Boss Paul Jewell says he’s happy with his current scouting set-up despite being a man shorter than he had planned last season.

Last November, the Town manager added ex-Bolton defender Mark Seagraves, a fellow former Liverpool youth player, and one-time Everton man Andy King as full-time scouts alongside chief scout Steve McCall and David Hamilton, a member of his Derby and Wigan staffs.

Within a month, King was offered the assistant manager’s job at Northampton. Late last season, former Luton and England man Mick Harford was set to replaced King but he was given the chance to replace one-time Town coach John Gorman as the MK Dons’ assistant boss before he had joined up with the Blues.

“People who are out of work keep on ringing me asking me to give them a job because every time I offer people a [scouting] job someone else gives them a [management] job,” Jewell joked.

“We’ve got three full-time scouts at the moment and we’ve got three or four part-time. It’s an area which you’re always trying to improve but at the moment we’re just going to stick with what we’ve got.”

He says he wasn’t too unhappy with the set-up he inherited from former boss Roy Keane: “There wasn’t too much wrong with it.

“I wanted to have more full-time scouts on the ground to get more games covered. Not just analysis of the opposition but also to have a wider variation.

“When people are doing things part-time they have other jobs and they can’t go to Scandinavia, they can’t go abroad or up to Scotland. When you’ve got three full-time scouts they go wherever we tell them to go.”

He says having more full-time scouts than the club has had in the past affords the freedom to follow tip-offs regarding prospective signings: “Either they’ll go or we’ll go. We went to Scandinavia a couple of times in the summer to watch games.

“It’s not just tip-offs, it’s just watching games. They might go away for four or five days just to take six or seven games in.

“They might come back and say that there was no one they fancied there, but it’s never a waste of time because you’ve got a knowledge [of football in that country]. It does take time to build that up.”

Photo: Action Images

BlueySwede added 06:38 - Oct 9 “They might come back and say that there was no one they fancied there, but it's never a waste of time because you've got a knowledge [of football in that country]. It does take time to build that up.” It does seem so..
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Suffolk_n_Good added 07:07 - Oct 9 Hopefully the next person to ring Jewell up looking for a job, will be offered a job in management....... THE JOB AT ITFC?!?! Am getting sick & tied of these"Sound bite" stories coming out of PR, its as if the club feel that if they keep feeding us these "Everythings ok" comments we'll start to believe them, well let me make my opinions clear, JEWELL YOU'VE ADDED TO THE CRISIS LEFT BY THE PREVIOUS MANAGER, YOU'RE NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE, JUST LEAVE.

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warbeat78 added 07:10 - Oct 9 Do you think he means diddy david hamilton ha!!ha
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rubbleblue added 07:21 - Oct 9 What? Eh? Can someone please explain why we are obviiusly wasting our time and money sending scouts just to watch matches. Pre season targets noted, couldnt afford them all. So why go looking for those iut of price range. Surely regular lower league would achieve better for building a young team. I hope I am wrong but almost seems like pj & me have decided to keep themselves n their friends happy with no idea what its doing to us loyal fans. Please mr evans stop hiding and come out and state what is the situation of this club.

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Sindre94 added 07:29 - Oct 9 Should scout in Norway. a couple of decent talents here
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BrightBlue added 07:57 - Oct 9 I expect our scouts are getting tapped up by other clubs if they discover any talent..... that would fit with the current rot running through our once wonderful club!!!
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pazelle added 08:01 - Oct 9 Happy with the scouting network, but are you happy with 2nd bottom of the 2nd division?
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irishtim added 08:31 - Oct 9 Agree pazelle. The big worry for me is if pj stays much longer we could be in a hole that whoever comes in wont be able to get us out of it.
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martleshamitfc added 08:42 - Oct 9 Sindre94 - ring PJ for a job?
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BluePG added 08:59 - Oct 9 Where are the scouts covering France, Holland and Scandinavia. For young and inexpensive talent, are these not areas that are better looking at rather than old Premier League folk?
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matthewharley added 09:05 - Oct 9 why scandinavia? and only 3 or 4 scouts ,if this is the case what info did they bring back last time i havent seen a anything regarding any players in scandinavia, but what about the countries that are hard to get to the countries that have quality national sides , Brazil springs to mind Jamaica with all those hidden villages ect ect
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brockleyblueboy added 09:09 - Oct 9 Yawn yawn bore bore. I was always taught if you haven't got anything good to say, don't say anything. Jewell less of the chit chat more of the training and getting what you have up the league. #wallybrain
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levington added 09:15 - Oct 9 How about Ravel Morrison to keep Jet company?
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TractorRoyNo1 added 09:43 - Oct 9 i'm sure we can LOAN one from a lower league club
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MattinLondon added 09:48 - Oct 9 'We went to Scandinavia a couple of times in the summer to watch games.' That obviosuly exhausts all of the talent over there. One of the reasons why we are doing so badly is because the management are happy with what they have
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itfc1981 added 09:50 - Oct 9 It's the CEO thats the problem.
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tractorboy2421 added 10:12 - Oct 9 it seems that after every LOSS, the fat man comes out with some other feeble excuse - " the old growing mushrooms in the dark theory" springs to mind. isnt it about time mr evans swung the axe & bin this usless manager ( previous records speak for themselves) & while he,s swinging it..... get rid of CLEGG, he,s done just as much damage to our club. im worried that by sticking with these fools, we are going to be to far gone to salvage anything of our season.

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Drew added 10:42 - Oct 9 BS, Scandinavia is full of unearthed talent, you just have to look in the right places, Robin Simovic, 20 year old striker who plays for Ängelholm is decent.
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irishtim added 10:44 - Oct 9 Coyle gets the bullet & we still have our Jewell. We must be a laughing stock.
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DurhamTownFan added 11:24 - Oct 9 JEWELL OUT, COYLE IN!!!!!
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HARRY10 added 11:47 - Oct 9 It should be clear that everything is being done on the cheap. Even if these part timers do identify anyone it's highly unlikely that they will join us given the current lack of money. As to scouts becoming managers maybe Jewell should have appointed scouts who were not likely to become managers.coaches etc. Again done on the cheap to give his mates some work while they fill in. Any knowledge they acquire of players is taken to the new club. I suspect all that is really happening is PJ waits for the lists of those available/loanees to come round and like Andy of the fast show points his suibby finger at the list and says 'I want that one'. Unfortunately we are now in a slow long term downward spiral. As there is no money so the quality of players drop, so the performances drop, so the attendances drop ... so there is even less money, so the quality ............... There is no indication that Marcus Evans has any intention of breaking this cycle, so we will not get new pllayers - in fact even PJ's excuses are all past it It doesn't look good.

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levington added 12:09 - Oct 9 How does Paul feel about the pies and Planet Blue?
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Baillie_Bear added 12:28 - Oct 9 He says he wasn't too unhappy with the set-up he inherited from former boss Roy Keane: “There wasn't too much wrong with it. No, No, NO, it wasn't good enough then and thats why you got the job. When people are doing things part-time they have other jobs and they can't go to Scandinavia, they can't go abroad or up to Scotland. Thats why they get to watch it on TV. There are hundreds of games on tv and thousands on line (if you know where).

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wrightyblue added 13:07 - Oct 9 Durhamtownfan y on earth would u want coyle! There r some idiots on here! Dear dear.
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DurhamTownFan added 13:16 - Oct 9 Oi wrighty, that's personal! Just an opinion, based on his motivational skills and general enthusiasm vs. our apparent lack of both from PJ. Also, have you SEEN your avatar lately? Enough-I'll stop clogging up this feed.
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