A FEW weeks ago, Newcastle United were showing a top European agent around St James’ Park.
A pretty major deal-maker on the Continent, this particular character has a number of international players on his books – including one highly-rated striker attracting covetous glances from Manchester United and Arsenal.
So no two-bit chancer then. Yet when United officials led him up the stairs to see the stadium in all its glory, he exhaled deeply, whipped out his camera phone and started taking pictures.
If first impressions count, Newcastle’s magnificent arena had done its job.
It is the unseen story of how United have managed to quietly grab the initiative over the Channel, charming key Continental power brokers to get in the mix for top prospects.
For while the above might seem unremarkable it is worth recalling the next time people ask about the “miraculous” unearthing of rough diamonds like Cheick Tiote and Yohan Cabaye – or query how Toon managed to snare players surely capable of sourcing themselves a Champions League club.
To set the scene, when the new scouting set-up was put in place they found Newcastle’s European and global profile had slipped.
To put it bluntly, faded memories of Alan Shearer and Tino Asprilla on Champions League nights under the lights at St James’ Park meant little to a 22-year-old Ligue 1 star.
So a process of re-education has been embarked on.
Agents – proper ones, not leeches looking for the next pay day – have been welcomed to Tyneside, met at the airport, taken on a tour around the impressive training facilities and given the time of day by the club’s key figures.
It always ends with the stadium tour, a chance to re-iterate Newcastle’s biggest selling point: huge crowds, passion and the perfect platform to take a player’s game to the next level.
In France, where only Marseille, Paris Saint Germain and Lyon boast average attendances of over 30,000, it is a serious draw. Lille, Sochaux, Lorient and Rennes – the clubs United have watched most frequently this year – rarely get combined gates to match United’s average.
A decision was taken a while ago that France offered the best value for money. Terrifically technical players on relatively low wages were a draw, but there were also established agents worth dealing with out there.
Selling clubs are usually easier to deal with, and outside the Champions League elite they are aware of their place in the food chain.
Boss Alan Pardew sets the scene: “The club had a strong process in France before I arrived. Graham Carr has a big influence in that particular country, and he’s somebody that we all trust.
“We also have some really good contacts there. Don’t underestimate how important that is. When a player comes through the door, we know what we’re getting.
“We feel that we’re getting good players, good characters. You don’t know for certain whether he’s going to be a success until ultimately he plays but you can have a good idea of what you’re getting.”
It doesn’t end there, though.
Big agents with international players are not the only ones extended Toon’s hospitality.
An agent with several teenage South American prospects was invited to their Benton base during the international break and others with players that may be ready for the Premier League in three to five years are kept in the loop too.
Newcastle’s charm offensive includes engaging with the overseas media.
French journalists and TV cameras have been granted interviews and access over the last few months.
And while the occasional Joey Barton cross-Channel chat might have caused them a few issues, major features on France’s equivalent of Match of the Day have done the trick.
United are also proving that knowledge is power in the recruitment game.
For while reputation might have been enough to persuade them to part with big cash in the past, they are now turning up to meetings with selling clubs and agents armed with reams of information.
No longer do they depend on telephone number wages to dazzle prospective recruits – Pardew can now tell a potential signing WHERE they will play, WHAT is expected of them and even HOW the club can improve their game.
For a player like Cabaye, for example, his summer move was likely to be the most important of his life.
So his agent sought reassurances that United would be a proper platform for him – that they actually knew what they were buying and where he would fit into their strategy.
Armed with stacks of information provided by a scouting team that had collectively carried out five years of background work on him, Pardew was able to soothe any worries the then Lille skipper had.
Homework, they call it within the four walls of United’s Benton training base. The stuff that goes on during the international breaks when some managers or chairmen might be sunning themselves on a beach in Dubai.
The club even insist that their aborted attempts to sign a striker as the window wound down weren’t quite as “lastminute.com” – to borrow one of Pardew’s phrases – as was portrayed.
Reams of stats and background reports on Pape Cisse and Bryan Ruiz are logged on a Newcastle laptop somewhere, and it is indicative of the painstaking work that goes on in their scouting efforts that some of their talent spotters had been watching Cabaye since 2006.
One consideration before signing him was that he had only ever figured in a 4-3-3 system at Lille – not the 4-4-1-1 or orthodox 4-4-2 that Newcastle play.
But the feeling was that he was sharp enough and good enough to adapt quickly, with the necessary character.
And thus we come to the biggest requirement for any new recruit – character.
Some managers think they can see it by staring a player in the whites of his eyes, but there is more to it than that.
Again, contacts on the ground are consulted. L’Equipe and other sports media are forensically digested by the club’s talent spotters, while even a quiet cup of coffee in a bar near the ground can be a gold mine of information if the waiter is one of those with his ear to the ground.
Taxi drivers carrying club reps to watch a game have even been known to pass on valuable nuggets in the past.
Pardew acknowledges that this intangible can be tricky.
The club went as far as meeting one player this summer, but opted against signing him because it didn’t feel right and, while the United boss understandably wouldn’t divulge the identity of the star, we understands that Gervinho did not come across well in a face-to-face meeting.
Newcastle withdrew their interest because they felt they were being used to smoke out interest from a bigger club and sure enough Arsenal’s bid landed them the player.
So a talented player went by the wayside – but the club only want those committed to the cause.
Pardew explains: “You can look at the stats of a player, and the stats can read well. The game’s in the mind, though. The mind is where the character is. There’s also that thing when adversity comes, how will he react?
“All those things come from the mentality of a player, not the physical make up of a player.
“So you have to make sure that you cover all of those bases.”
It is a process that Pardew clearly buys into. And despite those August frustrations, he continues to back the boardroom thinking.
“I have the final say (on transfers). I think that’s important for any manager,” he said. “You get the opportunity then to say, ‘I like what the team have done, I know where he’s going to fit in my team, let’s take him’.
“We will get down to something like three or four players for one position.
“I will tend to favour one of those, or maybe two of those – the financial situation might then take its course.
“It’s very rare we get down to the third choice.”
