New Hibs director of football Brian McDermott has vowed to help find top stars for the Easter Road club after revealing his secret role in Ange Postecoglou’s Celtic revolution.
The widely experienced former Reading and Leeds United boss was unveiled at HTC yesterday and takes on a huge remit overseeing the entire football department for first team, women and youth academy. But it’s in recruitment that supporters will most heavily judge the 62-year-old who has spent the seven years since leaving his last managerial post in a range of scouting roles most notably for Arsenal but also for Celtic.
McDermott revealed he’d cast his eyes over the likes of Kyogo Furuhashi, Reo Hatate and Daizen Maeda before the Hoops rubber-stamped Postecoglou’s targets. Now he’s looking to have a similar hit rate at Hibs as he casts his net world wide. He said: "I've scouted in this country many, many times. I've scouted at Hibs, I've watched Hibs-Hearts games.
"I did a lot of video scouting, after Covid. I was at Arsenal for a long time, looking at players all over the world.
"I scouted at Celtic - I did it quietly - and all the players you see playing for them now, I watched. There's some good players they didn't get, that they didn't manage to quite get over the line, as well.
"I know this market really well, I know the country, and I know how it all works in this country as far as scouting is concerned.
“For me the most important thing is Hibs. Let’s try to bring the best players here that we can. They’ll do their stuff at any given time and then we’ll see what happens. I’m just excited to be here, I’m ready to go.
"To do that bit at Celtic was important to me. I was scouting everywhere, that was my job at Arsenal, literally! It was to filter out all the players in the world, to find the best we could.
“We did it in Scotland as well and I still have relationships with the scouts I used to work with.
"What we have to do is make sure that we go to the manager with our targets and say this is what we've got, these are the different options, and we'll talk through it all. That's the most important thing.
"Recruitment is so important. I've recruited well as a manager, and I've recruited not so well. And when you don't recruit so well, you don't do so well so it's an important stage of the process we're in and we're just trying to add to the good players we already have here."
In a wide-ranging CV from south of the border McDermott is probably best remembered for guiding Reading into the Premier League as champions in 2012 - two-and-a-half years after replacing Brendan Rodgers as boss.
He’s also scouted for the Royals and managed their U19s and reserves as well as being head scout.
The top job at Leeds and a chief scout role at Arsenal followed meaning the Londoner brings a wealth of experience to the role which will also see him work closely with head of academy Steve Kean.
Former head of recruitment Ian Gordon will continue to work with the scouting team but will take on a broader remit as executive director.
And McDermott said: “I looked at the staff and I already knew the manager, I've met Ian [Gordon] and Ben [Kensell] and I know the way the club are recruiting and I gravitated towards that in a recruitment sense. - I can chat about players all day and it's what I love to do.
"You look at the whole club - Steve Kean was at Reading with me a long time ago, and the important thing is that I know the people at the club and for me, football clubs are about people.”
Former Celtic chief scout Nick Hammond was director of football at Reading during McDermott’s spell as head scout he reckons he learned from one of the best. He said: “Nick was about the club, whatever was best. Nick did all the contracts there.
“I’m very lucky in that Ben Kensell does the contracts here and he is top drawer. I’ll make my suggestions as to how that contact looks and he’ll then go and do that.
“So it all works, everyone knows their role and what it looks like. Nick was a guy who was willing to graft. Your manager, your director of football and your chief executive have to all be aligned.
“Everyone wants this football club to do really well, that’s it, nothing else matters. And it’s very, very simple.
“There’s five games left then we have the summer. We’re trying to build. The processes are in place and I know how good the processes are here.
“It’s about trying to create something special. It’s not easy but it’s doable.”
READ NEXT:
