I see people refer to the scouting team all the time. They can't magic players out of no where and can't control what we do with any reports they put in or recommendations they make. They can't control whether clubs would be wanting to sell or if players want to leave. I'm sure we've got a wealth of information about players from all over the world but getting everything into the right place will be much harder than us fans give it credit. It isn't football manager where the scouting team just have a little hub and we can sort players by rating and stats and just submit a bit.
People act like every else's scouting team are totally on it and bringing up gems left, right and centre and that isn't the case either. We sign younger players that we've spotted just like other big clubs but we operate at a level where we can't constantly take punts on players like a mid table or lower team can. We need more established and consistent talent. We obviously watch players and its probably where a lot of links coming from, people getting wind that x or y player is part of whatever scouting we've done. I assume we will monitor a lot of players, so a lot of links may well not be just made up but more that we have kept some kind of eye of the player, someone gets to know that and so a story comes out. Scouring players doesn't automatically mean we will be bidding for them though.
What players of the likes of Robson are knocking about and available, to your knowledge?
