Today David Ornstein of The Athletic broke the news that: ‘Tottenham Hotspur have moved to strengthen their backroom operation before the new season by appointing Gretar Steinsson to a new role as performance director’.
As the majority of Spurs fans are likely unfamiliar with Steinsson, here is a crash course regarding the role he will be filling and his track record in the game.
Gretar Steinsson will reportedly be appointed as a Performance Director at Tottenham, with Fabio Paratici looking to overhaul the scouting and youth recruitment at Spurs this summer. Steinsson will essentially operate as Fabio’s ‘Number 2’ during his tenure in North London.
Gretar Steinsson was an Icelandic international in his playing days, having made 46 caps for his national team as a right back (TransferMarkt).
During his club career, he most notably played for Bolton Wanderers from 2007 to 2012 before enjoying one last season of professional football with Kayserispor. After the 2012/13 season came to a conclusion Steinsson decided to hang up the boots on his playing career.
However, Steinsson didn’t take any time off and immediately commenced in a backroom staff role at AZ Alkmaar the following season (TransferMarkt).
After getting a year’s worth of experience Steinsson set off to the North West of England to occupy the Technical Director role for Fleetwood town. After 3 years working for Fleetwood Gretar decided it was time to take the next step in his career as he accepted a scouting job for Everton.
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It didn’t take long for Steinsson to impress for the Toffees because after 10 months working as a Scout for the Merseyside club he was promoted to the club’s head of recruitment.
Obviously, Everton have made some very questionable signings in recent years so let’s dissect Gretar Steinsson’s time at Everton and why this may be an underrated appointment from Fabio Paratici.
For Steinsson’s first summer in charge of Everton’s recruitment, he was paired with four-time Champions League-winning manager Carlo Ancelotti.
Everton were winning plaudits for their recruitment that summer after they had a brilliant start to the season, but who were these signings?
That summer Steinsson delivered the signing of Norwich Starlet Ben Godfrey (£24.75 million), highly touted Napoli midfielder Allan (£21.24 million), Watford midfielder Abdoulaye Doucoure (£19.8 million) and footballing Superstar James Rodriguez on a free transfer. They also completed the loan signings of Swedish keeper Robin Olsen and Norwegian striker Joshua King (all prices according to Transfermarkt.com).
After what was regarded as a successful first season of recruitment from Gretar Steinsson, a spanner was thrown in the works as Ancelotti quickly departed the club to join Spanish giants Real Madrid, quickly resetting Everton’s long-term plan.
Former Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez was appointed as the replacement boss, which obviously caused some controversy, adding more pressure onto the job. Simply put, they had to get it right.
Unfortunately, thanks to reckless spending in previous windows by Everton they had minimal money to work with due to Financial Fair Play regulations (LiverpoolEcho).
As such the only player of any note Everton could bring in was English winger Demarai Gray for £1.8 million (TransferMarkt) – alongside Mykolenko and Patterson.
The core of Everton quickly rotted behind the scenes this season amidst a relegation battle, with Steinsson following Director of Football Marcel Brands out the Merseyside doors in December 2021.
Personally, I believe Steinsson will be a great appointment for Spurs, not only to lower the workload for Fabio Paratici, but also to allow the club to work on numerous signings at once as Tottenham enter one of the biggest summers in their illustrious history.
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