Article in today's Sunday Times:
After an hour of interviewing Luke Dowling he has had ten missed calls and countless messages, and as we keep talking, notification alerts keep chiming on his phone. Ding. Ding. Ding. Like a metronome, set to the breakneck tempo of the football world.
Welcome to the life of a Premier League sporting director. The transfer window may have finally shut on October 5 but the work continues, and as strategist for newly promoted West Bromwich Albion there is plenty that Dowling needs to affect. Training ground, travel, academy, nutrition, communication with fans, support for manager Slaven Bilic — he wants to be progressing it all.
“Something I learnt at Watford is keep making small improvements. Let the players see something different: an office change, a little upgrade in the gym, new furniture in the canteen. Make slight differences because we don’t want them to just be comfortable. We want them to know we’re always looking to make things better,†he says.
At Watford, whom he joined in 2014, Dowling was one of Europe’s youngest sporting directors and helped to plot promotion, then three years of survival in the top flight. Aged 42, he took his present post in 2018 after a brief stint at Nottingham Forest and hopes his previous experience will help West Brom to stay up — despite having the Premier League’s smallest budget. “I have to overachieve, Slaven has to overachieve and the players have to overachieve,†he says. “If nobody ever overachieved, every league table would just be what the bookies predicted.â€
The key is recruitment. West Brom have taken a different route to Leeds United, who spent £96 million after being promoted, or Aston Villa, who invested £143 million after going up in 2019. West Brom’s net spend is about £27 million and their record signing remains Salomón Rondón, bought for £15.3 million in 2015.
On the penultimate day of the window, Dowling captured Karlan Grant, 23, from Huddersfield Town for £14.85 million but structured the deal so the fee is spread across the six years of his contract. An up-and-coming striker for £2.47 million a season — that kind of prudence will look ingenious if they avoid the drop.
A youth full back at Tottenham Hotspur, Dowling had two years at Reading before stints in non-League with Kingstonian, Hampton & Richmond Borough and Walton Casuals, whom he managed. From there, he became a scout at AFC Wimbledon and Crystal Palace, then head of recruitment at Portsmouth and Blackburn Rovers.
His knowledge of the different levels and people’s potential to rise contributed to the shift in thinking he brought about at West Brom at the end of 2018-19, after they lost in the Championship play-off semi-finals.
“We were relegated the previous season with an experienced team: Ben Foster, Craig Dawson, Jonny Evans, Chris Brunt, Gareth McAuley, Gareth Barry . . . these were older players who helped give this club eight years on the spin in the Premier League but ultimately they got relegated.
“Darren Moore [then the manager] wanted to keep the majority together, which we did. We collected a few loans, had a go but fell short again. That was when we reached a point where I wanted to appoint a manager, reduce the age of the squad and get in some younger, hungry players.â€
Bilic got the dugout gig in June 2019, his charisma and experience of managing Croatia, Besiktas and West Ham United convincing Dowling he was the man. Poster boy for the new breed of signings was Semi Ajayi, who had been relegated to League One with Rotherham. Ajayi had hidden pedigree — three games on the bench at Arsenal in the Premier League — and his career had faltered after making a wrong move, to Cardiff City. Dowling and the scouting team he had appointed saw Ajayi’s physique, determination and ability on the ball, underneath the rawness.
The 26-year-old arrived for £1.5 million. Darnell Furlong (£1.5 million from Queens Park Rangers) and Romaine Sawyers (£2.9 million from Brentford) were similar buys. All three played big roles in the promotion and have not looked out of place this season.
For a club careful with their budget under the ownership of Chinese investor Lai Guochuan, loan deals present a valuable see-before-buy opportunity. They also allowed West Brom to sell themselves to rising talent — such as Grady Diangana, who signed after a successful loan spell despite being in demand elsewhere. Callum Robinson and Matheus Pereira are others who have turned loans into permanent moves.
“With players, too many people look at what they can’t do whereas I want my scouts to look at what they’ve got. If their weaknesses are things we can improve on, we’ve got half a chance. Sometimes it’s about putting people in a better environment, alongside better players,†Dowling says.
“Semi has shown that. We believe we have another in Cédric Kipré, who we got from Wigan for £800,000. We’ll make this boy into a player. Put Kipré in a squad with better footballers, give him better nutrition, put him in hotels before games, get him to Newcastle on a flight instead of a five-hour road journey — it might just get that extra 3 per cent from him, and you don’t know what that 3 per cent brings.â€
“I sometimes feel there’s a bit of snobbery,†Dowling, who himself commutes every day from Berkshire, says. “We’ve signed players from Rotherham and Wigan. If they were from Everton Under-23s and Manchester United-23s, they’d be more appealing to many clubs, I believe, but when you play for Rotherham or Wigan you develop character. And when you scout them in that environment, playing in front of 8,000, 9,000 — not big crowds — you see who can motivate themselves.
“These are West Brom signings. West Brom have never been a club to spend £30 million on a player. This is a hard-working area where families go without a holiday so Dad can afford his season ticket. It’s finding players who reflect that passion. Pereira [a Brazilian from Sporting Lisbon] might not be from here but his attitude reflects the area.â€
There was no family holiday this year either for Dowling, his wife Patricia and 12-year-old Liberty. “Would I like a holiday? Do I need one? Probably. But I’ll be fine,†Dowling says. “It’s still the best job. I never wake up on a Monday morning and think, ‘Oh, work . . .’ â€