SO TODAY (date of writing : Monday, January 19) Brendan Rodgers told the press and sundry other media outlets that, long and short of it, Liverpool FC would start February having shifted Suso off the wage bill and recalled Jordan Ibe from loan. And that’s it.
Of course, the side has gone on a little run since the ouster from the Champions League, and since Old Trafford a few weeks back. And even in those results, there were tenuous arguments to be made for the green shoots of revival.
Team spirit is on the rise. Sturridge is on his way back. The new signings are starting to look worthwhile, instead of so much expensive ballast.
Now I’m a sunnysider. My tendency is to stick up for the manager. To try and make sense of his words and to piece them together into some kind of magic eye tapestry, teasing out patterns and trying to see where things might be going long term.
But this, Dear Reader, is a season where my loved ones, on account of Liverpool’s goalkeepers alone, have seen more hairy fits than an American Werewolf on a Lunar Rover.
There’s a whiff of something ripe in the air, for me. And the ripeness is down to the ongoing rhetoric that surrounds the Transfer Committee.
Ian Ayre, of timely deflective soundbite fame, this week delivered a sequence of timely deflective soundbites aimed at… well — you tell me. What is it aimed at? Hours before Rodgers appears in front of the assembled media throng to announce not a whole lot…
Ian Ayre said: “People have a perception of the Transfer Committee that isn’t true. It’s the same as most clubs.”
Ian Ayre said: “We have a great team of people who give Brendan three or four options, then I’ll come into it and begin negotiations.”
Ian Ayre said: “We don’t sit there voting on players as some people may think.”
Ian Ayre said: “It works for us. Everyone knows their role. Four heads are better than one.”
Four heads are better than one. I suspect no keepers would be better than these two. So maybe we have a theme here.
Namely, Ayre is talking out of his arse.
People clearly don’t know their roles. Two seasons ago, Liverpool exited the summer transfer window having missed out on Clint Dempsey at the 11th hour and passed up the chance at alternatives due to people, well, not knowing their roles.
Fast forward. Costa. Mkhitaryan. Willian. Salah. Konoplyanka. Remy. Valdes.
Are you telling me everyone knows their role? That four heads are better than one? That the manager gets three or four options, then he gets to choose? Like the desert trolley at the end of the night at the Dim Sum joint? And then – AHEM – you take charge of the negotiations?
The seeds of this were there for all to see the day Rodgers was unveiled by Ayre himself as the new manager of Liverpool Football Club. It left you feeling a little uneasy at the time, and it was a stone in many of our shoes in the months that followed his appointment.
A journalist asked: “In terms of the structure, how will it work, because there was a lot of talk and speculation about whether there would be a Director Of Football, and Brendan’s attitude to that. Can you tell us how the process will work?”
Ian Ayre said: “Sure… the structure really is to… Brendan’s aware of this and it was the end part of that process of finding the person that fits with, ehm, is a kind of more Continental Director Of Football type structure where you’ve got a collaborative group of people working around the football area. Ehm… We don’t envisage at this point in time having a Director Of Football per se, but having a group of people that will work collaboratively with Brendan to deliver the football side of it.”
Another journalist, shortly afterward, asked: “Ian if we could just clear up the Sporting Director role — how is that going to work in terms of… is it going to be a case of Brendan having to come to somebody and saying, ‘Well, I want to sign such and such a player” or is it going to be more kind of a signing by Committee?'”
Ian Ayre said: “It’s not signing by Committee, it’s an analysis by Committee. It’s a whole range of people bringing together a whole range of skill sets that go and find and identify and obviously with Brendan having a big input to that. But certainly not a structure where we would force any player on the manager, as an example, you know? It’s a very typical Continental style where you’ve got a collaborative structure of people qualified and across various different areas of the football side of the business working together to bring together the best we can bring together for Brendan to do his job.”
Brendan Rodgers said: “And I think it’s worth noting as well from my perspective that that was one of the items I brought up when I was speaking with the club – that I wouldn’t work directly with someone in that role. I work best around a group of people, and it’s about a group of people. You know, when you come to a big club or any club, you can’t do it on your own. There’s not one of us that’s better than all of us. Of course there has to be leadership. But certainly for me, if it was a Sporting Director or Director Of Football, that was something that I made quite clear that I couldn’t work with.”
