SPORTING CHANCE
Stevie and me are already on same page and I enjoy working with him Being criticised for signings used to rile me ... but I’m not bothered now I know where I stand and the manager always has the final say
AT 36 years old, Ross Wilson is a year younger than Jermain Defoe but for Steven Gerrard he could prove more important than the veteran England striker.
The former Southampton director of football was officially unveiled to the media yesterday after succeeding Mark Allen as the club’s new sporting director.
Wilson rejected the chance to move to Ibrox two years ago but says the time was right to return to Scotland as he continues an incredible journey that took him from hometown team Falkirk to the mega-rich Premier League at Southampton via stints at Watford and Huddersfield.
Record Sport took their seat at the Hummel Training Centre and here, in a wide-ranging Q&A, is what the new man had to say about his plans for the future.
You were approached about the job at Rangers two years ago but rejected the chance. What has changed?
I hope people who have worked with me in the past understand one of my values is loyalty and I was only two-and-a-bit years into my time at Southampton.
I felt I owed a loyalty to the people I worked with and it wasn’t the right time for me to leave Southampton where I had wonderful job and it was an impossible one to leave at that moment.
It was a difficult decision to not come a couple of years ago. There was a blank sheet of paper at the time to try to help rebuild the club.
There had been difficult times before that and Mark Allen took the job and laid a lot of strong foundations so thanks to him for that.
It was difficult not to come but more difficult to leave Southampton.
How important is the relationship between the sporting director and the manager?
It’s one of the most important relationships. I have had strong relationships with all the managers I’ve worked with.
Before I accepted the job it was important Steven and I had a clear chat in terms of how I saw the role and how he saw the role.
We are on the same page. The relationship has been excellent so far. I have really enjoyed working with him.
Clearly you develop a relationship over a period of time rather than one or two weeks.
Do you feel there is scepticism towards the sporting director role in Scottish football?
I’ve only just come back over the border so I don’t know what the view of it is here.
But I hope that we can have the view it becomes embedded in Scottish football the way it is in England and Europe.
I’ve never had any issue with it during my time in England, from when I started at Watford and had a really strong relationship with Sean Dyche right through the relationships I had with the managers at Huddersfield and Southampton.
The continental managers are used to that relationship anyway, from Ronald Koeman right through to Ralph Hassenhuttl at the end.
If you said to Ronald or Ralph they were going to work without a sporting director, they would think you were off your head.
I’ve never seen any resistance towards the role from managers or coaches, although I get that it might be different in Scotland. For Scottish football, it could be part of the journey.
Hearts have had the model in place for some time and are looking to take a little turn with it now.
Hibs and Dundee United are also working like that, Celtic are working in a similar way.
So I’m sure that it will become embedded in Scottish football as it is everywhere else.
Have you discussed a specific budget with the Rangers board?
On a case-by-case basis we will look at everything and that’s the way I’ve been used to working at my previous three clubs rather than sitting working with a budget and saying we are going to spend ‘x’ on this and ‘y’ on that.
Let’s look at everything on its merits and make a judgment call.
I have described my way of working which is similar to how Rangers work already.
The biggest part of me understanding the future here was knowing everyone is on the same page as to what this role looks like.
I came from a place where it was absolutely clear and I had absolute confidence in the people I was working with.
It would have been difficult for me to step out of that without knowing the club I was joining had a real clarity about what this role is.
The board are clear about where they want to go and the importance of this role in that.
Will you have to sell players to develop your own budget?
The board are continuing to invest in the club to get us back to where we want to get to.
Clearly, like many in most clubs part of that will be transfers out as well as transfers in to reinvest in the club.
But I have not been asked to make sure we sell players to make sure we can reinvest in the team.
The board have committed that they will continue to invest in the club going forward.
Is it important for Rangers to develop a strategy and ethos for new signings?
Yes, 100 per cent. We absolutely have to develop what that strategy looks like in terms of scouting and recruitment.
I have only been here for two or three weeks but we have already begun those discussions and those will continue going forward.
But there absolutely has to be a strategy and a clear
way of working. It is something that I’ve had at my other clubs and something I hope to continue here. Does the pressure to stop Celtic winning nine in a row make it hard to apply a strategy? We all feel it’s a really exciting time here, for Rangers and for Scottish football. We both feel excited by the challenge going forward and by the potential within the club. Steven is happy with the direction so far but we both see there is so much scope to continue developing – the training centre, for example. Some work has started already. We want to develop scouting, the academy, medical, sports science, everything. How are you judged as a success or a failure? It’s always difficult for the fans looking from the outside in. The fans will always be looking to judge the team winning on the pitch, scouting and recruitment, whether they like the manager or not.
Whether they like me or not, I suppose.
It’s always difficult for the fans to judge the success of a sporting director and it’s almost like an occupational hazard for me that you can never really say how you should be judged.
I’m probably more interested in how I’m judged by the players I’m working with and leading every day.
Making sure we get this culture strong internally and our processes are working well for us.
I will be quite happy to be judged internally and understand that externally, it’s difficult for people to truly judge your work.
Is it too simplistic to say you’ll get credit for good signings and blame for those who don’t work?
The bottom line is you have to turn off the noise with that.
It’s probably something that would have annoyed me seven or eight years ago. Now it goes with the territory. The players we sign will be the collective decision between the work of the scouts, me working with them and the network and the manager Steven having the final sign-off on those players.
So whoever gets the final credit or the criticism for them, I have no problem with that.
As long as we are as successful as we can be with that – and we get more of them right than we get wrong.