Ross Wilson has been interviewed for DOF

[Bertent 2,081]

32 minutes ago, bluchoo said:

No chance De Boer is coming to us

I think alot of people need to take off the royal blue glasses and grasp a bit of reality. 

Its a bit embarrassing reading the people who think this is a foregone conclusion and its happening in the summer or even the posters who are getting excited about it. 

If thats your fragile mental and emotional state Id suggest the internet may not be the place for you. Best you dont read things

[KingKirk 25,650]

This news is in tomorrows paper

[RFC Eagle 4,888]

2 minutes ago, KingKirk said:

This news is in tomorrows paper

Wait half an hour and it will be in todays paper.

[RDFM 3,809]

5 hours ago, K.A.I said:

Oh there's a comparison alright we haven't won a trophy in almost seven years because we've been out the top flight and unable to compete in that time, financially hampered And had 3 shite managers in that time like literally the worst 

the reason we've not competed in that time isn't because we never had a director of football  

and it's 5 and half years not 7 now I think 

You were the one that mentioned what we've won...

[harry handsome 629]

RDB - director of football and FDB as manager - football porn.

[Ace 3,556]

This fact Saints' choice of managers have been a success isn't a fluke, nor the fact they've improved their league position seven years running, says strategist Wilson.

Ross Wilson isn’t so much in charge of a department at Southampton as an empire.

Their footprint may be small compared to some of their multi-billion pound EPL peers – but their fingerprints are everywhere.

And for the 34-year-old Scot in charge of a 60-strong department regarded as the best recruiter and producer in English football – from academy kids to first team to management – the devil is all in the detail.

The strategy they apply is the same for everyone from seven-year-old-kids to their next boss. Not a stone goes unturned – but none of it is scattergun.

So it’s easy to see why he is top of Rangers' list for the Director of Football role they’ve created. Maybe easier still to see why he’s expected to stay where he is when you spend time with him.

From a 21-year-old graduate recruit taken on to look after kids’ education and welfare at Falkirk’s academy, via Watford and Huddersfield, the ex-Stirling University student’s career path has sky-rocketed him to the top of his profession in 13 years.

Now the Director of Scouting and Recruitment has given Mailsport a glimpse into what has taken Saints from administration under a decade ago to a top-six team who have sold nearly £200m worth of talent, as well as two top managers, and will carry them to Wembley in a week’s time to face Manchester United.

“None of it has happened by accident,” insisted Wilson, opening his laptop. The fact our choice of managers have been a success isn’t a fluke. Nor is the fact we improved our league position for seven years running.

“We have 60 staff, we have a structure and a strategy, but we constantly review the network on a three-year horizon, People ask ‘do you scout, do you video scout, data scout, are you stats based?’ It’s all of it, integrated into one.

“We have people at games, we have people analysing video and data, and it’s my job to make all of that feed in and fit in.

“But maybe the most important thing we’ve done is define our footprint. We don’t just go ‘There’s a kid in Uruguay, oh and there’s one in Mexico, and by the way, what about that one in France?’ That’s not a strategy.”

Wilson then outlines what is. One of his staff is sifting through video of their Under-14 academy side’s game from the previous night.

Others are in and out of their “Black Box”, their analysis suite. For two hours, his phone rings and his email inbox pings incessantly. He ignores it all and opens a strategy document on screen, eye-popping in its detail.

Their philosophy of “pinning down the south” in the youth market looks like an onslaught of military precision from the coas to red and black lines on a map as far afield as Oxford and High Wycombe and into South Wales.

The rules are kids can only be signed from within 60 minutes’ drive to a certain age, then 90 minutes drive beyond that.

“Every player we sign from seven up to 12, comes from within that red line,” he says, working his way across the map. But we have another academy in Bath which doubled our catchment area.

“Other clubs can’t do it, because they’re then encroaching on another Category One club’s 

territory. And the black line is everything after 12. We could sign a player that age from Newcastle but he has to come full time and go to school here so we don’t do that. We only do that from 16 up.

“We work to our in-distance footprint. We call it ‘pinning down the south’. Every player in any of 30-odd leagues, we know about them and we’ll sign the best.

“Then we look nationally at 16 and up. We don’t want to sign Birmingham City’s best nine-year-old, say, but we might want to sign their best 16-year-old.