“A Director Of Football.” “A Sporting Director.”
If it’s a plural, do you sidestep the issue?
If there’s a Committee full of people, and those people get to narrow the pool of options you can select from, don’t you have Direction, in footballing or sporting terms? Aren’t you being ‘directed’? Rodgers has choice. Much like Henry Ford’s customers had a choice when they fancied a Model T back in the day.
People spout off online about this being a good thing. How Rodgers can’t spot a player. My God, he wanted Dejan Lovren! He wanted Dempsey! Don’t get me started on Joe Allen. List Williams, Vorm, Sigurdsson, Joe Allen, and Dempsey. Rodgers should have limits imposed upon him, they say. It’s not the point, but it abounds.
Addressing that point, I’m not being funny here, but I remain convinced that with a front three of Sterling, Sturridge and Suarez swapped into it, the team that Rodgers managed at Swansea could have taken a realistic tilt at the title. They dominated games and just lacked penetration and cutting edge. Swap in those three for Sinclair, Graham and Dyer, and you’ve a different proposition. We scoffed at the idea of a deal for an Ashley Williams once upon a time, but how many of you would have taken him, and his understanding of Rodgers’ approach, mid way through the Autumn? And how many would have started Vorm ahead of our two illustrious keepers?
Players who fit a manager’s system and know their tactical role provide the frame and the canvas on which the artists can weave their footballing tapestry. It’s not rocket science. Buy players who fit the system, because you bought into this system. You reshaped your Academy around it. You invested millions. And you ousted the club’s most significant current figure in order to do it. We all told you at the time — you had better be serious about this.
So why the rhetoric? Why the rhetoric on day one? Hire a manager who tells you he won’t work with a Director Of Football, and find a way to do it anyway. And two and a half years on, give every indication that nothing has really changed. Why bother? To create drama? To give yourself the space to empire build? Why?
My point is simple. The Committee, and the negotiators who execute their recommendations, should exist to support the Manager and the mode of football they ousted none less than Kenny Dalglish to install. This, we were led to believe, was a long-term plan. We realigned the academy, and brought in Alex Inglethorpe in place of Senors Segura and Borrell. We tweaked the syllabus from the youngest age groups on. And we bore the fruit of it. We promoted and encouraged youngsters. We’ll continue to do that.
So build on it properly. Don’t piss on our backs and tell us it’s raining.
Get behind the manager, or you’re making idiots of us all, most of all him.
And if you don’t, expect those who employ you to replace you with someone more capable.
Thanks for indulging my rant.
So four heads are better than one…..not when it comes down to you and the other Imposter Rodgers. You are not bullet proof either of you. While your playing games with FSG money and not producing the goods, they will eventually catch up with you both. Then you can leave town on your Harley Davidson with Rodgers riding pillion, no respect for either of you.
Spot on!
Something isn’t right in that department. Everyone has an opinion on who’s to blame, whether it’s the committee per se, Ayre, Rodgers or FSG and we know all the arguments against each. I find it difficult to comment on because I’ve absolutely no idea what goes on but my instincts have always led me back to Ian Ayre being responsible. Maybe he has his hands tied during negotiations and what players we have to go for but I always have an uneasiness about Ayre’s position. I’d guess he’s brilliant in that corporate world of scripted compliments and false smiles but I just can’t see him being any good at enticing a player, let alone scouting one. Like I say, I don’t know their roles or how they carry them out so it’s pure speculation but my feeling is all our issues stem from him being in the wrong role.
Wenger flew to Brazil to get Sanchez to buy into how he intended to play him.
Benitez flew to Madrid to convince Torres and share his vision for the future.
We have Ian Ayre.
Agree 100% but if I’m honest, I’m uneasy with this feeling that if we’d wanted Sanchez we could have got him. Maybe we could have but maybe, for someone who’s played at the very highest level and was kind of on his way down that city was an important factor in his decision. We’ll probably never one whether he was achievable.
*Never know.
