The Official Liverpool FC Thread [Vol 9]
Discussion
RedTrident said:
I'm not sure what this MRT stuff is about. The tides turned for all the blind backers of BWB, the M must stand for majority opinion I think.
And drawing SAF as a comparison to Bodge, that is so lazy at best and just plain ignorant at worst. SAF was a proven winner when he came to Utd. Remind me what league and European competitions Bodge has won?
You still generally moaning, just most others have joined in as well, And drawing SAF as a comparison to Bodge, that is so lazy at best and just plain ignorant at worst. SAF was a proven winner when he came to Utd. Remind me what league and European competitions Bodge has won?
As an Aberdeen fan I know, however my point is things can change in quite a short space of time - just see what has happened between this season and last season. I think if we can get a striker and a bit of confidence that it can change pretty quickly again. That said, BR needs to learn a bit more in regards to not changing things all the time and to get in help when he has problems.
RedTrident said:
cerb4.5lee said:
I agree with you and I wish he had made as much effort when buying his players as he did when buying his coat for the UTD game.
tis a lovely coat. No need for an umbrella in the style of half time tea cup Steve, with a coat like that. 
NRS said:
RedTrident said:
I'm not sure what this MRT stuff is about. The tides turned for all the blind backers of BWB, the M must stand for majority opinion I think.
And drawing SAF as a comparison to Bodge, that is so lazy at best and just plain ignorant at worst. SAF was a proven winner when he came to Utd. Remind me what league and European competitions Bodge has won?
You still generally moaning, just most others have joined in as well, And drawing SAF as a comparison to Bodge, that is so lazy at best and just plain ignorant at worst. SAF was a proven winner when he came to Utd. Remind me what league and European competitions Bodge has won?
As an Aberdeen fan I know, however my point is things can change in quite a short space of time - just see what has happened between this season and last season. I think if we can get a striker and a bit of confidence that it can change pretty quickly again. That said, BR needs to learn a bit more in regards to not changing things all the time and to get in help when he has problems.
And as for your opinion, of course you're entitled to it. But, and you pick up on this, why would anything change if we carry on the way we are. Our defence is shocking and has been since Bodge arrived. He's spent the best part of 100 million on his back 5. At some point it is about the coaching. The defence won't get better with BWB allowed to continue as is.
Worth a read imo
How do you spend more than £215 million on transfer and loan fees and sign 24 footballers but end up with only two who have significantly improved your first team?
You hire Liverpool's infamous "Transfer Committee."
Established in the summer of 2012 to introduce science and collective decision-making to the club's recruitment policy, Liverpool's committee is formally composed of four individuals—Brendan Rodgers (manager), Ian Ayre (chief executive), Dave Fallows (head of recruitment) and Michael Edwards (head of performance analysis).
Their collective conclusions have been little short of catastrophic. More than half of the Transfer Committee's spending occurred this last summer, when Rodgers boasted of having a "different vision" and a clear transfer "strategy" to Sky Sports (h/t ESPN FC). Yet with that spending, Liverpool have descended to ninth in the Premier League, scoring just seven times in eight home games.
As they were outplayed and ousted from the Champions League by FC Basel on Tuesday night, Rodgers chose to start just two of Anfield's high-tariff summer recruits.
One of them, Rickie Lambert, began at centre-forward despite, as captain Steven Gerrard put it, having "ran himself into the ground the last five games."
Rodgers had such little faith in his other strikers that he named no backup to the weary Lambert for a must-win game.
Watching from the stands were two Transfer Committee specials: Mario Balotelli (read about his LFC contract here), who was still sidelined with the peculiarly intransigent injury that brought a halt to the Italian's embarrassing barren spell leading Liverpool's attack, and Fabio Borini, the €13.3 million acquisition from AS Roma who Rodgers told the club's website "the supporters will love" in his first spell at the club.
Between them, Balotelli, Borini and Lambert have delivered just two league goals in 40 Liverpool appearances.
Forwards are by no means the sole area of underperformance. Simon Mignolet is a £9 million goalkeeper for whom Liverpool were scouting replacements before his first season was even complete.
More than £45 million in fees have been spent on three centre-backs, yet Rodgers still frequently pairs the error-prone Martin Skrtel with the greatly declined Kolo Toure (brought in for free but with high wages).
Still more money has been spent on midfielders, only for Rodgers to use four inherited players for five starting in midweek.
The Northern Irishman's apologists like to use the committee to absolve him of blame for many of these signings. The truth is more insidious.
Rodgers has the power of veto over any transfer target proposed by Ayre, Edwards, Fallows or chief scout Barry Hunter. The rest of the committee can veto any player proposed by Rodgers.
