Gardner is adopting Fergie’s formula on signings
CRAIG Gardner has promised to overhaul Birmingham City’s recruitment, an area he sees as vital to the success of the club.
The 34-year-old has stepped up to become technical director and work hand-in-hand with head coach Lee Bowyer.
Gardner sees improving the flow from the academy as important and has started the process of strengthening the club’s recruitment and scouting department.
Having been out-sourced, responsibility for identifying and bringing players to Blues has been very much brought in-house. The addition of Ryan Woods, Jordan Graham and Chuks Aneke is evidence of that.
“It is a good start but that’s not the only thing we have done,” Gardner said.
“We have restructured the whole footballing side of the club; there’s a lot of stuff going on we can speak about now.
“We have to be really creative with our recruitment. We’re still suffering from three, four, five years ago; that’s no secret. I think the fans know that.
“There’s no secret that we have got to get one or two out. There will be some more coming hopefully. We haven’t got bundles of money, I don’t think anybody has, so we have to be creative with what we do.
“This was one of the first things we looked at. Recruitment is so important, one of the most important things at the club. You have to recruit right.
“The players you are signing, you have to know everything about. The board are investing millions and millions of pounds into these players so you have to know everything about them.
“I remember when I was younger reading something about Sir Alex Ferguson. He knew every single little bit about the players he was buying so we need to do the same.
“I am not comparing us to Man United, no way. What I am saying is if we are investing millions we have to know what time he eats, where he is living, how fit is he? How old is he? What’s his previous injury? We need to know all this basic information.
“And then we need to go and watch him so there is so much information that goes into recruitment that we will be doing.”
Meanwhile, Mansfield boss Nigel Clough claims Blues’ decision to release Ryan Burke came as a surprise.
The youngster has signed a one-year deal with the League Two Stags after seeing his time at St Andrew’s come to an end.
Burke joined Blues in 2016 and made one first-team appearance, at Stoke in July 2020.
He was a regular member of Steve
Spooner’s Under-23s team and played a part in them winning the Professional Development League Two play-offs last season.
That success was a springboard to Mansfield spotting his potential and, having watched him play for the 23s last term, they offered him a deal.
“We’ve seen Ryan play several times and were impressed,” said Clough.
“He’s aggressive, certainly not frightened,
and has a lovely left foot. I’ve seen him play in the left of a back three, as a left wing-back and as an orthodox left-back. He’s acquitted himself well in each position.
“The staff at Birmingham, quite a few of them, were surprised they released him They did very well, the Birmingham 23s. They had one or two good players but he was the one we went for.”