Analysis, recommendations and scouting work. Where did it say they TELL him who to sign.
All managers have this. Where did it say they TELL him who to sign?
Ana
Are you illiterate? Once and for all, read and learn. This is the transfer structure as laid out by Ian Ayre in an interview with the
Telegraph in 2013:
Liverpool transfers to be decided by committee, not Brendan Rodgers, claims Ian Ayre
Liverpoolâs managing director, Ian Ayre, says all the clubâs future transfers will be decided by committee rather than Brendan Rodgers being allowed full control of recruitment.
Ayre has offered an insight into a Liverpool transfer policy which, although no longer employing a director of football, places Rodgers as part of a recruitment team rather than accepting the traditional managerial authority to buy and sell.
Since Rodgers joined the club, Dave Fallows has joined as head of recruitment and Barry Hunter as chief scout from Manchester City, while head of analysis Michael Edwards has become a central figure in assessing targets for owners Fenway Sports Group.
Ayre said he, Rodgers, Edwards and Fallows effectively created the director of football model between them.
âWe have a head of analysis, a head of recruitment, a first-team manager, myself,â Ayre said. âAll of those people are all inputting into a process that delivers what a director of football would deliver.
âWhat we believe, and we continue to follow, is you need many people involved in the process. That doesnât mean somebody else is picking the team for Brendan but Brendan needs to set out with his team of people which positions we want to fill and what the key targets would be for that.
"He has a team of people that go out and do an inordinate amount of analysis work to establish who are the best players in that position.
âDespite what people think and read, itâs not a whole bunch of guys sitting behind a computer working out who we should buy. Itâs a combination of old-school scouting and watching players â and thatâs Brendan, his assistants, our scouts â with statistical analysis of players across Europe and the rest of the world.
"By bringing those two processes together you get a much more educated view of who you should and shouldnât be buying and, perhaps as fundamentally, how much you should be paying and the structure to those contracts.
âI think weâve had relatively good success since we deployed that Âmethodology. Weâre getting better all the time. We were very pleased with the most recent window in January with Philippe Coutinho and Daniel Sturridge.â
Although the current model is one FSG has always favoured, there is a noticeable shift from last summer when Rodgers made it known that he would not work for a director of football, and any recruitment team around him would be âunderpinningâ his work.
âItâs absolute madness if you are the manager of the club and someone else tells you to have that player,â he said last July. âIt doesnât work.â
At the same time, Ayre made it known that the aspiration was to have a more collaborative approach and his latest comments, published in an interview with Sports Illustrated, demonstrate how firmly established that now is, inevitably impacting on who Rodgers pursues this summer.
FSG have been determined to be stricter on spending since being wounded by former director of football Damien Comolliâs ÂŁ110 million spending spree in their first year.
Liverpool were the target of some ridicule when they appointed Comolli on the strength of his relationship with baseball guru Billy Beane. It led to an association with the Moneyball theory successfully applied in baseball.
Although an actor played the part of Liverpoolâs principal owner John W Henry in the movie of the same name, Ayre disassociates Liverpool from Moneyball.
âI donât think there was ever anyone at Liverpool using the word Moneyball, but plenty of other people were using it. Itâs not a Moneyball strategy.
âI think that director of football role in a lot of cases almost creates as many problems as it solves because people try to judge where the power base is with that role. Whoâs picking the team? Whoâs deciding which players? What we actually have is probably three or four people who all are involved in that role.â
Meanwhile, Liverpoolâs determination to ensure Luis SuĂĄrez is given a prolonged summer break could see him sit out the clubâs summer tour of Australia and the Far East.
SuĂĄrez will join Uruguay for the Confederations Cup in Brazil in June. âIf he is playing in that tournament he may not be back at the start of pre-season for us because he needs to have a recovery period,â Rodgers said.
It's there in black and white. Rodgers' decides the position, statistical analysis is conducted, narrowing the potentials, scouting work is done and Rodgers' decides if the player is one he wants in. As TAW put it last week, this is a Directorate of Football and is not how normal clubs work.
This is the recruitment policy, as laid out by Ian Ayre on March 3rd 2015 in the
IBT TimesLiverpool will continue to pursue young players in transfer market says Ian Ayre
Liverpool chief executive Ian Ayre has indicated the club's continued ambitions to improve their financial standing will see them favour signing young players over marquee additions during the transfer window.
The Reds's annual accounts to 31 May 2014 showed a ÂŁ0.9m ($1.4m) profit â the first for seven years and under owner Fenway Sports Group â after seeing revenue bolstered by 19% to ÂŁ255.6m due to an improvement in media income.
Debt remains at ÂŁ69m but has been significantly reduced from when FSG first took over Liverpool in October 2010, with the club having risen to ninth in Deloitte's Money League, while they also returned to the Champions League this season.
Investment in the Liverpool squad has been key to the club's progression on the field, while a handful of academy players have been handed professional contracts to continue the club's long tradition of blooding young players.
Though Liverpool spent ÂŁ117m during the 2014 summer window as they brought in nine new players, Ayre says as the club look to improve their financial position they may look to cease making significant outlays on transfers and instead look to the future.
