The Transfer Committee Thread

People are getting very picky about the articles being posted. Firstly complaining about the source, then complaining about who's written it, then complaining about the quality and now complaining about this one because he didn't proof read it and got one players name transcribed twice.

If I belonged to a minority group I might start thinking it was because of that, sadly I now have to think it's just cos it's me. 

Don't think it is mate, I just think it's ill thought out responses. I appreciate you posting the articles and I'm sure 99% of people do too.

I love how you're not taking out word for it Mags.

Good man

Not my style to go on public opinion only although I do weigh the opinions of you guys on here more than others.

So far finding it hard to read much of his stuff because I don't have a subscription to The Times.

People are getting very picky about the articles being posted. Firstly complaining about the source, then complaining about who's written it, then complaining about the quality and now complaining about this one because he didn't proof read it and got one players name transcribed twice.

If I belonged to a minority group I might start thinking it was because of that, sadly I now have to think it's just cos it's me. 

I didn't even notice it was you who posted the article mate, just noticed a professional journalist who gets paid to write articles not proof reading. Sat off with me; although I am giving him a change based on the words of others now.

Not my style to go on public opinion only although I do weigh the opinions of you guys on here more than others.

So far finding it hard to read much of his stuff because I don't have a subscription to The Times.

If you find a Barratt article on the Times website and want to read it in full, just copy the first few sentences of the article into google and you can usually find the full version online (reddit/ rawk etc)

I didn't even notice it was you who posted the article mate, just noticed a professional journalist who gets paid to write articles not proof reading. Sat off with me; although I am giving him a change based on the words of others now.

No worries mate... I am not really that upset... I will get over it ....eventually

Brendan Rodgers' Liverpool failure shows the owners' transfer committee system is unworkable
 20:35, 4 OCT 2015
OPINION BY BRIANREADE

Brian Reade says if the club cannot accept that fact and let the Reds' next manager do it his way then this sacking may well prove a futile gesture

Before the final home game of last season, I was listening to a group of veteran Liverpool fans debating whether Brendan Rodgers should be sacked .

The result was 60/40 to keep him.

They had memories. They knew Liverpool have never sacked managers on a whim, especially one who, 12 months earlier, had come within a slip of winning the league.

I listened again to that same group before the Norwich game last month and the feeling was unanimous: He had to go.

It wasn’t so much the lacklustre start to the season, it wasn’t the summer signings (to be fair, they’re potentially an upgrade on those of the previous two close-seasons).

It was the fans’ inability to see what he was trying to achieve on the pitch.

The man who had famously said he had a pure philosophy whose endgame was “death by football” had lost his way.

For the best part of a year, the tactics and formations, appeared to be made up on the hoof. There appeared to be no direction, no confidence, If the players weren’t losing faith, the fans certainly were.

The confused, second-rate decision-making they had witnessed during the transfer windows had made its way on to the pitch.

Rodgers’ Liverpool had become a mediocre mess , and with no world-class players to paper over the cracks, there seemed little salvation.

Most Liverpool fans will recognise that Rodgers was a decent man , who embraced the club’s traditions, who did his best, and who oversaw the most exhilarating season since the 1980s, when the Luis Suarez-inspired team almost ended the title famine.

But results are results.

So are empty trophy rooms.

The question now is whether the owners will admit they were equally to blame for Rodgers’ failure by imposing a clearly unworkable transfer committee system on him?

Will they realise that successful managers are single-minded men who do it their way - or no one’s way?

Because Rodgers’ failure is also their failure.

If they don’t accept that then his sacking might prove to be a futile gesture.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/brendan-rodgers-liverpool-failure-shows-6573906

Brendan Rodgers' Liverpool failure shows the owners' transfer committee system is unworkable
 20:35, 4 OCT 2015
OPINION BY BRIANREADE

Brian Reade says if the club cannot accept that fact and let the Reds' next manager do it his way then this sacking may well prove a futile gesture

Before the final home game of last season, I was listening to a group of veteran Liverpool fans debating whether Brendan Rodgers should be sacked .

The result was 60/40 to keep him.

They had memories. They knew Liverpool have never sacked managers on a whim, especially one who, 12 months earlier, had come within a slip of winning the league.

I listened again to that same group before the Norwich game last month and the feeling was unanimous: He had to go.

It wasn’t so much the lacklustre start to the season, it wasn’t the summer signings (to be fair, they’re potentially an upgrade on those of the previous two close-seasons).

It was the fans’ inability to see what he was trying to achieve on the pitch.

The man who had famously said he had a pure philosophy whose endgame was “death by football” had lost his way.

For the best part of a year, the tactics and formations, appeared to be made up on the hoof. There appeared to be no direction, no confidence, If the players weren’t losing faith, the fans certainly were.

The confused, second-rate decision-making they had witnessed during the transfer windows had made its way on to the pitch.

Rodgers’ Liverpool had become a mediocre mess , and with no world-class players to paper over the cracks, there seemed little salvation.

Most Liverpool fans will recognise that Rodgers was a decent man , who embraced the club’s traditions, who did his best, and who oversaw the most exhilarating season since the 1980s, when the Luis Suarez-inspired team almost ended the title famine.

But results are results.

So are empty trophy rooms.

The question now is whether the owners will admit they were equally to blame for Rodgers’ failure by imposing a clearly unworkable transfer committee system on him?

Will they realise that successful managers are single-minded men who do it their way - or no one’s way?

Because Rodgers’ failure is also their failure.

If they don’t accept that then his sacking might prove to be a futile gesture.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/brendan-rodgers-liverpool-failure-shows-6573906

An article about the 'committee' that barely mentions it.

An article about the 'committee' that barely mentions it.

I think the idea was to get it's point across mate with it's summing up.

clearly unworkable transfer committee system

I think the idea was to get it's point across mate with it's summing up.
 

I just think the article doesn't have much substance Saint and I quite like Reade.

I'm not sure he as done anything in the way of research and is juts throwing out he lazy idea that Brendan was let down by the committee when at the very least he was as much to blame as them for it breaking down.

Brendan was let down by the committee when at the very least he was as much to blame as them for it breaking down.

"Because Rodgers’ failure is also their failure."

That's what he says Si and to be fair most people that are arguing the case that the committee failed hold Brendan equally or even proportionally more responsible. A failed system does not fix itself just because you remove the main culprit if all parties were at fault.

Like I've said elsewhere, the standard of player we're now being linked with hopefully shows a change in tack from the committee, no more one for you, one for me bullshit. No more decisions made on the strength of analysts and businessmen alone but will true input from 'good football men' to get us back to the top, surely something we all wish for.

Hoping for more signings of the Aspas, Alberto, Assaidi standard sends the fear of god into most fans and I truly hope we have taken a massive step away from those failures.

I just think the article doesn't have much substance Saint and I quite like Reade.

I'm not sure he as done anything in the way of research and is juts throwing out he lazy idea that Brendan was let down by the committee when at the very least he was as much to blame as them for it breaking down.

Rather think the majority would agree with what you describe as a ''lazy idea'' Si, written by a credible journalist who you yourself admit to having a degree of respect for.

I just think the article doesn't have much substance Saint and I quite like Reade.

I'm not sure he as done anything in the way of research and is juts throwing out he lazy idea that Brendan was let down by the committee when at the very least he was as much to blame as them for it breaking down.

To be honest he is not one of my favourite writers... seems a bit wet to me. I read his book and it just seemed meh, a bit empty.

Thought he made a few decent points in this article though(maybe not directly TC related):-

Death by football

No direction no confidence

 second-rate decision-making they had witnessed during the transfer windows

 no world-class players

empty trophy rooms

etc etc

I think the biggest problem is that he mentions a lot of interesting points, but doesn't elaborate on any of them.

Rather think the majority would agree with what you describe as a ''lazy idea'' Si, written by a credible journalist who you yourself admit to having a degree of respect for.

No idea what this means Stuey.

No idea what this means Stuey.

Will clarify Si.

I just think the article doesn't have much substance Saint and I quite like Reade.

Reade's credibility is not an issue with you as you admit to appreciating his work, although on this occasion possibly because your opinion differs some criticism is forthcoming.

I'm not sure he as done anything in the way of research and is juts throwing out he lazy idea that Brendan was let down by the committee when at the very least he was as much to blame as them for it breaking down.

The majority would say a committee set up to operate with an individual would have more of a voice in any decisions made, the premise is that is exactly why they are in situ - to monitor the manager.
Accepted TC's and DoF exist and operate satisfactorily at other clubs and work in conjunction with a coach, pre-Klopp the Boston influence and analytics have been our downfall.
Adjustment to owner policy admitted or not, will damn their former conduct in a soccer context as faulted.   

