Backroom Boys is the WOW feature in which Wolves officials explain the work which goes on behind the scenes at Molineux and Compton.  In the latest instalment Wolves chief scout Dave Bowman looks back over a hectic few months as the club targeted and recruited no fewer than nine new players for the Barclays Premier League campaign.  Dave has worked with boss Mick McCarthy and former assistant and now scout Ian Evans for 20 years - but explains here how the move into the European markets thanks to the backing of Wolves' board has been something of a new development.

 

 

I think there are many at Wolves who were delighted when the transfer window shut last week - if only to enjoy a bit of light relief!

 

There are several of us working on the scouting side who haven't had a holiday over the summer, unlike many other clubs, and throughout these last few months the phones haven't stopped ringing.

 

We've managed to bring in nine new players, which has involved a major effort from everyone concerned.

 

The one big difference to the targeting of players than in my 25 years of working with Mick (McCarthy) and Taff (Ian Evans) has been having the finance to be able to go out and bring in players from across Europe.

 

As a result, no fewer than four of our signings - Nenad Milijaš, Ronald Zubar, Segundo Castillo and Stefan Maierhofer - have arrived at the club from overseas.

 

This isn't the result of getting promoted and suddenly making the decision to start spreading the net across Europe.

 

As the manager himself has already said, preparation for various eventualities began long before promotion was clinched to the Premier League.

 

Taff has officially become our European Scout over the summer but the reality is he'd been scouring the continent along with our network of scouts pretty much since he stepped down from the assistant manager's role.

 

One of us has pretty much been taking in a game in Europe on each and every weekend, while our other scouts and coaching staff also travel across the continent whenever the opportunity arises.

 

We have scouts and contacts in many different areas, which is helped by the work I do as a consultant for Nike which means I can obtain feedback and information on players from far and wide.

 

With that we have built up plenty of knowledge of the players in Europe, and that helped with our first signing of Nenad Milijaš from Red Star Belgrade at the start of the summer.

 

We'd been well aware of Nenad for some considerable time, and Taff and myself had seen him play on a number of occasions both for club and country.

 

Mick and 'TC' (Terry Connor) also went across to watch him and eventually it was decided that he was a player we wanted to try and bring in.

 

Well known in Serbia as captain of their national team and a dead ball specialist, we were aware he didn't quite meet the criteria needed to automatically qualify for a work permit but were confident we would win the appeal because he is a regular in the international team and we knew he would play the number of games needed.

 

 

Having got the backing of the club, the deal was done and Nenad has come in and done well in his first few games.

 

There are of course many potential pitfalls involved in pursuing players across Europe, as was shown during the signing of Stefan Maierhofer.

 

We were aware of Stefan as a player whose goalscoring record last year was exceptional with a goal to game ratio which was one of the best in Europe.

 

But when Taff went across to watch him for Rapid Vienna he only played for 15 minutes and then he didn't figure in the first leg of the Europa League game against Aston Villa because he was suspended.

 

Taff had liked what he'd seen in his short spell and when Mick and TC saw him for 25 minutes of the second leg at Villa Park, it backed up what we'd heard from other scouts and seen on DVD's.

 

To ensure he could arrive for talks on Bank Holiday Monday, Stefan drove from Vienna to Munich after his final match, caught a plane over in the early hours of the morning and arrived at Compton at lunchtime.

 

By mid-afternoon he had signed.

 

Here we had a player who wanted to come and play for Wolves and play for Mick McCarthy and has decided to move despite leaving behind the prospect of more European football with his former club.

 

There are potential problems with scouting in Europe, not to mention the fact that agents offer you so many players and from time to time you actually might end up watching a player who isn't the same as one you've seen on a DVD.

 

You have to identify which agents you can trust, particularly as scouting trips to Europe can be expensive, but for that reason we have recently signed up to a new system which can help us hone our targets more specifically.

 

From August 1, we became the first Barclays Premier League club to sign up to the Xeatre system, which allows us the opportunity to view games from all over Europe and indeed worldwide at the touch of a button.

 

Any names we get tipped off about from scouts or agents can be cross-checked by our analyst James Lovell going through the programme for highlights of the player, and then Mick, TC, Taff and myself can have a look to identify whether it is indeed the sort of target we are looking for.

 

We will still go and watch the player, indeed as a rule we ensure that all of us have seen a target before a decision is made, but this system allows us to do our homework and obtain more background in order to lessen the possibility of making a wasted trip.

 

We have already subscribed to several different countries for all their games, and can also select other specific fixtures, and while it is an investment we believe it is one that will pay for itself and in time will become very cost effective.

 

As a scouting team we are grateful to the chairman and the board for paying that money and indeed giving the backing to be able to bring in these new players during the transfer window, both from Europe and closer to home including the club record signing of Kevin Doyle.

 

 

From where we didn't have a massive amount of European coverage little over 12 months ago, we are now well covered across the continent and are continuing to move forward.

 

And you have to do that to be able to make progress in the Premier League.

 

So while it was something of a relief to hit 5pm last Tuesday, the next morning it all started again.

 

We are involved in a business which never stops, it's 24-7 for 365 days a year, and we are already straight into the process of identifying and scouting potential targets to keep an eye on for the future.