HECK: IT SHOULDN’T JUST BE BOSSES WHO GET THE BULLET:
Hecky: Heads of recruitment should face axe like gaffers if they get player swoops wrong
It shouldn’t be protected position.. everyone has to be accountable PAUL HECKINGBOTTOM ON RECRUITMENT CHIEFS
PAUL HECKINGBOTTOM knows he’s under intense scrutiny on a weekly basis.
Managers can be lauded by chairmen after one good result – and lambasted by fans after one rotten performance.
It’s part of the pressure of being a top-level gaffer and Hibs gaffer Heckinbottom recognises that it comes with the territory.
But the Easter Road manager believes it’s not just his position that should be put under the microscope – it’s EVERYONE at the club from the bootroom to the boardroom.
Heckingbottom also believes heads of recruitment should be as accountable as managers – and judged on their success in the hiring and firing of players.
With both Rangers and Celtic appointing new heads of recruitment in Ross Wilson and Nick Hammond in the last week, Heckingbottom admits he is well aware how vital the role is at any club – and that it can be the key to success.
He said: “My job is too big now to be doing the recruitment, to be doing all the filtering of players.
“The way I see it, if you’re the manager or the head coach, you’re really involved at the front end of the process and you have to be really clear about the positions, the type of player you want and what the team needs to look like.
“The more detail you give, the
better. Then it’s up to the recruitment department to use that to filter their judgments, decisions and present players.
“It is a bigger factor now in being successful.
“With data and video-analysis, how accessible the world is makes the job even bigger, to get about and see and know every player.
“Every club has their own approach, whether it’s data-led or video, old scouting or a mixture of everything.
“The best clubs, the ones who are most successful at it, will be the clubs who have got their strategy and alignment right.
“Recruiting the style of player who fits with how that club wants to play.
“Also, making good business decisions, getting control of who they sign and when. Then being able to sell at the right time which is just as – if not more – important than who you sign.
“Everyone has got a role from the kitman all the way through to recruitment.
“Really getting imbedded in what our football club is about, what the values are of how we work and what we ultimately want the green and the white on the pitch to look like.
“Managers have to take responsibility. You are involved in the beginning and at the end.
“You have the players who have been found presented to you – and then you get involved.
“Some players you can’t afford. Others, if you can afford them and everybody is happy, then you go for them.
“You’d be kidding yourself if you were sitting in the manager’s chair and thinking you could take control of the whole process.
“You might still have contacts you can trust, guys who will put people your way. You’d be daft not to take advantage of that.
“If that’s all you use, that won’t
work, given how small the world is now, how many players there are out there. You’d be foolish not to take advantage of that.
“The job now, in terms of recruitment, is big.
“Football is also in danger of becoming a place where we lose accountability within a club.
“Managers are accountable. We are the ones who are hired and then fired.
“If a club keeps getting that wrong, who else becomes accountable?
“If a club keeps getting signings wrong, everybody should be accountable.
“It shouldn’t be a protected position, any of those positions.
“A club has to be really clear on what they want to do, including the business side.
“They might have a policy on how many younger players they want to bring in, a policy on how many academy players they need to bring through.
“The communication and strategy of the club dictates it. Then you can make head coach appointments off the back of that and appoint the recruitment guys off the back of that.
“I wouldn’t say any club has got it perfect yet but the ones who work more to that over the long term will be the ones who steadily improve.
“It has become so high profile. I’ve got lots of thoughts and opinions on that.
“You have to be really clear, as a club, who is doing what.
“Some people do it for the profile and look for positions that come with not adulation, exactly, but recognition, if you like.
“There a lot of them who are then very quick to drop back below the parapet when any fire comes their way.
“People need to have the right character to work in these positions. They have to be in it for the right reasons.
“Ultimately they should be accountable – and prove to be good at their job.”
Hibs head of recruitment Graeme Mathie has been linked with both Kilmarnock and Rangers but Heckingbottom insists the Easter Road man is not agitating for a move.
New Light Blues sporting director Wilson is reputedly weighing up a move for Mathie while the ex-Celtic scout has also emerged as a frontrunner for Killie’s new director of football role.
Heckingbottom said: “I don’t want to talk Graeme down. He has been great while I’ve been here.
“I don’t pay attention to it.
“I’m not saying there isn’t truth in it. There is certainly some truth in the Kilmarnock thing.
“Whether there is in the Rangers one, I don’t know.
“Until things happen or there are decisions to be made, it is pointless worrying about it. We will have to wait and see. “Graeme loves the club and has never once been trying to angle for a move away or anything like that. If people think he is doing a good job and they approach the club, that’s a different matter. “It’s not being drummed up in any shape or form for Graeme to get a benefit out of it. He loves it here and wants to work here.” Heckingbottom also ruled himself out of the running for an emotional return to old club Barnsley after the departure of boss Daniel Stendel. He added: “That job is for someone else. I’ll watch with interest who they appoint. “I’ve not been looking at the names in for it, I’m too busy here.”