In the manager's first summer at Anfield, for example, he asked for a cavalcade of his former Swansea City charges, including Leon Britton, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Neil Taylor and Michel Vorm. Purchases were restricted to an inflated £15m fee for Joe Allen.
In May, Rodgers explained his significant role in the Liverpool transfer process to James Pearce of the Liverpool Echo:
Obviously, I am involved heavily in the identification of the player.
The principal idea when I first came in was that like any manager you will have the first call on a player and the last call.
That's the call on whether he's good enough to continue to look at and try to organise a deal and the last call to say yes or no.
There is a big part that goes on in between. In modern football you need to trust other people to do the work. That's something we do here and that's why we have had the success we've had.
Edwards is the committee's other main protagonist. A former video analyst whom Damien Comolli brought with him from Tottenham Hotspur, Edwards gained the trust of Liverpool's principal owner, John W. Henry, by presenting a statistical model for analysing potential signings.
Famously enamoured with Billy Beane's sabermetric approach to hiring baseball players, Henry believed that in the young Englishman he had a football equivalent.
Edwards was invited to spend time with Henry at the businessman's Florida mansion. His guidance was taken seriously when Henry and the rest of Fenway Sports Group sought a replacement for former Reds manager Roy Hodgson.
Aware that numbers mattered to FSG's vision for the club, Edwards appointed Ian Graham as Liverpool's director of research. Holder of a PhD in theoretical physics, Graham had developed a computer programme designed to add discriminative value to player performance statistics provided by companies such as ProZone.
When Rodgers, a scout or an agent suggested Liverpool sign a particular player, Edwards would have the player's numbers run through the Graham model. If the computer said no, the deal was off.
When Red Bull Salzburg were looking for a buyer for Sadio Mane in the summer, Liverpool were one of the clubs approached. Graham's analysis indicated the Senegal international wasn't good enough, so Mane ended up at Southampton instead (paid for with a fraction of the money Rodgers channelled to the South Coast club for Adam Lallana, Dejan Lovren and Lambert).
Mane's new club currently sit fifth in the league table, five points ahead of Liverpool.
Edwards' backing of a "moneyball" approach and Rodgers' limited knowledge of non-Premier League players has led to several standoffs.
Oussama Assaidi and Nuri Sahin were Edwards' men whom Rodgers assented to signing then hardly used in their preferred positions.
After seven league appearances in five months, Sahin's loan was terminated. The Turkey international ended the 2012-13 season playing a Champions League final for Borussia Dortmund.
Assaidi, recently identified by Raheem Sterling as his most skilful team-mate, per Sky Sports, was permitted a total of 83 minutes in the league before being loaned to Stoke City for the last two seasons.
In their first summer working together, Edwards pushed for Fiorentina centre-back Matija Nastasic to be recruited. Rodgers wanted a player with Premier League experience, but during the standoff, Manchester City bought the Serb instead.
Nastasic was named Manchester City's Young Player of the Year during his first season in England, while Liverpool still hasn't found a reliable central defender.
For another Premier League manager whose club also utilised the Graham model, part of that comes as no surprise.
"That guy was a serious nerd," he says. "And the program was ridiculous. The parameters were set from his own view of what a defender, midfielder or attacker should do. They were ludicrous and inaccurate."
For two Anfield years, Luis Suarez's unalloyed excellence compensated for a multitude of recruitment and coaching sins. Yet between Edwards' faith in analytics and Rodgers' poor eye for a player, Liverpool have managed to blow well in excess of £250,000,000 pounds once payoffs and agents' fee are factored in.
Even the committee's conspicuous success, Daniel Sturridge, was recommended by an unconvinced Rodgers to only be brought in on loan.
If you were the man who paid this pair to run your football club, you'd be forgiven for wondering if you might not be better off replacing both of them.
Duncan Castles writes for the Sunday Times, Sports Illustrated, UEFA Champions magazine and others. A respected figure with an inside track, he has built a reputation for breaking transfer stories.
How do you spend more than £215 million on transfer and loan fees and sign 24 footballers but end up with only two who have significantly improved your first team?
You hire Liverpool's infamous "Transfer Committee."
Established in the summer of 2012 to introduce science and collective decision-making to the club's recruitment policy, Liverpool's committee is formally composed of four individuals—Brendan Rodgers (manager), Ian Ayre (chief executive), Dave Fallows (head of recruitment) and Michael Edwards (head of performance analysis).
Their collective conclusions have been little short of catastrophic. More than half of the Transfer Committee's spending occurred this last summer, when Rodgers boasted of having a "different vision" and a clear transfer "strategy" to Sky Sports (h/t ESPN FC). Yet with that spending, Liverpool have descended to ninth in the Premier League, scoring just seven times in eight home games.