Accepted TC's and DoF exist and operate satisfactorily at other clubs and work in conjunction with a coach

Beacause the coach accepts them and works with them.

The previous coach here apparently was always looking for his own way instead of working together they ended up working almost as two seperate entities.

Brendan was unprepared to work with a DoF and it appears like he was unprepared to work with the 'committee' as well and it seems he wanted to be an old school manager and try and get everything his own way.

 

Beacause the coach accepts them and works with them.

The previous coach here apparently was always looking for his own way instead of working together they ended up working almost as two seperate entities.

Brendan was unprepared to work with a DoF and it appears like he was unprepared to work with the 'committee' as well and it seems he wanted to be an old school manager and try and get everything his own way.

 

To be fair to Brendan, from what I understand the player he really wanted was often not even on the list of names by the time he got to say yes or no, which would frustrate any manager I think.

A democratic committee sounds good in theory "one man one vote" etc, but in practice I for one would be wary of someone like Ayre having the deciding vote on whether player "a" or player "b" was on the list. 

Either you trust the manager or you don't, if you don't then you need a new manager, if you do you have to trust him to make the right decisions ... after all it his his job and his reputation that's on the line.

Use all the new technology, get the best scouting information but let the manager do his job and use that information to help him make HIS decision who he wants to train and who he thinks would best improve the team.

Anyway we have a new manager now, hopefully they can find a more harmonious and successful way forward ...time will tell.

Jürgen KLOPP: STATS THE WAY TO DO IT
by John Gibbons // 13 October 2015
A MANAGERIAL change is never just a managerial change. Collateral damage is high. When the manager clears his desk, everyone from his coaches to the tea lady worries they will soon be doing the same.
Assistant manager Sean O’Driscoll, Head of Performance Glen Driscoll and Head of Opposition Analysis Chris Davies were all quick to follow Brendan out the door, with Gary McAllister given a new role as the 4,356th club ambassador on the Anfield payroll.
Yet still disgruntled supporters bay for blood. Some wanted an overhaul of the entire structure of the football club. Others wondered how many goalkeepers needed to disintergrate before our very eyes before John Achterburg’s position might need to be reviewed. Loads and loads of people expressed a desire to throw the Transfer Committee in the Mersey.
I’m sure you’ll have read much of that chat by now, nicely summarised by our friend Andi Thomas yesterday. Basically, a couple of national journalists performed a hatchet job on the transfer committee in general and Head of Performance Analysis, Michael Edwards. It seemingly amounted to: “Can you trust a fella with a laptop though? All sounds a bit noncey.”
Then a lot of stats lads on the internet called the journalists luddites who were stuck in the dark ages and said they “didn’t understand how statistics can be used to buy players”. Although very few then went on to actually enlighten us on how this was.
The silent(ish) majority of us are probably in the middle. I understand that managers can’t do everything. Jürgen Klopp admitted as much in his first managerial press conference.
Football - Liverpool Announce Jürgen Klopp as new managerI think most of us get that with all the demands of a modern manager, and all the demands of a traditional manager, one man can’t be solely in charge of player recruitment. I think most accept that as the net for potential players gets wider and younger it’s probably wise to have a lot of people looking at them.
And with the progression in technology and data analysis, it’s wise that some of these lads can look at the numbers and assess whether he is actually doing the stuff we want a footballer to do, and not just looking boss doing loads of Cruyff turns on the half-way line.
The problem is Liverpool haven’t been very good recently and a big part of that, as always, is related to the quality of the footballers out on the pitch. So, as football fans who love our club, we start wondering what on earth is going wrong with recruitment.
The ‘answers’ in recent times have been as clear as mud, from confusing job titles to a manager said to have final say complaining about “the tools” he had been given. Meanwhile, briefings emerged that others at the club think the players are fine, and that it’s actually how they are used that is the problem.
Essentially, everyone blames each other and the owners and fans have to try and decide who is wrong and who is right.
The main issue I have with our Transfer Committee is that it all seems rather thrown together, with a complete lack of footballing overview. The last manager was hired around the same time as the committee was put together, but it was seemingly independent of each other. Even if all these men are great at their jobs, if they think very differently about football to each other then there will always be problems.
I’m less concerned with how many people on computers we have looking at numbers, and more with what numbers they are looking at. Who decides what style of football Liverpool should play, and therefore the qualities in a player that we desire? Who decides what a Liverpool midfielder should be able to do, and therefore which numbers are more relevant than others? Who decides what style of striker we should be playing with, and draws up a shortlist of who they are and ranks them in order?
Recent history at Liverpool suggests the answer to this, unfortunately, is each individual for themselves. It’s the only possible reason why Luis Suarez’s replacement went from Alexis Sanchez, to Loic Remy to Mario Balotelli. Forget about the quality, for the moment, they are three completely different players.
That’s not the only example.
Why does the manager think we need a left back like Ryan Bertrand, but the transfer committee think  we need one like Alberto Moreno? Why are we buying a £15million left-sided centre back in January, and then buying another for £20m seven months later with a completely different skill-set?
You will always make mistakes in the transfer market. No club is perfect. But our approach has led to a squad that looks cobbled together by a process of who shouts loudest wins. By some individuals valuing certain attributes, and others disagreeing. Which will always lead to a confused way of playing on the pitch, regardless of whether you are relying on statistics, the naked eye, or a mixture of the two.
It’s also interesting that, in among the debates about whether football statistics are good or evil, the question of how much power certain individuals have emerged. As well as wanting to actually get off with data, Michael Edwards was also accused of growing his influence with the owners in a manner that allowed him to see off a manager he didn’t see eye to eye with.