Also, I’ve always thought closing the deal was a perfect job for Dalglish
Kenny is an excellent shout. Pity that it is almost never likely to happen
Sorry but I dont buy into this notion that everything came down to Sanchez wanting to live in London, for me it’s nothing more than a smokescreen to cover the failures of individuals in recruiting the player. It’s easy to accept the bright lights of LOndon were the attraction whilst almost dismissing Arsenal in the same, maybe Arsenal were just a more attractive club then again maybe had we just simply thrown cash at it he would be our player. Living outside of London isn’t a problem for a number of players up the road (at both clubs), so maybe, we didn’t push enough, offer enough, it works elsewhere if you want a certain player. To be honest, I still cannot believe we didn’t sign him and it pains me watching him score goals for arsenal, so maybe I’m just a tad bitter still about the whole saga…
Wenger and Benitez are managers-ours, BR, was in NY with his bird whilst others were at the world cup
Michael, there was a theme in the examples you mention which you then overlooked in your punchline…
Why didn’t Brendan chase and woo Alexis like a lovestruck teenager?? Fair enough, he doesn’t have the list of honours on his Wikipedia page that Wenger, Rafa and the King have, but he is normally happy enough to tout his own virtues.
Or are we suggesting he did want to do so but was prevented by the C word?
I’d like to think he made a valiant attempt, but there is no evidence to even suggest that he tried to speak to Sanchez, let alone make any efforts to meet him or any other transfer target ever during his time at Anfield.
The less said about our Negotiator – holding the biggest, fattest bargaining chip in the history of all negotiations ever – the better.
The whole freaking system is out of order.
The point I’m making, and have made many times on here, is that our transfer committee/strategy does not work and must be changed immediately. For both transfers in and out.
“Four heads are better than one. I suspect no keepers would be better than these two. So maybe we have a theme here.”
Haha, yes Roy!
Been waiting for an article like this on here.
I’m hoping there’s gonna be more.
I’m hoping people start asking Rodgers et al hard questions at the press conferences and don’t accept stock answers.
This farce of a transfer committee has gone on long enough.
We are currently in the situation we are simply because we didn’t buy an able replacement for Suarez.
Had we have gotten Sanchez im confident we’d be 3rd if not higher.
You can always tell who are Rodgers’ signings and who are the Commitees’.
Assaidi – bombed straight out with barely a chance
Balotelli – “..He was always a gamble…”
Can – “..wonderful player..”
Markovic – “..starting to show what he can do..”
Just to add an even more comical twist to it, I believe Assaidi was Jen Chang’s buy / recommendation.
But Rodgers always claimed he had the final say. And if so, they are all Rodgers signings. And that makes his readiness to pass the buck absolutely unacceptable, especially in a club which had managers with the dignity of Paisley, Fagan and Dalglish. And if we’ve turned the season round – and I hope to God we have – I’ll dip my lid to Rodgers, but right now I still feel he gets things right only when all else has failed. It’s his squad, apart from those that were here before him and who he is eliminating, steadily, one by one.
Totally agree with this point Kevin, Rodgers gets let off the hook time and again because of the Committee and yet as he says, he has final say, so they are indeed HIS signings
Roodgers saying he has the final say is no different to Ayre’s quotes in the above article. Its just rhetoric. Not fair to crucify him on it when we know it’s not true.
Exactly.
There may be something in that Kevin. I don’t think I’d agree with you were we talking about last season: whatever line one may wish to take, can anyone seriously claim that we didn’t overachieve? But this season, the team has been hampered by the manager’s stubbornness. I can’t help but feel that he has favourites, and makes it abundantly clear who they are. Lovren (a new player, admittedly) was showered with praise, have you ever heard him say a good word about Sakho? He’s been as integral in our upswing as Lucas and Can. Let’s hope he maintains the winning formula by playing our best players.
What stubbornness???
Dropped Gerrard.
Dropped Mignolet
Dropped Lovren
Dropped Balo
Brought in Lucas
Changed formation
Not one bit of that suggests stubbornness…in fact quite the opposite.
There’s things to criticise Rodgers on but stubbornness is not one of them.
