Craig Levein can see the parallels between his recruitment strategy at Dundee United and the one he has embarked upon with St Johnstone over the last few months.
The budget the Perth boss had to play with at Tannadice the best part of two decades ago dwarfed the transfer kitty he’s got for this summer window at McDiarmid Park.
However, the principle of veering off the beaten track to find young players with the talent and hunger to develop under his management remains the same.
Seeing the likes of Adama Sidibeh and Aaron Essel take the field when the two teams meet in the Tayside derby on Saturday will bring back memories for United fans of an era they cherish.
“At United we got Morgaro (Gomis) from Cowdenbeath,” Levein recalled.
“And we also got Prince Buaben from (ex-Hearts team-mate) George Wright, who was an agent and had spotted him playing for a college team.
“I brought Prince into pre-season and he looked good so we signed him.
“I signed a few there – Mihael Kovacevic was another one.
“So we were always happy to look elsewhere for players, although there’s always a risk of it not working.
”You never know how people will settle and you don’t get every one of them right.
“I like looking for players who have potential and I like giving younger players a chance.
“So it’s enjoyable looking in various different places to see if you can spot something.”
‘Couldn’t get near it’ on transfer targets
Over the last two transfer windows, Levein has signed players from Sweden (Benji Kimpioka), the English non-leagues (Sidibeh), Israel (David Keltjens), Portugal via Trinidad and Tobago (Andre Raymond) and Ghana (Essel).
“It’s time consuming when you don’t have anyone to help you on the recruitment side,” said Levein.
“Especially when you’re sitting nodding off at 11 at night watching another video!
“But I do like it and hopefully it’s something which will work for us.
“The reality is that the budget we have here isn’t the same as it was at Dundee United, or near what it was at Hearts or Leicester.
“So it’s a completely different job in a lot of respects.
“We can’t compete even with the teams around us, to be honest.
“I went to sign a couple of centre-backs in the summer – guys in their early 30s who have been kicking about in the Premiership for a while.
“And we couldn’t get near it, at all.
“So we’re having to do something different, hence spreading the net as wide as we can.”
St Johnstone looking for players in England
Levein revealed that there may be more leftfield Saints signings yet to come before deadline day.
“We’re looking in the lower leagues in England, where we got Adama from, to see if there’s any more down there that people might have missed,” he revealed.
“We’ve been looking at players from Africa, lads who are youth internationals for their countries, to see if you can unearth a bit of quality there.
“A lot of them have different attributes to what the young players we’ve got at the same age have – namely pace and strength.
“It’s tough to get players for the kind of money we’ve got in today’s market, especially domestically.
“I like giving young players chances because the older ones tend to focus on them more and that means you get another 10% or so out of them as well.
“I think players from other cultures add something as well because they often have a different skillset to the players we produce in Scotland do.
“One thing I would say, though, is I do worry about the opportunities for Scottish players because we are seeing more foreign talent coming into the game.
“A lot of that is down to market forces, though, and the simple fact is: you can get players from abroad for less money.”
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