Whether that is true or not, empire building at Anfield has been a common concern ever since the ownership of the club moved to the other side of the Atlantic. Every time a power vacuum has opened up, an ambitious individual has been there to fill it. Every time something hasn’t looked right, someone at the club has been quick to volunteer that they could do it better.
Whether these individuals have been working for the good of the club, or the good of themselves, I’ll let you decide.
Under Rafa Benitez there were plenty of stories about the rise and rise of Owen Brown, the former manager of local non-league side Vauxhall Motors, who went from community coach to Rafa’s ‘confidant’ at a pace that raised plenty of eyebrows.
Benitez himself managed to seize more and more control of the football club, after deciding much of it, most notably the academy, wasn’t being run to his liking. The man who sacked Benitez, of course, was our friend Christian Cecil Purslow (below right), who was brought in by Hicks and Gillett primarily to renegotiate the club’s outstanding loans, but instead seemingly decided that it was more fun to pretend to be a Sporting Director.
Under FSG the fun hasn’t stopped. We have a chief executive who got the job by filling in until the owners got bored of looking for another one, a stadium manager who seemingly has free rein to impose whatever rules on Liverpool fans he likes and a managerial position that varies from working with whatever you are given, to picking whoever you want, depending on how high his stock is at any given time.
I have no issues with talented being recognised and people being promoted in a structured, planned way. Again though, the recent history of this being the case at Anfield doesn’t look great. Therefore any talk that Michael Edwards has managed to increase his influence at the club to something approaching untouchable should rightly be met with concern.
Football - FA Premier League - Liverpool FC v Arsenal FCSo where does all this leave Jürgen Klopp? Well hopefully he’ll join the club and think everyone is brilliant. That would be ideal. I don’t know how good most of these people are and, unlike others don’t feel I’m in an ideal position to judge them. If Klopp thinks he can work with them all and move the club forward, then that’s fine with me.
But if he doesn’t? Well this time we might actually have a manager with the power to change it. Firstly, he’s a strong personality. When he talks, people listen. Plus he’s won stuff. If an argument does break out, which it inevitably will, a quick game of “hands up who’s been in a Champions League final” should solve it fairly quickly.
But crucially, and differently from many of his predecessors, we have a man who doesn’t want to do everything. A man who has already said that a transfer committee is sensible and that one man doesn’t have all the answers. A man who is happy to just be on a pitch dealing with good players.
By changing the argument from “they are rubbish, let me do it” to “we did this differently in Germany and it worked much better, maybe try this” you have a much better chance of convincing owners who just want to win, but are unsure who they can trust to get us there. You suspect Jürgen Klopp might even suggest bringing in a Director of Football above him, which would make John Henry’s head fall off.
I’m aware I’m heaping more pressure on Klopp here. Going from sorting out the mess on the pitch, to the whole structure of the football club. But he’s the only one who knows what a winning football club looks like.
And no-one said any of this was going to be easy.

http://www.theanfieldwrap.com/2015/10/Jürgen-klopp-stats-the-way-to-do-it/?

