Brian Tinnion has shared the process of recruiting new signings for Bristol City as works on identifying targets ahead of the January transfer window.
The Robins legend was handed a promotion earlier this month and will take a hands-on approach in recruiting players for the senior side as well as continuing his work alongside the City academy and helping forge a pathway into Nigel Pearson's squad.
City have been counting the costs from their previous recruitment history having spent large sums of money and handed out lucrative contracts in the hope of achieving promotion - particularly in the 2019/20 season when around £28million was spent on new signings.
The unprecedented pandemic and collapse of the transfer market has proved particularly harmful to the club's business model of selling players for a substantial profit to reinvest in other areas of the side.
The latest financials which posted losses of £28.5million revealed that City pocketed just £1.3m through player sales. Pearson has been open in sharing the knock-on effect the previous spending spree has had on player recruitment over the last year.
City made four new signings in the summer, all on free transfers albeit a small compensation fee for Kane Wilson, while the upcoming January transfer window is likely to be another test for the recruitment team. The club will likely have to sell before bringing players through the door while the focus remains on adding at least one new central defender.
For Tinnion, it's a task that he thrives from and he's already been working tooth and nail to filter through a shortlist of scouting reports should City be able to complete and business in the New Year.
Speaking to Geoff Twentyman on BBC's Sound of the City, he said of his new position: "It excites me because I can have a real impact now on signings for the first team which is something I've looked forward to doing at some point.
"I did it for six years at Everton recruiting for them in Spain, came back and then did recruiting for the academy. It's something I've done, something that I like.
"I enjoy going out and watching players, identifying players and I think I've had a lot of experience with that. It's our job to give him (Pearson) the best tools to be successful.
"We have constant conversations, we want the best players to make Bristol City successful and know what he wants as the manager.
"We've got six full-time scouts and part-time scouts all over the country. We've got shortlists that I've been going through since I got the job so it's been a constant for the last two weeks.
"I've known Sean Gillespie, the head of technical recruitment, for a long time so we'll work really closely and it's about the group of people, it's about us working as a team and then ultimately it's about the manager wanting the players.
"You have to get a list and hopefully he likes what he sees and then we can get the best one for them. Because they're the most important.
"We've got a lot of games covered, a lot of reports it's then narrowed down to ones you can afford and where you are at the moment to be able to sign them but we're very much on it and building up the possibilities for January and summer and we'll see where we are financially to see what we can do."
Tinnion has played a major part in bringing through academy players into the first-team reckoning. The likes of Alex Scott, Zak Vyner, Antoine Semenyo, Tommy Conway and Cam Pring have all come through the academy to cement their reputations in the side.
Considering the lack of transfer budget and the talent in the youth set up, Pearson has been eager to hand opportunities to youngsters with Joe Low and Dylan Kadji the latest names to be in and around the first team.
"They'll never be any academy players in that team who aren't good enough," Tinnion added. "There might be people who get an opportunity who don't take it but they've proven over a period of time they deserve the opportunity.
"At the end of the day, all the academy players in the first team are chosen by the manager. That's a process of that player training with the first team for a period of time. If that player has trained and he's not ready and there's no one else then we'll go and recruit.
"The scouts have been to Portugal and all abroad over the last three to four weeks, we look in the Championship, League One, we look at U21 teams - the top ones the Chelsea's, Manchester City's and players like that.
"You have to have a realistic look at where you can afford to get them. We know the budget, we know where we are and how much we can pay players. We know the boundaries.
"We'd never sign a player off a laptop. You have to go and see them with your eyes.
"As you say, there's lots of lists drawn up and I will go around and watch those players along with all the other scouts and make sure we get the right players because recruitment is about making more good signings than bad signings.
"You're not going to get them all right, top clubs spend millions on players and still get them wrong but the way we are, we have to get more right than wrong."
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