Middlesbrough’s Head of Football Kieran Scott has dropped a heavy hint regarding the impending January transfer window, insisting, “We’re ready to go.”
Speaking in an interview with BBC Tees Sport, Scott spoke about his role withing the club and answered a plethora of recruitment based questions, which inevitably included the direction of the club and the proposed transfer business.
The club conducted some astute business last January with the arrivals of Cameron Archer and Aaron Ramsey in particular proving a big success. Head of Football Scott agreed with the sentiment but also explained that he, the club and Head Coach Michael Carrick were keen to move away from a large number of loan deals, using the phrase ‘a more stable environment’ as one of the key reasons for the move away from bulk loan deals.
Scott also said that with permanent signings, ‘It is our team, it’s our players, it’s not so much a, he goes back to Aston Villa or wherever’. Also adding that by having your own players, ‘There is such a better buy into what we’re trying to achieve as a group.’
A club that has a clear direction should not need to be ‘lurching’ from one loan to another especially if the plan is executed properly, according to Scott, who described that strategy as showing signs of the ‘the thinking is not quite joined up’ at the club.
He also alluded to Boro’s previous manager-without naming him specifically-as being ‘a little bit here and now’. He was obviously referencing Chris Wilder and his frustration with the club’s recruitment policy.
January plan ‘ready to go’
Asked about the current situation at the club and any plans to recruit in January, Scott-who has also worked at Norwich City, Bournemouth and Burnley-hinted that the club are set to activate their January plans right away, saying, “Barring a couple of change of opinions in the next few days, we’re ready to go, we’re ready to sanction our plan for January.”
He added, “We were on it straight away, listen, we didn’t land everything we wanted in the summer because it was too big of a turnaround, we tried but not everything came off for us.
“So, we were working straight away, as soon as that window closed, we went to work on a couple of key positions we think we need to help.”
Pressed on whether that plan included a striker, Scott conceded, “A striker is a position you are always looking to strengthen, but I also don’t want to be disrespectful to Josh and Emannuel either who have done a really good job for us.”
Coburn development important
Josh Coburn has played a lot of games already this season, so it was not a surprise to hear Scott say that the club will be looking to strengthen. The club will have to ensure that they are careful of nurturing the progression of Coburn and taking care to manage the Richmond forward properly.
That said, Boro’s Head of Football added that any deal would have to be considered thoroughly as to not inhibit Coburn’s development. “Josh is only a young boy, he has done great for us, we all think the world of him, he is one of our own and we want to see him develop, so we are not just going to go and put anyone in his way, that’s not how we want to work, we want to protect Josh as best we can.”
Not ruling out a move, Scott did admit that goal scorers are ‘the commodity that everyone wants’ and further explained the process once the window opens adding, “We would be looking, if the right player was to come along, it would take the right player, it’s not just anyone that is going in there.”
It strengthens the already strong notion that Boro are building towards having their own group of established players and points to the plan that has been partially implemented at the club already, with the coaching team of Michael Carrick, Aaron Danks and Jonathan Woodgate a huge part of that.
Relationship with coaches leading to better deals
The coaching staff are very much a team who enjoy developing young players and Scott and his scouts are now identifying players who they know will tick the boxes of Carrick, Woodgate and co. An example of this blossoming relationship was the capture of highly touted teenage defender Rav van den Berg.
“We’ve done a really good deal for the club there (signing van den Berg) but Woody straight away when we put that in front of him, he just identified the bits that we thought he would like and it was like the easiest, quickest process to go through, there was just complete buy in straight away, and that is happening a lot more now with other positions.”
Middlesbrough fans will hope that the recruitment work that saw 12 new faces in the summer will continue in January as they edge closer to the play-off places. A couple of strong additions in January could make all the difference come the end of the season.