HARRY Kewell says he has found the set-up with Oldham’s sporting director “perfect” during his time in charge.

Past managers have questioned the influence of sporting director Mohamed Lemsagam, brother of owner Abdallah, on recruitment at Boundary Park.

But having been at the helm for two Latics transfer windows, Kewell insists he has no issues with the structure in place, quite the opposite in fact.

Kewell, speaking as part of a question and answer session set up by Trust Oldham and released on YouTube, maintains he has the last word on deals at the end of a collaborative process.

“Working with the chairman and the sporting director has been perfect, I’m not going to lie,” the Latics boss said.

“I have a structure, me personally, where you put players on the park and I can actually judge them.

“We have a great working relationship, me and the sporting director, we talk every single day, I talk to him more than my wife at the moment I think!

“We have ideas on players of what we like, he goes out and finds them and brings them to me, and then we have a look and I get the final say of whether a certain player is worthy enough to be in our team or not.”

Kewell, who signed a one-year contract with an option on his arrival at the club last summer, is bidding to become the first Latics manager to complete a full season at the helm since Lee Johnson in 2013-14.

He maintains that time will bring out the best in a side that sits 14th in the table ahead of hopefully returning to action at Forest Green on Tuesday night after more than two weeks without a game.

“There’s eight players who have played in my team who have made their EFL debuts this season,” the Latics boss said.

“Some of them are young, some of them are from abroad and they’re all still adapting.

“Yeah people say ‘we want to do this, we want to do that this season’ but we’re still going through this process of still trying to get our identity.

“An identity just doesn’t come like that, it takes time and you’ve got to build a foundation.

“There’s no point in building a beautiful house if you’ve got a rocky, unstable foundation.

“We’ve got to build a proper foundation so that when we do make a mistake even though we’re falling back, we’re not falling back too deep.

“We’re falling nice and solid and we can rebuild again.

“That’s the main thing when I first took over that I wanted to bring in.

“We’re trying to take Oldham back to where they belong, and we have to have an identity and structure in place so that when we do bring people in they just slot in which can help take this club to the next level.”