Mac vows to rebuild the scouting system

YEP 30/10/13
As a former player scout himself, Brian McDermott knows a good scouting set-up is essential for long term success. Phil Hay reports.
Brian McDermott’s vision of Leeds United is a club revamped from top to bottom. He calls it a “process” and stresses at every turn that putting the pieces together will take patience and time. According to him, Leeds are “nowhere near where we’re going to be” if and when his plans take shape.
United’s manager has had six months to assess his squad, alter it slightly and establish what it is that he and Leeds are missing. The transition he seeks is proving to be a slow burn. In comparison, it took him a matter of hours to realise that the club’s training ground at Thorp Arch required a facelift, and the complex was upgraded during the close-season.
“I’m trying to build something with foundations,” he said, explaining why he had urged United’s owners to direct funds into improving Thorp Arch. “I’m not just here to put 15 or 20 players together and forget about everything else.”
With McDermott continuing to tweak his squad – Dexter Blackstock and Marius Zaliukas were signed last week, both on a relatively short-term basis – scouting is next on his list. In an hour-long appearance on Sky’s The Footballers’ Football Show on Monday, he revealed the virtual absence of a scouting network at Leeds and warned that establishing a healthy system of player recruitment was “fundamental” to their prospects.
Leeds are presently without a chief scout and have been missing someone in that mould since the removal of Gwyn Williams from their staff. Williams, who was placed on gardening leave in July, held the title of technical director but took responsibility for much of United’s scouting over a period of seven years.
He had successes and failures – Luciano Becchio and Jermaine Beckford in the first category, Filipe Da Costa and players of his ilk in the other –but McDermott finds himself with nothing resembling the effective scouting system he ran at Reading for 10 years and benefited from later as the club’s manager.
“Scouting’s an interesting subject at Leeds because we need to improve what we’ve got,” McDermott said. “I wouldn’t say we have a scouting structure per se.
“We’re in the process of getting a chief scout who’s going to put together a scouting programme, and I’ll do that with him. At a club as big as Leeds what’s fundamental for me is scouting and recruitment. It wasn’t in place.”
McDermott has been waiting for many months to install Luke Dowling as his chief scout. The YEP revealed in July that Dowling, a former head of recruitment at Portsmouth and Blackburn Rovers, was earmarked for the post but a long wait to agree the severance of his deal at Blackburn delayed the appointment. Dowling was part of the short-lived managerial reign of Michael Appleton at Ewood Park and he left Rovers in March following Appleton’s sacking. Dowling’s spell in Lancashire was too short for him to make an impression but he was central to the firesale at Portsmouth in the summer of 2012, helping an ailing club to move on higher earners and cut their wage bill.
That period saw Leeds sign no fewer than four players from Fratton Park – David Norris, Luke Varney. Jamie Ashdown and Jason Pearce – and ease Portsmouth’s crisis. Dowling’s remit at Elland Road would primarily be to design a plan of attack for scouting potential signings but United are not short of professionals who they would gladly move on if buyers or takers could be found. They might benefit too from that area of his expertise.
McDermott has never spoken about him specifically but Dowling’s employment at Leeds has been pending since the summer. A former Crystal Palace scout, he is said to have been considered as an option by Tottenham Hotspur before Spurs named Franco Baldini as their technical director.
“A top scout is worth his weight in gold,” McDermott said. “He should be paid top dollar. It’s one of the most important positions at a club.
“It probably doesn’t get the respect it deserves because the job was once given to the manager’s mate. Now it’s a career. People who can spot a player are few and far between and if you find them, you’ve got to keep them.”
Asked if the scouting network at Leeds had been the victim of financial cut-backs over many seasons, McDermott said: “Possibly. But if you think about that it makes no sense whatsoever.
“Whatever you have to do, you must put money into scouting because in the long term it’ll save you fortunes and possibly make you fortunes. If you look at what happened at Reading, they survived by selling players. I should know because I was manager when they were selling them.
“It makes no sense to me not to build on scouting and that’s where you have to put your money. That hasn’t been the case at Leeds.
“I’ve had 21 games as manager and we’ve won 10. We’ve had a difficult run. But I think we’re just starting. We haven’t even got our scouting up and running so we’re nowhere near where we’re going to be. We haven’t got going yet.
“You’re only as good a manager as your last result and we got beat (at Huddersfield Town on Saturday). But you need stability and you need time to build something.”
McDermott is a disciple of scouting on account of a decade spent covering games across the world. He recalled first identifying ex-Reading winger Jimmy Kebe during a rain-drenched match between Le Havre and Boulogne, where Kebe was on loan.
Reading’s transfer budget was never exorbitant and coaches at Leeds have dealt with financial constraints for years. Astute player-spotting at home and abroad is a way of combating those limitations.
“When teamsheets came in for whichever game, I’d know every player,” McDermott said. “I’d know because I’d seen them. It was an insult to me if I didn’t and that wasn’t just in Europe. It was the world. Because football isn’t actually very big.”

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