Graeme Murty: Rangers will seek to emulate Southampton recruitment policy in their future transfer dealings

[pete 2,499]

 

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Graeme Murty: Rangers will seek to emulate Southampton recruitment policy in their future transfer dealings

Matthew Lindsay @MattLindsayHT Chief Football Writer

Graeme Murty: Rangers will seek to emulate Southampton recruitment policy in their future transfer dealings

 

 

 

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RANGERS have taken the same approach to player recruitment as Southampton, who sold Virgil van Dijk to Liverpool for a world record £75 million transfer fee this week, during the build-up to the January transfer window, their manager Graeme Murty has revealed.

Murty has been helping Mark Allen, the Ibrox director of football, to identify potential signing targets since he took over from Pedro Caixinha on an interim basis back at the end of October.

However, the 43-year-old, who previously worked as an academy coach at Barclays Premier League club Southampton, has been outlining to Allan the type of individuals he would like to bring in rather than singling out specific targets.

That is the policy which has helped the St Mary’s Stadium club, where Scot and one-time Rangers director of football target Ross Wilson is their director of recruitment and scouting, flourish on and off the park down south in recent seasons.

Southampton laste week made a £62m profit on the sale of Van Dijk, who became the most expensive defender when he moved to Anfield, and Celtic, who they signed the Dutch internationalist from for £13 million in 2015, are set to receive at least £7.5 million of that due to a sell-on clause.

Murty, who has brought in Sean Goss from Queens Park Rangers on loan on Wednesday, believes Rangers, whose £8 million recruitment drive under Caixinha this summer has, with a couple of notable exceptions, proved nothing short of disastrous, would benefit from adopting the same model.

 

Murty said: “We have been looking more at people who fit the parameters rather than me saying: ‘I want this guy, I know him from the past, I need this guy’. It is more me saying: ‘What do we have that fits these parameters? What are options one, two, three, four’. Then we go and narrow it down from there.

“That is the way I saw it done at Southampton. I really enjoyed watching those guys do their recruitment, not just on the football side, but also on the management side. I watched their black box working. It is a fantastic thing.

“I think there are lessons to be learned from that. Identifying positions, identifying characteristics and then narrowing it down from there is beneficial for everyone.

“Any time when you can identify talent and buy it cheap, bring it in, develop it and sell it high and put a sell-on clause in, it makes a good business model to me.

“That puts a lot of emphasis on our recruitment department. But we have to make sure that, if it’s possible to do that, then we do that. Long term it’s a strategic thing.

"But we have to, in January, have people who can come in and impact our season immediately.

“I wasn’t thinking that I’d be saying I want this guy, these are my specific targets. Having said that, the recruitment department have put together shortlists for different positions.

“They’ve been hitting different markers so it’s my job now to spend long hours reviewing tape, on the phone talking about people, getting character references and judgement. Seeing what we can do to make sure that those characteristics we are talking about are fulfilled.

“I am somebody who likes to be positive and likes to push myself and I want to do a really, really good job. I want to be as aspirational as possible at all times. If I can improve myself if I can improve my practice then that will benefit myself and benefit this football club in the long term.”

http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/15812335.Graeme_Murty__Rangers_will_seek_to_emulate_Southampton_recruitment_policy_in_their_future_transfer_dealings/

 

Seems like a good plan although I don't know how you can sign characteristics and not specific players players.

[Rousseau 10,612]

The magic of the Black Box. It works for players and managers. 

 

The magic of the black box

The black box might sound like something from a JK Rowling adventure but it is crucial to the club's success. It is a live database, fuelled by six analysts and has records of Saints players at every level, which are audited every six weeks to check whether they are hitting their targets.

 

But it is not just details of current Saints players that are stored in the black box - data is inputted into it from games across every major league.

 

Into it are loaded video clips, performance and statistical data, plus information about the character, personality and injury history of a player. When Reed discusses a potential signing with the manager he has a range of options, all of whom he knows will fit into the style the club wants.

 

"When you are trying to unearth potential that can be turned into excellence, you need lots of information," added Reed.

 

"Scouts can spot a player if they are looking at Gareth Bale - but to find a Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, you need more detail."

Saints signed Hojbjerg, a 21-year-old Danish midfielder, from Bayern Munich in the summer on a five-year deal for a fee believed to be in the region of £13m.

 

The data in the black box helped inform them of the player's suitability for Southampton. They knew that Hojbjerg had been through an excellent academy system at Bayern, that he was bright academically and had bundles of skill and potential.

 

"Performance data allows us to say technically if he is what we are looking for," added Reed. "Physical information is not just high-intensity sprints. It is whether they are in high-level competition, how they hold the ball up, what the first touch is like."

 

A good example of how Saints' long-term thinking and attention to detail allowed them to overcome the loss of an important player revolves around the departure of defensive midfielder Victor Wanyama.

 

They signed the Kenya international from Celtic in 2013 and, according to Reed, he had opportunities to sign a new deal for two years.

 

"It was clear he was being advised not to. When those tell-tale signs started happening we began looking in the black box," said Reed.

 

"Potential replacements for Victor had to meet certain athletic and technical requirements. One of them was Oriol Romeu."

Southampton had started monitoring Romeu as a 19-year-old when he joined Chelsea from Barcelona. They kept feeding information into his profile during a loan spell at Valencia.

 

As Wanyama's future became uncertain, Southampton took an additional interest when Romeu joined Stuttgart on loan in 2014. Twelve months later, they approached Chelsea themselves, paying £5m for the player who has this season become Wanyama's replacement.