As they were outplayed and ousted from the Champions League by FC Basel on Tuesday night, Rodgers chose to start just two of Anfield's high-tariff summer recruits.
One of them, Rickie Lambert, began at centre-forward despite, as captain Steven Gerrard put it, having "ran himself into the ground the last five games."
Rodgers had such little faith in his other strikers that he named no backup to the weary Lambert for a must-win game.
Watching from the stands were two Transfer Committee specials: Mario Balotelli (read about his LFC contract here), who was still sidelined with the peculiarly intransigent injury that brought a halt to the Italian's embarrassing barren spell leading Liverpool's attack, and Fabio Borini, the €13.3 million acquisition from AS Roma who Rodgers told the club's website "the supporters will love" in his first spell at the club.
Between them, Balotelli, Borini and Lambert have delivered just two league goals in 40 Liverpool appearances.
Forwards are by no means the sole area of underperformance. Simon Mignolet is a £9 million goalkeeper for whom Liverpool were scouting replacements before his first season was even complete.
More than £45 million in fees have been spent on three centre-backs, yet Rodgers still frequently pairs the error-prone Martin Skrtel with the greatly declined Kolo Toure (brought in for free but with high wages).
Still more money has been spent on midfielders, only for Rodgers to use four inherited players for five starting in midweek.
The Northern Irishman's apologists like to use the committee to absolve him of blame for many of these signings. The truth is more insidious.
Rodgers has the power of veto over any transfer target proposed by Ayre, Edwards, Fallows or chief scout Barry Hunter. The rest of the committee can veto any player proposed by Rodgers.
In the manager's first summer at Anfield, for example, he asked for a cavalcade of his former Swansea City charges, including Leon Britton, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Neil Taylor and Michel Vorm. Purchases were restricted to an inflated £15m fee for Joe Allen.
In May, Rodgers explained his significant role in the Liverpool transfer process to James Pearce of the Liverpool Echo:
Obviously, I am involved heavily in the identification of the player.
The principal idea when I first came in was that like any manager you will have the first call on a player and the last call.
That's the call on whether he's good enough to continue to look at and try to organise a deal and the last call to say yes or no.
There is a big part that goes on in between. In modern football you need to trust other people to do the work. That's something we do here and that's why we have had the success we've had.
Edwards is the committee's other main protagonist. A former video analyst whom Damien Comolli brought with him from Tottenham Hotspur, Edwards gained the trust of Liverpool's principal owner, John W. Henry, by presenting a statistical model for analysing potential signings.
Famously enamoured with Billy Beane's sabermetric approach to hiring baseball players, Henry believed that in the young Englishman he had a football equivalent.
Edwards was invited to spend time with Henry at the businessman's Florida mansion. His guidance was taken seriously when Henry and the rest of Fenway Sports Group sought a replacement for former Reds manager Roy Hodgson.
Aware that numbers mattered to FSG's vision for the club, Edwards appointed Ian Graham as Liverpool's director of research. Holder of a PhD in theoretical physics, Graham had developed a computer programme designed to add discriminative value to player performance statistics provided by companies such as ProZone.
When Rodgers, a scout or an agent suggested Liverpool sign a particular player, Edwards would have the player's numbers run through the Graham model. If the computer said no, the deal was off.
When Red Bull Salzburg were looking for a buyer for Sadio Mane in the summer, Liverpool were one of the clubs approached. Graham's analysis indicated the Senegal international wasn't good enough, so Mane ended up at Southampton instead (paid for with a fraction of the money Rodgers channelled to the South Coast club for Adam Lallana, Dejan Lovren and Lambert).
Mane's new club currently sit fifth in the league table, five points ahead of Liverpool.
Edwards' backing of a "moneyball" approach and Rodgers' limited knowledge of non-Premier League players has led to several standoffs.
Oussama Assaidi and Nuri Sahin were Edwards' men whom Rodgers assented to signing then hardly used in their preferred positions.
After seven league appearances in five months, Sahin's loan was terminated. The Turkey international ended the 2012-13 season playing a Champions League final for Borussia Dortmund.
Assaidi, recently identified by Raheem Sterling as his most skilful team-mate, per Sky Sports, was permitted a total of 83 minutes in the league before being loaned to Stoke City for the last two seasons.
In their first summer working together, Edwards pushed for Fiorentina centre-back Matija Nastasic to be recruited. Rodgers wanted a player with Premier League experience, but during the standoff, Manchester City bought the Serb instead.
Nastasic was named Manchester City's Young Player of the Year during his first season in England, while Liverpool still hasn't found a reliable central defender.
