STING IN THE DETAIL
LIVINGSTON LAPTOP OF HIS GAME
“I’m a football fanatic.” OK, we get that – but a job with a Premiership side and with no experience of playing the game?
He said: “Livi put an advert on their website saying they were looking for a video analyst. I felt I qualified so I sent David Martindale an email with what I had done. I had co-founded a website titled ‘Modern Fitba’, I did stuff with the Daily Record and had work experience with Scottish Rugby and Rangers.
“Davie invited me in. I’ve never met anyone more passionate about football. He offered me the job – bearing in mind this was Wednesday night – and said, ‘We’ve got Celtic on Sunday so I want you to do an analytical video.’ Talk about straight in at the deep end!’”
Wright had an instant chance to swot up on his new employer’s opponents.
He said: “Funnily enough, I was going to the Celtic-Leipzig game the next night anyway with a couple of friends who are Celtic supporters.
“I was up doing analysis ahead of the Livi v Celtic game until 1am on the Thursday morning, went for a few hours’ sleep then got back up to do my day job.
“After finishing, I got home to do another couple of hours on the video before going to Celtic Park then went home and completed another couple of hours after the game.” So what did he learn? He said: “I did a large part of it on Craig Gordon’s kicking. He is a fantastic keeper but I noticed, if you put him under pressure, his kicks can go anywhere.
“There was a clip that went viral where Steven McLean chased down Craig and the keeper chips it up over his foot. Watching the match back, that was the fourth time Hearts had closed him down and the three times before that, Craig had just taken a kick anywhere and Hearts could have built something.
“So I told them not to jump. Because he might do a turn. Stay down.
“After all that preparation, all that analysis, Craig doesn’t play and we find out Scott Bain does! That was annoying.”
So too can be the comparisons. Not the ones with Jose Mourinho or Andre Villas-Boas – just two of the coaches without top-level football-playing experience – but with another academic who rose to prominence.
Wright said: “The thing I’d say about Ian Cathro, other than him not succeeding, is the Hearts players have said his failure was not down to his lack of personality. They said it was down to his tactics.
“I don’t know why Cathro failed. I do know when Alan Pardew fails, it’s his sixth, seventh, eighth job in the English top flight and no one blinks an eye.”
Enough of failure, what’s the ambition?
Wright said: “My ultimate is being director of football at Real Madrid. I don’t want a headline saying, ‘He wants to be Madrid’s chief ’ but you need to have a hunger and that’s what I want.
“In any walk of life you have to go for the top. I want to innovate more than the innovators. I want to work at a Champions League club. A footballing pedigree is not the prerequisite it once was. Barriers are being broken down even in Scotland.”
After their heroics against Celtic, Livi next take on Rangers, Wright’s boyhood heroes. He said: “We’ll have a plan in place for them. I did stuff for Rangers
not that long ago.”