New Scouting Department Unveiled

[Lloyd 10,756]

BEHIND the scenes at Rangers, Director of Football Mark Allen has been hard at work creating a brand new scouting department to ensure the Light Blues recruit the best talent to return them to the top of Scottish football.

Allen has deliberately kept a low profile since his appointment until such times as his new setup was finalised – and he has made a number of appointments to his new team to assist him in improving the club’s recruitment process.

First, Allen has appointed the experienced Andy Scoulding as his Head of Scouting.

Attracting someone of Scoulding’s calibre was vital to him, and he explained: “If you look at Andy’s track record, he has been involved in forming high-level scouting networks and has over 15 years of footballing experience. He comes with a track record of working in high-performance arenas.

“He is multi-disciplined. He has worked in England at Fulham and Liverpool and he worked with the England National Team where he was responsible for putting together their scouting network which looked at potential England players. More recently, he has worked in Spain with Valencia.

“Andy was the candidate who stood out as he had a clear understanding of what this club is and the opportunity to take it to the next level. I think that is a very attractive proposition in itself, coupled with the ability to start with a clean sheet of paper.

‘’The real positive is you get a chance to put your stamp on it and put your team in place. You don’t often get that opportunity of a blank canvas and I think that was very much a positive in terms of Andy looking at this role.”

Since his arrival, both Scoulding and Allen have been working out the best path forward for Rangers and have looked at a number of different areas in terms of recruiting players for the club.

Allen continued: “In the modern game, as it stands now, I think you need a strategy for how you are going to recruit, where you are going to recruit and why you are going to recruit.

“I think Andy brings experience in all of those areas in addition to my own background previous to Rangers.

‘’In today’s game you need strategy, intelligence and eyes. You need to know how to build databases, how to build dossiers on players and be looking at what they are doing on and off the pitch etc. The final and most critical part is you need the eyes to be able to go out and watch games live to confirm what the intelligence and video scouting is telling you.’’

As part of the ‘eyes’ aspect discussed by Allen, he and Scoulding have made three appointments to search for the best talent for Rangers.

First, they have recruited club icon John Brown and Allen believes bringing him on board was a no-brainer. He pointed out: “When you go back and look at some of those characteristics I mentioned in terms of the player profile, John is well-known to have had that history with Rangers Football Club and will know what a Rangers player looks like. He will be able to identify those sorts of characteristics.

“He has a track record in scouting previously and he was an easy choice for me and one I wanted to make almost immediately.

“John will head up the domestic side of things and look at Scotland and the rest of the UK. However, the great thing about this department is it is inter-dependent.

“John was an easy choice for me in that respect. He knows what it is like to play for this football club and he knows the types of players who will succeed at this football club in terms of characteristics and he is also able to ascertain and know whether a player can cope with the intensity.”

Dave Swanick is a name which will be less well-known to Rangers supporters, but Allen believes he will add plenty to the club.

Allen said: “I know Dave from his previous role at Aston Villa where he was European scouting manager. He will drive the European element of this, and we have got to be prepared in terms of looking far and wide for the right players for Rangers Football Club.

“Dave has a very good knowledge of all the markets in European football and has worked extensively throughout Europe. The intelligence might point you to certain leagues where players would have the correct profile and characteristics to play for Rangers Football Club.’’

Finally, Billy McLaren, who has headed up the club’s Academy scouting system for a number of years, now comes under Scoulding and Allen’s control.

“Billy provides experience and continuity,” explained Allen. “Billy has worked in the Academy arena for many years, and the Academy transition is very important. Identifying  young, up and coming players is very important in terms of the overall philosophy of the football club. Billy has all the domestic knowledge and he has the link with the Academy.

“Dave Stevenson, who will replace Billy in the Academy setup, will join us from the SFA and Rob Clarkson, who is going to come in late November from Manchester City, will take the responsibility of coordinating all the planning activities around the scouts. He will make sure they are going to the right games, identifying those games and following upon player reports for those games as well as scouting himself.

“So there will be six or seven pairs of eyes – myself and Andy included – that will be out there at different times making sure we are scouting potential Rangers footballers for the future and making sure we work together window by window, season by season.”

In addition to those positions, Katy Lamont, the club’s Player Liason Officer, will have a major role in the department in terms of logistics and looking after any new arrivals.

Player scouting, as Allen alluded to, doesn’t just involve going and watching an individual in person – it can take the form of watching them and their specific attributes on video here at the Rangers Training Centre.

Allen explained: “Again, a lot of analysis comes in in terms of recruitment and, as I say, you can’t just take one discipline in isolation In my opinion, you can’t have a department which is just full of eyes if you like.

