Judging ballplayers and turning in reports, giving my opinion of who will get to the big leagues and who will not... I think my baseball judgment was really good.
I think the teams know more than I do in the sense of where I'd best fit. I might be a bit of a unique personality, so hopefully they can pick me apart, and if a team really feels that I'm their guy, hopefully they'll go and get me.
You make mental notes. You're a coach, so you make mental notes from matchups, to who steps up in the playoffs to who doesn't, different types of players.
Maybe it's old-fashioned, but I've always preferred to see players with my own eyes than on a video or going on somebody else's recommendation. If that means getting up early and taking a flight, then so be it. Our success at Everton came from having a great recruitment team who I made sure were out watching the players.
There's always two or three players I like, and why I like them, I can't tell you. There's just something about them I think would be great on a team.
I look at athletes in all sports and try to picture what kind of football player they'd be, what position they'd play and so on.
I think I could take a job as an NFL scout.
At Everton, we have always tried to do good deals and have always tried to buy at the right age and the right price.
With Ronaldo, I think I've identified a few patterns; there are certain striking things. I will try to utilise this knowledge to my advantage.
When you're a general manager, you don't get to see every single player, so you have to rely on your scouts.
Clubs like Manchester United or Barcelona have a system, and then you hire personnel who fit this system.
The scouts are watching matches and we have a huge amount of data we purchase and a pyramid approach in terms of delivering that information to our chief scout and his team who are assessing it.
The old adage that you shouldn't change a winning team doesn't apply in modern international football because managers have to study the opposition and pick players who exploit their weaknesses.
We've got to use every piece of data and piece of information, and hopefully that will help us be accurate with our player evaluation. For us, that's our life blood.
I don't get involved in recruitment like people think I do. There's a myth that I look at YouTube and choose players. I don't. Having an eye for players is an art. I have no interest in doing that.
Honestly, I think the combine is a waste of time. The effort should be in film watching, physicals, and mental evaluations.
All the in-depth scouting reports we have on the opposing pitchers - just kind of learning how to study that, it's huge.
It's never easy to find players in the market who are exactly what you need at that time.
My job is to bring in players I think can help this team, regardless of where they're playing.
I used to come out and say I was targeting certain players in the opposition team, particularly players I had had success against in the past: Gary Kirsten, Brian Lara and Michael Atherton, for example. It is a mental part of the game.
I think, in every situation, it's important to find the right balance. If you have to spend money, try and spend that money in the right way to take players with the right characteristics for your idea of football.
