Hibs’ new coach/scout Steve Marsella, the man credited for discovering many of the Inverness Caledonian Thistle players who took the Highland club to the top of the league earlier this season, insists that he has not been given any specific instructions to identify new targets for the January transfer window, as Terry Butcher continues to asses his current squad.
Having said that, the Englishman continues to take in lower league matches in England, driving over 1000 miles per week, so if and when the manager decides that he wants to strengthen a certain position, he will have someone in mind,
Marsella has been a coach for over 20 years with Huddersfield Town, Barnsley, Notts County and Crewe Alexandra as well as working with the SFA and in Iceland. He first worked with Terry Butcher at Brentford before the pair linked up again together – alongside assistant boss Maurice Malpas – at Inverness Caledonian Thistle in 2009.
Marsella told the club website: “To be honest, the games you watch down south would be Conference, Conference North, Conference South, League Two, League One and I would see a lot of under 21 games and sometimes you would get bounce games which are played behind closed doors. I’ve not really been looking at the Premier League because of the money the boys are on.
“I’ve travelled between 50-60 thousand miles a year at Inverness but at least now I’ll be missing out the A9 because that could be daunting at this time of year. From here you can get down to the central belt in England in four hours no problem.
“The first thing I look at in a player is ‘Can Hibs afford him?’ There’s no point in looking at players we can’t afford although sometimes you do look at players outwith your price range to see of you can get him on loan.
“At the moment we are not really looking at anyone because everyone is still playing here. The manager’s not told me that he wants this position or that position so I’m just looking at players.
Marsella certainly has an eye for talent and his list of ‘discoveries’ is impressive as he modestly confirmed: “At Crewe we brought John Ruddy in whose doing really well right now at Norwich and Gylfi Sigurdsson who is doing really well at Tottenham.
“At Inverness, Gary Warren came in from Newport County and Marley Watkins from Hereford and both have done a great job up there.
“Billy McKay was League 2 with Northampton and we all know about him, whilst Dean Brill has been absolutely outstanding. He was third choice at Luton Town and now he’s fighting for the first team spot. “I could go on and on, Aaron Doran came from Blackburn Rovers reserves and he’s done really well as well.
“Once they sign the papers, Maurice and Terry make them players, but they have to have something in the first place.
“When you watch the Conference you see boys that are hungry and you think of they come to Inverness they could make it and we’ve been lucky. Sometimes you bring in players that no-one has heard of and they gel.”
John graduated from Telford College in 2010 with an HNC in Practical Journalism and since then he worked for the North Edinburgh News, The Southern Reporter, the Irish News Review and The Edinburgh Reporter. In addition he has been published in the Edinburgh Evening News and the Hibernian FC Programme.