“You need the technical skills behind it to make sure we are cutting the right clips on players so that when we are presented with potential players we can see what players are like in possession, out of possession and all of those things I have spoken about.

“The analysis guys can pull the clips together, they can cut them and we can present them.as part of a review prior to recruiting the player  That is a vital part in terms of your intelligence gathering and building of your database.”

[five stars 1,635]

About time.

[MasterD 7,435]

John Brown 

[RDFM 3,809]

Brown's a bit of a weird one but otherwise good stuff and a long time coming. 

[theweebluenose 4,332]

5 minutes ago, Siwel said:

First, they have recruited club icon John Brown 

Get the Popcorn oot..

[shaka 1,669]

It all sounds very impressive, hopefully it produces good results and we can find a better quality of player.

[plymouthranger 3,863]

4 minutes ago, theweebluenose said:

Get the Popcorn oot..

He's just using it as another step closer to finding the DEEDS

[Captain Hilts 12,819]

Yet we'll still get zoomers saying "aye but what's he actually doing sack the cunt".

[SeparateEntityMyArse 53,613]

It was going so well until ....  

[ForeverAndEver 71,362]

aye but what's he actually doing sack the cunt

[STEPPS BOY 73,790]

[Reformation Bear 6,453]

At last.   This has been a talking point - and an institutional and systemic failure - for far too long and I include in that the time from when King wrested control of the Club.   Managers have talked about scouting and so has the Board......but until today progress has been conspicuous by its absence.   IMO the continued absence of news about setting up a proper scouting operation was beginning to border on systemic negligence by the Board and they could rightly have expected to come in for  severe and justified criticism at the AGM if they had not taken action.

But here we are with a brand new all singing and dancing scouting set up unveiled.   I hope they are very successful.    Well done to the DOF for bringing to an end a patently obvious gap in the Club's infrastructure.     

[Bronzy 26,122]

but aye he what's doing actually cunt the sack

[MayboleLoyal_atb 3,677]

Good to see

[Laudrup1984 25,100]

Sounds promising. No doubt Brown will grab the headlines and split opinion however one quality Brown does seem to possess (other than getting it) is that he seems to have a decent eye for a player.

At least we now appear to have a structure and team in place which can only be of benefit to us going forward. Here's hoping we reap the rewards over the next few windows.

[MrMckee 3,420]

SOunds good to me was kind of suprised about brown but might find us some right hard cunts 

[saltire266 502]

John Brown FFS .....Jobs for arse lickers I`m scunnered with what goes on at the club these days, truly lost for words

[SeparateEntityMyArse 53,613]

I can imagine Brown being aware of the type of qualities required in some players. But it's a complex area and not every player will have the same characteristics yet could be ideal for us in their own way.

The quietest person could be the most competitive for instance.

With a focus on the blank canvas we have, it more than smacks of reward rather than Brown being the best possible candidate in football that we could have got. 

[Junior Soprano 22,428]

3 minutes ago, saltire266 said:

John Brown FFS .....Jobs for arse lickers I`m scunnered with what goes on at the club these days, truly lost for words

See before the usual pish starts with John Brown. 

He scouted Jamie Vardy and told Charles Green to sign him when we’re in the lower leagues. Green dingied him.

[eskbankloyal 19,446]

John Brown aside, it’s good to see this finally announced. 

Although might explain why Brown was at Sheep v the filth last week. 

[McEwan's Lager 30,493]

6 minutes ago, saltire266 said:

John Brown FFS .....Jobs for arse lickers I`m scunnered with what goes on at the club these days, truly lost for words

1 appointment out of many and that’s what you choose to focus on ffs.

[McEwan's Lager 30,493]

I know they have recruited a few more scouts for talent identification at academy level too whose names aren’t in the release.

Edit: this may have happened just before Allen came in.

[Amato 3,016]

15 minutes ago, STEPPS BOY said:

[cushynumber 25,178]

Sounds like a start has been made and we are moving in the right direction. Does Bomber have any experience in scouting? it says in the piece he has a track record of this and I was wondering when that was. Also judging by that, Brown is essentially covering the UK, Dave Swanick covers Europe and Bille Mclaren gets promoted to give them a hand.

I dont wish to sound negative,  - and you have to start somewhere - but you get a sense of the magnitude of the task by that statement, rather than be buoyed by it. Certainly, I do.

Maybe because winter is coming I'm going into a downer.

[LaudrupsPatrickBoots 13,510]

Jobs for the boys still in full flow then.