The Liverpool Thread

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GodCubed said:
Systems don't really effect centre backs that much, especially not when Liverpool and Southampton play quite similar systems. Perhaps Rodgers wants his centre backs to be quite good on the ball, but Lovren's decent at that despite his other flaws. The other question is did Rodgers bring in Lovren? I'm not altogether convinced he did.

You'd choose Caulker over Lovren?! He's not even been the best defender in his own team filled with **** defenders. He's an okay player, but good lord Liverpool would be in all kinds of mess if he'd been given the minutes Lovren had.
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If I've understood James Pearce correctly, Rodgers did indeed bring in Lovren. As for Caulker, I don't think we would've been worse off with him than with Lovren. Caulker's transfer fee was undisclosed, but reported to be around £8.5m. That's less than half of Lovren's price. And in my opinion, we have been in all kinds of mess when Lovren's been playing. Like you said, the "debate is whether they're worth what was spent on them". Do you honestly think Lovren's been worth the money so far?


GodCubed said:
That's what £15 million gets you nowadays, when the player in question is young, British and a midfielder.
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I suppose. But I still don't think he should've commanded a higher fee than ~£10m, from what we've seen so far.


GodCubed said:
The debate was whether it does work. I can see both sides of the argument really, and I think I fall rather in the middle of the Rodgers vs committee debate, much like you. It's an interesting topic though. You mentioned a DoF earlier which I found interesting, because I think that's inherently worse than a committee. A spread of people is almost always going to beat the opinion of a singular person (all other things being equal) unless that singular person is amazing. So short of Liverpool hiring one of the best talent evaluators in the world it's usually going to be a better idea to stick with the committee.
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Of course it would depend on who the DoF was. But the idea behind it is having a person with good player knowledge and understanding of football, and a team of scouts working under him. It would free up time for Rodgers, but the debate is rather mute seeing as how Rodgers refused a DoF when FSG approached him. The pro with having a committee can also be regarded a con; too many cooks spoil the broth (I had to google that proverb and I'm not even sure it's correct).

In any case I'd obviously choose the committee like it is now, rather than Rodgers having complete control over transfers. That was the initial claim I argued against iirc.
 
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mersk said:
The pro with having a committee can also be regarded a con; too many cooks spoil the broth (I had to google that proverb and I'm not even sure it's correct).
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That's really archaic way of looking at it, tbh. Its not 1975, assessing player's ability properly is a job not one person can do. There's too much expertise and input from too many different fields, that all has to be taken into consideration. You need statistics and analysis people, medical people, business people, sports psychology people, and so on and so on.

Its either sticking to old ways and praying the one guy you hire will turn out to be Bill Gates of talent scouting, or just relying on a committee sort of thing. Its a no brainer which option is more sensible.

Ultimately I would say its less of a debate about whether committee is necessary, and more of a debate whether people on the committee are good enough at their jobs, and how exactly the committee should approach decision making. Because that's really the key thing here. If they can force signings on manager, that'd be borderline retarded. If they can force type if signing on manager, that'd also be retarded.

The way I'd do this at least, is Rodgers identifies what type of player he wants, then analysis and scouting department comes up with a list, then bussiness people eliminate those that are unrealistic, then they have a majority vote on who to sign, with Rodgers always having the ability to veto the signings.
 
Tyton said:
That's really archaic way of looking at it, tbh. Its not 1975, assessing player's ability properly is a job not one person can do. There's too much expertise and input from too many different fields, that all has to be taken into consideration. You need statistics and analysis people, medical people, business people, sports psychology people, and so on and so on.
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"Archaic" is pretty much as far off as you can get. Judging from what you're saying, it seems you think I meant that a DoF would replace basically every backroom staff member in the club. That's obviously not the case. The point I was trying to make - and which I thought was pretty obvious - is that when you have a committee of people deciding on which players to target as transfers, you will inevitably have a clash of opinions. And that's after weighing in all the moneyball aspects along with tactical, technical, mental and physical evaluations of a player. With a DoF you don't have that problem. Then again, the lack of more than one opinion is a weakness - hence why 'the pro with having a committee can also be regarded as a con'.

Tyton said:
Ultimately I would say its less of a debate about whether committee is necessary, and more of a debate whether people on the committee are good enough at their jobs, and how exactly the committee should approach decision making. Because that's really the key thing here. If they can force signings on manager, that'd be borderline retarded. If they can force type if signing on manager, that'd also be retarded.
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Exactly. Which is why it's not a given that a committee is better than a DoF. It all depends on who the DoF is, and who the members of the committee are. Which, in turn, reflects on my previous point.

Tyton said:
The way I'd do this at least, is Rodgers identifies what type of player he wants, then analysis and scouting department comes up with a list, then bussiness people eliminate those that are unrealistic, then they have a majority vote on who to sign, with Rodgers always having the ability to veto the signings.
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That's pretty much how the committee works, as far as we know according to journalists like James Pearce and Tony Barrett. The problem, of course, is that Rodgers could end up with alternatives he doesn't like, which seemingly was the case when he had to choose between Balotelli and Eto'o. Then again, that's probably a problem most managers face every now and then.
 
mersk said:
"Archaic" is pretty much as far off as you can get. Judging from what you're saying, it seems you think I meant that a DoF would replace basically every backroom staff member in the club. That's obviously not the case. The point I was trying to make - and which I thought was pretty obvious - is that when you have a committee of people deciding on which players to target as transfers, you will inevitably have a clash of opinions. And that's after weighing in all the moneyball aspects along with tactical, technical, mental and physical evaluations of a player. With a DoF you don't have that problem. Then again, the lack of more than one opinion is a weakness - hence why 'the pro with having a committee can also be regarded as a con.
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I didn't mean DoF would simply replace all of the backroom staff, he would have to work with them, obviously. He would, however, singlehandedly process all the information and have a final say in all the decisions, which to me is just as bad as having manager do it.

The archaic comment was aimed to the whole concept of omnipotent managers. I think that era is long gone and its just having its last hurrah. Now, I'll agree that all the top managers out there - the Mourinhos, the Simeones, the Benitzes and so on - are control freaks who want to control every aspect of running the club, down to what kind of toilet paper to use.

But the way football evolves on a top club level, it becomes apparent that managers don't actually have the expertise to make all those decisions, even if they think they do. This is just football becoming more professionalized and basically starting to be run like any other business. There's just way, way too much money involved, to have one guy be omnipotent God and control every tiniest decision.

Suarez transfer is a textbook example of just how complex things have gotten. You have indisputable top #3 player in the world, but he also badly hurts the club brand with his batshit insane stunts, he will be very hard to replace because you have trouble attracting top talent, and he's at risk at being served career ending ban if he pulls one more stunt. What the **** to do here? There's just too much various aspects to that decision, all requiring expertise from various fields, to rely on one person to make the right call.
 
coutinho and henderson out for today's game? this is gonna be tough!! both players are very critical in our performance. It's time to show the that we have other options too and not rely on 1-2 players! Hope we qualify!!!
 
Henderson, Coutinho, Sakho, Lucas, Gerrard and Markovic all unavailable for tonight's trip to Turkey.... All of a sudden this game got a little harder than it already was

Migs
Toure - Skrtel - Lovren
Ibe - Can - Allen - Moreno
Sterling - Lallana
Sturridge

Im guessing it will be something along those lines
 
Solid and sensible display away from home in Europe but we have to take our chances when they come - One goal and this tie is finished
 
The standard from both sides has been so, so poor. Just a terrible game of football (the pitch doesn't help in the slightest)
 
Missing so many players, Sturridge and Sterling really need to produce and they've been arguably the worst players on the pitch
 
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