Topic: The Men in Suits behind the scenes

[TepidT2O]

Agreed.

You can't really point to one sale we've made in the last three or four years and argue we didn't get a good deal - I can't think of one off the top of my head anyway.

Negotiating a £100m premium on top of any potential sale to Barcelona in the next couple of years as part of the Coutinho deal was a bit of a masterstroke too.  It's easy to see why Klopp and FSG rate him so highly.

The Barca thing is just PR though.

In reality, if any player really agitated then I’m not sure how it would really have any effect unless there was a bidding war with Real.  In which case Barca would probably no prices out of it.

[Djimi Smicer34]

The Barca thing is just PR though.

In reality, if any player really agitated then I’m not sure how it would really have any effect unless there was a bidding war with Real.  In which case Barca would probably no prices out of it.

Is it?

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/barcelona-must-pay-100m-premium-to-sign-any-liverpool-player-as-part-of-philippe-coutinho-deal-7dt8q2tll#Echobox=1542801980

It really doesn't seem like PR to me.

[TepidT2O]

Is it?

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/barcelona-must-pay-100m-premium-to-sign-any-liverpool-player-as-part-of-philippe-coutinho-deal-7dt8q2tll#Echobox=1542801980

It really doesn't seem like PR to me.

In that essentially you could never enforce it.

If Mo says his back has gone and can only be cured by playing for Barca.. that €100m clause suddenly isn’t very important.  Thye aren’t gong to pay €250m his back won’t clear up... the clause becomes meaningless.
It will probably make Barca think twice beifre tapping players up though...

[Djimi Smicer34]

In that essentially you could never enforce it.

If Mo says his back has gone and can only be cured by playing for Barca.. that €100m clause suddenly isn’t very important.  Thye aren’t gong to pay €250m his back won’t clear up... the clause becomes meaningless.
It will probably make Barca think twice beifre tapping players up though...

I disagree.

[TepidT2O]

I disagree.

On what grounds?

[Eeyore]

I disagree.

It is very simple unless the player has a buyout fee then all you have to do is say no. The hundred million is nonsense. If someone offered 200m for Salah and Barca bid 130m then the Barca deal is more profitable.

[CraigDS]

It’s fully enforceable. Now if we would it not is another matter.

[Chalky Boots]

getting over 40 million from Bournemouth for 3 nominal u21 players is pretty damn impressive not gonna lie

[El Lobo]

Ward was such a typical Edwards signing. Great work.

It really was, it was perhaps the first one with his signature on. Cracking work really.

In that essentially you could never enforce it.

If Mo says his back has gone and can only be cured by playing for Barca.. that €100m clause suddenly isn’t very important.  Thye aren’t gong to pay €250m his back won’t clear up... the clause becomes meaningless.
It will probably make Barca think twice beifre tapping players up though...

It won’t be enforceable because I really, really doubt we’ll do be doing any business with them in the foreseeable future. But I mean it’s public knowledge now. Do you honestly think, considering how well we’ve done with sales, that if Barca said ‘We’ll offer you €10 million for Firmino so €110 million in total, deal?’ we’d even entertain the prospect? It’d make everyone involved at our end look thoroughly amateurish (being polite). It’s obviously there for a reason, pretty much to say ‘fuck off tapping our players up again you twats’ but being polite about it in case we want Messi in a year or two

[Peabee]

Everton?

Entropy FC

[jooneyisdagod]

Absolute bollocks that there are cynics regarding our recruitment which has in the past couple of years recruited a top 5 player in the world for about 40m instead of the 140m that we received for another player of a similar talent level along with large investments into a goalkeeper and CB who are both worth much much more than what we paid for them already. The definition of 'moneyball' as applicable to only small transfer fees from small teams is outright wrong and is an agenda-laden definition. Our previous recruitment issues were down to a manager who while an excellent coach was way out of his depth at managing a club this size and a completely delusional view of himself.

[PhaseOfPlay]

Absolute bollocks that there are cynics regarding our recruitment which has in the past couple of years recruited a top 5 player in the world for about 40m instead of the 140m that we received for another player of a similar talent level along with large investments into a goalkeeper and CB who are both worth much much more than what we paid for them already. The definition of 'moneyball' as applicable to only small transfer fees from small teams is outright wrong and is an agenda-laden definition. Our previous recruitment issues were down to a manager who while an excellent coach was way out of his depth at managing a club this size and a completely delusional view of himself.