For another Premier League manager whose club also utilised the Graham model, part of that comes as no surprise.
"That guy was a serious nerd," he says. "And the program was ridiculous. The parameters were set from his own view of what a defender, midfielder or attacker should do. They were ludicrous and inaccurate."
For two Anfield years, Luis Suarez's unalloyed excellence compensated for a multitude of recruitment and coaching sins. Yet between Edwards' faith in analytics and Rodgers' poor eye for a player, Liverpool have managed to blow well in excess of £250,000,000 pounds once payoffs and agents' fee are factored in.
Even the committee's conspicuous success, Daniel Sturridge, was recommended by an unconvinced Rodgers to only be brought in on loan.
If you were the man who paid this pair to run your football club, you'd be forgiven for wondering if you might not be better off replacing both of them.
Duncan Castles writes for the Sunday Times, Sports Illustrated, UEFA Champions magazine and others. A respected figure with an inside track, he has built a reputation for breaking transfer stories.
RedTrident said:
So nothing like SAF at Utd then. Thanks for clearing that up.
And as for your opinion, of course you're entitled to it. But, and you pick up on this, why would anything change if we carry on the way we are. Our defence is shocking and has been since Bodge arrived. He's spent the best part of 100 million on his back 5. At some point it is about the coaching. The defence won't get better with BWB allowed to continue as is.
A few points difference last season and it would have been a different story in regards to winning something.And as for your opinion, of course you're entitled to it. But, and you pick up on this, why would anything change if we carry on the way we are. Our defence is shocking and has been since Bodge arrived. He's spent the best part of 100 million on his back 5. At some point it is about the coaching. The defence won't get better with BWB allowed to continue as is.
I agree there is something needing to be done about it, but if we get a few decent strikers and confidence levels up does it matter when we score more goals than the other team? Would you prefer Rafa's strong defensive and not so many goals style, or Rodgers lots of goals everywhere?
In my opinion he should be allowed to the end of the season, and then see what happens (although that may be pointless if we don't get a decent striker in January/ Sturridge back for most of the rest of the season - I can't see much change without a good striker). My opinion is he has a setup towards attacking football (style of training, play, new signings), but after the mess of the summer transfer window in regards to no strikers then it suddenly means everything else falls apart, which is why it happened so quickly.
And the fact is that he didn't win anything and would have if he'd sorted his defence.
Rodgers style isn't about lots of goals everywhere, unless you mean lots of goals conceded from everywhere. Last season was a big Suarez sized blip. Just look at his goals and assists.
Its not really about one or the other though is it? He is useless at setting up a team to defend, every one of us agrees on that. Yet he is on record as saying that he doesn't need nor want a defensive coach. That's a pretty serious blind spot in a simple game like football.
You believe that he can turn this around continuing the way he is. Or by buying a striker. I believe that the problems are much much deeper than this.
As for Rafa, again the facts are there for all to see. He is proven at the highest level.
Rodgers style isn't about lots of goals everywhere, unless you mean lots of goals conceded from everywhere. Last season was a big Suarez sized blip. Just look at his goals and assists.
Its not really about one or the other though is it? He is useless at setting up a team to defend, every one of us agrees on that. Yet he is on record as saying that he doesn't need nor want a defensive coach. That's a pretty serious blind spot in a simple game like football.
You believe that he can turn this around continuing the way he is. Or by buying a striker. I believe that the problems are much much deeper than this.
As for Rafa, again the facts are there for all to see. He is proven at the highest level.
RedTrident said:
Worth a read imo
How do you spend more than £215 million on transfer and loan fees and sign 24 footballers but end up with only two who have significantly improved your first team?
You hire Liverpool's infamous "Transfer Committee."
Established in the summer of 2012 to introduce science and collective decision-making to the club's recruitment policy, Liverpool's committee is formally composed of four individuals—Brendan Rodgers (manager), Ian Ayre (chief executive), Dave Fallows (head of recruitment) and Michael Edwards (head of performance analysis).
Their collective conclusions have been little short of catastrophic. More than half of the Transfer Committee's spending occurred this last summer, when Rodgers boasted of having a "different vision" and a clear transfer "strategy" to Sky Sports (h/t ESPN FC). Yet with that spending, Liverpool have descended to ninth in the Premier League, scoring just seven times in eight home games.
As they were outplayed and ousted from the Champions League by FC Basel on Tuesday night, Rodgers chose to start just two of Anfield's high-tariff summer recruits.
One of them, Rickie Lambert, began at centre-forward despite, as captain Steven Gerrard put it, having "ran himself into the ground the last five games."
