David Weir is the man who spent a career being linked with moves to Ibrox – then finally walked through the marble halls as a Rangers player at the age of 36. 

He went on to lift three titles and become an icon at the club before returning as a coach when he was Mark Warburton’s no2. 

Here in the second instalment of a two-part Rangers Review exclusive the Brighton and Hove Albion Technical Director talks to us about being at the heart of multi-million pound transfers and life at one of the Premiership’s most intriguing clubs.

You can read part one here.

David Weir once forged his reputation as a central defender bidding to shackle Europe’s top strikers. Now he safeguards the playing assets of Brighton and Hove Albion. 

The Seagulls Technical Director is relishing his new role at the heart of one of the English Premier League’s most innovative and forward-thinking clubs. 

At 52, the former Rangers and Scotland captain has found a new spiritual home on the South Coast in that rarest of places. A stable football environment. 

Weir, skipper in Walter Smith’s last game in charge when they lifted the trophy together in a dramatic final-day title triumph at Kilmarnock in 2011, has been a steadying influence in turbulent times for Brighton this season. 

Shrewd owner Tony Bloom’s club became victims of their own success. 

Former technical director Dan Ashworth was lured to the riches of Newcastle United, boss Graham Potter moved to Chelsea with his staff and then head of recruitment Paul Winstanley followed him to Stamford Bridge. 

David confessed: “It’s a big role and there is so much learning for me at a time when so much has happened at the club. 

“The manager has changed and the head of recruitment and the head of academy have both left too, it has all kicked off in that respect. 

“When Dan left for Newcastle moving upwards was not really in my thoughts because my mind doesn’t really work like that. 

“Dan was keen to make me assistant technical director and I was only days into that role when he left. 

“He was like a mentor and then all of a sudden I was acting technical director and learning on my feet.” 

The graduate of Evansville University in Indiana, who became a Varsity star in the States as a striker, has always had an analytical brain both as a player and a coach. 

He needed that and his unflappable nature to steer his way through three transfer deals that have earned Albion £138m. 

When players are on their way out of Brighton, David plays a key role in the negotiations. 

Ben White’s £50m move to Arsenal has been followed by left-back Marc Cucurella joining Chelsea for an eye-watering £63m before midfielder Yves Bissouma quit for Tottenham Hotspur with a £25m price tag. 

Weir reflected: “There is a life for them after Brighton. We would love to be their destination club but that’s not where we are right now. 

“We can be the vehicle that gets them to where they want to be but we have eight players at the World Cup so we must be doing something right. 

“When I took over as technical director I went straight into a transfer window, our academy manager left and we were selling Bissouma to Spurs. 

“I had only ever been on the edges of things like that and now I was right in the middle of them. 

“The role of technical director means something different at every club and I never have my boots on coaching on the training pitch. 

“I thought I might have to be there when Graham and his staff left for Chelsea but it didn’t come to that.” 

Weir checked in at Brighton four and half years ago, at first in the newly created role of loans manager. 

He would use his network of contacts and partner clubs to find the right home for the emerging talents Albion sign to flourish and develop away from the spotlight. 

David explained: “Loans manager is a fairly new role but I would say that probably three quarters of the English Premier League clubs now have a loans department. 

“It’s so hard now to become a ready-made Premier League player and the vast majority of players have a step in between. 

“At Brighton we have grown quickly as a club and even since I started that role four and a half years ago the quality of players from our Academy and the younger ones we are buying in has risen considerably. 

“Yet it is still hard, we don’t buy Premier League-ready players because that is not really our model. We prefer to develop them and loans are a great way to do that. 

“We look everywhere for players and the Ecuador players we have now are an example of that.” 

That Ecuadorian trio of Moises Caicedo, Pervis Estupinan and Jeremy Sarmiento were within 20 minutes of the last 16 in Qatar before Chelsea defender Kalidou Koulibaly’s goal for Senegal sent them into a knockout collision with England instead. 

Caicedo became the first ever Brighton and Hove Albion player to score in a World Cup Finals in that match, a landmark moment for the club. 

Weir stressed: “We look earlier and younger and we look for those that need a step to where they might want to go in the game. 

“Moises Caicedo is a great example of that. He came in as a 19-year-old then spent six months out on loan in Belgium before getting his break in the first team. He is a great story for us. 

“Everyone has a different way of doing it and the opportunity to play in the Premier League is a big carrot for us.” 

When Ashworth quit to become Eddie Howe’s sounding board at a resurgent Newcastle another club may have sought a high-profile replacement. 

Brighton aren’t wired like that, though, owner Bloom and chief executive Paul Barber knew they had the perfect candidate already on the premises. 

David revealed: “This is a well-resourced football club that always look internally first when it comes to replacing staff who go. 

“There is a solid foundation with strong ownership and a great structure with an excellent chief executive. 

“So when the first team manager left at first the Under-21s coach Adam Crofts stepped up with his staff in the interim. 

“When our head of recruitment left the head of emerging talent stepped up. That’s how our club works.” 

Potter’s rise as a coach from those humble roots at Ostersunds in Sweden to shining at Swansea City and graduating to the Premier League at Brighton meant he was always destined to move at some point. 

One of the top six, even the England job, it was always a question of when he would go and not if. 

Albion, though, did not expect a departure in the throes of a season to Chelsea when Champions League-winning coach Thomas Tuchel was jettisoned by Todd Boehly’s new regime. 

Yet David insisted: “More than any other club I have been at one person or a group of people leaving doesn’t have as much of an impact here. 

“Graham and his staff leaving was something we weren’t expecting at that time, we knew he would go at some point but not then. 

“Yet we only interviewed one person to get the replacement in Roberto de Zerbi and we managed to get him. 

“So there was a plan, we know who we are and where we want to go. 

“We have a stable ownership and Tony knows how he wants the club to run and the type of people he wants to work within it. 

“Going back those four and a half years that’s what appealed to me. 

“I had been in and out of a few clubs and I didn’t want that anymore, I found here a stability that is unusual in football. 

“The appointments here are well thought out, there is succession planning and it is not reactionary in any way, shape or form. 

“There is a risk involved with every appointment in football but I feel that with us it is always a calculated risk.” 

Football is in the Weir DNA, David and wife Fiona have four kids Lucas, Jensen, Kenzie and Ruben and the game runs deep in this household. 

Jensen, born south of the border in Warrington, played for Scotland at Under-16 and 17 level but has switched allegiances to his native England and made a goalscoring debut for the Under-20s in a 6-1 win over Romania in September last year. 

That was a proud day for the Weirs as was daughter Kenzie’s debut for Everton in January this year when mum and dad were in the stand to see her first strides on to the field as a professional. 

David smiled: “Jensen is at Morecambe on loan from Brighton and he is in the real world now, my daughter Kenzie is 18 and a first-year professional at Everton. 

“My older boy Lucas is also at Marine which is a good non-league club near our home in Cheshire which is great. 

“It’s interesting for me to watch them all, both Jensen and Kenzie are full-time professionals and I see no difference in how they live their lives. 

“That’s testament to how the women’s game has improved at the top level and if I am honest Kenzie will probably be watching more of the World Cup than Jensen is!” 

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