Liverpool’s transfer committee has come under a lot of scrutiny in recent years with regard to their transfer dealings. The group has taken further beating off-late owing to their actions in the on-going window leaving fans disgruntled and frustrated.
Jurgen Klopp’s first season at Liverpool can be best summed up by their journey in the cup competitions. The Reds were a side capable of doing wonders but had plenty of leaks to be plugged in, if they were to realize their German boss’ ambitious vision for the club. Coming at the back of a promising and exhilarating, yet ultimately disappointing campaign, Liverpool fans expected strong statements of intent from Klopp in the transfer market. Despite the absence of European football to offer, Reds’ supporters believed that the German was enough of an attraction for players to consider the move to Anfield.
A month into the transfer window, the Reds have realized the shortcomings of a European absence and have fallen behind in their pursuit of big-name signings like Mario Götze. Their subsequent interest in relatively unknown players like Ben Chilwell, Piotr Zielinski etc. hasn’t left fans impressed with the state of affairs in the transfer committee with many taking to Twitter to voice their concern over the club’s lack of ambition in the market.
If you’re a liverpool fan and you think that our transfer committee is a positive thing then your actually deluded.
— YNWA (@callmethefinest) June 22, 2016
Liverpool’s transfer committee & a solid portion of the Liverpool fanbase have the worst case of amnesia. Ever. #LFC pic.twitter.com/pGV88YdfVK
— MerseysideFischer (@MerseysideFisch) June 23, 2016
Mane, Chilwell, Zielinkski… Nice one #lfc transfer committee pic.twitter.com/FuiA69Q4Fb
— Shaun Gaddu (@shaungaddu) June 21, 2016
Chilwell and Mané for a combined £40m?! Didn’t know Rodgers was still part of the transfer committee.
— Rishi (@Rishi_LFC) June 22, 2016
Such bashing of the transfer committee was a common sight during Brendan Rodgers’ era and their recent transfer activity has once again left fans asking questions about whether Klopp has full control over proceedings at the club. TheHardTackle will attempt to disseminate the various arguments and allegations surrounding the infamous transfer committee.
What is the Transfer Committee?
In the summer of 2012, the Liverpool hierarchy underwent a significant revamp following the sacking of Kenny Dalglish. The club did away with the post of director of football by sacking Damien Commolli and looked towards a more collective approach into scouting and bringing in prospective signings. Hence the formation of the transfer committee — a group headed by the club’s Managing Director and the Heads of Recruitment, Performance & Analysis, and finally the first team coach.
It was in-line with FSG’s ambitious plans of implementing a moneyball system at the club and the idea was given the go-ahead by the American owners as well. Brendan Rodgers, then Swansea boss, was brought in prior to the 2012-13 season to herald a new era at Anfield at the epicentre of Liverpool’s newly assembled committee.
Managing Director, Ian Ayre explained back in 2013 that, “The transfer committee and its working is essentially a combination of old-school scouting and watching players — and that’s Brendan, his assistants, our scouts — with statistical analysis of players across Europe and the rest of the world. By bringing those two processes together, you get a much more educated view of who you should and shouldn’t be buying.”
“Committee Signings”
Aided by the transfer committee, Liverpool effected some good signings during Brendan Rodgers’ first season in charge notably securing the services of both Philippe Coutinho and Daniel Sturridge for a combined £20 million. The club also signed Joe Allen and Fabio Borini upon the Ulsterman’s arrival although they didn’t turn out to be as successful as the former duo.
All seemed to be going well until the beginning of the 2013-14 campaign when Liverpool were vociferously investing in players to try and bring home some silverware in the ensuing campaign. Having already signed 6 players and two on-loan, the Reds looked sorted and content with their business going into the new campaign. However in a surprising last minute transfer, Paris St. Germain’s Mamadou Sakho arrived at Andield in a £15 million deal. Rumour has it that there had been a disagreement between the manager and the committee over the player’s prospects at the club, following which the committee went ahead with the signing anyway.
Sakho was the first recorded “Committee signing”, the likes of which would affect both the player and club in the future. Sakho, despite being PSG and France National Team’s first choice defender, was sparingly used in a campaign where the Reds almost snatched a Premier League title. Rodgers’ ego probably got to him as he seemingly refused to start Sakho and played the likes of Kolo Toure and Martin Skrtel more often. The Frenchman has since gone on to become a mainstay in Liverpool’s defence over both his colleagues playing an invaluable role in their run up to their progress through to the Europa League final in the 2015-16 season under Klopp.
