It's not Sherwood!

[bertlambshank]

Spurs were the first in this country to use it then Liverpool wanted to use it and poached the staff and the system.That is the truth.Do a bit of research before you start saying I am not even close to the truth.

[PaulWinch again]

It is starting to have the whiff of something which is going to come to a head sooner rather than later.

How on earth are those players meant to feel reading that, I wonder?

Strangely, it isn't those players who have failed to live up to billing, it is the gobshite of a manager.

I hope this all ends soon.

Sherwood does have previous when it comes to throwing his players under the bus, but to be fair there's probably no substance to this story.

[Dave]

Spurs were the first in this country to use it then Liverpool wanted to use it and poached the staff and the system.That is the truth.Do a bit of research before you start saying I am not even close to the truth.

If you're talking about Damien Comolli, he was fired by Spurs in 2008 and didn't join Liverpool until over two years later. That's hardly being 'poached'.

So even if "Spurs were the first in this country to use it then Liverpool wanted to use it and poached the staff and the system" were true (and it isn't), what does:

I will use Spurs as the other example. Does anybody think they used the Bale money well?

Have to do with the price of fish? According to you all their staff and their 'system' (because apparently the idea of analysing a player before buying him is something that can be 'poached') were nicked by Liverpool three years before Spurs started spending the money that they got for Bale.

[bertlambshank]

Dave last point do a Google search on Michael Edwards Liverpool.See what he has done there and you might change your tune.Its why the fans want him and his muckers out.

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What does it matter who finds the players to buy?

You referenced Klopp on the previous page as would be “wanting to go in and change the way Liverpool operate”. We’re obsessed in this country with the Fergie way of doing things.

It’s a complete myth that Fergie wielded total power at Man United. He was definitely subservient to the board, which is why when they began dressing up like Norwich fans and making new clubs, he sided with the Glaziers.

He was also heavily reliant upon an incredibly extensive scouting system to find players for him, while he benefited from being likely the best manager to ever grace the English game.

Wenger is an example of somebody who picks and chooses who is brought based upon his own preference and as a consequence he's made Arsenal an irrelevance as far as the title goes for the past decade because he consistently fails to sign what the team needs.

I said it on the previous page, but if you think Klopp went over to Japan and happened to stumble upon Kagawa while watching Japanese second division football, then you’re mistaken.

I really cannot see the problem with a manager identifying a specific need, such as Klopp telling the CEO at Dortmund that they needed a player to feed the ball intelligently into the front man or wide as they go from back to front at 100mph. Having a scouting and a recruitment system in place to find a tranche of players and then monitor them over time before deciding who to pick up is not the deployment of a Moneyball system. It’s a common sense approach.

If the article from Sherwood is true, then its very worrying stuff indeed and would suggest to me the beginning of the end.

[lukey27]

The idea that a manager in the modern game would identify, scout and ultimately purchase the player by himself is an alien one and certainly not viable for a club who want to compete in the Premier League. The manager having final say and ultimately signing off on all players is another issue and I can't imagine that hasn't been the case here.

Adebayor had pictures taken at Bodymoor, before backing out so this certainly wasn't vetoed by the club.

The article is spurious at best but the fact that it has appeared at all doesn't bode well. If Sherwood is putting the notion out privately that he didn't sign the players or wasn't 100% sure, then this is certainly with a view to an end game in which he is perceived to save face.

With an opinion that seems to change per press conference I can imagine it won't be long before Sherwood begins to float this theory around in public.

[Dave]

Dave last point do a Google search on Michael Edwards Liverpool.See what he has done there and you might change your tune.Its why the fans want him and his muckers out.

No need to Google it. It was covered in a perfectly sensible way by yesterday's Mediawatch.

‘Now the ebullient (Harry) Redknapp has been replaced by a clipboard manager.’

That line from Neil Ashton of the Daily Mail in November 2013 tells you all you need to know about his views on football management. He loves top, top, top bloke Harry Redknapp with his “just f**king run around a bit” approach to tactics, was enraged by the studious Andre Villas-Boas to the point of open warfare and championed Tim Sherwood for all his facking passion. Ashton is a proper football man backing other proper football men.

And what’s worse than a ‘clipboard manager’ to a proper football man? A ‘laptop guru’, of course.

The target of Ashton’s ire is ‘the laptop guru who did a number on Brendan Rodgers’. Or Liverpool’s head of technical performance Michael Edwards, as he probably prefers to be known.

Edwards is one of six (now five) members of the infamous Liverpool transfer committee that has been deciding on the Reds’ transfer business since 2012.

The implication of the words ‘did a number’ are of course that Edwards caused Rodgers’ downfall. With his laptop.

Let’s take a look at the charge sheet – as detailed by Ashton:

* Edwards ‘dropped the owners emails throughout the day’.

Presumably from his laptop. The c*ck.

* ‘Edwards encourages staff to use his nickname ‘Eddie’, giving a matey feel to the working environment.’

