Current Staff Ed Waldron

I like to see people being given opportunity to progress from within the club, so good luck to Ed. His experience gained under Mark Thomas will serve him well and hopefully he can deliver continuity from the progressive aspects of our much-missed recruitment model.
 
If you have access to iFollow, there's an 11 minute interview with Ed, which is worth a watch.
 
Just a shame that the board and management didn't act sooner and perhaps, have retained Mark Thomas as well. Good news is that Ed Waldron is from the data driven side of recruitment and already very much aware of the analyst data available for the current players.
With a return to the previous model and the right people on board and, given the board's readiness to spend money on players alongside the development squad, we ought to see some exciting new players coming in the summer.
A positive move at last.
 
So based on the long interview on iFollow and a quick look on linkedin, set-up is:

Head of Recruitment - Ed Waldron
Assistant Head of Recruitment - Vacant (not clear whether directly replacing Ed Waldron)
Lead Recruitment Analyst - Naythan Din-Kariuki (New in post, previously recruitment analyst at OUFC for 2.5 years)
Chief Scout - Vacant (Recruitment confirmed as ongoing)
Football Advisor - Derek Fazackerley
Consultant Data Analyst - Matt Penn (New in post, worked at Oxford City, PhD in Maths & Stats from University of Oxford)
First Team Video Scout - Andy Mitchell (New in post, worked at Shrewsbury previously)

Quite a few roles are remote/interns and/or part-time as tends to be the case with scouts/analysts. And of course there will be others who don't list themselves on linkedin.

Waldron suggests they're looking to get some more scouts recruited to rebuild that area of the department and have good coverage across the UK & Ireland as well as putting his own ideas (learnt from his career so far including time at Bordeaux) in to the processes/systems.
 
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Osei Yaw said:
I can only imagine that his input was similar to Mark Thomas.

Which was to come up with ideas and get ignored by Robinson in favour of high risk/low reward type signings like Murphy.
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That's my point of trying to understand what will be different irrespective of the manager.
A title / process without power?
 
captainox said:
So based on the long interview on iFollow and a quick look on linkedin, set-up is:

Head of Recruitment - Ed Waldron
Assistant Head of Recruitment - Vacant (not clear whether directly replacing Ed Waldron)
Lead Recruitment Analyst - Naythan Din-Kariuki (New in post, previously recruitment analyst at OUFC for 2.5 years)
Chief Scout - Vacant (Recruitment confirmed as ongoing)
Football Advisor - Derek Fazackerley
Consultant Data Analyst - Matt Penn (New in post, worked at Oxford City, PhD in Maths & Stats from University of Oxford)
First Team Video Scout - Andy Mitchell (New in post, worked at Shrewsbury previously)

Quite a few roles are remote/interns and/or part-time as tends to be the case with scouts/analysts. And of course there will be others who don't list themselves on linkedin.

Waldron suggests they're looking to get some more scouts recruited to rebuild that area of the department and have good coverage across the UK & Ireland as well as putting his own ideas (learnt from his career so far including time at Bordeaux) in to the processes/systems.
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Just reading the above, is our new Lead Recruitment Analyst the same person as the previous recruitment analyst, just with ”Lead” now added to his title?

The consultant data analyst was previously at Ox City? But a University graduate?

The video scout formerly at Shrewsbury?

Some slightly underwhelming (on paper at least) appointments amongst our new crew there I’d say.

Not meaning to be negative, it’s just I so badly want this club to succeed and get to the Championship at the very least, and all the talk has been about long recruitment processes to bring in high calibre people, and maybe these will turn out to be, but at face value I’m not getting a top 30 club vibe at the moment.

Having said that I wish them all well and hope they’ll deliver our ambition, if that remains as stated.
 
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Where on earth does it matter that this team learnt their trade... it's the skill set that matters and statistical analysis etc that's needed even if we have to use tested ideas from Bordeaux...bonne chance Ed and the team!
 
