The team behind the team!

Dom Hyam’s magnificent man-of-the-match display in the 2-0 win away to Norwich City at the weekend underlined the importance of good recruitment.

The defender, who has been outstanding all season, was one of six summer signings brought to the club by a Recruitment Department which was just in its infancy following the arrivals of new head coach Jon Dahl Tomasson and Director of Football Gregg Broughton.

Now, under the stewardship of Gus Williams, the department has grown significantly over recent weeks and months, with a number of key additions to the talented backroom team, who will be tasked with finding further footballing gems going forward.

Gus, who joined Rovers as Head of Player Recruitment in late July, said: “The last three months has been about building up your knowledge base and understanding of the playing pool that’s out there, across the UK and beyond, because that’s the investment that’s been made in the Recruitment Department.

“The investment in staff has been fundamental really, because if we’re recruiting the best on the pitch, then you need to recruit the best off the pitch as well. It’s been a long and robust process, but we now feel that we’ve got a more bona fide and structured department, which is what the club needed.

“We’ve got a Head of European Scouting, Head of UK Scouting, Head of Data Scouting and a Head of Emerging Talent, and all of those particular individuals will be complementing each other and working collaboratively to ensure that we do our very best to get the right players for the right positions into the club.

“It’s also got to be the right club for them as well, because they’re coming in wanting to improve and believing that they’re going to go on a good journey with us, and, as it stands, that has been quite fruitful for all of the guys who came in in the summer.

“Being third in the league at the halfway point in the season is a good indicator that the dynamics are working well within the squad, both on and off the pitch.”

Meet the team …

Luke Griffin – Head of European Scouting

About: Luke joined Rovers in October from Scottish side Hibernian, where he had worked for just over a year, having previously worked in scouting at his hometown club, Cheltenham Town, whilst studying Economics and Politics at university. His first experiences in football came as a freelance consultant and as a regional scout for AFC Fylde.

He said: “The role is obviously focusing on the European market, which is something the club hasn’t focused on too much in the past. When you’re very UK-based, you’re competing in a small pond with everyone else for the same players, so by expanding our horizons into Europe we can find better value, more options and players that others may not know about, and that’s how you progress as a club. We’re a one-man department at the moment, but it’s something that we’re looking to build up over time.”

Lewis Evans – Head of Data Scouting

About: After completing his Masters at Swansea University last year, Lewis had the opportunity to do an internship at Swansea City Football Club, working on different projects and within the recruitment department, before being offered a full-time position as a recruitment analyst. He joined Rovers in October.

He said: “I basically use data to try and identify players that we haven’t been able to look at due to resources and also use data to back up our opinions on players. We will put presentations together for the management team and for the Board, and use the data to show that the underlying numbers agree with our opinions. Data is only going to keep growing and growing in football. The problem in the past was we didn’t have anyone capturing or collecting it, whereas now that data is being collected and it’s there to be used to our advantage.”

Tom Sutton – Head of UK Scouting

About: A local lad, Tom first started working for Rovers on work experience 10 years ago, before returning on a full-time basis this summer. In between, he held a part-time position at Stoke City for three years, which later led to a permanent scouting position, which he also held for three years. He then moved to Oxford United, working as a senior scout for three years, before he returned to Rovers in June, with 10 years of scouting experience under his belt.

He said: “I’ve been here for six months now and it’s been really good. The summer window was chaos at points, due to the changes in the department, but it’s great to be part of the club that I grew up supporting. We’ve been changing our structures and implementing different processes to adapt to how we want to work as a team and we’ve been bringing in more part-time scouts, dotted around the country, so we’ve gone from the summer where at one point it was just myself and Gregg (Broughton), to now having eight part-time scouts, three leads, a Head of Recruitment, a Head of Emerging Talent and two data consultants. So it’s been a big change, but a really positive change. Every club is shopping in the same window, we’re all looking at the same players, there’s always 20 scouts at every game and we’re all seeing the same thing, so it’s about being as quick as you can to make those decisions on players, but getting as much of a holistic view and as many eyes on as we can do in as short amount of time, then hopefully we’re first to pick up the players we want.”     

Paul Aladejare – Head of Emerging Talent

About: Paul has 13 years scouting experience and will start his role with the club in January. He first started as a voluntary scout at Dagenham & Redbridge, before going to Reading and then Crystal Palace. His big break arrived with Leicester City, where he focused on the London area and was instrumental in identifying Calvin Bassey, who now plays for Ajax. He then became Regional Coordinator for South East England, before moving to Brighton. He was appointed Head of Academy Recruitment at Barnet, before joining Arsenal, where he has worked for the last two years as a Regional Scout Coordinator.