This is becoming indefensible.

* ‘Edwards fell perfectly into place with FSG’s Moneyball strategy, the statistical model designed to extract maximum value in the transfer market. Clearly, with the club 10th in the league and paying up to three times the going rate for players, it needs refinement.’

Did it also need ‘refinement’ when the same strategy took Liverpool within a slip of the Premier League title?

* ‘Despite a lack of playing experience at any relevant level, Edwards, who earns £300,000 a year, has a big say on Liverpool’s notorious transfer committee.’

Not quite the same say as Brendan Rodgers (who had the final say), whose playing career highlight was as a defender for Northern Ireland Schools; he earned over £3m a year.

* ‘After each Liverpool game Edwards emails analysis and data to the club’s owners in America, detailing where the match was won and lost.’

Sounds useful.

* ‘Edwards and his team of analysts have invented a new language for football. Strikers are all about goal expectancy, chances created and the percentage of successful passes in the final third. Old-school managers just want to know if the boy can put the ball in the net. Defensive midfielders are judged on interceptions and the number of challenges won in the centre of the pitch.’

Firstly, we’re pretty sure that Edwards did not invent those words. And secondly, what do ‘old school managers’ judge defensive midfielders on if not tackles? The muckiness of their shorts? The blood on their testicles?

* Edwards and his breed ‘sits in air-conditioned offices’.

Proper football men hate air-conditioned offices.

* He ‘constantly monitors the opposition, providing detail about playing positions, style, routines, set-pieces and other important matchday information’.

Again, sounds useful.

* ‘They profile players based on their last 10-20 appearances, gathering information and helping Rodgers build a presentation for his players before matches that was usually a maximum of 10 pages on each team. It is a useful, but far from infallible, tool.’

Sound useful. But not infallible. Like all statistics.

* ‘He has emerged as a senior figure at Liverpool, empowered by FSG to make the call on big transfer targets after gaining their trust since his arrival in 2011.’

Oh. Right. So does he have the final say? That might explain how he ‘has Rodgers’ number’. Did he make him buy Divock Origi?

* ‘They clashed over transfer strategy, although Rodgers went on record to insist that he always had the final say over the recruitment of players earmarked for the first-team squad.’

Oh. It’s almost like two blokes who worked together didn’t quite get on. And one of them had a laptop.

[Monty]

That is outstanding.

[bertlambshank]

I wonder why Ian Graham Liverpool's director of research and has a PhD in thoeritcal physics wasn't mentioned in that piece.

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What's your theory?

[Vegas]

I wonder why Ian Graham Liverpool's director of research and has a PhD in thoeritcal physics wasn't mentioned in that piece.

Just catching up on this thread. What, precisely, do you object to Bert? Using data in addition to gut feel in scouting? A drift away from one man having sole charge? Less reliance on football lifers and more on external expertise offering different points of view?

All three of these are relatively recent but now pretty much standard, desirable and effective changes in many organisations and industries, and it's not at all clear to me why football should be different.

[Dave]

I wonder why Ian Graham Liverpool's director of research and has a PhD in thoeritcal physics wasn't mentioned in that piece.

My guess is that it's because it's a direct response to a shit article in the Daily Mail that barely mentions him, so it would be a bit odd if they brought him up.

Is the fact that it doesn't mention him any more sinister than the fact that you haven't brought his name up until now?

[bertlambshank]

I wonder why Ian Graham Liverpool's director of research and has a PhD in thoeritcal physics wasn't mentioned in that piece.

My guess is that it's because it's a direct response to a shit article in the Daily Mail that barely mentions him, so it would be a bit odd if they brought him up.

Is the fact that it doesn't mention him any more sinister than the fact that you haven't brought his name up until now?

He is the one that got the program going in the first place.

[Dave]

I wonder why Ian Graham Liverpool's director of research and has a PhD in thoeritcal physics wasn't mentioned in that piece.

My guess is that it's because it's a direct response to a shit article in the Daily Mail that barely mentions him, so it would be a bit odd if they brought him up.

Is the fact that it doesn't mention him any more sinister than the fact that you haven't brought his name up until now?

He is the one that got the program going in the first place.

So why would you expect him to feature prominently in an article pointing out the myriad flaws in a badly-written article about somebody else?

[bertlambshank]

I wonder why Ian Graham Liverpool's director of research and has a PhD in thoeritcal physics wasn't mentioned in that piece.

Just catching up on this thread. What, precisely, do you object to Bert? Using data in addition to gut feel in scouting? A drift away from one man having sole charge? Less reliance on football lifers and more on external expertise offering different points of view?

All three of these are relatively recent but now pretty much standard, desirable and effective changes in many organisations and industries, and it's not at all clear to me why football should be different.

The club has for years had the culture of its not my fault,if we are running the club the way the article suggests than this will make it a whole lot worse.We have been in enough crap without extra making things worse.