Jürgen KLOPP: STATS THE WAY TO DO IT
by John Gibbons // 13 October 2015
A MANAGERIAL change is never just a managerial change. Collateral damage is high. When the manager clears his desk, everyone from his coaches to the tea lady worries they will soon be doing the same.
Assistant manager Sean O’Driscoll, Head of Performance Glen Driscoll and Head of Opposition Analysis Chris Davies were all quick to follow Brendan out the door, with Gary McAllister given a new role as the 4,356th club ambassador on the Anfield payroll.
Yet still disgruntled supporters bay for blood. Some wanted an overhaul of the entire structure of the football club. Others wondered how many goalkeepers needed to disintergrate before our very eyes before John Achterburg’s position might need to be reviewed. Loads and loads of people expressed a desire to throw the Transfer Committee in the Mersey.
I’m sure you’ll have read much of that chat by now, nicely summarised by our friend Andi Thomas yesterday. Basically, a couple of national journalists performed a hatchet job on the transfer committee in general and Head of Performance Analysis, Michael Edwards. It seemingly amounted to: “Can you trust a fella with a laptop though? All sounds a bit noncey.”
Then a lot of stats lads on the internet called the journalists luddites who were stuck in the dark ages and said they “didn’t understand how statistics can be used to buy players”. Although very few then went on to actually enlighten us on how this was.
The silent(ish) majority of us are probably in the middle. I understand that managers can’t do everything. Jürgen Klopp admitted as much in his first managerial press conference.
Football - Liverpool Announce Jürgen Klopp as new managerI think most of us get that with all the demands of a modern manager, and all the demands of a traditional manager, one man can’t be solely in charge of player recruitment. I think most accept that as the net for potential players gets wider and younger it’s probably wise to have a lot of people looking at them.
And with the progression in technology and data analysis, it’s wise that some of these lads can look at the numbers and assess whether he is actually doing the stuff we want a footballer to do, and not just looking boss doing loads of Cruyff turns on the half-way line.
The problem is Liverpool haven’t been very good recently and a big part of that, as always, is related to the quality of the footballers out on the pitch. So, as football fans who love our club, we start wondering what on earth is going wrong with recruitment.
The ‘answers’ in recent times have been as clear as mud, from confusing job titles to a manager said to have final say complaining about “the tools” he had been given. Meanwhile, briefings emerged that others at the club think the players are fine, and that it’s actually how they are used that is the problem.
Essentially, everyone blames each other and the owners and fans have to try and decide who is wrong and who is right.
The main issue I have with our Transfer Committee is that it all seems rather thrown together, with a complete lack of footballing overview. The last manager was hired around the same time as the committee was put together, but it was seemingly independent of each other. Even if all these men are great at their jobs, if they think very differently about football to each other then there will always be problems.
I’m less concerned with how many people on computers we have looking at numbers, and more with what numbers they are looking at. Who decides what style of football Liverpool should play, and therefore the qualities in a player that we desire? Who decides what a Liverpool midfielder should be able to do, and therefore which numbers are more relevant than others? Who decides what style of striker we should be playing with, and draws up a shortlist of who they are and ranks them in order?
Recent history at Liverpool suggests the answer to this, unfortunately, is each individual for themselves. It’s the only possible reason why Luis Suarez’s replacement went from Alexis Sanchez, to Loic Remy to Mario Balotelli. Forget about the quality, for the moment, they are three completely different players.
That’s not the only example.
Why does the manager think we need a left back like Ryan Bertrand, but the transfer committee think  we need one like Alberto Moreno? Why are we buying a £15million left-sided centre back in January, and then buying another for £20m seven months later with a completely different skill-set?
You will always make mistakes in the transfer market. No club is perfect. But our approach has led to a squad that looks cobbled together by a process of who shouts loudest wins. By some individuals valuing certain attributes, and others disagreeing. Which will always lead to a confused way of playing on the pitch, regardless of whether you are relying on statistics, the naked eye, or a mixture of the two.
It’s also interesting that, in among the debates about whether football statistics are good or evil, the question of how much power certain individuals have emerged. As well as wanting to actually get off with data, Michael Edwards was also accused of growing his influence with the owners in a manner that allowed him to see off a manager he didn’t see eye to eye with.

