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Newcastle United want an experienced scout to find the best youngsters in grassroots football in London as well as emerging non-league talent.

It will fall to the new recruit to identify players who, according to the job advert, would have the potential to 'reach our high standards'. The talent spotter will build relationships with local coaches, clubs and private academies to gain access to scouting opportunities at grass roots, county and district level; identify non-league players within the correct age bracket; be proactive on recommending trialists from within the region; and regularly submit detailed reports.

This move should not come as a huge surprise following an overhaul of the club's youth recruitment set-up in the last year-and-a-half. Newcastle are able to recruit nationally from the start of the under-15 age group, having previously been limited to signing players who lived within an hour-and-a-half of the club's academy base, and the Magpies appointed Delroy Ebanks as lead scout in the south last year.

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Ebanks was previously head of youth recruitment at West Ham and a former colleague, Dmitri Halajko, previously told ChronicleLive that he 'one of the top guys around in the south'. At a time when youth recruitment has never been more competitive in London - other clubs have bigger budgets and bigger networks in the region - that expertise has been needed.

After all, a whopping 14% of the Premier League’s English-born players came from just ten square miles of south London, alone, as recently as 2020 and Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish has said that the area is in the 'top two or three hotbeds for football in the world'.

When it comes to the non-league aspect of the role, it is worth noting that Ian Wright, Les Ferdinand and Jamie Vardy were among those future Premier League stars who were still playing outside the Football League in their twenties.