Played Lucas and Gerrard
Played Lovren
Played 4-2-3-1
Reverted back to Swansea methods
He tested the above to destruction, despite evidence that formation and players within said formation were simply not working. His biggest flaws were his insistence that Gerrard should play in CM despite the World Cup and that the Lovren experiment simply wasn’t working at the same time ignoring the claims of Lucas, Toure and Sakho. I just hope his loyalty to certain players and signings doesn’t cost us a top four place. I do, however, credit him with finding a system to get the best out of our current playing squad, I just wish it hadn’t taken injuries/consistently awful football for him to make the necessary changes.
Paul he changed all those things.
That’s the opposite of stubborn.
If he was stubborn he’d still be doing those things.
The guy deserves criticism but being stubborn is not one of them.
We must have played 3 or 4 different formations this year already with several different midfield combinations, different striking options, different centreback options.
The guy is not afraid of changing things up.
Just because he hasn’t played the players you’ve wanted at certain times does not make him stubborn.
Where does Rodgers pass the buck?
He will say certain things are in the hands of the club, but I just don’t see examples of him passing the buck or hiding behind the committee.
The idea from other peoples’ comments that Rodgers is let off the hook because of the committee is a nonsense. In what sense is he let off the hook? Which hook? Whose hook? The hook of public opinion? If the teams performance consistently falls short of the expectation of the owners, he will be on a hook all right.
Readiness to pass the buck?!?
Surely if that was the case then Rodgers would have been far clearer about the Committee buying players but he hasn’t. In fact he’s taken quite the opposite stance and said he makes the final decisions.
Sakho: has the manager said anything positive about him yet? He, Lucas and Can have been integral in our recent upswing.
Forgive the repetition!
I blame Rodgers for not signing Sanchez…and Costa, Mkhitaryan, Willian, Salah, Konoplyanka, Remy, and Valdes. Clearly he only wants low-rent players like Aspas and Moses.
Oh, wait…that’s a completely idiotic thought. Of course, Rodgers would have liked to afford marquee players, but he is constrained not only by the transfer fees, but also a strict wage structure.
I can’t make sense of “supporters” who think Rodgers is some bumbling fool who happened to have Suarez in his squad. He cleaned house on all the useless players, restructured our youth system, and set us up with an armful of talented young players that will only get better with each passing season. So he paid 15M for Joe Allen, so what? Our record with Allen on the pitch last season was 16-4-3.
Clearly, he never fancied Balotelli. He “categorically” said he wasn’t interested, but it seems pretty clear that the committee said it was Mario or nothing until the winter window. It wasn’t like Rodgers was saying, “Benzema? No thanks!”
We were extremely lucky with injuries last season with a threadbare squad with virtually nothing on the bench. Rodgers needed to address that. He’d spent less than 20M the summer before, had spent nothing in the winter, all while our rivals spent vast sums. I just read in the Guardian that Man City spent something like 230M on strikers alone in recent years. Chelsea literally – literally – bought Salah just to spite us!
I understand that it is the “Liverpool Way” not to talk about internal dealings, so we’ll probably have to wait for a book to come out 10 years from now to know what’s been happening. But clearly Rodgers cannot be blamed for having his hands tied behind his back when it comes to options. I’m sure he’d love a busy window, so people need to get to grips with their fantasies about him.
Well said.
Absolutely spot on. We haven’t signed world beaters, but not because we haven’t tried, but because we’ve been out done by richer teams, or those passing champions’ league football season after season – no amount of legends pleading is going to overcome those factors. We aim high and have had to settle low; that’s just the position that Liverpool is in at the moment – a lesser power in world football terms – and no amount of Rodgers or Ayre beating is going to change that. And those shouting “bung some more money to star names to get them to sign” have you seen how close we’ve come in recent years to breaching FFP? This is a brave new world where every penny had to be accounted for and that is what’s stopping mad spending sprees, rather than Rodgers, Ayre, or FSG (I know they only bought Liverpool because FFP was coming into being).
Everyone says Rodgers has final say i have total faith in the man and his project all things take time and lets face it if 4 heads put 3 piles of dung infront of you and half a bunch of flowers we would all pick the same in my mind rodgers is just picking the best of the bad bunch put in front of him by ayre all done to make ayre’s job as easy as possible
Hope that got it off your chest Roy.
