“The manager and coach pick the team, work with the team, organise the tactics, so it’s got to be that way ­because I work with the players on a daily basis.

“You can’t have someone who doesn’t do that job ­selecting the players.

“Of course, there’s got to be close co-operation between the chief scout and the ­manager or the sporting ­director and the manager.

“There has to be a close tie-up to work out what we need. We’ve got to decide what is the profile we need, what names fit these profiles and then whether we can afford them and whether the players we like will actually come here.”

Hodgson fortsatte: “What ­Damien does is exactly the same as what Alistair ­Mackintosh was doing as chief executive of Fulham when I was manager there. The only difference is that Damien has a different title to Alistair.

“This really isn’t anything too different, other than that the owners have employed a very knowledgeable man with enormous experience of ­European football and European players, who also knows the Premier League and what’s required. I always like to see a player before we sign him, but you do need people out there constantly coming up with names and ideas because you can’t do it on your own.

“There isn’t a single manager of an English Premier League team, with the responsibilities we have, who could also do the job of scouting.

“There has to be an organisation in place where you identify profiles of the kind of players you might be looking for and leave it up to the scouting people to come up with names.”

Hodgson bekräftade att han fortfarande inte vet hur stora pengar som NESV är beredda att spendera i januari: “We haven’t discussed with the owners what their thoughts will be on January. What both Damien and I have said is that the ­January market is a less ­trustworthy one because sometimes there is an element of panic attached to it.”