Who is saying that this is the definition of moneyball?

[TarkaLFC]

ManUtd under Ferguson used to be so good at selling non-starters for high amounts.  Dion Dublin for 2x what they paid after only playing a handful of games in 2-3 years being one example that I remember finding annoying at the time.  Excellent that LFC are getting good at this - it’s a good sign!

[Peabee]

ManUtd under Ferguson used to be so good at selling non-starters for high amounts.  Dion Dublin for 2x what they paid after only playing a handful of games in 2-3 years being one example that I remember finding annoying at the time.  Excellent that LFC are getting good at this - it’s a good sign!

It’s as if it’s a premium for players coached by the likes of Klopp and Ferguson.

[Lush is the best medicine...]

It’s as if it’s a premium for players coached by the likes of Klopp and Ferguson.

i mean it’s like having better career options if you study at Harvard or Cambridge than man met or edge hill!

[Peabee]

i mean it’s like having better career options if you study at Harvard or Cambridge than man met or edge hill!

Exactly. It’s great that Edwards seems to be able to quantify that added value to the buying club.

[Ravishing Rick Dude]

Mi Edwa Mi Edwa
running down the wing,
Edwa wawawawa
The financial king

[BarryCrocker]

We should put a £100m buy-out clause in his contract. 

[tommy LFC]

He could selll ice to Eskimos.

[jooneyisdagod]

Who is saying that this is the definition of moneyball?


Here you go:

They did? There were no other clubs interested in these players, and you're 100% certain of that? Or is it that we just paid what the clubs wanted and the players were happy to join us?


Salah was our record signing at the time. That's not moneyball


Firmino was our second-highest transfer fee. That's not moneyball


Keita - 48 million - that's not moneyball
Van Dijk - 75 million - that's not moneyball


Alisson - 67 million - that's not moneyball


My point is that you didn't need advanced metrics to see how good these players are. Anyone watching the Champions League, Europa League, Premier League, and any of the other top Euro leagues on a weekly basis on the telly would have spotted those players.


We've gone from being clever to being traditional. Our transfer success recently is not in the least bit reliant on advanced metrics, because you don't need advanced metrics to know how good those players are. They weren't hiding anywhere, except - as I said - Andy Robertson. Our signings for the past year have mostly arrived with price tags that put them into our top ten most expensive signings of all time. In other words, we're shopping in the same market that most other top clubs shop in, it's just that now we're happy to pay the going rate.

By excluding some of our best signings from the category of "moneyball", you are doing exactly what I said.

[PhaseOfPlay]

By excluding some of our best signings from the category of "moneyball", you are doing exactly what I said.

I thought you meant me

I also gave the actual definition of moneyball - ignoring outdated concepts of scouting for a more objective numbers-based approach, subsequently buying players who are "cheap" because they are undervalued:

Rigorous statistical analysis had demonstrated that on-base percentage and slugging percentage are better indicators of offensive success, and the A's became convinced that these qualities were cheaper to obtain on the open market than more historically valued qualities such as speed and contact. These observations often flew in the face of conventional baseball wisdom and the beliefs of many baseball scouts and executives.

By re-evaluating their strategy in this way, the 2002 Athletics, with approximately $44 million in salary, were competitive with larger market teams such as the New York Yankees, who spent over $125 million in payroll that season. Because of its smaller budget, Oakland had to find players undervalued by the market, and their system has proven itself thus far. The approach brought the A's to the playoffs in 2002 and 2003.

Players who had previously been overlooked by bigger teams were signed by Oakland and the team was able to compete with the likes of the Yankees with a fraction of their payroll. [...] I heard Sean Ingle on the Guardian’s excellent Football Weekly podcast remark recently that the large amount of money Liverpool’s new Director of Football Strategy, Damien Comoli, had spent at previous teams was ‘not very Moneyball’. Whilst Ingle’s sentiments are true in the Billy Beane sense, John Henry’s version of ‘Moneyball’ has never especially been about doing things on the cheap.