“We say ‘young and English’ but we mean British as we signed Kieran Freeman from Dundee United at 16 and also have a good track record with first-team guys.

“Stage Two, we have a full-time scouting presence in half a dozen European countries and keep an eye on eastern Europe.”

The beauty of the system is its sustainability through managerial change – and also its use in facilitating that change.

Wilson added: “Because we work to a structure, our manager is ususally British or European – Mauricio Pochettino may be Argentine but he came from Spanish football.They know the system so there’s no friction. No manager has wanted to change the scouting strategy.

“It’s not a fluke that our guys have been successful and usually they’re from the same footprint.

“You have to think ahead. Who’s coming through from the academy and where are they going to go in the squad? What we need to do to protect players contrac-tually in the first-team squad.

“You prepare for when they have to go – what their value is and who’s going to replace them. And the same with managers.”

The nuts and bolts of the system are mind-blowing. The detailed reporting of scouts, the creation of target lists which change daily.

The level of detail? The profile of a recently-signed player comes up on screen. All the obvious stuff is there as well as the jobs he held as a kid, his social media preferences, video footage of an ankle injury he had six years ago, all at the click of a mouse.

Not just for the big hitters, though. There’s a teenage keeper being watched in Eastern Europe, he gets the same treatment.

“Look at this guy,” says Wilson, pulling up another file. It’s a Championship player they’ve been watching and the reports vary wildly. But there are 53 of them, all going towards whether he makes it on to the list of five targets in any given position.”

So each of the scouts has a moving list. If I say ‘I need a left back’, it’s compiled every day, the list evolves.”

Wilson’s job isn’t to scout or ID players – it’s to create best practice and strategy.

He added: “Even in our work placement programme we want to to be football’s Oxford or Cambridge so the best students gravitate here, so we’re swamped with the best applicants every year. They work in analysis, sports science, a little bit of medicine.

“We’re looking for the best, because managers come and go – we can’t.”

http://www.<No links to this website>/sport/football/ross-wilson--rangers-target-9846369

It's a really interesting overview of what Southampton & in particular Ross Wilson does for them.

It's detailed, it's in depth & no doubt, it's expensive but it seems to pay for itself, especially when you look at the transfer fees Southampton have received for thier players.

The question becomes "Why would Ross leave them?" .. I'm told that Ross isn't actually top dog there, that belongs to Les Reed and he doesn't look like he's going anywhere soon, so for RW to step up to the DoF role, he will need to leave Southampton and coming to his boyhood team (reportedly) might be his way to do that.

Hopefully, he's sees RFC as a blank slate where he can bring all he has learned and apply it, first hand. 

[Cobham 1,569]

This fact Saints' choice of managers have been a success isn't a fluke, nor the fact they've improved their league position seven years running, says strategist Wilson.

Ross Wilson isn’t so much in charge of a department at Southampton as an empire.

Their footprint may be small compared to some of their multi-billion pound EPL peers – but their fingerprints are everywhere.

And for the 34-year-old Scot in charge of a 60-strong department regarded as the best recruiter and producer in English football – from academy kids to first team to management – the devil is all in the detail.

The strategy they apply is the same for everyone from seven-year-old-kids to their next boss. Not a stone goes unturned – but none of it is scattergun.

So it’s easy to see why he is top of Rangers' list for the Director of Football role they’ve created. Maybe easier still to see why he’s expected to stay where he is when you spend time with him.

From a 21-year-old graduate recruit taken on to look after kids’ education and welfare at Falkirk’s academy, via Watford and Huddersfield, the ex-Stirling University student’s career path has sky-rocketed him to the top of his profession in 13 years.

Now the Director of Scouting and Recruitment has given Mailsport a glimpse into what has taken Saints from administration under a decade ago to a top-six team who have sold nearly £200m worth of talent, as well as two top managers, and will carry them to Wembley in a week’s time to face Manchester United.

“None of it has happened by accident,” insisted Wilson, opening his laptop. The fact our choice of managers have been a success isn’t a fluke. Nor is the fact we improved our league position for seven years running.

“We have 60 staff, we have a structure and a strategy, but we constantly review the network on a three-year horizon, People ask ‘do you scout, do you video scout, data scout, are you stats based?’ It’s all of it, integrated into one.

“We have people at games, we have people analysing video and data, and it’s my job to make all of that feed in and fit in.

