Chief Executive Julian Winter discusses the summer transfer window
- Town’s Chief Executive Julian Winter on incomings and outgoings
- Winter explains how transfers work at Huddersfield Town
- Winter: “We have five hopefully on the way in”
Chief Executive Julian Winter admitted that the summer transfer window will be a trading one for Huddersfield Town.
Following the Club’s relegation to the Sky Bet Championship and a new style of play under Head Coach Jan Siewert, Town is expected to have a fairly busy transfer window.
Julian provided the latest transfer update this summer, revealing how many players the Club is currently looking at.
“Jan has been very clear since he came here that he wants to play 4-3-3. He’s been very clear with the recruitment guys with exactly what he wants.
“As you know, at the end of the season we lost eight players – a combination of players out of contract, not taking options on players, loan players we didn’t continue with – there were eight in total.
“We are in transit with five, so we aren’t sat idle, we are progressing to bring players in as quickly as we can.
“It’s early days in the window, but we are on with five and hopefully we’ll get those concluded pretty quickly.”
One role that is discussed heavily during transfer windows is Head of Football Operations.
Town’s Chief Executive explained how the Club works without one, whilst also stating that Town is in the process of appointing a new one.
“We’ve established what we call a football forum, so it’s a group of key stakeholders; the owner – whichever one that is at a given time – myself, ordinarily the Head of Football Operations would drive that group, but as you know we haven’t had one for a while, so we are on with that as a process.
“We are interviewing for that in the next fortnight, so hopefully we can bring that to a swift conclusion because that’s a really important part of what we do here.
“I think in the football area we’ve got good people so Josh Marsh, Head of Recruitment, and his team, John Iga from a performance point of view, Leigh Bromby from an Academy point of view, Mark Fagan from a player care point of view, so we have good people running their departments. I spend more time here and the Owner spends more time here, so we try to fill that gap.
“Fundamentally though, I think we need that person (a Head of Football Operations) to run optimally, so as soon as that person is in the building it’ll be better for everyone.
“We are pressing on as a group, Jan central to that working with Josh very closely on the types of player and then it comes back to us on affordability and where they fit in our model, then we press forwards.”
With transfer activity on the way, alongside interviews for a new Head of Football Operations, Julian explained that the Club is in an excellent position.
“I’ve always said to people that the Club has a really strong platform. We had two years in the Premier League, which was fantastic, so we come out with a really strong platform.
“There’s no knee-jerk reaction here, there’s no fire sale that you see with some clubs that get relegated.
“I think we will have a trading window, I think players will go and players will come, as I said we’ve had eight leave and we have five, hopefully, on the way in.
“Once the window really starts to liven up players will leave here. We are a trading club and we shouldn’t be frightened of that.
“We have ideas for all areas of the club coming in; it’s just balancing what goes and what comes.
“There’s no panic, I think we have a good platform, a good strong bunch of players, good staff. We will take from the window what it brings us and then fill the gaps with good individuals.”
You can watch Julian Winter’s full interview with #HTTV below!
