Harford still has a big part to play in Luton's recruitment

Luton legend Mick Harford will still have a real input in the club’s recruitment policy despite the appointment of Phil Chapple as head of scouting operations last week.

The 54-year-old former Cambridge, Charlton and Peterborough player, who has been chief scout with the latter two clubs, plus Fulham and head of first-team recruitment at Stoke City and Norwich City, takes over a role that Harford had prior to Nathan Jones’ return to the club as manager.

Under Graeme Jones, Harford, who led the club to the Championship as caretaker manager, had focused solely on helping to pinpoint new signing.

However, he is now fully involved in the dug-out on a match day, forming Jones’ staff which also contains first team coaches Paul Hart and Chris Cohen.

Despite that, Harford will have a role to play when Luton look to bolster their squad in the summer, as Jones said: “Mick has got a different role now, Mick is not head of recruitment now, Mick’s assistant manager with a real hand and a foot in the recruitment door.

"But so do I, as no-one comes through the door without us watching them, whether that’s Mick recommending or me going out and seeing them.

“We’re a recruitment team here, and that comes all over.

"We’ve got data to back it up, we’ve got someone who’s a specialist in that, we’ve got Mick who has done a great job in doing that, but has now moved across although still has one foot in that door.

“I don’t sign anyone I haven’t seen, that I don’t recommend myself, and the same with the board.

"It’s not about Mick overseeing that, Mick’s assistant manager and realistically there’s not many assistant managers who are heads of recruitment, his job is bigger than that now."

Harford's role has now been filled by Chapple, who has considerable experience in the field, also spending time at Brighton as the Seagulls European scout.

Meanwhile, Town also brought in Jay Socik as head of recruitment analysis last week, as Jones felt the pair were essential to Luton moving forward, particularly due to the current Covid-19 restrictions that are in place when it comes to watching games.

He added: "With the constant changing environment and with Mick Harford coming across to the first team coaching staff, it’s left a void in our recruitment department which we had to fill.

"Because of Covid, we can’t get out to as many games, I and my staff can’t just turn up to an U23 game, or can’t just turn up at a League Two or League One game, we have to apply for tickets, and only if you’re playing them in the next three games are you able to get tickets, so it’s really, really difficult to get eyes on people.

"We knew we had to develop our recruitment department, the board pre-empted it, Gary (Sweet, chief executive) pre-empted it and we’ve gone for people we really, really know.

"We tried get Phil here before, he's someone I worked with, someone I trust, someone who’s excellent in what he does, so we’re delighted to have finally got him.

"Then Jay has been working with us for the past year anyway, so to get them both on board and both to be ours means we are moving in the right direction, but they were essential to do.

"We think we’ve recruited very well over the years, because the fact that so many of our League Two and League One team are here, performing in the Championship says that we got recruitment right at one stage.

"We obviously moved players on which have been financially beneficial for the club, so recruitment is always paramount here."