Rangers have made two hires from Everton ahead of the summer transfer window, including Kevin Thelwell.
Rangers sporting director Kevin Thelwell is shocked that the club have been able to pull off a key hire from Everton.
The former director of football at the Premier League club has officially started work at Ibrox this week, but was heavily involved in the hiring process of Rangers’ new manager. That ended this week as Russell Martin was named head coach on a three year deal with pre season beginning later this month.
Nils Koppen has left as technical director and replacing him is Dan Purdy, who was working with Thelwell at Everton. He was the club’s head of recruitment, having previously worked in scouting and operations. Thelwell is shocked that he managed to get Purdy into Rangers for a big role as he thanked his ex club for their help in letting him help the Light Blues identify a gaffer.
Read More
Kevin Thelwell on Everton surprise at Rangers
He told Rangers TV on the transfer guru: “First and foremost, I'd like to place on record our deepest thanks to Nils for the work that he's done previously and also the way in which he's supporting us still. Clearly, the Technical Director role is an important one and that's why we recruited Dan Purdy to the role.
“I didn't actually believe that Dan would be available to us because once he decided that he was going to leave Everton there was a lot of interest in him. But I'm delighted that we've been able to secure him. He's going to be completely focused on recruitment across all of our teams and I'm sure he's going to do an excellent job. We know what the job is. The job is that we need to win and we need to win today. There's no doubt about that.
“So, of course, if you want to win today you have to get some balance in the playing group and the playing squad that you put together. But it's not just about winning today, it's also about winning tomorrow. It's about sustaining success. If you want to do that, you have to recruit young, hungry players that are developed within the football club and you also need to develop an appropriate trading plan. Every good football club needs to have the ability to develop players, sell for profit, return on investment, etc.
Rangers transfer expectations under Kevin Thelwell and co
“That helps the team to not only win today when those boys are playing but then also the reinvestment of those finances back into the team. So, it's going to be a balance is probably the key word from my perspective. I understand that it can't be too young a team but neither can it be too old. We need to find a way of doing a number of things all in one space. So, that's what we'll be trying to do. We understand what the job is and what we need to do, which is to win. But we also need to know that we need to make sure we sustain that.”
Thelwell added: “I should probably say that I'm very grateful to Everton Football Club for allowing me some time to play a part in the initial process. So, Patrick Stewart and I have been working very closely together to make sure that the process was as thorough and as diligent and as stringent as it possibly could be. Now we're at the point where we've been able to appoint Russell and we're very, very pleased with the outcome.
“First week's been great. It's been very busy, as you would imagine, lots of work to do, lots of opportunities to visit Ibrox and visit the training facility, get to start talking to people. Obviously, appointment of a new head coach, so we've had a bit going on, but it's nice to at last get my feet underneath the table and very much looking forward to working forwards.”
Continue Reading