Rodgers had such little faith in his other strikers that he named no backup to the weary Lambert for a must-win game.
Watching from the stands were two Transfer Committee specials: Mario Balotelli (read about his LFC contract here), who was still sidelined with the peculiarly intransigent injury that brought a halt to the Italian's embarrassing barren spell leading Liverpool's attack, and Fabio Borini, the €13.3 million acquisition from AS Roma who Rodgers told the club's website "the supporters will love" in his first spell at the club.
Between them, Balotelli, Borini and Lambert have delivered just two league goals in 40 Liverpool appearances.
Forwards are by no means the sole area of underperformance. Simon Mignolet is a £9 million goalkeeper for whom Liverpool were scouting replacements before his first season was even complete.
More than £45 million in fees have been spent on three centre-backs, yet Rodgers still frequently pairs the error-prone Martin Skrtel with the greatly declined Kolo Toure (brought in for free but with high wages).
Still more money has been spent on midfielders, only for Rodgers to use four inherited players for five starting in midweek.
The Northern Irishman's apologists like to use the committee to absolve him of blame for many of these signings. The truth is more insidious.
Rodgers has the power of veto over any transfer target proposed by Ayre, Edwards, Fallows or chief scout Barry Hunter. The rest of the committee can veto any player proposed by Rodgers.
In the manager's first summer at Anfield, for example, he asked for a cavalcade of his former Swansea City charges, including Leon Britton, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Neil Taylor and Michel Vorm. Purchases were restricted to an inflated £15m fee for Joe Allen.
In May, Rodgers explained his significant role in the Liverpool transfer process to James Pearce of the Liverpool Echo:
Obviously, I am involved heavily in the identification of the player.
The principal idea when I first came in was that like any manager you will have the first call on a player and the last call.
That's the call on whether he's good enough to continue to look at and try to organise a deal and the last call to say yes or no.
There is a big part that goes on in between. In modern football you need to trust other people to do the work. That's something we do here and that's why we have had the success we've had.
Edwards is the committee's other main protagonist. A former video analyst whom Damien Comolli brought with him from Tottenham Hotspur, Edwards gained the trust of Liverpool's principal owner, John W. Henry, by presenting a statistical model for analysing potential signings.
Famously enamoured with Billy Beane's sabermetric approach to hiring baseball players, Henry believed that in the young Englishman he had a football equivalent.
Edwards was invited to spend time with Henry at the businessman's Florida mansion. His guidance was taken seriously when Henry and the rest of Fenway Sports Group sought a replacement for former Reds manager Roy Hodgson.
Aware that numbers mattered to FSG's vision for the club, Edwards appointed Ian Graham as Liverpool's director of research. Holder of a PhD in theoretical physics, Graham had developed a computer programme designed to add discriminative value to player performance statistics provided by companies such as ProZone.
When Rodgers, a scout or an agent suggested Liverpool sign a particular player, Edwards would have the player's numbers run through the Graham model. If the computer said no, the deal was off.
When Red Bull Salzburg were looking for a buyer for Sadio Mane in the summer, Liverpool were one of the clubs approached. Graham's analysis indicated the Senegal international wasn't good enough, so Mane ended up at Southampton instead (paid for with a fraction of the money Rodgers channelled to the South Coast club for Adam Lallana, Dejan Lovren and Lambert).
Mane's new club currently sit fifth in the league table, five points ahead of Liverpool.
Edwards' backing of a "moneyball" approach and Rodgers' limited knowledge of non-Premier League players has led to several standoffs.
Oussama Assaidi and Nuri Sahin were Edwards' men whom Rodgers assented to signing then hardly used in their preferred positions.
After seven league appearances in five months, Sahin's loan was terminated. The Turkey international ended the 2012-13 season playing a Champions League final for Borussia Dortmund.
Assaidi, recently identified by Raheem Sterling as his most skilful team-mate, per Sky Sports, was permitted a total of 83 minutes in the league before being loaned to Stoke City for the last two seasons.
In their first summer working together, Edwards pushed for Fiorentina centre-back Matija Nastasic to be recruited. Rodgers wanted a player with Premier League experience, but during the standoff, Manchester City bought the Serb instead.
Nastasic was named Manchester City's Young Player of the Year during his first season in England, while Liverpool still hasn't found a reliable central defender.
For another Premier League manager whose club also utilised the Graham model, part of that comes as no surprise.
"That guy was a serious nerd," he says. "And the program was ridiculous. The parameters were set from his own view of what a defender, midfielder or attacker should do. They were ludicrous and inaccurate."
