The football doctor is in the house – and Paul Tisdale could be looking to ring the changes after being unveiled as the new head of football operations at Celtic.
There has been a gaping hole in Glasgow’s east end since the departures of head of recruitment Mark Lawwell and chief scout Joe Dudgeon last March – but the Parkhead powerbrokers have now got their man. The 51-year-old has left the dugout behind in recent years having last managed Stevenage in 2022, and will now step into the boardroom with the Scottish Premiership champions.
He has been handed the remit of identifying and developing talent up to a Champions League level through the academy set-up and recruitment moves. So, Tisdale will now be the man with the key to the Celtic coffers as he works alongside Brendan Rodgers’ to bring in talent with the January sales just around the corner. He will likely act as a middle man between the Hoops’ board and the dugout – having described his “football doctor” role to the Scouted podcast in March: “I work as what I call a football doctor.
“I go into football clubs and I try to find performance-improvement solutions using data and also my experience as a coach. I can translate very well from the boardroom to the pitch, and from the pitch to the boardroom, and also deliver CPD (continuous professional development) or coach mentoring.”
Tisdale also shares a lot of the traits of the player-trading model that has been deployed at Celtic Park successfully over the years. The club have seen likes of Matt O’Riley, Jeremie Frimpong, Jota, Kieran Tierney and Odsonne Edouard leave for big money in recent years – while still subsidising the squad with experienced heads.
Speaking about his successful stint at Exeter City, Tisdale told WFi in 2021: “At Exeter, we knew exactly what we were as a club which helped create a healthy working environment. We knew that it was a priority for us to develop our own players from the academy, sign talent on a comprise as I’ve discussed or older professionals at the latter end of their career to come in and set standards for the younger pros.”
The Englishman is also keen on a bargain – and has a “filtering system” to snap up the best deals. Speaking to Sky Sports during his time at St. James’ Park, he said: “What I decided was that we would have a filtering system.
“We would look at players who were of a certain age and had an objective level of quality to their game based on one or two key factors. I decided to look for players who had been sold to a bigger club before the age of 20 and then not made it at that bigger club.
“Here was a player who went to a bigger club at the age of 20 for, say, £400,000 and had not made it. Now, two years later, he is not going to be a bad player all of a sudden just because he has not played much football. But suddenly he’s worth nothing and nobody wants him. It was like stocks and shares. That is how I looked at it. This was undervalued stock.”
The £11m arrival of Arne Engles smashed the transfer record at Celtic after the £9m summer arrival of Adam Idah – but CEO Michael Nicholson and rest of the Parkhead board may breath a little easier under the Tisdale regime. He has confessed to spending the money at Exeter like it was his own with the club.: “They had been in administration before I arrived and they had no overdraft facility so they couldn’t borrow money.
“In fact, they were still in debt. You could never go to the owner for more money so you had to be incredibly strict. I spent the money like it was my own. For every one pound spent, I wanted two pounds in value.”
He also isn’t keen on wasting time – demanding during his time in the English lower league that scouts knew if a player would be interested in his club before sending them to a game: “I was talking to these scouts and I wasn’t really sure whether they were on my wavelength or not. It was hard for me to make decisions off the back of their reports and I am very clear that if you are not sure what to do then do nothing. Do not take chances on recruitment.”
And Tisdale may be playing a tune that a certain former star Tierney is looking to hear – with the incoming chief conceding he likes to utilise past relationships between players and managers. Boss Rodgers has long professed his admiration of the Arsenal star, and Tisdale told Sky in 2020: “I wanted to be either the first or last club that a player thought about. It sounds strange but it makes sense if you think about it. I wanted it to be that obvious that the player wanted to sign. I wanted that to become our unique selling point.”
But one tactic deployed by Tisdale during his management career may not be to the liking of Rodgers. The Irishman has stuck to his guns over Celtic’s game plan – but the new chief has allowed signings to shift his matchday philosophy: “I don’t always insist on a preferred style of play. There are only so many clubs that have the financial luxury of being able to cherry-pick the best players for their system. Instead you must find a system to suit the players.”
There is little doubt the doctor will be looking to diagnose some of the symptoms he feels have been going wrong at Celtic. But how quickly – if ever – will they change?