Whether that is true or not, empire building at Anfield has been a common concern ever since the ownership of the club moved to the other side of the Atlantic. Every time a power vacuum has opened up, an ambitious individual has been there to fill it. Every time something hasn’t looked right, someone at the club has been quick to volunteer that they could do it better.
Whether these individuals have been working for the good of the club, or the good of themselves, I’ll let you decide.
Under Rafa Benitez there were plenty of stories about the rise and rise of Owen Brown, the former manager of local non-league side Vauxhall Motors, who went from community coach to Rafa’s ‘confidant’ at a pace that raised plenty of eyebrows.
Benitez himself managed to seize more and more control of the football club, after deciding much of it, most notably the academy, wasn’t being run to his liking. The man who sacked Benitez, of course, was our friend Christian Cecil Purslow (below right), who was brought in by Hicks and Gillett primarily to renegotiate the club’s outstanding loans, but instead seemingly decided that it was more fun to pretend to be a Sporting Director.
Under FSG the fun hasn’t stopped. We have a chief executive who got the job by filling in until the owners got bored of looking for another one, a stadium manager who seemingly has free rein to impose whatever rules on Liverpool fans he likes and a managerial position that varies from working with whatever you are given, to picking whoever you want, depending on how high his stock is at any given time.
I have no issues with talented being recognised and people being promoted in a structured, planned way. Again though, the recent history of this being the case at Anfield doesn’t look great. Therefore any talk that Michael Edwards has managed to increase his influence at the club to something approaching untouchable should rightly be met with concern.
Football - FA Premier League - Liverpool FC v Arsenal FCSo where does all this leave Jürgen Klopp? Well hopefully he’ll join the club and think everyone is brilliant. That would be ideal. I don’t know how good most of these people are and, unlike others don’t feel I’m in an ideal position to judge them. If Klopp thinks he can work with them all and move the club forward, then that’s fine with me.
But if he doesn’t? Well this time we might actually have a manager with the power to change it. Firstly, he’s a strong personality. When he talks, people listen. Plus he’s won stuff. If an argument does break out, which it inevitably will, a quick game of “hands up who’s been in a Champions League final” should solve it fairly quickly.
But crucially, and differently from many of his predecessors, we have a man who doesn’t want to do everything. A man who has already said that a transfer committee is sensible and that one man doesn’t have all the answers. A man who is happy to just be on a pitch dealing with good players.
By changing the argument from “they are rubbish, let me do it” to “we did this differently in Germany and it worked much better, maybe try this” you have a much better chance of convincing owners who just want to win, but are unsure who they can trust to get us there. You suspect Jürgen Klopp might even suggest bringing in a Director of Football above him, which would make John Henry’s head fall off.
I’m aware I’m heaping more pressure on Klopp here. Going from sorting out the mess on the pitch, to the whole structure of the football club. But he’s the only one who knows what a winning football club looks like.
And no-one said any of this was going to be easy.

http://www.theanfieldwrap.com/2015/10/Jürgen-klopp-stats-the-way-to-do-it/?

Sorry S@int but a couple of issues there:

1) There's at least one spelling mistake in there.
2) The source, I mean that could have been written by anyone on TIA it doesn't give credit so clearly it's worthless.

Now to the stuff that really matters, the content 

An excellent article that I think people from both sides of the argument will appreciate. He describes many of the issues in a much more gentle fashion and perhaps easier to digest for those a little sensitive of nature. I think his conclusion is also spot on, I hope also that Klopp can change the direction and structure of the club somewhat, having come from a seemingly very healthy footballing environment to what we have may shock him but the fix, as the writer suggests, is not too difficult or large a step.

Cracking stuff, cheers for posting.

