enough.”

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

Fuckin' hell ............... music to our ears.

I am going to try not to shout "launch it" next season ............................

 

[B.W.]

Good read... thank you for that... very encouraging comments from Zigor...

 

[Marc]

good read Omar thanks for finding that little gem

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Great stuff;

"The former Blues left-back, recently appointed chief scout at Brighton & Hove Albion, says: “The way we want the players to work is to play from the back, and don’t be afraid of passing to the nearest man.”

“We” is Aranalde and Brighton’s Uruguayan manager Gus Poyet, who wish to prove that it is possible to escape the third tier using floor-football rather than the stereotypical diet of long channel-balls and bruising centre-forwards.

It would be easy to pin the label of Mediterranean sophistication on what Aranalde and Poyet have in mind for the south coast team, from whom Carlisle took three points in the closing weeks of last season. To his credit, United’s favourite Spaniard – Basque, to be strictly accurate – does not dress the philosophy up with high-minded verbiage.

What Aranalde is charged with is helping to recruit players who possess the skills and the nerve to keep the bag of air on the grass at a time when other teams are launching it. Not from a snootiness towards other playing styles, but from a belief he shares with Poyet that this is the most effective and pleasing way of organising a successful team.

“Every style of football is valid, I do believe that,” Aranalde insists. “But our main idea is to have the ball more, and try to do something different to many teams in this league. Managers aren’t always prepared to tell players to pass to the nearest man.”

In Aranalde’s mind’s eye, League One’s least appealing arena – Brighton’s Withdean Stadium – will next season be home to the division’s most attractive and progressive football. To United supporters who continue to hold the 37-year-old in considerable regard for his performances and professionalism from 2005-2008 at Brunton Park, it is simply reassuring to see the man back at the heart of the English game after two years playing semi-professionally back in his homeland, coaching under-16s and studying for his badges (he is close to completing his UEFA A-Licence, and then plans to complete the Pro-Licence, the highest coaching qualification available).

Once apparently keen to make a permanent return to Spain for his family’s sake, Aranalde has since submitted to the emotional tug of the league and country where he spent the best eight years of his professional life, with Walsall and then United.

“I’m an ex-footballer now,” he smiles. “It’s not easy, but I have been half-retired for the last couple of years, so I have had time to get used to it.

“As a footballer you should prepare for different things for when you have retired, but many of us – myself included – do not. Fortunately I have this new role with Brighton now and I have the opportunity to stay in the game.”

It might be hard to reconcile this Iberian master of Carlisle’s left flank with his new image as motorway-hogging, notepad-scribbling scout, but Aranalde said the job had instant appeal on account of the chance to work with someone as illustrious as Poyet, the former Chelsea and Tottenham star.

“When I heard through a third party that he [Poyet] was interested, it took me half a second to agree,” he says. “I didn’t know him before but quickly I have found that he is a great man who knows exactly what he wants.

“I feel very comfortable with him and his ideas and it is not always easy to get that feeling in football. We have the same mentality. We see football in a similar way.

“At the beginning the job was more difficult than I expected. When you have been out of the country for a couple of years, you find that you do not know a lot of the players when you return. But you get used to it. I have watched a lot of games and DVDs and I am more happy with it now.

“I enjoy English football so much. I am really pleased to be back in it. And Carlisle – it is a place that I love. I will be back there now and again, I am sure.”

Aranalde, one of Paul Simpson’s bullseye signings when he lured him to Brunton Park in 2005, never tires of winding his mind back to his time in Cumbria, which brought a League Two title medal, a cup final appearance at the Millennium Stadium, and the trust of another manager (Neil McDonald) until John Ward yanked down the curtain on his Blues career in 2008.

The years since then have seen him make an ambitious tilt at the manager’s job after Ward’s removal, before a more realistic calling at Brighton presented itself.

“I still speak to Dolly [physio Neil Dalton] now and again, and Greg [Abbott] as well, and I know the club is in good hands,” he says. “The directors will run it well. They know what they are doing.

“There are not many players left from my time there, which shows how changes happen so quickly in football.

“Now I work for Brighton and this is of course my priority. I have been back to Spain to watch games and there are a lot of interesting players there who you can get on quite good conditions. But we have to choose the right ones. You cannot put together a squad of foreign players. We have to find the right balance. It is a big opportunity for me. Let’s see if I am good enough.”

What, though, if next season’s League One play-off final features both his new club and his old? The Seagulls versus the Cumbrians – where would Aranalde’s emotional loyalties really lie?

The fantasy amuses him. “If we are having this conversation in 12 months’ time, it will be very interesting,” he says with a chuckle. So will Aranalde and Poyet’s noble quest to spread their principles across League One

 

[Spanish Seagulls]

Possible future manager material? We have at last got a professional back room staff & this is where my optimism for the future comes from. We have been a small club with big club possibilities for too long & now we may finally see us ascent onto the bigger stage. The future is bright, the future is Brighton.

 

[Silent Bob]

"It would be easy to pin the label of Mediterranean sophistication on what Aranalde and Poyet have in mind for the south coast team, from whom Carlisle took three points in the closing weeks of last season. To his credit, United’s favourite Spaniard – Basque, to be strictly accurate – does not dress the philosophy up with high-minded verbiage."

Unlike this journo, apparently. Pseudo high-minded verbiage anyway.

Interesting interview though.

 

[Freddie Goodwin.]

He's good but he's no barry lloyd!

 

[Stu1]

This tells me everything I need to know, the first twat that shouts hit it when we there is no pressure will get a smack in the mouth as you now all know WE WANT TO PLAY
FOOTBALL now.

 

[Lush]

I'm still not entirely convinced by this 'pass to the nearest man' strategy. The opposition simply crowds up the midfield. Some of our best moves and goals have been after a pinpoint cross pitch pass.

 

[Barrel of Fun]

Paul Merson signed his own death warrant by releasing him from Walsall. Zigor was a cracking player in his time.

 

[Brixtaan]

Every word he said the sort of thing any fan dreams of hearing from one of their staff.Only problem being escaping this rough n tumble league.

 

[severnside gull]

wonder if the Argus will have the nerve to lift it under Naylor's by-line?


shouldn't they have got this story first?

 

[rcf0712]

Music to my ears, we will be the Arsenal of Division One but hopefully achieve the success we crave, promotion, whilst playing the beautiful game, can't wait. It does open up the possibility of fillinmg our boots with junior Gunners as it sounds like they will be playing the way Wegner wants if they come here....

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

I'm still not entirely convinced by this 'pass to the nearest man' strategy. The opposition simply crowds up the midfield. Some of our best moves and goals have been after a pinpoint cross pitch pass.

I suspect that is the first option. It does mean we need bloomin' good movement though. When we have their midfield expecting the short pass and pushing up - I am sure Gus will be happy with a longer pass (not punt).

 

[Brightonfan1983]

"It would be easy to pin the label of Mediterranean sophistication on what Aranalde and Poyet have in mind for the south coast team, from whom Carlisle took three points in the closing weeks of last season. To his credit, United’s favourite Spaniard – Basque, to be strictly accurate – does not dress the philosophy up with high-minded verbiage."

Unlike this journo, apparently. Pseudo high-minded verbiage anyway.

Interesting interview though.

I thought that! Good read though.