Tottenham’s head of scouting, Rob Mackenzie, has given a detailed explanation of how Spurs’ scouting system works and has revealed the one attribute Thomas Frank prioritises while identifying transfer targets.
Tottenham’s summer window had a few hiccups, but overall, the Lilywhites did some impressive work, bringing in a mix of youth and experience through the door.
While Spurs signed some big names like Mohammed Kudus, Xavi Simons, Joao Palhinha, and Randal Kolo Muani, they also secured Mathys Tel permanently and signed young Japanese defender Kota Takai.
Injuries have meant that Spurs fans are still waiting to see Takai in action, but the impressive development of Yang Min-hyeok at Portsmouth this season proves that there is still value to be found in offbeat football markets such as Japan or South Korea.
Rob Mackenzie explains how Tottenham’s scouting and recruitment structure works under Thomas Frank
Signing players such as Spurs’ two Asian youngsters, as well as the likes of Lucas Bergvall, Pape Sarr and others before him, puts a lot of onus on scouting.
Rob Mackenzie has now explained how Tottenham go about identifying and scouting players for Thomas Frank, as well as the metrics they use to decide whether they are worth a punt.
Tottenham’s head of scouting told Training Ground Guru: “My responsibility is to manage a team of 10 people, plus myself, within first-team scouting. We’re responsible for the identification, assessment and recommendation collectively of players from U19 international age groups up to first team.
“In addition to managing those individuals and instilling the processes, my role is to support the Technical Director, Johan Lange (now joint Sporting Director), and the Head Coach Thomas Frank and his staff when we start initiating discussions around what’s required within our own squad, here and now but also in the future.
“And then, in the case of those meetings and discussions, bringing to life the stories and cases of players that we as a department position to be the most appealing. We have three people based abroad, within their respective countries – Joao Ferreira (Portugal), Giuseppe Di Credico (Italy) and Max Legath (Germany). They’re responsible for their own competition predominantly, whilst also scouting other competitions that we distribute between the group.
“Being able to travel anywhere to watch football is arguably, from a logistical perspective, as easy as it’s ever been, so we actually prioritise the individual over the location. Giuseppe and Max came through a process that we ran about 15 months ago – yourselves at Training Ground Guru helped bring interest and exposure to the advert that we ran then – and the priority is not necessarily on where they’re based.
“And we have Seb Taghizadek, who fulfils a similar role, and Alex Fraser, our Chief Scout, who are both based in the UK. We have those five doing predominantly hands-on-scouting, in addition to myself. I’m out on the road, scouting players live, because if I’m to be the mouthpiece of the department, I have to have a very strong opinion myself and I have to be convinced about the players that we’re suggesting being the right ones.
“And then we have a team of Recruitment Analysts who are more hybrid in their skillset. They very much assist with the live scouting, video scouting, but they’re also responsible for player profiling and bringing player stories to life internally for us within the department.
“And then we have somebody who can piece it all together in terms of assisting with the travel logistics, meeting logistics – whenever we invite people over it’s so vitally important to ensure that first impressions are as good as they possibly can be – Jamie Bryan, our Scouting Co-ordinator, who does a fantastic role in that for us.
“He’s based at the training ground. And then we also have Joe Bucknall as our Lead Scouting Insights Analyst and his role is assisting us exclusively within the scouting department with regards to data and objective insight.
And he does a fantastic job in ensuring that across both identification and assessment, we have as much of a comprehensive understanding of what a player is currently doing, what they’re potentially capable of doing and that’s something that we’re able to understand longitudinally throughout their career. That level of contribution to the departments is really invaluable.”
Thomas Frank puts strong emphasis on players’ character
Thomas Frank famously has a no d**kheads policy (CBS Sports), and Mackenzie has now revealed that a lot of work goes into researching the character of the club’s transfer targets.
He admitted that it can be tricky to parse as individual biases may come into the assessment of a player’s personality.
The 40-year-old added: “Thomas Frank places a very strong emphasis on character and people. One of his things, that I know he’s talked about publicly, is being confident but humble, having discipline, and simple things such as being on time, being present.
“So whenever we’re trying to gauge the potential character personality of any player, you have to acknowledge that we have some real established lines here.
“Everybody’s points of reference as human beings are different. It’s not that you can’t necessarily find enough people to speak to who have worked with them, who’ve played with them, but what I find as a human being find annoying, frustrating, unacceptable, you might be sat there saying, ‘I don’t have a problem with any of those things’.”