For two Anfield years, Luis Suarez's unalloyed excellence compensated for a multitude of recruitment and coaching sins. Yet between Edwards' faith in analytics and Rodgers' poor eye for a player, Liverpool have managed to blow well in excess of £250,000,000 pounds once payoffs and agents' fee are factored in.
Even the committee's conspicuous success, Daniel Sturridge, was recommended by an unconvinced Rodgers to only be brought in on loan.
If you were the man who paid this pair to run your football club, you'd be forgiven for wondering if you might not be better off replacing both of them.
Duncan Castles writes for the Sunday Times, Sports Illustrated, UEFA Champions magazine and others. A respected figure with an inside track, he has built a reputation for breaking transfer stories.
I'd come across some of that before but some if that is new, and a well written piece. How do you spend more than £215 million on transfer and loan fees and sign 24 footballers but end up with only two who have significantly improved your first team?
You hire Liverpool's infamous "Transfer Committee."
Established in the summer of 2012 to introduce science and collective decision-making to the club's recruitment policy, Liverpool's committee is formally composed of four individuals—Brendan Rodgers (manager), Ian Ayre (chief executive), Dave Fallows (head of recruitment) and Michael Edwards (head of performance analysis).
Their collective conclusions have been little short of catastrophic. More than half of the Transfer Committee's spending occurred this last summer, when Rodgers boasted of having a "different vision" and a clear transfer "strategy" to Sky Sports (h/t ESPN FC). Yet with that spending, Liverpool have descended to ninth in the Premier League, scoring just seven times in eight home games.
As they were outplayed and ousted from the Champions League by FC Basel on Tuesday night, Rodgers chose to start just two of Anfield's high-tariff summer recruits.
One of them, Rickie Lambert, began at centre-forward despite, as captain Steven Gerrard put it, having "ran himself into the ground the last five games."
Rodgers had such little faith in his other strikers that he named no backup to the weary Lambert for a must-win game.
Watching from the stands were two Transfer Committee specials: Mario Balotelli (read about his LFC contract here), who was still sidelined with the peculiarly intransigent injury that brought a halt to the Italian's embarrassing barren spell leading Liverpool's attack, and Fabio Borini, the €13.3 million acquisition from AS Roma who Rodgers told the club's website "the supporters will love" in his first spell at the club.
Between them, Balotelli, Borini and Lambert have delivered just two league goals in 40 Liverpool appearances.
Forwards are by no means the sole area of underperformance. Simon Mignolet is a £9 million goalkeeper for whom Liverpool were scouting replacements before his first season was even complete.
More than £45 million in fees have been spent on three centre-backs, yet Rodgers still frequently pairs the error-prone Martin Skrtel with the greatly declined Kolo Toure (brought in for free but with high wages).
Still more money has been spent on midfielders, only for Rodgers to use four inherited players for five starting in midweek.
The Northern Irishman's apologists like to use the committee to absolve him of blame for many of these signings. The truth is more insidious.
Rodgers has the power of veto over any transfer target proposed by Ayre, Edwards, Fallows or chief scout Barry Hunter. The rest of the committee can veto any player proposed by Rodgers.
In the manager's first summer at Anfield, for example, he asked for a cavalcade of his former Swansea City charges, including Leon Britton, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Neil Taylor and Michel Vorm. Purchases were restricted to an inflated £15m fee for Joe Allen.
In May, Rodgers explained his significant role in the Liverpool transfer process to James Pearce of the Liverpool Echo:
Obviously, I am involved heavily in the identification of the player.
The principal idea when I first came in was that like any manager you will have the first call on a player and the last call.
That's the call on whether he's good enough to continue to look at and try to organise a deal and the last call to say yes or no.
There is a big part that goes on in between. In modern football you need to trust other people to do the work. That's something we do here and that's why we have had the success we've had.
Edwards is the committee's other main protagonist. A former video analyst whom Damien Comolli brought with him from Tottenham Hotspur, Edwards gained the trust of Liverpool's principal owner, John W. Henry, by presenting a statistical model for analysing potential signings.
Famously enamoured with Billy Beane's sabermetric approach to hiring baseball players, Henry believed that in the young Englishman he had a football equivalent.
Edwards was invited to spend time with Henry at the businessman's Florida mansion. His guidance was taken seriously when Henry and the rest of Fenway Sports Group sought a replacement for former Reds manager Roy Hodgson.
Aware that numbers mattered to FSG's vision for the club, Edwards appointed Ian Graham as Liverpool's director of research. Holder of a PhD in theoretical physics, Graham had developed a computer programme designed to add discriminative value to player performance statistics provided by companies such as ProZone.
When Rodgers, a scout or an agent suggested Liverpool sign a particular player, Edwards would have the player's numbers run through the Graham model. If the computer said no, the deal was off.
