Chelsea appoints Southampton Chief Scout Joe Shields as Co-Director of Recruitment and Talent..

2022-10-28 11:59

Chelsea appoints Southampton Chief Scout Joe Shields as Co-Director of Recruitment and Talent..




Chelsea have appointed Southampton Chief Scout Joe Shields as Co-Director of Recruitment and Talent, the club announced on their official website on Thursday.


According to Chelsea's official statement, after completing his handover at Southampton, Shields will officially take office.


After completing the formalities to sign Shields, Chelsea owner Todd Boehly and co-owner Behdad Eghbali said: "Shields is another important signing for Chelsea, we are very happy and delighted to have him on board. We have a clear vision of adopting modern and data analytics-driven philosophy and are focused on attracting top emerging talent. We are building a deeply collaborative management team and are eager to build a continuous, winning team at Chelsea."


“Shields has a proven track record and understanding of the game and attracting new talent. We know that with his assistance we will welcome another strong leader and team member who will help us continue to build on what we have built, a world-class footballing team."



Young but already experienced


Shields, 35, started scouting in 2008. After working in the scouting department of Fulham and Crystal Palace's youth academy, he joined Manchester City in the summer of 2013 and served as the Chief Scout of Manchester City's youth academy.


During his time at Manchester City, Shields discover Pablo Maffeo, Jadon Sancho, Romeo Lavia, Gavin Bazunu, Jamie Bynoe-Gittens, Phil Foden, Sam Edozie, Juan Larios and other well-known wonderkids in today's football, and even the city's fierce rivals, Manchester United and England international forward, Marcus Rashford, who once played for the Cityzens' youth academy was discovered by him.


After nine years at Manchester City, Shields only just left the team this summer and joined Southampton, becoming its Chief Scout, during which he also helped Bazunu, Edozie and Larios switch to the latter.


It is worth mentioning that after joining the Saints with Shields, these three talented teenagers have become key players of the Premier League club, once again proving that Shields has a unique ability of discovering young stars.