Since then Liverpool have had a number of so-called “Rodgers-centric” and “Committee-centric” signings arriving at the club, with the evident bad blood between manager and board spilling on to the playing field as well. Lazar Markovic, Alberto Moreno, Mario Balotelli and Divock Origi to go with Sakho were supposedly the committee signings Rodgers didn’t approve and the boss reflected his anger on the pitch by either sparingly using those players or by fielding them out of position.
How it affected the club (and probably cost Rodgers his job)?
A manager should live and die by his signings, and the muddy waters of Liverpool’s committee setup has seen the club follow a cyclical journey with their transfers every summer, since its inception in 2012. Pursuing players a manager does not want only tends to delay progress and that is partly what happened with Rodgers and Liverpool during the years leading up to the Northern Irishman’s sacking.
Some of Rodgers’ more fancied transfer suggestions like Wilfried Bony, Diego Costa and Christian Eriksen were reportedly over-ruled by the committee who instead went ahead with a £16 million splash on Mario Balotelli. This forged an inherent disconnect between the two and as a result some players suffered the impact for no fault of their own. This explains why despite spending £200 million over the past couple of transfer windows, the Reds are still a ‘club in transition’, when a side like Leicester City won the Premier League with a fraction of the money Liverpool injected.
With Klopp in-charge, why the fuss now?
Hash all the Rodgers talk, why is the transfer committee still a thing now? Ever since his arrival, Klopp has stated that he will remain in the fore-front of all of Liverpool’s transfer dealings and any of the committee’s suggestions will require his final say on the matter before the club proceeds with negotiations.
That said, the Reds’ recent pursuit of Sadio Mane, Ben Chilwell, Andrew Robertson and Piotr Zielinski hasn’t left the fans impressed at all leading many to think the transfer committee is at its game once more and is overpowering Klopp’s authority on transfers. In hindsight that would be a ridiculous suggestion to make so early on in the transfer window and if anything, it only throws light on some rather restless fans.
A miserable Europa League final loss to Sevilla compounded by an 8th placed finish in the Premier League meant that European football was out of reach for the Reds next season. Therefore despite the allure of working under Klopp, Liverpool will be at a disadvantage in their bid to acquire potential signings. It’s therefore not surprising that the Anfield giants fell behind in their pursuit of players of the calibre of Mario Gotze and Robert Lewandowski.
Criticism of Transfer Committee ‘unnecessary’ and ‘premature’
In light of Liverpool’s situation at the moment, it is premature to blame the transfer committee for the kind of players that the Merseysiders have been forced to pursue. Firstly, we have only entered the 3rd week of the transfer window since it was opened on June 9 and with well over two months still to go, there is still time for Liverpool to make their ‘marquee’ summer signing. Secondly, Klopp has reiterated time and time again that he will have the final say on matters at the club, so to think the Reds’ pursuit of players like Chilwell, Robertson, Mane and Zielinski is the work of the transfer committee would be ignorant.
Finally, their pursuit of players so far are well in-line with the kind of positional replacements/reinforcements that they require going into the new season. Ben Chilwell and Andrew Robertson could potentially solve Liverpool’s left-back conundrum, Zielinski helps provide a different dimension and power to the midfield and Mane provides them with much-needed impetus and sting in attack. The Reds, despite their financial muscle, aren’t exactly the club that can attract the Albas, Iniestas, Ronaldos and Messis of world football and will have to settle to producing them, like they always have.
All of the aforementioned prospects are young and have the potential to make it big under a manager like Klopp who has bred many a prodigious talent through his years at Borussia Dortmund. Liverpool fans have to be patient with the club and give Klopp and his team just as much time as they did with Brendan Rodgers. Klopp has already signed three players in Joel Matip, Loris Karius and Marko Grujic for a combined £10 million which indicates there are still good quality players ready to play for Liverpool under the German boss.
The situation at the club is completely normal and fans’ reactions could be based on an exaggeration of the club’s state of affairs. The fuss is unnecessary at the moment, especially about a transfer committee which Klopp appears completely relaxed about. From his first day he was clear he would always have the final say and through his first nine months at Anfield, we’ve known the German to generally speak his mind.
In his first press conference, he said: “This is a really crazy discussion because it was not a problem for (even) 10 seconds. I’m not a genius, I don’t know more than the rest of the world. I need these people.”
Reiterating his view in January, Klopp said, “In the end it’s like I said at the first meeting and the first press conference, if I don’t want the player to come in here he will not come. And if the player I want doesn’t fit our budget then he will not come too. That’s absolutely normal. It’s a normal situation.”