Chippy said:
Just reading the above, is our new Lead Recruitment Analyst the same person as the previous recruitment analyst, just with ”Lead” now added to his title?

The consultant data analyst was previously at Ox City? But a University graduate?

The video scout formerly at Shrewsbury?

Some slightly underwhelming (on paper at least) appointments amongst our new crew there I’d say.

Not meaning to be negative, it’s just I so badly want this club to succeed and get to the Championship at the very least, and all the talk has been about long recruitment processes to being in high calibre people, and maybe these will turn out to be, but at face value I’m not getting a top 30 club vibe at the moment.

Having said that I wish them all well and hope they’ll deliver our ambition, if that remains as stated.
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To go through your points

- Yes, so promoted to the Lead role, looking at his linkedin, he has a good background in scouting and sports groups.

- Yes to both, if you watch the ifollow video, Waldron refers to him as coming in to build some statistical models etc, a nod to his point about improving and amending existing systems for the better. He's here to deal with and present data and modelling. Clearly a data expert which when handling mass amounts of data is vital. In that role, you don't need to be some football expert but having got some exposure at Oxford City, he can step it on with us. The world of football data/analysis growing hugely and there are so many university graduates with data related degrees entering the arena. There are more and more specific courses being run by universities/colleges etc every year. The days of just sending a bloke with a notebook and pen to a game on a Tuesday night are long long gone.

- Video scout role will be remote/hybrid and probably part-time/contract work I would expect. Recent L1 experience is ideal for that role.

I think it's important that people understand that the majority of football clubs have a number of analysts/data experts/scouts that work with them very much on a consultancy/freelance type basis, sometimes via external companies, for example MRKT Insights.
Indeed previously a number of scouts were 'regional', based in different areas of the country and more likely than not, doing work for 2 or 3 clients as projects.

Lets be honest, how many analysts/scouts can you name from the top sides in the country or those sides with impressive recruitment in recent seasons? They're not the people who get the headlines and therefore their names are pretty much new to anyone. In fact, I doubt too many people on the forum would be able to name our last Chief Scout without having to give it a google and a reasonable number that can may well only be due to the recent chat about Mark Thomas leaving and the MApp link to the manager's job where the Chief Scout at the time got mentioned in a fair bit of conversation.
 
With Mark Thomas's planned departure a few months back, I hope the summer and winter recruitment windows weren't a taster of things to come now. Ideally I would've preferred an external appointment to really freshen things up but with his experience under Mark and deserved progression within the club, I hope we can continue in the spirit that we had prior to this season. No more 11th hour desperate cripple signings on outlandish wages for starters! Huge responsibility on his shoulders and the amount of work required to turn this around and steady the wages will probably be significant and take a very long time.
 
OxfordNondie said:
That's my point of trying to understand what will be different irrespective of the manager.
A title / process without power?
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I think that he suggested that it will go back to how it was ( looking 3 windows ahead)
I doubt if the head of recruitment ever has 'the power' to simply make decisions. It should be all about working together and agreeing new signings ( Manning suggested he has the final say).
McNally, Atkinson, Whyte, Sykes presumably came from the scouting team and the manager/ Directors presumably agreed with the recommendation.
I assume that is what they are going back to
 
Chippy said:
Not meaning to be negative, it’s just I so badly want this club to succeed and get to the Championship at the very least, and all the talk has been about long recruitment processes to being in high calibre people, and maybe these will turn out to be, but at face value I’m not getting a top 30 club vibe at the moment.
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If anyone genuinely, genuinely believes this club are looking for Top 30 any more (or ever were) I have a bridge to sell you.

They are lucky in that for our most recent roles, despite so many high class candidates, the best were relatively cheap and available.
 
greatunclekip said:
If he has beaten off a host of high Calibre candidates (Tim told us there were so that must be true) then he deserves it

Hopefully we can go back to where we previously excelled.
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Agree with that.
We were told that there were some very high quality candidates so have to believe he was the best person for the role.
 
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