Former Preston North End head of recruitment Joe Savage is now attracting Premier League interest having impressed at Hearts.
North End brought Savage to the club back in 2017, hiring him alongside manager Alex Neil.
The pair had worked together at Norwich City and Hamilton Academical, so a reunion at PNE made sense.
Savage spent more than three years at Deepdale before leaving the club to become the sporting director at Hearts.
Reports at the time suggested that Savage felt ‘marginalised’ at PNE and didn’t quite have the power he expected.
Savage decided to back himself and leave North End – and that decision seems to have paid off.
Joe Savage attracting Premier League interest
The Daily Mail now claim that Savage is wanted by Premier League clubs off the back of his work at Hearts.
It’s highlighted that Brighton and Hove Albion are looking to add recruitment staff with key man Sam Jewell heading to Chelsea.
Southampton – currently a Championship club but potentially a Premier League club next season – could lose their director of football Jason Wilcox to Manchester United.
Those clubs aren’t specifically noted as being interested, but their imminent openings mean Savage may be on the radar.
Hearts currently sit third in the Scottish Premiership table, winning 16 of their 27 league games.
Challenging Rangers and Celtic is never easy but Savage’s work has cemented Hearts as the ‘best of the rest’ for now.
The likes of Cameron Devlin, Alex Cochrane, Nathaniel Atkinson, Kye Rowles, Lawrence Shankland and Frankie Kent have all come in under Savage and played important roles.
Savage’s work has been so impressive that we could soon see him operating in the Premier League just a few years after leaving PNE.
That’s quite the rise and Savage’s belief in his own work has seen him become a hot commodity, rather than accepting a lesser role at North End.