Nick Hammond has been appointed as Leeds United’s temporary football advisor to assist the demoted team in the summer transfer window. [The Athletic]
The former Head of Football Operations for Celtic has been brought in to help Leeds manage incoming and outgoing transfers at Elland Road while United conducts an extensive assessment of their recruitment and scouting departments. He has signed a three-month deal with the club.
Before Celtic, Hammond was Reading’s Youth Academy Director before becoming the club’s first-ever Director of Football in 2003.
In 2016 he left Reading after 20 years service to become West Brom’s Technical Director before moving on to Parkhead in June 2019 on a consultancy basis. [BBC]
His work in that summer’s transfer window was rewarded when after he helped secure the signings of Christopher Jullien and Fraser Forster at the beginning of Neil Lennon’s second stint as manager, he was appointed Head of Football Operations in October.
He was said to have played a pivotal role in all of Celtic’s 14 summer signings that year. [BBC]
Hammond was also responsible for Celtic’s summer signings during the ill-fated ten-in-a-row season. The failed signings of Shane Duffy and Ismaila Soro were offset in some small part by the capture of David Turnbull from Motherwell.
Turnbull then went on to become Celtic’s Player of the Year and Young Player of the Year in a season that was bereft of positivity.
He left Celtic in March 2021, one month after Neil Lennon’s resignation, to ‘pursue other opportunities’ and in December of that year he was appointed by Newcastle United as an interim transfer consultant.
In other news, Report: Why Brendan Rodgers turned down Leeds’ ambitious new owners as Celtic move nears
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