When Red Bull Salzburg were looking for a buyer for Sadio Mane in the summer, Liverpool were one of the clubs approached. Graham's analysis indicated the Senegal international wasn't good enough, so Mane ended up at Southampton instead (paid for with a fraction of the money Rodgers channelled to the South Coast club for Adam Lallana, Dejan Lovren and Lambert).
Mane's new club currently sit fifth in the league table, five points ahead of Liverpool.
Edwards' backing of a "moneyball" approach and Rodgers' limited knowledge of non-Premier League players has led to several standoffs.
Oussama Assaidi and Nuri Sahin were Edwards' men whom Rodgers assented to signing then hardly used in their preferred positions.
After seven league appearances in five months, Sahin's loan was terminated. The Turkey international ended the 2012-13 season playing a Champions League final for Borussia Dortmund.
Assaidi, recently identified by Raheem Sterling as his most skilful team-mate, per Sky Sports, was permitted a total of 83 minutes in the league before being loaned to Stoke City for the last two seasons.
In their first summer working together, Edwards pushed for Fiorentina centre-back Matija Nastasic to be recruited. Rodgers wanted a player with Premier League experience, but during the standoff, Manchester City bought the Serb instead.
Nastasic was named Manchester City's Young Player of the Year during his first season in England, while Liverpool still hasn't found a reliable central defender.
For another Premier League manager whose club also utilised the Graham model, part of that comes as no surprise.
"That guy was a serious nerd," he says. "And the program was ridiculous. The parameters were set from his own view of what a defender, midfielder or attacker should do. They were ludicrous and inaccurate."
For two Anfield years, Luis Suarez's unalloyed excellence compensated for a multitude of recruitment and coaching sins. Yet between Edwards' faith in analytics and Rodgers' poor eye for a player, Liverpool have managed to blow well in excess of £250,000,000 pounds once payoffs and agents' fee are factored in.
Even the committee's conspicuous success, Daniel Sturridge, was recommended by an unconvinced Rodgers to only be brought in on loan.
If you were the man who paid this pair to run your football club, you'd be forgiven for wondering if you might not be better off replacing both of them.
Duncan Castles writes for the Sunday Times, Sports Illustrated, UEFA Champions magazine and others. A respected figure with an inside track, he has built a reputation for breaking transfer stories.
Just wow is all I can say, wow.
Why would any manager even think of coming here to put up with that farce, let alone Rodgers having what seems to be too much of an ego to go for/ give a fair chance to committee recommendations - assaidi/ sahin always sat a bit uneasy.
Not all the blame with signings is at Rodgers feet but the whole back room set up is depressing.
If I was a fan of another club or an executive at another club id be wetting myself at this.
Rafa proven?
He is currently destroying a decent Napoli side ! Up to the dizzy heights of 7th in a bad Italian league
Carragher basically admitted last night no time was really spent on defending on MNF!
He pulled up Lovren with Gary as a defender who is making mistakes that last year he didn't do! He sighted that he is more interested in the player in the middle and being close to his other CB rather than closing space between him and his FB! Showed the difference when kolo did it and how chances are not created as there is no space to run into when he defends how you are suppose too! Does believe with that tweek in his game he would get better!
Gary then brought up defending last year between Skrtel and Sakho and again showed the massive gap between them and pointed out how out back 4 never moves as unit as if we are connected by string !
Basically a simple coaching change to our back 4 would cut out a lot of problems
Move as a unit not as an individual
He is currently destroying a decent Napoli side ! Up to the dizzy heights of 7th in a bad Italian league
Carragher basically admitted last night no time was really spent on defending on MNF!
He pulled up Lovren with Gary as a defender who is making mistakes that last year he didn't do! He sighted that he is more interested in the player in the middle and being close to his other CB rather than closing space between him and his FB! Showed the difference when kolo did it and how chances are not created as there is no space to run into when he defends how you are suppose too! Does believe with that tweek in his game he would get better!
Gary then brought up defending last year between Skrtel and Sakho and again showed the massive gap between them and pointed out how out back 4 never moves as unit as if we are connected by string !
Basically a simple coaching change to our back 4 would cut out a lot of problems
Move as a unit not as an individual
Eddw86 said:
I'd come across some of that before but some if that is new, and a well written piece.
Just wow is all I can say, wow.
Why would any manager even think of coming here to put up with that farce, let alone Rodgers having what seems to be too much of an ego to go for/ give a fair chance to committee recommendations - assaidi/ sahin always sat a bit uneasy.
Not all the blame with signings is at Rodgers feet but the whole back room set up is depressing.
If I was a fan of another club or an executive at another club id be wetting myself at this.
