by RED BEERGOGGLES » Tue Dec 16, 2014 2:07 am
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.
Written by Sunday times ,and Sports illustrated Duncan Castles
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