Not sure we needed another opportunity for everyone to fume about the transfer committee.
I really don’t have a problem with Ian Ayre’s “rhetoric” on the committee, It all seems perfectly sensible. I’m sure those people on the committee know there roles and I’m sure the owners know who is accountable for what.
At the end of the day the performance of the whole recruiting team is measured by the contribution it makes to performance on the pitch and to the club accounts.
As fans, we might want to know who is accountable, so we can feel that our fuming is directed at the right target, but the club is quite rightly going to keep the the deliberations of the committee to themselves.
As has been said before, at the start of the season most of the podcast contributors were ready to give the committee 7-8 / 10 for the transfer business done in the summer. Deals were executed quickly and the main targets were landed, with the exception of Sanchez.
With hindsight the failure to land a striker who fits the system we play and the failure to bring in a better 2nd string keeper look like bad misses. But on the plus side more of the players brought in are making a positive contribution now, and should go on to make a bigger contribution in the future.
None of our rivals has a flawless record with transfers (for Lovren read Mangala etc.), and who could say whether the recruitment systems they have would deliver better outcomes, given the same constraints that Liverpool have?
When did Lovren become the whipping boy for all that’s gone wrong at LFC this season. Ok, he’s made some mistakes but name me a player who hasn’t this season. From embarrassingly missed sitters to equally embarrassing goals conceded and everyone inbetween.
Don’t believe on anyone being a whipping boy but Lovren has been quite easily our worst performer this season.
Spot on GraemeR, well said.
Do you have any more hook based questions please?
Of course there wouldn’t be any transfers this window, Rodger and Co wasted a massive amount in the summer and have taken the club backwards. FSG were never going to give them more money at this stage.
not getting your targets isn’t the same as not supporting manager.
blaming the club for not getting signings like coster or willian Or mkhitaryan Or sanchez is a bit ridiculous.
why we don’t know why they are not buying a keeper or a striker it doesn’t mean they are not supporting the manager.
it might be a financial decision it might be because the owners are unsure of rogers or just want to see him make more of the resources he has.
what the club don’t have to do is everything rodgers asks for no matter what. personally i think they’re mad for not buying another striker but i don’t know why they haven’t it maybe because there isn’t one that can really do the job.
it might even hurt as badly but that is Their right.
the owners have backed different managers with a lot of money. they have a right to expect more from brandon than the fires he refused to put out earlier in the season namely sg,lovren and the mobile forward so if that is affecting their decisions this january then it’s difficult for him to complain about that.
where i have sympathy with rogers is that you need several good windows to build a team and we haven’t had that but it’s not because they didn’t try to get very good players.
Nice article Roy. More on the Committee here: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2296954-inside-line-liverpools-transfer-committee-has-been-a-spectacular-failure
Yeah, Sakho, Emre and Markovic have been terrible buys under the committee, haven’t they?
The one and only Duncan Castles. How the Sunday Times continues to gives you space, I don’t know.
I personally find you an unreliable witness when it comes to all things Liverpool; always looking for a sensational angle and pedaling 3rd hand title-tattle.
As Dan has already said, your analysis of this Summer’s business now looks well off, and evaluating Rodgers first Summer signings as “Transfer Committee” signings is strange, since the structure of the recruitment team was changed with Fallows and Hunter only joining Liverpool’s team in September.
Thanks this proves what I have been saying all along, Brendan takes all the flack while 5 other idiots screw up deal after deal, yet I believe that some fans just want to blame Brendan and have him sacked, though if he was to be sacked whoever would be brought in would have the same problems, I know Brendan will play the party line, but I for one would love to see the names on his wish list, in comparison to who we got…
Sorry but that article was just blah blah blah moan moan moan with no point to it whatsoever. What exactly are you complaining about?
Wondering that myself.