He said: “The opportunity to come to a club like Blackburn Rovers, which has a clear pathway from its Category One Academy, is absolutely amazing. There’s so much talent out there, some players just need an opportunity and hopefully I can provide them with that. My role is to identify that emerging talent, which starts from Under-16s and goes up to Under-21s, and that could be players who are already playing first team football in League One, League Two or the lower leagues, who I believe could potentially play in our first team and propel the club forward. We’ve got an amazing project here – it’s very rare that you find 17, 18 and 19-year-olds playing regular first team football – and people need to know about it. The ultimate aim isn’t to become an Academy footballer, it’s to become a professional footballer, so this is a great and exciting environment to be in.”

Michael Cribley – Head of Academy Recruitment

About: Michael’s first footsteps into football were with Wigan Athletic, whilst he was still at university, at the age of 21. He started off coaching, which then led to developing the pre-Academy and Development Centre, prior to being offered a role at Rovers as Lead Foundation Phase Coach. After six years at the club, Michael left to take up a recruitment role at Everton, where he worked for six-and-a-half years, before returning to Rovers as in November 2021.

He said: “I’m an ambitious person, so to be Head of Academy Recruitment was an opportunity I couldn’t turn down and having the knowledge of working here previously and how much emphasis there is on the Academy to develop players, I knew that I’d get the support and the backing to bring players in to hopefully facilitate the first team squad. The biggest sell is the pathway through to the first team. It helps massively when you’re talking to prospective players who you’re trying to bring to the club, when you mention that there’s a 17-year-old, an 18-year-old and a 19-year-old all playing games for the first team. All clubs say they have a pathway, but they don’t really have anything to back it up, but it’s an easier sell at Blackburn Rovers. We try to ensure that we have a strong emphasis and a strong network around Lancashire, so we’ve recruited some scouts locally and we’ve increased the number of players from the Lancashire area, but we’re looking for the best, so you do need to branch out across the North West. We’ve got 15 scouts at the moment, but we’re currently recruiting another eight, which will enable us to increase our scouting network and our coverage of grassroots and watching other Academies.”  

Hannah Roberts – Head of Data (Consultant)

About: Hannah, who has an Economics and Statistics background, started working in football eight years ago as a data scientist at Everton’s Academy, where she worked for two years. In order to progress within the industry, she became a freelance contractor and has since worked for the Premier League and the Belgian FA, prior to starting her consultancy role with Rovers two years ago.

She said: “My work spans the Academy, Sports Science, Analysis and Recruitment departments, supporting staff with their data and technology strategies, as well as implementation and training needs, so that they can improve their skills and then they can drive their departments forward. The main remit is to help each department make better use of data and information. Whether that’s by helping them to understand how to collate all the information that they’ve got from many different sources, so in terms of Recruitment we will have data about players coming from up to 10 different sources and one of the key challenges is how do you look at all that information in a simple way, so that it can be communicated effectively across the department and so the Board can look at it within the click of a button and see just the level of detail they want to see, which would allow them to ask informed questions of the Head of Recruitment, who can then find that information, but tailored to the process that he wants to follow. So my role there is to build and develop some software that can help them do that, but also develop an underlying technological infrastructure that makes all that easier. It’s about using technology to take away some of the manual tasks, so that it gives the department more time to be thinking and talking about players.” 

Andy Watson – Data Recruitment Consultant

About: Blackburn born and bred, Andy has been a Rovers fan since a young age and worked in teaching and coaching, before pursuing his passion for data and sport. He has been working independently on data in football over the past four or five years, growing a large social media following, which led to him being offered a part-time position at the club, working one day a week alongside Lewis (Head of Data Scouting) and Hannah (Head of Data) to supplement their work with his own experience and expertise in data recruitment.

He said: “The club are trying to put together a system in which we can have an overarching view of interesting players from all over the world that might be able to help the team to improve. My role, and the role of the data team, is to make sure that we’re picking up on all of the players that might be of interest and assessing them against our current group. It’s about looking at specific players who fit specific profiles, because we know the style of football we want to play. The aim is to leave no stone unturned in terms of casting our net and making sure that we’re picking up all interesting players across all age groups in every market we’re able to buy from. It’s an exciting time for the club and whilst my role is only one day a week, the contribution that I can make is hopefully massively worthwhile, as was the case in the summer with the help I provided in identifying and profiling Dom Hyam, who has really hit the ground running for us.”