Ian Gordon: Hibs head of recruitment on how his role works, using data and the English club model influencing how things are done

The son of American owner Ron Gordon was made the club’s head of recruitment in October after former sporting director Graeme Mathie left Easter Road.

Some fans questioned the 29-year-olds credentials to take on the job, but Gordon junior has now spoken for the first time about how the recruitment process works under him.

He was in position for the January transfer window, when Hibs brought in more than ten new player, but he has been scouting for the club since 2019.

“The recruitment team works together on very much a data driven list to start with,” he told the Down The Slope podcast. “It’s a combination of data driven and agent recommendations, with live scouting.

“From those points, we dwindle down the list and the team together presents those shortlists to the committee and that’s how we start the framework to pursue the target."

Gordon admits that they have followed the recruitment model Brentford use… to an extent.

He added: “We have our own approach on it but we have definitely taken some of their methods for their B team model and their recruitment model.

“When signing B team players, it’s very much long-term with a clear player pathway. It’s so we know that if we have to replace a first team player in that position, we have a viable option in the B team.

“We identify our targets early and work to that list as the months go past.”

A month after Gordon was appointed, Hibs sacked Jack Ross and replaced him with Shaun Maloney in December. Gordon admitted that much of the work had been done on transfer targets alongside Ross, and that changes had to be made after he was sacked.

He explained: “That was a big road bump for us as we’d done a lot of work early on under Jack. When the change happened, a lot of the