- https://thelongballtactic.wordpress.com/2010/11/10/what-the-hell-is-moneyball/

If that doesn't say "buy cheap", then I don't know what does. Obviously, the goal is not to buy cheap for the sake of it, but to use other metrics than the traditional ones to find cheaper alternatives to the more obvious high-payroll "stars". My point is we're not "doing moneyball". We're doing metrics. But you don't need metrics to see how good some of our signings were, they were all obviously good players, top class even, in their positions and leagues. Except Robertson. And I'd actually accept Shaqiri as well, given even some of our own supporters thought he was lazy, slow, overly-muscled and not mentally suited to a high pressing team. That was good market exploitation right there.

But my contention is that we could have spotted VVD, Firmino, Salah, Fabinho, Coutinho and Alisson with more traditional non-metric scouting. We didn't NEED numbers to find those players.

But VVD, Keita, Alisson, and Fabinho? They were all known quantities.

[jooneyisdagod]

I thought you meant me

I also gave the actual definition of moneyball - ignoring outdated concepts of scouting for a more objective numbers-based approach, subsequently buying players who are "cheap" because they are undervalued:

If that doesn't say "buy cheap", then I don't know what does. Obviously, the goal is not to buy cheap for the sake of it, but to use other metrics than the traditional ones to find cheaper alternatives to the more obvious high-payroll "stars". My point is we're not "doing moneyball". We're doing metrics. But you don't need metrics to see how good some of our signings were, they were all obviously good players, top class even, in their positions and leagues. Except Robertson. And I'd actually accept Shaqiri as well, given even some of our own supporters thought he was lazy, slow, overly-muscled and not mentally suited to a high pressing team. That was good market exploitation right there.

But my contention is that we could have spotted VVD, Firmino, Salah, Fabinho, Coutinho and Alisson with more traditional non-metric scouting. We didn't NEED numbers to find those players.

But VVD, Keita, Alisson, and Fabinho? They were all known quantities.

To be totally honest, I glanced over the post but didn't even register who the poster was.

[jooneyisdagod]

I thought you meant me

I also gave the actual definition of moneyball - ignoring outdated concepts of scouting for a more objective numbers-based approach, subsequently buying players who are "cheap" because they are undervalued:

If that doesn't say "buy cheap", then I don't know what does. Obviously, the goal is not to buy cheap for the sake of it, but to use other metrics than the traditional ones to find cheaper alternatives to the more obvious high-payroll "stars". My point is we're not "doing moneyball". We're doing metrics. But you don't need metrics to see how good some of our signings were, they were all obviously good players, top class even, in their positions and leagues. Except Robertson. And I'd actually accept Shaqiri as well, given even some of our own supporters thought he was lazy, slow, overly-muscled and not mentally suited to a high pressing team. That was good market exploitation right there.

But my contention is that we could have spotted VVD, Firmino, Salah, Fabinho, Coutinho and Alisson with more traditional non-metric scouting. We didn't NEED numbers to find those players.

But VVD, Keita, Alisson, and Fabinho? They were all known quantities.

Cheap is a relative term and that is my position and I believe that of John Henry. Moneyball does not hinge on outlay as much as it revolves around value and how acquisitions are a value-add to the team as well as how the team value-adds to the acquisition. In simpler terms, it comes down to buying players that would be better in our system and team than they would be in other teams.


Off the players you mentioned VVD was the only one that was obvious as the need for our team. He was even at Southampton clearly one of the best centre backs in the league if not the best. Firmino was doing well in Germany and many fans wanted him but we got him when other teams hesitated because of how unorthodox some of his strengths are. Coutinho was a talented youngster who had a poor spell in Italy and was stagnating. He was rejuvenated as soon as he moved here. Salah is a top 5 player in the world and is probably worth a 100m more now than what we paid for him. Yet, I am also almost certain that he wouldn't be anywhere near as good as he is for us if playing for Real Madrid. Look at Coutinho for reference. Alisson is similar. We need a keeper that does very specific things and we bought the best keeper in that mould. Courtouis and Oblak are equally fantastic keepers but we did not spend on them.


The reason is that known quantities or not, we are able to identify value in talent and identify how that talent is undervalued insofar as how that talent would perform in our team. That needs an exquisite understanding of what our team does as well as what the player can do beyond just watching players. What Michael Edwards' team has been able to do is almost look at established players that everyone knew about and demonstrate that they are actually much better than previously thought to be. So clearly we are doing things that other clubs are incapable of and within the analytics circles even as it began to take off, there was a sense that Liverpool with its physics PhDs were doing lots of things very very well as most players that analysts were flagging up were already being linked with Liverpool


I would wager that each of Salah, Mane, Firmino, VVD and Alisson are now >100m pound players. The likes of Fabinho and hopefully Keita in the future will begin to get near that in value IMO. That is classic moneyball in that despite our huge outlay on some of them, they have nearly doubled in value as I think Salah, VVD and Alisson are all worth closer to the 150m mark now. That to me is the essence of moneyball.

