Norwich City: Lee Dunn on transfers, strategy and background

A first summer transfer window engineered by sporting director, Ben Knapper, and head coach, Johannes Hoff Thorup contained everything from a high volume of incomings to missed flights, Championship opening day no shows, and a late transfer request.

Even after the window had closed, Norwich’s move for free agent, Emi Marcondes, due to a growing number of injuries in attacking areas, underlined the work never stops.

Underpinning the drama was the painstaking approach overseen by head of recruitment, Lee Dunn, and a growing department of specialists from Colney to all corners of the globe.

Dunn sat down recently to reflect on the most recent window, the club’s recruitment fundamentals and his own personal football journey.

How would you assess the summer window?

LD: The proof will be in the pudding. I think when we reflect some of the key objectives of the window we met. We wanted to reduce the age of the squad, we filled key areas, with the likes of Callum Doyle, Jose Cordoba and Ben Chrisene, in particular, in that first part of the window.

That was the work we knew we had to do. I think we did that pretty quickly. And then, of course, you're not necessarily in control of the work thereafter. That has to be very fluid and agile.

For example, when we're having to try and replace a player like Gabby (Sara), we were very clear about how we were going to do that. And of course, some players might have moved before we could actually action that, so you have to pivot and reassess.

We also have to juggle homegrown and qualifying requirements when we look at new players. If you hit the post with one, it can have a knock on effect in a lot of ways for other positions as well.

But we were very clear what we wanted to do in the event that certain players left the building. Like I said, the proof will be in the pudding. We can look back in a positive way on how we navigated that window, especially when you factor in I only met Johannes, I think, end of June. You're having to understand what he needs in his game model.

To be fair, we did a lot of work on that, and spent a lot of time on that to understand the demands of the positions. It was a fairly busy three months. But, no, I think we were prepared, and you have to then go and execute it.

We could see the influence of Johannes perhaps in a focus on Danish players he knew previously. How difficult is it from a recruitment perspective to overlap your work with the requirements of different head coaches, and maybe changes in game model?

LD: I actually see it as a strength, because I think during my time in football, and Norwich City, we've worked with many different coaches, different game models, different methodologies. From a learning experience, that's such a rich environment to be in.

I feel quite privileged to have had that exposure to maybe a more pragmatic Chris Hughton, but you learn a hell of a lot there, and then obviously the various managers that we've worked with since.

The department as a whole have a lot of experience working with different managers, but the scouting and recruitment work needs to be underpinned with essentially watching a lot of players, having a strong knowledge of the market and being really agile in those moments, because you have to be prepared to potentially pivot and go in a different direction with the type of player you bring to the club.

We have to scout all positions and all profiles all the time, and then the focus on the window you are in and the specific needs obviously dictates the direction we're going. But we need to be agile.

Probably one of the biggest things for me in the summer with Johannes coming in is understanding the game model really quickly, and understanding the positional needs and requirements and demands of that as well.

We spent a lot of time, both subjectively and objectively, getting to grips with that pretty quickly, to know the types of profiles we need to bring in.

Norwich City academy graduate Andrew Omobamidele made a Premier League move to Nottingham Forest (Image: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd)

What are the recruitment fundamentals for Norwich City, and can you give us a sense of the structure, including the academy recruitment dimension?

LD: One of the biggest things is to look for alignment. It needs to fit into the club strategy, and it needs to be aligned throughout all the phases of the club.

If you were to paint the ideal Norwich City player now, I think obviously technical ability is important, but the reality is also in England, particularly in the Championship but equally in the Premier League, the physical demands are just as important.

I wouldn't say we can paint a perfect Norwich City player, but the direction the club are moving in now, and to be honest have worked in the past, is we want young, hungry players that we can develop, and obviously they need to fit into the game model and our philosophy as a club.

In terms of the department structure, there's 10 of us in total full-time, and that includes emerging talent and South American scouts. I'm pretty hands on, to be fair, throughout the process. I'm not one of these people that will just wait until the very end of the process and then pick it up.

We watch a lot of games, using the data as part of that process, to try and make our jobs easier. We have a team of technical scouts, a team of positional scouts that work together on the I.D phase, and then as we progress through the assessment, and obviously the final piece in terms of the recruitment, which is signing players.

The academy recruitment is pretty joined up, to be honest, but obviously we have people that lead their areas. Jay Marshall is head of academy recruitment. When you look at the track record that we have from our academy players, Jay deserves enormous credit for that, because the likes of Johnny Rowe, Andrew (Omobamidele) and so on, there's not too many Championship clubs that are doing that work.

Jay takes care of the academy. Mariela (Nisotaki) was emerging talent but we always felt there was a little gap in between so Mariela was overseeing that group of players, if you like, but ultimately it is directed at the top by Ben, or previously Stuart (Webber), and then implementing the strategy. On paper, I oversee it all, but obviously it's a lot of work from a lot of different people.

Norwich City centre back Jose Cordoba arrived from Levski Sofia in the summer (Image: Martyn Haworth/Focus Images Ltd)

Ben has spoken previously about trying to find players with potential, but in markets where there is real value to be had. Perhaps Jose Cordoba being the prime example this past summer. How tough is that with the level of competition among clubs for good players?

LD: It's fair to say it's important. Everyone's trying to find undervalued players, aren't they? And like I said, more and more clubs are working very diligently in the market.

You're always trying to find an edge and trying to find players that are cheap, that you can hopefully develop and sell for larger profits in the future. It's important for us, and we do a lot of work around identifying markets, identifying players that fit into that.

In Jose's case, to find left footed centre backs that are athletic, that are strong, that can bring the ball out from the back, there's not many, and certainly not many affordable ones. He's a really good case.