Ridges hasn’t done any worse than any Liverpool manager in the past 25yrs. He’s actually building a new team that needs a bit if luck and as a Liverpool supporter for the last 44yrs I think he’s doing OK. If it wasn’t for an unfortunate slip-up against Chelsea last season at Anfield we’re probably be singing his praises for delivering a title. He’s always said the finished product is somewhere between 5-7yrs in making so we have to give him that chance. LFC and its supporters have always been knowledgeable enough to understand the vagaries of football. Don’t get sucked into the Chelsea and Manchester ideas of buying instant success. Give it a chance. At this stage another 2 or 3 years is not going to hurt and we still have more European Cups than the rest of them if they get lippy.
I’m still trying to work out what this article was exactly about?
We don’t have enough money to buy the best players simple as that. No committee, DoF, full manager control will change that.
Seems a pointless exercise in moaning, really. Folks might not like him but Tomkins put forth perhaps the single most comprehensive analysis of the transfer market, FFP, and how LFC must play to both in comparison to the huge-money sides like Chavs, City, and ManU, the upshot of it all being that we’re rebuilding the club after nearly 20 years of investing mainly in big ticket players rather than with an eye to development, turnover, and sustainability. FFP only make this more a prerogative as even if we did have an Abramovich type owner swoop in today we’d be under the same constraints as we find ourselves with FSG. As a club, we will simply bankrupt ourselves if we go and spend on big names because we haven’t yet got the bankable quality in house to offset the debt of such buys.
Costa. Mkhitaryan. Willian. Salah. Konoplyanka. Remy. Valdes.
Spot on. Each one of those failure/mistakes have cost us so dearly, and as far as I’m concerned you can add the following:
Lovren instead of Schneiderlin, who loads of people had identified as one of PL best DMs and the real reason for Lovren’s success.
Eriksen, who we’d had a look at for ages.
That Swansea player who ended up at Spurs.
And then there’s (probably rubbish) rumour that Suarez will be coming back to the PL, but going to a rival team of course. If that ever eventuated, I would vote to sack everyone and bring back Rafa and his crew. But it won’t. Probably.
But still there is a litany of failures there that someone must be held accountable for. Let’s hope FSG can do just that.
I agree that there *appears* to be a problem with negotiations. Whether there actually is or not is a different matter.
And a serious discussion point, what do we think the manager having the “final say” actually means?
Here’s what I think it means:
1) Rodgers provide the requirements for what he wants, particularly in terms of position and attributes
2) The committee then do the bulk of the work and as part of what they do, they must verify that the players they are coming up with meet the managers requirements
3) The manager should then have the opportunity to validate that the player meets his requirements
Let’s use the example of Mignolet which everyone seems to have a beef about
If Rodgers has got “final say” then he MUST have approved Mignolet. Furthermore, it was Rodgers who did most to push Reina out of the club (which I agreed with).
So for the sake of argument, let’s just assume that Rodgers now doesn’t like Mignolet and thinks he is the “wrong” player. However he approved him in Summer 2013. So the question has to be what went wrong?
* Did Rodgers not provide the right “requirements” to the committee?
* What “due diligence” did Rodgers do once he was presented with the recommendation of Mignolet?
* Maybe Rodgers assumed the committee would recommend a certain type of player and just took it on face value? In this case, we’d need to know if the committee failed as they didn’t ensure the player met the manager’s requirements.
* It’s also possible that the people on the committee aren’t very good at their jobs.
* It’s also possible that Rodgers doesn’t have a very good “eye for a player”
Final point, no future manager of this club should be constraining the recruitment process by naming specific players e.g. “I want X and won’t accept anyone else”. Unless the manager has an encyclopedic knowledge of world football they can’t possibly know that player is the best option in terms of ability, value, availability and age.
Can we bring back Damien Comolli and scrap the transfer committee?
We’ve been shit for a while now. We are moving slowly in the right direction even if it’s not as quick as we would like. Some of you need to pull your heads in, shut your gobs and be patient. Sacking, changing all the time, harping on about the past achieves nothing. Rogers is rebuilding, making mistakes along the way we know but then he’s learning too, give the guy a break and time. Some of you need to bite your tongues and stop being mouthy gits, you wouldn’t last 2 minutes in the job!!!
My heads pulled in……yet I can never see what this grease ball manager has to offer. I cannot trust him in anything he says or does. I find him embarrassing beyond belief, in football terms he will for myself, will always be the imposter…..No respect.