The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Dalglish backs role of director of football
Kenny Dalglish believes directors of football can prove invaluable to the modern-day manager as Rangers bid to implement the system.
Rangers have been experiencing frustration in their attempt to appoint their first-choice candidates – understood to be Southampton’s head of recruitment and scouting, Ross Wilson, and Portuguese coach Pedro Caixinha – but have been clear about their preferred structure.
Dalglish has known both sides, having been employed as director of football at Blackburn and Celtic and worked with one during his second spell as Liverpool manager.
And he feels British football has been slow to embrace an efficient method of working.
“It’s much-maligned here but I think it’s much-maligned because people don’t really understand what it is.
“As long as the lines of demarcation are perfectly clear: if you’re the director of football and I’m the manager, you will do the negotiations for players or transfers, then I don’t need to have anything to do with it.
“This is just one scenario, it’s not necessarily the same for everybody, maybe the manager wants to negotiate for transfers. “The manager will always pick the team, should always pick the team.”
“He will train and coach them, he will also decide which players come in and which players go out.”
Dalglish became one of British football’s first directors of football after leading Blackburn to the title in 1995, and took on the role again at Celtic Park as John Barnes began a brief and difficult spell as manager.