Tony Mowbray casts net far and wide
Sep 12 2008 By Chris Lepkowski
BORJA Valero was given the licence to thrill at the Hawthorns thanks to Tony Mowbray’s very own special agent.
The Albion boss has revealed that he has networked with several players’ agents, mainly from overseas, to the get first dibs on certain targets.
Mowbray feels that the representatives of such players are fully aware of his philosophies on football and of Albion’s financial clout.
Likewise they can point Mowbray in the direction of any appropriate players. And Albion’s record signing has been one such player to emerge from an agent’s recommendation.
Mowbray explained how Albion came to spend £4.7million on the Spaniard, who arrived from Real Mallorca last month.
“I’m not a scout, but I talk to my own scouts about player identification,” said Mowbray.
“Respect is important. I look at how soft a player’s feet are, their appreciation of the ball, their instinct and ability to work. What do you want for your team? What part of the team do you need to build?
“I have a picture in my mind of how a team will function.
“Sometimes agents put players to you – if you develop relationships with certain people in that industry then they tend to know your philosophies, how you play, how you want the whole team to play
“For instance Borja Valero came to me because, six or seven months ago, a DVD dropped in to me from an agent who had never sent me a DVD before.
“That rang a bell in my mind.
“You get hundreds of DVDs from all around the world but if an agent I know drops me a DVD for the first time then I know it might be worth watching and then the process begins of us wathcing him play, which is what we did with Mallorca’s games against Bilbao and other clubs both home and away.
“I liked the way he played, his weight of pass, his appreciation of the ball.”
Mowbray admits that the dearth of available and affordable home-grown players often means casting a net abroad.
“When I look for a centre-forward I will get 20 names thrown at me, perhaps fringe players at other Premier League clubs or decent first-team players at lower-league clubs,” added Mowbray.
“But if they don’t fit your eye then why waste the money? We search continuously and if you do that people may ask where did you get him from?
“Moving into a new division is always difficult. What I found most was the change in the costs. Purchase prices are huge, the market is different. Apparently we have 17 different nationalities – a lot of them came about because I watch a lot of football and names stick in my mind.
“We have about 10 satellite dishes which are recording football all over the world and I sit with dedicated staff and watch as much football as we can to identify as many players as we possibly can.”