[No666]

I think the main point of that clause is signalling to Barcelona that they'll be rinsed if they come back for any of our players. They are probably feeling they overpaid for Coutinho, as it is.

[jooneyisdagod]

I think the main point of that clause is signalling to Barcelona that they'll be rinsed if they come back for any of our players. They are probably feeling they overpaid for Coutinho, as it is.

He was every bit a top 5/10 player in the world when at Liverpool but doesn't fit Barca's style. And I think if he moved back to Liverpool, he would go back to being one of the top5/10 players in the world. There was chat of a presentation that Gordon or someone of that ilk did for Barcelona's board talking about how LFC was being run these days. Clearly, he left out the bit about recruitment and selling.

[BabuYagu]

Sorry, I missed something: we have a bunch of CERN scientists?

William Spearman - https://twitter.com/the_spearman/status/966447439967342593

We have a particle physicist making movement models of players & ball to show to to open and close space on the pitch. He did a presentation to Opta on it. This usually means the club are confident that putting the information out into the world helps nobody but us.

[spider-neil]

He could selll ice to Eskimos.

And sand to Arabs.

[TepidT2O]

William Spearman - https://twitter.com/the_spearman/status/966447439967342593

We have a particle physicist making movement models of players & ball to show to to open and close space on the pitch. He did a presentation to Opta on it. This usually means the club are confident that putting the information out into the world helps nobody but us.

Our analytics department helped Barca a couple of years back too... I suspect that stopped with their tapping up of Coutinho though.

[Eeyore]

getting over 40 million from Bournemouth for 3 nominal u21 players is pretty damn impressive not gonna lie

It is indicative of the current market though. Look at the asking price for Hudson-Odoi who has barely played for Chelsea but is valued at 30m plus add-ons  or Diaz at City who looks like he is going to Madrid for 15.5m plus add-ons.

The market is crazy at the moment. Edwards has done well selling players but let's face reality here it is not just Liverpool who are selling players for huge fees.

[Suareznumber7]

It is indicative of the current market though. Look at the asking price for Hudson-Odoi who has barely played for Chelsea but is valued at 30m plus add-ons  or Diaz at City who looks like he is going to Madrid for 15.5m plus add-ons.

The market is crazy at the moment. Edwards has done well selling players but let's face reality here it is not just Liverpool who are selling players for huge fees.

I really don't understand why you are so against anyone giving Edwards any little bit of credit for doing a phenomenal job.  It's like you have a personal grudge against the guy. 

[rawcusk8]

Christian Benteke £32m
Mamadou Sakho £26m
Danny Ings £20m
Dominic Solanke £19m
Jordon Ibe £15m
Danny Ward £12m
Kevin Stewart £8m
Brad Smith £8m
Total: £140m

According to a chap on twitter called David something.

Very good business by the club.

[royhendo]

Do you know, the bemusement directed at Al is just as funny as the indignance Al’s expressing. They’re two sides of the same house of cards. Everyone’s entitled to their opinions and none of this is very important, is it?

I’d personally enjoy kissing Michael Edwards on his beautiful face though. Fair play to Klopp for being big enough to work with the talent that’s there and not let his ego get in the way of performance.

[Djimi Smicer34]

Christian Benteke £32m
Mamadou Sakho £26m
Danny Ings £20m
Dominic Solanke £19m
Jordon Ibe £15m
Danny Ward £12m
Kevin Stewart £8m
Brad Smith £8m
Total: £140m

According to a chap on twitter called David something.

Very good business by the club.

It's pretty phenomenal when you take into account the players we've reinvested that money in. 

Essentially swapping Kevin Stewart for Andy Robertson has to be one of the best deals made by any club over the last few years.

[Red Beret]

It is indicative of the current market though. Look at the asking price for Hudson-Odoi who has barely played for Chelsea but is valued at 30m plus add-ons  or Diaz at City who looks like he is going to Madrid for 15.5m plus add-ons.