Jürgen KLOPP: STATS THE WAY TO DO IT
by John Gibbons // 13 October 2015
A MANAGERIAL change is never just a managerial change. Collateral damage is high. When the manager clears his desk, everyone from his coaches to the tea lady worries they will soon be doing the same.
Assistant manager Sean O’Driscoll, Head of Performance Glen Driscoll and Head of Opposition Analysis Chris Davies were all quick to follow Brendan out the door, with Gary McAllister given a new role as the 4,356th club ambassador on the Anfield payroll.
Yet still disgruntled supporters bay for blood. Some wanted an overhaul of the entire structure of the football club. Others wondered how many goalkeepers needed to disintergrate before our very eyes before John Achterburg’s position might need to be reviewed. Loads and loads of people expressed a desire to throw the Transfer Committee in the Mersey.
I’m sure you’ll have read much of that chat by now, nicely summarised by our friend Andi Thomas yesterday. Basically, a couple of national journalists performed a hatchet job on the transfer committee in general and Head of Performance Analysis, Michael Edwards. It seemingly amounted to: “Can you trust a fella with a laptop though? All sounds a bit noncey.”
Then a lot of stats lads on the internet called the journalists luddites who were stuck in the dark ages and said they “didn’t understand how statistics can be used to buy players”. Although very few then went on to actually enlighten us on how this was.
The silent(ish) majority of us are probably in the middle. I understand that managers can’t do everything. Jürgen Klopp admitted as much in his first managerial press conference.
Football - Liverpool Announce Jürgen Klopp as new managerI think most of us get that with all the demands of a modern manager, and all the demands of a traditional manager, one man can’t be solely in charge of player recruitment. I think most accept that as the net for potential players gets wider and younger it’s probably wise to have a lot of people looking at them.
And with the progression in technology and data analysis, it’s wise that some of these lads can look at the numbers and assess whether he is actually doing the stuff we want a footballer to do, and not just looking boss doing loads of Cruyff turns on the half-way line.
The problem is Liverpool haven’t been very good recently and a big part of that, as always, is related to the quality of the footballers out on the pitch. So, as football fans who love our club, we start wondering what on earth is going wrong with recruitment.
The ‘answers’ in recent times have been as clear as mud, from confusing job titles to a manager said to have final say complaining about “the tools” he had been given. Meanwhile, briefings emerged that others at the club think the players are fine, and that it’s actually how they are used that is the problem.
Essentially, everyone blames each other and the owners and fans have to try and decide who is wrong and who is right.
The main issue I have with our Transfer Committee is that it all seems rather thrown together, with a complete lack of footballing overview. The last manager was hired around the same time as the committee was put together, but it was seemingly independent of each other. Even if all these men are great at their jobs, if they think very differently about football to each other then there will always be problems.
I’m less concerned with how many people on computers we have looking at numbers, and more with what numbers they are looking at. Who decides what style of football Liverpool should play, and therefore the qualities in a player that we desire? Who decides what a Liverpool midfielder should be able to do, and therefore which numbers are more relevant than others? Who decides what style of striker we should be playing with, and draws up a shortlist of who they are and ranks them in order?
Recent history at Liverpool suggests the answer to this, unfortunately, is each individual for themselves. It’s the only possible reason why Luis Suarez’s replacement went from Alexis Sanchez, to Loic Remy to Mario Balotelli. Forget about the quality, for the moment, they are three completely different players.
That’s not the only example.
Why does the manager think we need a left back like Ryan Bertrand, but the transfer committee think  we need one like Alberto Moreno? Why are we buying a £15million left-sided centre back in January, and then buying another for £20m seven months later with a completely different skill-set?
You will always make mistakes in the transfer market. No club is perfect. But our approach has led to a squad that looks cobbled together by a process of who shouts loudest wins. By some individuals valuing certain attributes, and others disagreeing. Which will always lead to a confused way of playing on the pitch, regardless of whether you are relying on statistics, the naked eye, or a mixture of the two.
It’s also interesting that, in among the debates about whether football statistics are good or evil, the question of how much power certain individuals have emerged. As well as wanting to actually get off with data, Michael Edwards was also accused of growing his influence with the owners in a manner that allowed him to see off a manager he didn’t see eye to eye with.