 

It had been the same with Lallana and Dusan Tadic. Tadic was in the system from 2010 because the club understood that Lallana was developing into the sort of player that other clubs might want to buy.

 

When Liverpool bought Lallana for £25m in 2014, Tadic was one of several replacements the Saints had been monitoring for years.

When Adam Lallana (centre) left for Liverpool in 2014 the club already had a series of potential replacements in mind

Three interviews and a 50-page profile

Eight weeks after Southampton won the Johnstone's Paint Trophy in 2010, Jose Mourinho's Inter Milan won the Champions League final to complete the treble. Since 2011, the Italian side have not won a trophy or qualified for the Champions League.

 

At the start of the month, Inter played Saints in the Europa League and lost 2-1. It was a match played just days after they had sacked manager Frank de Boer, who had himself replaced Roberto Mancini after he was dismissed in August.

 

Reed said: "If they go after 80 days, fingers need to be pointed at the people who recruit.

 

"When managers are appointed usually they want lots of changes. They want to bring their own staff, they want money to spend. If you go down that route you are putting everything you have built at risk.

 

"Our manager is a coach. The process is, 'are we the right fit for you, are you the right fit for us?' That is why it goes through several stages."

 

Reed has a dossier of potential coaches that is continually updated - and has been since the appointment of current boss Claude

Puel - but he describes it as "very private" and only he has access to it.

 

When the club's Argentine boss Pochettino left for Tottenham in 2014, some thought it would mark the end of Southampton's rise.

 

In fact, they got better, improving their Premier League placing from eighth to seventh and then sixth under Dutchman Koeman. It was the first time they had finished in the top half of the top flight in three successive seasons since 1979-82.

 

Reed did not expect Koeman to leave for Everton this summer - but he had to be ready when it happened.

 

He said: "Succession planning is a major factor in big business. You have to be ready for the surprise. It shouldn't be any different in football yet that is how it appears."

 

One newspaper picked 11 potential replacements for Koeman. Puel was not among them but it was the Frenchman whom Saints eventually appointed on a three-year deal.

 

"Every candidate to replace Ronald was in the system a year before and had a 45- or 50-page document, with a profile. The interview criteria were four pages long. Claude went through three interviews to get the job."

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/37954971

[buster. 5,188]

Until we get our finances in better shape, we'd do well to concentrate more on our academy and try to bring through youngsters. The good players get hoovered up at an increasingly younger age and we'll get the relative dregs of that market.

 

If you go for guys like Sean Goss, all the past evidence of this type of deal points to a very poor success-rate. If there is a first team opportunity, better to look to play the likes of Barjonas.

 

The other important part is once we have a player, is to improve him and add value. Over many years, we have failed miserably in this regard and generally reduced value (tbf it is more difficult in the era of Bosman).

 

Lewis Morgan (topical) and Billy Gilmour both illustrate different angles of the costly mistakes and harsh financial reality that make it more difficult.

 

 

 

[Oleg_Mcnoleg 50]

1 hour ago, buster. said:

Until we get our finances in better shape, we'd do well to concentrate more on our academy and try to bring through youngsters. The good players get hoovered up at an increasingly younger age and we'll get the relative dregs of that market.

 

If you go for guys like Sean Goss, all the past evidence of this type of deal points to a very poor success-rate. If there is a first team opportunity, better to look to play the likes of Barjonas.

 

The other important part is once we have a player, is to improve him and add value. Over many years, we have failed miserably in this regard and generally reduced value (tbf it is more difficult in the era of Bosman).

 

Lewis Morgan (topical) and Billy Gilmour both illustrate different angles of the costly mistakes and harsh financial reality that make it more difficult.

 

 

 

it'll end up being a mixture, or ought to. no youth system is going to provide a steady, consistent conveyor belt of players for each position on demand. 

agree with the rest.

[buster. 5,188]

1 minute ago, Oleg_Mcnoleg said:

it'll end up being a mixture, or ought to. no youth system is going to provide a steady, consistent conveyor belt of players for each position on demand. 

agree with the rest.

 

I'd add that the new scouting set-up need to be good at what they do and find players before they make headlines and become relatively more expensive.

 

To add value, it's easier if you haven't already shelled out a transfer fee/paying big wages......and whilst you could rightly say investment (in terms of fees) will be necessary at times, until we are in a better financial position, we need to find players earlier, provide a pathway ....(have a manager that will play them & support that shows more patience at this time / I appreciate the difficulty of both factors).

 

To get back to a level of financial model we were accustomed to, it comes down to regularly qualifying for European group stage football, preferably the CL. To get there, we'd need an relatively overperforming football operation, including an excellent first team manager/coaching set-up.

[pete 2,499]

We  should be trying to sign Ryan Thomas from PEC Zwolle. He is the best midfielder in the Netherlands at the moment and still only with PEC Zwolle. If we could get him for a couple of mill then I will guarantee that we would at least double that within a year.

[buster. 5,188]

30 minutes ago, pete said:

We  should be trying to sign Ryan Thomas from PEC Zwolle. He is the best midfielder in the Netherlands at the moment and still only with PEC Zwolle. If we could get him for a couple of mill then I will guarantee that we would at least double that within a year.

 

As an example, we have to be getting the likes of Thomas from source rather than have to pay a large fee (that we can't currently afford).

 

Admittedly 'source' in this case is a little extreme in terms of geography, New Zeland....

...but one way or tuther, Australasia is somewhere that we should look to keep an eye on.

.

Edited January 7, 2018 by buster.

[MacK1950 2,376]

It is a good article,so with our reported new scouting set up,using this blue print could be a good move for the future.

Regards raw/young talent world-wide we have many ex players who could possibly "alert" the scouting team.