The thing is, both Edwards and BR seem capable/incapable of finding a successful transfer.Just wow is all I can say, wow.
Why would any manager even think of coming here to put up with that farce, let alone Rodgers having what seems to be too much of an ego to go for/ give a fair chance to committee recommendations - assaidi/ sahin always sat a bit uneasy.
Not all the blame with signings is at Rodgers feet but the whole back room set up is depressing.
If I was a fan of another club or an executive at another club id be wetting myself at this.
Edwards suggested Sahin and Assaidi, well neither are exactly setting the world alight at their respective clubs.
At the end of the day, performance can't tell you about personality or adaptability and it is those traits that play as much of a role in whether a transfer will be a success as performance.
m3sye said:
Rafa proven?
He is currently destroying a decent Napoli side ! Up to the dizzy heights of 7th in a bad Italian league
Real Madrid U-19sHe is currently destroying a decent Napoli side ! Up to the dizzy heights of 7th in a bad Italian league
Spain U-19 League (1): 1992–93
Spain U-19 Cup (2): 1990–91, 1992–93
Extremadura
Segunda División promotion (1): 1997–98
Tenerife
Segunda División promotion (1): 2000–01
Valencia
La Liga (2): 2001–02, 2003–04
UEFA Cup (1): 2003–04
Liverpool
FA Cup (1): 2005–06
FA Community Shield (1): 2006
UEFA Champions League (1): 2004–05
UEFA Super Cup (1): 2005
Internazionale
Supercoppa Italiana (1): 2010
FIFA Club World Cup (1): 2010
Chelsea
UEFA Europa League (1): 2012–13
Napoli
Coppa Italia (1): 2013–14
Individual awards
Don Balón Award (1): 2002
UEFA Manager of the Year (2): 2003–04, 2004–05
Premier League Manager of the Month (6): November 2005, December 2005, January 2007, October 2008, March 2009, April 2013
You can't take all that away from him.
He also went a bit spazzy when it became clear he couldn't handle mind games from SAF.
Not a premiership winning manager, in my humble opinion.
Seriously, Liverpool have the resources to spend hundreds of millions on players and managers. They just need to stop believing this Moneyball approach is one that'll work in football and do it properly (preferably with a manager free from Anfield baggage and expectation).
Not a premiership winning manager, in my humble opinion.
Seriously, Liverpool have the resources to spend hundreds of millions on players and managers. They just need to stop believing this Moneyball approach is one that'll work in football and do it properly (preferably with a manager free from Anfield baggage and expectation).
I'm concerned that the emphasis seems to be mainly on the players.
They didn't all become duds overnight did they? Apart from the forward debacle, which could have been helped by actually using Borini, or even bringing through a promising youth player?
That and the defence, that I still think is 90% training rather than staff.
The simple fact is that we never look like scoring in open play. Something has changed and it's not just Suarez and Sturridge imo.
Do they practice shooting at LFC? Because they are all pretty poor at it aren't they? Attacking MF and Forwards should be putting shots on target in every game, ours don't.
Dicking about with wingbacks and false 9's is Xbox stuff, if he has a clear idea of how he wants us to play then he should not be making such massive changes imo, small changes to personnel sure, but the players should have some understanding of where they will be playing and what to expect.
If you were an LFC player today, you wouldn't know if you were coming or going? Henderson left wing = complete waste of a player, can he be blamed for playing poorly in that position? That's just one example
I wonder what they actually do do in training, poor in defence and no goals is pretty damning statistically.
They didn't all become duds overnight did they? Apart from the forward debacle, which could have been helped by actually using Borini, or even bringing through a promising youth player?
That and the defence, that I still think is 90% training rather than staff.
The simple fact is that we never look like scoring in open play. Something has changed and it's not just Suarez and Sturridge imo.
Do they practice shooting at LFC? Because they are all pretty poor at it aren't they? Attacking MF and Forwards should be putting shots on target in every game, ours don't.
Dicking about with wingbacks and false 9's is Xbox stuff, if he has a clear idea of how he wants us to play then he should not be making such massive changes imo, small changes to personnel sure, but the players should have some understanding of where they will be playing and what to expect.
If you were an LFC player today, you wouldn't know if you were coming or going? Henderson left wing = complete waste of a player, can he be blamed for playing poorly in that position? That's just one example
I wonder what they actually do do in training, poor in defence and no goals is pretty damning statistically.
Dan_1981 said:
allergictocheese said:
....Seriously, Liverpool have the resources to spend hundreds of millions on players and managers....
We really really don't - we're a million miles away from the like of Chelsea, Man City, and even Man Utd. Gassing Station | Football | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff