Ross Wilson - His approach and system.

SHOTTSLOYAL

Well-Known Member
A profile of his system and approach from a DR interview in 2017.

Ross Wilson isn’t so much in charge of a department at Southamptonas an empire.

Their footprint may be small compared to some of their multi-billion pound EPL peers – but their fingerprints are everywhere.

And for the 34-year-old Scot in charge of a 60-strong department regarded as the best recruiter and producer in English football from academy kids to the first team the Devil is in the detail.

The strategy they apply is the same for everyone from seven-year-old-kids to their next boss. Not a stone goes unturned – but none of it is scattergun.

So it’s easy to see why he is top of Rangers' list for the Director of Football role they’ve created. Maybe easier still to see why he’s expected to stay where he is when you spend time with him.

From a 21-year-old graduate recruit taken on to look after kids’ education and welfare at Falkirk’s academy, via Watford and Huddersfield, the ex-Stirling University student’s career path has sky-rocketed him to the top of his profession in 13 years.

Now the Director of Scouting and Recruitment has given Mailsport a glimpse into what has taken Saints from administration under a decade ago to a top-six team who have sold nearly £200m worth of talent, as well as two top managers, and will carry them to Wembley in a week’s time to face Manchester United.

“None of it has happened by accident,” insisted Wilson, opening his laptop. The fact our choice of managers have been a success isn’t a fluke. Nor is the fact we improved our league position for seven years running.

“We have 60 staff, we have a structure and a strategy, but we constantly review the network on a three-year horizon, People ask ‘do you scout, do you video scout, data scout, are you stats based?’ It’s all of it, integrated into one.

“We have people at games, we have people analysing video and data, and it’s my job to make all of that feed in and fit in.

“But maybe the most important thing we’ve done is define our footprint. We don’t just go ‘There’s a kid in Uruguay, oh and there’s one in Mexico, and by the way, what about that one in France?’ That’s not a strategy.”

Wilson then outlines what is. One of his staff is sifting through video of their Under-14 academy side’s game from the previous night.

Others are in and out of their “Black Box”, their analysis suite. For two hours, his phone rings and his email inbox pings incessantly. He ignores it all and opens a strategy document on screen, eye-popping in its detail.

Their philosophy of “pinning down the south” in the youth market looks like an onslaught of military precision from the coas to red and black lines on a map as far afield as Oxford and High Wycombe and into South Wales.
The rules are kids can only be signed from within 60 minutes’ drive to a certain age, then 90 minutes drive beyond that.

“Every player we sign from seven up to 12, comes from within that red line,” he says, working his way across the map. But we have another academy in Bath which doubled our catchment area.

“Other clubs can’t do it, because they’re then encroaching on another Category One club’s territory.

And the black line is everything after 12. We could sign a player that age from Newcastle but he has to come full time and go to school here so we don’t do that. We only do that from 16 up.

“We work to our in-distance footprint. We call it ‘pinning down the south’. Every player in any of 30-odd leagues, we know about them and we’ll sign the best.

“Then we look nationally at 16 and up. We don’t want to sign Birmingham City’s best nine-year-old, say, but we might want to sign their best 16-year-old.

“Stage Two, we have a full-time scouting presence in half a dozen European countries and keep an eye on eastern Europe.”

Not that it’s all his own work. Wilson added: "There have been different people contribute to all the development during the club's recent history, but one constant is Les Reed.

"We have a brilliant relationship, talking multiple times a day. He deserves enormous credit for the success of the academy, development of everything football wise at Staplewood and our scouting ethos."

The beauty of the system is its sustainability through managerial change – and also its use in facilitating that change.

Wilson added: “Because we work to a structure, our manager is ususally British or European – Mauricio Pochettino may be Argentine but he came from Spanish football.They know the system so there’s no friction. No manager has wanted to change the scouting strategy.

“It’s not a fluke that our guys have been successful and usually they’re from the same footprint.

“You have to think ahead. Who’s coming through from the academy and where are they going to go in the squad? What we need to do to protect players contractually in the first-team squad.

“You prepare for when they have to go – what their value is and who’s going to replace them. And the same with managers.”

The nuts and bolts of the system are mind-blowing. The detailed reporting of scouts, the creation of target lists which change daily.

The level of detail? The profile of a recently-signed player comes up on screen. All the obvious stuff is there as well as the jobs he held as a kid, his social media preferences, video footage of an ankle injury he had six years ago, all at the click of a mouse.

Not just for the big hitters, though. There’s a teenage keeper being watched in Eastern Europe, he gets the same treatment.

“Look at this guy,” says Wilson, pulling up another file. It’s a Championship player they’ve been watching and the reports vary wildly. But there are 53 of them, all going towards whether he makes it on to the list of five targets in any given position.”

So each of the scouts has a moving list. If I say ‘I need a left back’, it’s compiled every day, the list evolves.”

Wilson’s job isn’t to scout or ID players – it’s to create best practice and strategy.

He added: “Even in our work placement programme we want to to be football’s Oxford or Cambridge so the best students gravitate here, so we’re swamped with the best applicants every year. They work in analysis, sports science, a little bit of medicine.

“We’re looking for the best, because managers come and go – we can’t.”
 
I like this.

The world is now awash with information, you need to have a methodical approach to how to best improve your decision making from it or you will be left behind.

Delighted that Rangers are pushing to the front.
 
A profile of his system and approach from a DR interview in 2017.

Ross Wilson isn’t so much in charge of a department at Southamptonas an empire.

Their footprint may be small compared to some of their multi-billion pound EPL peers – but their fingerprints are everywhere.

And for the 34-year-old Scot in charge of a 60-strong department regarded as the best recruiter and producer in English football from academy kids to the first team the Devil is in the detail.

The strategy they apply is the same for everyone from seven-year-old-kids to their next boss. Not a stone goes unturned – but none of it is scattergun.

So it’s easy to see why he is top of Rangers' list for the Director of Football role they’ve created. Maybe easier still to see why he’s expected to stay where he is when you spend time with him.

From a 21-year-old graduate recruit taken on to look after kids’ education and welfare at Falkirk’s academy, via Watford and Huddersfield, the ex-Stirling University student’s career path has sky-rocketed him to the top of his profession in 13 years.

Now the Director of Scouting and Recruitment has given Mailsport a glimpse into what has taken Saints from administration under a decade ago to a top-six team who have sold nearly £200m worth of talent, as well as two top managers, and will carry them to Wembley in a week’s time to face Manchester United.

“None of it has happened by accident,” insisted Wilson, opening his laptop. The fact our choice of managers have been a success isn’t a fluke. Nor is the fact we improved our league position for seven years running.

“We have 60 staff, we have a structure and a strategy, but we constantly review the network on a three-year horizon, People ask ‘do you scout, do you video scout, data scout, are you stats based?’ It’s all of it, integrated into one.

“We have people at games, we have people analysing video and data, and it’s my job to make all of that feed in and fit in.

“But maybe the most important thing we’ve done is define our footprint. We don’t just go ‘There’s a kid in Uruguay, oh and there’s one in Mexico, and by the way, what about that one in France?’ That’s not a strategy.”

Wilson then outlines what is. One of his staff is sifting through video of their Under-14 academy side’s game from the previous night.

Others are in and out of their “Black Box”, their analysis suite. For two hours, his phone rings and his email inbox pings incessantly. He ignores it all and opens a strategy document on screen, eye-popping in its detail.

Their philosophy of “pinning down the south” in the youth market looks like an onslaught of military precision from the coas to red and black lines on a map as far afield as Oxford and High Wycombe and into South Wales.
The rules are kids can only be signed from within 60 minutes’ drive to a certain age, then 90 minutes drive beyond that.

“Every player we sign from seven up to 12, comes from within that red line,” he says, working his way across the map. But we have another academy in Bath which doubled our catchment area.

“Other clubs can’t do it, because they’re then encroaching on another Category One club’s territory.

And the black line is everything after 12. We could sign a player that age from Newcastle but he has to come full time and go to school here so we don’t do that. We only do that from 16 up.

“We work to our in-distance footprint. We call it ‘pinning down the south’. Every player in any of 30-odd leagues, we know about them and we’ll sign the best.

“Then we look nationally at 16 and up. We don’t want to sign Birmingham City’s best nine-year-old, say, but we might want to sign their best 16-year-old.

“Stage Two, we have a full-time scouting presence in half a dozen European countries and keep an eye on eastern Europe.”

Not that it’s all his own work. Wilson added: "There have been different people contribute to all the development during the club's recent history, but one constant is Les Reed.

"We have a brilliant relationship, talking multiple times a day. He deserves enormous credit for the success of the academy, development of everything football wise at Staplewood and our scouting ethos."

The beauty of the system is its sustainability through managerial change – and also its use in facilitating that change.

Wilson added: “Because we work to a structure, our manager is ususally British or European – Mauricio Pochettino may be Argentine but he came from Spanish football.They know the system so there’s no friction. No manager has wanted to change the scouting strategy.

“It’s not a fluke that our guys have been successful and usually they’re from the same footprint.

“You have to think ahead. Who’s coming through from the academy and where are they going to go in the squad? What we need to do to protect players contractually in the first-team squad.

“You prepare for when they have to go – what their value is and who’s going to replace them. And the same with managers.”

The nuts and bolts of the system are mind-blowing. The detailed reporting of scouts, the creation of target lists which change daily.

The level of detail? The profile of a recently-signed player comes up on screen. All the obvious stuff is there as well as the jobs he held as a kid, his social media preferences, video footage of an ankle injury he had six years ago, all at the click of a mouse.

Not just for the big hitters, though. There’s a teenage keeper being watched in Eastern Europe, he gets the same treatment.

“Look at this guy,” says Wilson, pulling up another file. It’s a Championship player they’ve been watching and the reports vary wildly. But there are 53 of them, all going towards whether he makes it on to the list of five targets in any given position.”

So each of the scouts has a moving list. If I say ‘I need a left back’, it’s compiled every day, the list evolves.”

Wilson’s job isn’t to scout or ID players – it’s to create best practice and strategy.

He added: “Even in our work placement programme we want to to be football’s Oxford or Cambridge so the best students gravitate here, so we’re swamped with the best applicants every year. They work in analysis, sports science, a little bit of medicine.

“We’re looking for the best, because managers come and go – we can’t.”

Is that from The Guardian? I've read that before
 
Ross Wilson buys into a club led philosophy too. Like Mark Allen. Should be a good fit with us.
 
Seems to be meticulous and professional in his approach and that will help him build on Mark Allen's legacy.
 
People were wondering why now and not before.
I see Les Reed left to take up a position with the FA in February-perhaps that has influenced RW’ decision.
 
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