St Johnstone will expand their recruitment operation over time, according to CEO, Fran Smith.
And, in the short-term, broadening Gus MacPherson’s remit has helped to support new head coach, Simo Valakari, going into the January transfer window.
When Valakari was appointed as Craig Levein’s successor in September, Smith took the opportunity to review the football department at McDiarmid Park.
And that has meant increasing MacPherson’s portfolio.
“We’ve gone through a bit of a restructure around the football department,” Smith, who took over as chief executive a few months ago, explained.
“Gus was in an administration role – head of football operations.
“We’ve added scouting and recruitment to that to support the management team.
“We don’t have a scouting department so now Gus does a little bit of analysis on games that we watch from different areas, Wyscout and things like that.
“He will gather a list of players so if the manager is interested in someone, Gus will go and watch games and do his reports.
“He will recommend some players to the manager too.
“Over time, we will start to build a network again to support that.
“We are finalising the details on using a university in America for their analytical assessment on players.
“That would help Simo with his transfer decisions. It can help Gus if he’s looking at a player and can get their support.”
‘Clear plan’
Valakari has already picked up free agents, Bozo Mikulic and Barry Douglas, and reports in Finland suggested he missed out on signing centre-back, Ville Tikkanen, in January.
“Simo has a clear plan to strength in certain areas,” said Smith. “And the club will back him on that.
“We are preparing for the window at the moment, and looking at what players may be out of contract and leaving the club at the end of the season.
“We are looking at what else we can financially put into the playing budget to support him in January.”
Smith believes a culture change at McDiarmid is already taking effect.
“Simo and I have the same attitude,” he said.
“It’s positivity, people and a culture. It’s about building from the ground up, having confidence in someone.
“He’s a great character to have around.
“The first thing I said to him was: ‘Simo, I hope you don’t mind but I’m going to have the staff and the team eat in the same place at the same time’.
“’Yeah, no problem’.
“If I’d suggested that to previous managers, the answer would probably have been ‘no’.
“Now our office staff and players all eat in the same room.
“You can see the culture of the club coming together as one.
“Everything has been well received.
“Nicky (captain Nicky Clark) and I had a conversation about it as well.
“He was like: ‘Why not, let’s go for it’.”
It will click
Smith added: “At times it looked like the players didn’t want to come to work.
“Now they want to come to work. You can see their enthusiasm.
“They’re in on a Sunday. It’s a Monday off and that’s it.
“When I walk (along the main stand) to Gus’s office, you never used to be able to hear anything from the training ground.
“Go out now, the noise coming from there is unbelievable.
“You can hear Simo shouting and boys getting really enthusiastic about it.
“At some point, that’s got to click and we will see a run of results that go our way. We’ve only been losing game by fine margins.”
Conversation