We believe, anyway, that he's an undervalued player when we signed him, and I think he's had a positive start so far.

There's certainly competition. We can't kid ourselves. Everyone is trying to work with data. Everyone's trying to do things in a modern way, of course, so we can't kid ourselves. For good players, there will be competition.

We're pretty open and honest in our process with when we're trying to sign a player. We tell them the good and the bad, in terms of what they can expect from us, we tell them the good and the bad about themselves and where we can help them.

It's just really honest conversations. For some people, that's not for them, and for some people it is, and that's the important bit, trying to find the ones that are on board and fully committed to what you're trying to do.

We certainly don't sign every player we go for, but it's important you bring the right ones, and that's the most important aspect.

Norwich City sporting director Ben Knapper has a performance analysis background (Image: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd)

We know how important data is within what Ben is striving to do at Norwich. Both yourself and Ben started out in performance analysis. Could you talk us through your journey to Norwich?

LD: I think we have similar backgrounds, obviously at different levels. But I think we have differences as well. And, so far, I think that relationship has been really strong with Ben.

Like you said, we have similar ideologies around how a recruitment department should work, but we also have differences, and I think that's healthy as well.

I did a sports science degree with the intentions of becoming a PE teacher. I did a placement in a school and quickly changed course. I was probably part way through my university degree when I started to develop an interest in analysis. ProZone was big at the time, and that piqued my interest around technology in sport, data, video analysis.

During that time, I was fortunate my local team, Torquay, gave me a chance to balance that off with studies. It was very basic stuff, filming games, producing some clips.

But then after graduating, I went to Bristol Rovers for two years, and I was really fortunate to go into that role directly out of university, and gain invaluable experience, because you go into that pretty green thinking you know what the football industry is and it was an eye opener, but also unbelievable experience.

I actually went back to Torquay for 18 months and in the first season there we got into the play-offs, massively overachieving, and then an opportunity came to go to Everton, and that was just something I couldn't pass up at the time.

I’ve been here nearly 11 and a half years. Chris Hughton was the first manager when I arrived. I started off in post-match analysis, and then every 18 to 24 months, my role seemed to develop and led me to become a head of analysis under Alex Neil, which was an enjoyable time.

Obviously, the play-off run was fantastic, and being part of that team was a really rewarding experience and I learned a lot from Alex, his eye for detail and the way he went about things was really aligned with how I worked; quite detailed and analytical.

Then under Daniel Farke I was part of his analysis team in the first season. And then the second year, my role developed into more recruitment analysis.

I think the reasoning behind this was to try and translate some of Daniel's ideas, having worked day in, day out with him in his first year, and trying to adapt that to a scouting recruitment context as well.

So you could say it was evolutionary for me rather than a defined career path. I think my time at Everton gave me an insight into elite level recruitment department. The operation they had at the time, David Moyes was the manager and James Smith was head of technical scouting, he's now director of scouting recruitment at City Football group.

I really enjoyed the tactical side of the game and I think it was just a natural progression.

In your time at Norwich are there any deals that you look back on, and for whatever reason, reflect they did not work out?

LD: It'd be unfair for me to name individuals during my time as head of recruitment. I think what I would say is probably an area we haven't maybe done as well as we would have hoped is our January window recruitment.

You make a decision to sign a player, everybody is going into that with the faith that is going to work out, and of course, it's not the case in every scenario. What's important is when we're investing money for the mid and long term on a player, we minimize the risk on this.

In the past we've had to make some short term decisions on players, and sometimes it hasn't quite worked out. But certainly when we're investing decent money, we need to limit the risk here.

When things don't work out there's always lessons to be learned, and you try not to repeat them, because you don't get too many opportunities to repeat those mistakes.

But I think if you look anecdotally across transfers that work in the first season not many signings play more than 50pc of minutes. So the hit rate across the whole board is probably 50pc or less. That's the reality. We try and keep that as high as possible.

Finally, Lee, how has recruitment within the game changed even in your time in the post, and what do you see as the emerging trends in the future?

LD: There’s definitely been a shift. Certainly when I started to get involved in recruitment here, there's has been shift in terms of data analytics, and I think that will continue to grow. When you look at the ownership groups across football, especially in England, that has a big influence on how teams want to invest and spend the money as well.

Data analytics has been a big, big part of that change. A lot of people were using data, but really they weren't using data, it was descriptive statistics and it was just information, whereas I think teams are starting to leverage that information a lot better.

There's been a big increase in video scouting, especially post-Covid, because obviously you couldn't necessarily go to too many games, and certainly abroad, it was difficult to travel. I certainly don't miss wearing a mask on an aeroplane.

There's been a big rise in how teams use video, which is probably why I've ended up in this role, because a lot of those skill sets are really prominent now in most scouting recruitment departments.

Ultimately, it's about efficiency. Is it more efficient for somebody to go and trawl around Europe for a couple of weeks, get to 12 games, or is it watching a load of video and watching far more players in the same timeframe? It's about being efficient in our process.

And video scouting, data scouting, allows us to do that, to really narrow the pool of players we look at. But of course, live scouting will always be part of our process, and it's important to see stuff like how people apply themselves in warm ups, or their reactions to certain things.

Scouting is very important. You feel the speed of the game, you feel it completely differently to when you watch a game on video. Of course data can support it, but it will never be one or the other. It's definitely at Norwich a blend of all of those strands, if you like, of scouting, live video and data.

Our biggest focus is trying to be as efficient as possible, so when we do go to a live match, or we do go abroad, it's not like we're just going to games. It's with a purpose. It's targeted, and we try and use our budget wisely in terms of when we do that in the future.