Think the wider point to this is the fallacy that the running of Liverpool Football club, or any elite European club, is, should be or was ever run by one person. It's a collective effort.
FSG bought us when we were at probably our lowest ebb for around 15/18 years. Sure, we'd not yet slipped to that lowly league position under Hogson, but we were crippled with debt, weak in terms of squad depth and bleeding elite players at an alarming rate. They, by their own admission, "didn't know football - but would learn".
It's always annoyed the hell out of me that people expected that learning to be like a binary switch. Well they've been here X long, they should know by now. Nonsense. It is, and was, an ongoing process. Mistakes had to be made, learned from, and all this while the game and market continued to change around them.
We now sit in a position where we have the highest quality squad I've seen in my adult/conscious period of supporting the club. We have one of the world's elite managers and his chosen staff in place. They're supported by a young, but experienced, guy in Edwards, and some pretty fucking intelligent guys ahead of them. Henry, Werner, Gordon et al may be reclusive, but they've proven that they'll invest, and they've got a track record of success in a highly competitive futures market alongside the sporting success and development of the Red Sox.
They've no doubt learned that in this game, you can't just succeed by that Moneyball methodology (though I don't know enough about the Red Sox to know if that was 100% of the reason for their success there) Instead they've learned, they've fucked up, they've built a sustainable profitable business which reinvests into the club, and ultimately, the team. They've listened to and built rapport with the supporters - again, by making mistakes and learning from them.
We have a team, a collective, a group of people, all pulling in the same direction. Big portions of that are down to the Manager at the time and the DoF, but it's ridiculous to say it's a choice between them, or that they do it all alone.
I used to run a small team in my line of work. Every 2/3 months or so, new features and developments would come out and we'd have the opportunity to request new items, inherit some, or adapt existing solutions. My director and I would have a high level conversation, but all of this tied into the wider way the company works, available development resource, available budget, value added, etc etc - but that research and analysis was carried out by the whole team. The whole team would meet to discuss pros/cons, where the most gains were to be made, etc etc etc. It all fed back in to the ultimate goal - to be a successful business.
Now, Football is more than a business, but I'd be stunned if Klopp, Edwards etc etc don't work in similar ways. They have a high level direction, along with the commercial side - "Be successful, win things, make money" That will have been broken down into smaller, tangible goals and targets - Play attractive football, win games, sign commercial deals, keep fans happy etc. Then further smaller steps and so on. Manageable, achievable, delegated.