Investment in youth to continue
"When we talk about a financial prudency and managing the football club in the best way we can with what we have got, then that does mean investing in younger players some of the time that will cost less money to buy but give us better long-term value," he told the Liverpool Echo.
Brendan Rodgers
Brendan Rodgers will likely be focusing on young additions rather than marquee signings in the summer(Getty)
"We can't compete with some people who seem to have deeper pockets. But if you go about it the right way - and get the right result - then we can still be successful."
He added: "When we say it's about success on and off the pitch, it really is about everybody doing their piece. And these results start to show that that is working. We'd always expect to improve and I think I'd be confident in saying that we'll improve our position in this current year.
"But it is about each individual part and as we saw last year when we didn't have European revenue, which these results today reflect, those years are much tougher. We have to build our business on the basis that that may or may not be there in any particular season. And when it is there, it is a bonus, if you like.
"What is important to say is that when we get that additional revenue, be it from Champions League, Europa League or from finishing in different positions, the one thing about this ownership group is that they have never taken a single penny out of the football club.
"So it all goes back into the team or the club. We have been very fortunate to enjoy those additional revenue streams this year - but it goes straight back into the pot. It is all going in the same place. Brendan, myself, the owners - everyone wants to achieve as much as they can achieve and it will be reinvested."
Here he clearly reiterates the policy is to bring in and develop youth 'potential' who FSG see as providing 'better long term value'. He also says "We can't compete with some people who seem to have deeper pockets" yet Tom Werner said the following in 2012 after the sacking of Damien Comolli in an interview with the
official website.
Tom Werner on Comolli decision
Following the announcement that Damien Comolli has left the club, Liverpoolfc.tv spoke to the Reds chairman Tom Werner.
Tom, the news this morning that Damien Comolli is leaving the club will have come as a surprise to many fans. Can you explain why the decision was taken?
I think it's fair to say no supporter would be delighted with the results we've achieved this year. We feel we are a club that needs to be perceived as the strongest club in football and we want to get there. Frankly, we make these decisions with a great deal of care because it's our track record in Boston to give people authority and we've had great success with our manager, who was there for eight years, and our general manager, so we prefer stability. But when it's time to act, we need to act. We're coming close to the end of the season and the transfer window for the summer, and we felt it was important to make this change expeditiously.
In light of Damien's departure, do you still think there is a need for a director of football at this club?
We're still confident the structure we've discussed is the right structure. That doesn't mean we won't look at tweaking it, but we feel a collective group of people making football decisions is healthy. The debate is healthy. Part of the reason we made this decision now is because we want to start the process of finding an excellent replacement.
Do you have a candidate in mind for the role?
We don't have any specific candidates in mind. Part of the reason we made this decision yesterday was to be in the best possible position to move forward as quickly as possible.
Is Damien's departure a reflection that the ownership group were unhappy with the return on player investment?
I would say we certainly have the resources to compete with anybody in football. I wouldn't want to get specific about any particular decision that's been made. We feel there is enough talent on the pitch to win and, as I said, we've been dissatisfied, as most supporters have been, with the results so far. But we're also talking about the future - we have a strategy we need implemented and we felt Damien was probably not the right person to implement that strategy.
Does Damien Comolli's departure have any impact upon Kenny Dalglish's position as manager?
Absolutely not. We've got great confidence in Kenny. We feel the team is going to make strides in the future and he enjoys our full support.
Do you envisage any other changes in the senior management of the club?
We do not. It's a good question. We believe the senior management is very strong, Ian Ayre is an outstanding managing director. His charge is to raise revenue so that we can put the resources into strengthening our football club. We've got great confidence in the other people in football operations, and so the answer is there will be no future changes of significance.
In terms of transfer activity this summer, will Damien's departure affect plans that are already underway?
We've had a strategy that we have agreed on. There was some disconnect on the implementation of that. That strategy is a strong one and it will continue. We need to build a strong system under the first team. We're hard at work identifying transfer targets and we will be better next year.
Finally, as chairman of Liverpool Football Club, do you have a message for the supporters ahead of the very important game on Saturday?
We're all excited about this match. We certainly feel the team is healthy and the team is committed. We just attended a practice where they are excited about returning to Wembley. There's only one team in England that has the possibility of winning this cup and the Carling Cup, and I think our supporters around the world should feel very confident.
The key point being in italics. "I would say we certainly have the resources to compete with anybody in football" yet you have Ian Ayre saying "We can't compete with some people who seem to have deeper pockets". So which is it? We can compete or we can't compete?
Nonetheless, there you have it. Brendan Rodgers works as part of a Directorate of Football, he does not have sole say on players, he works to a policy that everyone who knows anything about football, from fans to pundits, know that it simply does not work on its own, with a board that can simultaneously both compete and not compete with anyone else in the league and if anyone thinks anyone else coming in to the club will do any better with this mess then you're sadly deluded. Given the amount of confusion at the business end and the fact he's working within tight constraints, and has lost both his top strikers this season and brought in a defender who
no one thought would under perform to the extent he has, I think we're doing rather well in 5th place.