Rob Page: I “respect the judgement” of chief scout Dean Glover
Manager Rob Page says he is delighted with the appointment of Dean Glover as the club’s new chief scout adding that he “respects his judgement.”
Glover was widely expected to remain in the youth team coaching staff but instead has moved to a chief scout role. Critics will point to a less than illustrious spell as first-team manager in 2008 and will no doubt question his credentials for such a key scouting role.
It is an important position. What I noticed from working with Deano is that I respect his judgement. That is important as well…
However, Rob Page has defended the move telling the Sentinel that “We have reshuffled the structure. That gives Dean the opportunity to go out, watch games and do the reports.
“That will mean on a Thursday he will come in and report what the team has done. We didn’t have that last year. When George left for Swansea, we put a lot responsibility on Dan’s (video analyst Dan Thompson) shoulders.
“It is hard to do looking from a computer screen. We would get out as much as we can, but when we have fixtures the same day as the teams we were playing on the Saturday, we couldn’t do it.
“It is an important position. What I noticed from working with Deano is that I respect his judgement. That is important as well.”
OVF Editorial
No doubt many fans will view the coaching changes as “two steps forward and one step back.”
For some years now there has been a growing conviction among fans that the Vale backroom staff contains a cosy clique of former players. It was argued that the club was too eager to appoint from within when there were better candidates outside the club.
Rob Page has sought to rectify this with the appointments of three coaches with no previous Vale connection, but many fans will question Dean Glover’s credentials to be the new chief scout.
Many fans will argue that they would be far happier with the backroom team if there had been a complete clean sweep of new faces brought in.
Perhaps Glover will prove everyone wrong and as a Vale fan I hope that’s the case but if not, many fans will be entitled to say “I told you so…”
Rob Fielding