How Newcastle can follow Man City to build a superclub in six steps

Rigg, who had previously been chief scout at Blackburn with manager Mark Hughes, arrived at Manchester City shortly after the Abu Dhabi takeover took place.

Hughes was already in situ at City, but Rigg had to build a new network of scouts. Crucially, he had backing from an established team in chief executive Garry Cook, new chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak and, seven months later, football administrator Brian Marwood.

“The chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak was a game changer,” says Rigg, speaking to the BBC’s The Sports Desk podcast.

“He had a three-pronged attack; it was what was happening on the pitch, what was happening off the pitch and the ownership leading from the front.

“He came into the training ground at Carrington and during an international break transformed it in 10 days. That established a mindset in everybody that we needed to do the same and he gave me the resources to build my team.

“So I brought in a team of scouts and we set about devising a strategy where we had targets for every position on the pitch regardless of whether we needed them or not.

“Our scouts had specific countries which they were all responsible for and the remit was to make sure we get to know the best players, their agents, their clubs, which clubs needed to sell, which clubs were prepared to enter into negotiations, which kind of agents were interested.

“To begin with it was easier to sign the likes of Nigel de Jong and Craig Bellamy but if players didn’t want to come to Manchester City at the time, it was difficult to chase. That’s one of the problems that a club like Newcastle is going to face. It’s all well and good having a list of the great players but if they don’t want to come to you, you’re a busy fool chasing something that’s not achievable.”