The market is crazy at the moment. Edwards has done well selling players but let's face reality here it is not just Liverpool who are selling players for huge fees.

Shaqiri.  £13m.

Robertson.  £8m.

Your argument is invalid.

When Liverpool sells a player on it's because they're either stepping up to a bigger club (not many of those), or stepping down because they couldn't cut it.

Considering how we rinsed Palace for Benteke and our business with Bournemouth, I'd say we have done very well and it has got nothing to do with the "crazy" market.  These were players where the buying club could have made a point of talking down the price.  We're getting good money for them because, like Tarka LFC said, we've become increasingly adept at moving on players who don't work out for good money rather than a pittance.

The "crazy" market is when you pay inflated fees for bang average players - like we did with Carroll (amongst others), and how United have too many times to count in the past five years.

Yeah we forced a premium out of Barca for Coutinho, but that's because we've been bleeding talent to them for years and we got sick of them tapping up our players.  And before people mention VVD, yeah we tapped him up but we were ALWAYS going to pay what we did for him.

It's only crazy money if it's not value for money.  Ergo, Pogba is crazy money and VVD is not.

[Eeyore]

I really don't understand why you are so against anyone giving Edwards any little bit of credit for doing a phenomenal job.  It's like you have a personal grudge against the guy. 

You have just replied a post in which I said Edwards has done well selling players by saying I am against anyone giving Edwards any little bit of credit.

[Red Beret]

I really don't understand why you are so against anyone giving Edwards any little bit of credit for doing a phenomenal job.  It's like you have a personal grudge against the guy.

I agree.  Nothing personal against Al, but if it were as simple as  he's suggesting then why does United keep stumbling from one transfer disaster to another?  For that matter Chelsea have dropped more than one clanger in recent windows, and don't even get me started on Everton.

There's a reason it works; equally there's always a reason when it doesn't work.  The height of the stakes is irrelevant, its how you play the game that matters.  We are currently playing it very well.

[El Lobo]

Christian Benteke £32m
Mamadou Sakho £26m
Danny Ings £20m
Dominic Solanke £19m
Jordon Ibe £15m
Danny Ward £12m
Kevin Stewart £8m
Brad Smith £8m
Total: £140m

According to a chap on twitter called David something.

Very good business by the club.

That is absolutely outstanding really, certainly hope Edwards got a good secret santa for that business

[Peabee]

William Spearman - https://twitter.com/the_spearman/status/966447439967342593

We have a particle physicist making movement models of players & ball to show to to open and close space on the pitch. He did a presentation to Opta on it. This usually means the club are confident that putting the information out into the world helps nobody but us.

He wrote the paper in 2017 and joined us in 2018, so it would be impossible to claim it as the club’s work anyway!

Yeah, how they use the research may be kept in-house, but the research will be published in journals, conference proceedings, and presented at conferences etc, just as he will be using and citing other people’s work in his research.

[Welshred]

Shaqiri.  £13m.

Robertson.  £8m.

Shaqiri was a release clause, it would have been stupid to pay more than what we had to for that so I don't think you can count that. Robertson is a steal though.

[Brian Blessed]

Edwards arrived late November 2011 as head of performance and analysis we signed Ward January 2012.

I see how it works now. Edwards was born and lived there when Southampton brought through Alan Shearer nod nod wink wink. As a child he went on holiday to Trinidad just as Lara was breaking through at Cricket and Yorke was becomming a well known footballer. He had a day out in sunny Rhyl the same year Rooney signed for Everton.

The fella is a genius. Not that far fetched yesterday he getting plaudits for Sterling who was signed by Rafa.

Edwards is clearly very good at his job but what is happening here with the fan worship reminds me of the narrative around Rafa near the end. The shite about Gerrard winning the final in Istanbul and Rafa losing the one in Athens.

We had bellends on here last night saying Klopp had lost another final and he was a bottler. A few losses and it will be we Edwards is a transfer guru and if he can bring in fantastic players at the drop of a hat then he will have no problem bringing in a World class manager to replace Klopp.

Far fetched maybe but no more far fetched than sacking Rafa and replacing him with the Owl.

Our fortunes changed for me when we brought in Klopp, downplay his achievements and you risk underming the manager. Just have a think about that before your mob mentality kicks in.

Has anyone done this?