“But maybe the most important thing we’ve done is define our footprint. We don’t just go ‘There’s a kid in Uruguay, oh and there’s one in Mexico, and by the way, what about that one in France?’ That’s not a strategy.”

Wilson then outlines what is. One of his staff is sifting through video of their Under-14 academy side’s game from the previous night.

Others are in and out of their “Black Box”, their analysis suite. For two hours, his phone rings and his email inbox pings incessantly. He ignores it all and opens a strategy document on screen, eye-popping in its detail.

Their philosophy of “pinning down the south” in the youth market looks like an onslaught of military precision from the coas to red and black lines on a map as far afield as Oxford and High Wycombe and into South Wales.

The rules are kids can only be signed from within 60 minutes’ drive to a certain age, then 90 minutes drive beyond that.

“Every player we sign from seven up to 12, comes from within that red line,” he says, working his way across the map. But we have another academy in Bath which doubled our catchment area.

“Other clubs can’t do it, because they’re then encroaching on another Category One club’s 

territory. And the black line is everything after 12. We could sign a player that age from Newcastle but he has to come full time and go to school here so we don’t do that. We only do that from 16 up.

“We work to our in-distance footprint. We call it ‘pinning down the south’. Every player in any of 30-odd leagues, we know about them and we’ll sign the best.

“Then we look nationally at 16 and up. We don’t want to sign Birmingham City’s best nine-year-old, say, but we might want to sign their best 16-year-old.

“We say ‘young and English’ but we mean British as we signed Kieran Freeman from Dundee United at 16 and also have a good track record with first-team guys.

“Stage Two, we have a full-time scouting presence in half a dozen European countries and keep an eye on eastern Europe.”

The beauty of the system is its sustainability through managerial change – and also its use in facilitating that change.

Wilson added: “Because we work to a structure, our manager is ususally British or European – Mauricio Pochettino may be Argentine but he came from Spanish football.They know the system so there’s no friction. No manager has wanted to change the scouting strategy.

“It’s not a fluke that our guys have been successful and usually they’re from the same footprint.

“You have to think ahead. Who’s coming through from the academy and where are they going to go in the squad? What we need to do to protect players contrac-tually in the first-team squad.

“You prepare for when they have to go – what their value is and who’s going to replace them. And the same with managers.”

The nuts and bolts of the system are mind-blowing. The detailed reporting of scouts, the creation of target lists which change daily.

The level of detail? The profile of a recently-signed player comes up on screen. All the obvious stuff is there as well as the jobs he held as a kid, his social media preferences, video footage of an ankle injury he had six years ago, all at the click of a mouse.

Not just for the big hitters, though. There’s a teenage keeper being watched in Eastern Europe, he gets the same treatment.

“Look at this guy,” says Wilson, pulling up another file. It’s a Championship player they’ve been watching and the reports vary wildly. But there are 53 of them, all going towards whether he makes it on to the list of five targets in any given position.”

So each of the scouts has a moving list. If I say ‘I need a left back’, it’s compiled every day, the list evolves.”

Wilson’s job isn’t to scout or ID players – it’s to create best practice and strategy.

He added: “Even in our work placement programme we want to to be football’s Oxford or Cambridge so the best students gravitate here, so we’re swamped with the best applicants every year. They work in analysis, sports science, a little bit of medicine.

“We’re looking for the best, because managers come and go – we can’t.”

http://www.<No links to this website>/sport/football/ross-wilson--rangers-target-9846369

It's a really interesting overview of what Southampton & in particular Ross Wilson does for them.

It's detailed, it's in depth & no doubt, it's expensive but it seems to pay for itself, especially when you look at the transfer fees Southampton have received for thier players.

The question becomes "Why would Ross leave them?" .. I'm told that Ross isn't actually top dog there, that belongs to Les Reed and he doesn't look like he's going anywhere soon, so for RW to step up to the DoF role, he will need to leave Southampton and coming to his boyhood team (reportedly) might be his way to do that.

Hopefully, he's sees RFC as a blank slate where he can bring all he has learned and apply it, first hand. 

 

 

When you read the article above it's hard to see how you can impliment any of the above without a DoF. There is no way you could expect a manager to manage the team successfully and carry out all the above duties. I understand it will be to a lesser extent than Southampton's model but for me DoF makes perfect sense!