Whether that is true or not, empire building at Anfield has been a common concern ever since the ownership of the club moved to the other side of the Atlantic. Every time a power vacuum has opened up, an ambitious individual has been there to fill it. Every time something hasn’t looked right, someone at the club has been quick to volunteer that they could do it better.
Whether these individuals have been working for the good of the club, or the good of themselves, I’ll let you decide.
Under Rafa Benitez there were plenty of stories about the rise and rise of Owen Brown, the former manager of local non-league side Vauxhall Motors, who went from community coach to Rafa’s ‘confidant’ at a pace that raised plenty of eyebrows.
Benitez himself managed to seize more and more control of the football club, after deciding much of it, most notably the academy, wasn’t being run to his liking. The man who sacked Benitez, of course, was our friend Christian Cecil Purslow (below right), who was brought in by Hicks and Gillett primarily to renegotiate the club’s outstanding loans, but instead seemingly decided that it was more fun to pretend to be a Sporting Director.
Under FSG the fun hasn’t stopped. We have a chief executive who got the job by filling in until the owners got bored of looking for another one, a stadium manager who seemingly has free rein to impose whatever rules on Liverpool fans he likes and a managerial position that varies from working with whatever you are given, to picking whoever you want, depending on how high his stock is at any given time.
I have no issues with talented being recognised and people being promoted in a structured, planned way. Again though, the recent history of this being the case at Anfield doesn’t look great. Therefore any talk that Michael Edwards has managed to increase his influence at the club to something approaching untouchable should rightly be met with concern.
Football - FA Premier League - Liverpool FC v Arsenal FCSo where does all this leave Jürgen Klopp? Well hopefully he’ll join the club and think everyone is brilliant. That would be ideal. I don’t know how good most of these people are and, unlike others don’t feel I’m in an ideal position to judge them. If Klopp thinks he can work with them all and move the club forward, then that’s fine with me.
But if he doesn’t? Well this time we might actually have a manager with the power to change it. Firstly, he’s a strong personality. When he talks, people listen. Plus he’s won stuff. If an argument does break out, which it inevitably will, a quick game of “hands up who’s been in a Champions League final” should solve it fairly quickly.
But crucially, and differently from many of his predecessors, we have a man who doesn’t want to do everything. A man who has already said that a transfer committee is sensible and that one man doesn’t have all the answers. A man who is happy to just be on a pitch dealing with good players.
By changing the argument from “they are rubbish, let me do it” to “we did this differently in Germany and it worked much better, maybe try this” you have a much better chance of convincing owners who just want to win, but are unsure who they can trust to get us there. You suspect Jürgen Klopp might even suggest bringing in a Director of Football above him, which would make John Henry’s head fall off.
I’m aware I’m heaping more pressure on Klopp here. Going from sorting out the mess on the pitch, to the whole structure of the football club. But he’s the only one who knows what a winning football club looks like.
And no-one said any of this was going to be easy.

http://www.theanfieldwrap.com/2015/10/Jürgen-klopp-stats-the-way-to-do-it/?

All this extrapolated from a not very good daily heil attempted hatchet job, and the assumption that because the writer doesn't understand the process, no one else does.

Bag of sh*te as far as I'm concerned; badly written, full of half truths with a distinct lack of any facts, loads of supposition and a surprising amount of ignorance about how things actually work.

Sorry S@int but a couple of issues there:

1) There's at least one spelling mistake in there.
2) The source, I mean that could have been written by anyone on TIA it doesn't give credit so clearly it's worthless.

Now to the stuff that really matters, the content 

An excellent article that I think people from both sides of the argument will appreciate. He describes many of the issues in a much more gentle fashion and perhaps easier to digest for those a little sensitive of nature. I think his conclusion is also spot on, I hope also that Klopp can change the direction and structure of the club somewhat, having come from a seemingly very healthy footballing environment to what we have may shock him but the fix, as the writer suggests, is not too difficult or large a step.

Cracking stuff, cheers for posting.

I agree mate, I thought it was an excellent well written article. Raises many of the points we have been making and asks some interesting questions.

 
 

This is really funny.

The same people constantly trying to create a narrative, excluding and ignoring all evidence that doesn't fit in with their agenda, which presumably is the next bitchfest where they get to moan their arses off over F**k all, and then using a F***ing wannabe "reporter" as a credible source, and ignoring the fact that the article has literally nothing in it that hasn't been said before, and said wrongly at that.
And before THAT, using a F***ing daily heil article as "proof".
You couldn't make this sh*t up.

Brilliant. 

It's just an article off the Anfield wrap.

It's just an article off the Anfield wrap.

Best to ignore the hysterical troll S@int.

In many ways I could care less about the number of people we have contributing insights on potential new recruits as long as it's an efficient process that enables the manager to make a decision with the best information available.

Any danger that he may be persuaded to sign a player against his honestly held beliefs about the kinds of players we need can be dealt with by making it clear that ultimately it is his decision and everyone else is there to support him in that endeavour.

Added to that, I think in Klopp we have a strong character who will have firm convictions about the kinds of players he wants, in terms of general attributes as well as character; and that ought to significantly reduce the likelihood of any committee process(es) resulting in our signing a hodge-podge of occasionally headless chickens.

In the end, having a strong manager is the best way of ensuring any potentially adverse rules/systems/policies/bullshit imposed from above don't get in the way of building a strong team.