There’s a photograph that has found itself back in circulation recently, the kind that should only be looked at after a generous grieving period. On the left of the picture is Milan Jovanovic, in the middle Danny Wilson and Roy Hodgson, and on the right is Joe Cole. To most Liverpool fans it is the visual equivalent of drinking fabric softener, something I imagine José Enrique has tried at least a few times.
The irony of that photograph is, of course, that none of the three players were actually Roy Hodgson’s signings. I’d have the tent and deckchairs ready for that first spot in the line to criticise Hodgson, but the fact is two of them were Rafa’s buys and Joe Cole turned up in nothing but Purslow’s Stetson. In the complex world of player recruitment, it’s a good example of how easily the waters are muddied. We’d like to blame Roy, but that would be – to quote Richard Snowden QC – ‘absolute poppycock’!
And so perhaps Liverpool fans might wonder to what extent the same happened in the decision to appoint Damien Comolli. Despite links to the signings of Kolo Touré and Emmanuel Eboué, it was only Gaël Clichy who was actually spotted by Comolli when he was a Scout at Arsenal. It was players such as Younès Kaboul, Luka Modrić, and specifically Gareth Bale, bought during his time as Director of Football at Tottenham, which gave Comolli plenty of good faith from Liverpool fans. But what if you remove Gareth Bale from Comolli’s list of accomplishments? What if Damien Commoli was the Roy Hodgson in Tottenham’s transfer photograph?
“It was Mel Johnson, who was a scout at Tottenham, who first raised Gareth’s name,” said Damien Comolli in an interview with the Daily Express in February earlier this year. “He was in charge of scouting players aged between 17 and 21 and had a very good knowledge of the lower leagues.”
“We thought he [Gareth Bale] could play left-midfield as well as at left-back. He wasn’t so sure at first, but I remember the United game at the start of the season and a lot of credit must go to Martin Jol, who was prepared to play him.”
Key statistics from that game against Manchester United, like the highest number of high-intensity sprints, screamed at Tottenham and their staff that this was a kid built to play in attack. Responsibility for playing him further forward apparently goes to Martin Jol, and credit for finding him first goes to Mel Johnson. We know too that Daniel Levy is loath to yield any responsibility when it comes to negotiations. So at what point was Damien Comolli crucial to Gareth Bale going from left back at Southampton to left wing at Tottenham? And should it be so indelibly plastered across his résumé?
Questions remain over whether the credit for Bale’s transfer was apportioned correctly, and another of Comolli’s key acquisitions in Dimitar Berbatov was actually signed thanks to work done by Frank Arnesen. Yet even allowing Comolli full kudos, his time at Tottenham shows it’s not the good signings that you live and die by, but the bad ones. Everything Gareth Bale has done for Tottenham, he has had to do so clambering over the pile of bodies named David Bentley, Darren Bent and Jonathan Woodgate. Commoli’s P45 was written on the back of Heurelho Gomes’s list of clangers. Bad transfers are catastrophic transfers.
Liverpool’s owners, Fenway Sports Group, have been accused by those who know them of having something of a Guru syndrome. Their hiring of Damien Comolli did little to assuage this view, and Liverpool fans would be forgiven for a degree of the same. In a simpler time, the genius of people like Bill Shankly and Geoff Twentyman gave Liverpool a genuine edge in the transfer market. History taught us to be comfortable putting our faith in omniscient football Gurus. But these days an uncomfortably small world continues to shrink and it means more than ever football is a game of percentages. Relying on a ‘Transfer Guru’ is just not a viable and repeatable process, not least because the sums of money involved in transfers do not allow for mistakes any more. Most individuals; nearly all individuals in football, make too many of these mistakes. The few who don’t, such as Manchester United’s old boss, are beginning to drop off one by one.
“You need some humility in football and Damien was convinced he was right 100 per cent of the time. There was never any question of dialogue.” Said AS Saint-Étienne Co-Chairman Bernard Caiazzo after he fired Comolli for the €22million [£18.7m] he spent on seven players. Only one of those players kept his place in the first team: it was an alarm bell Liverpool didn’t hear.
“Damien enjoyed total power in his first year with us. His was the last word on all transfers and that is how he wanted it.”
Kenny Dalglish thought he was signing a Geordie Chymera, all fire breathing and terror and Lion’s mane. What he got was a zebra that couldn’t change its stripes and a player who, by virtue of his fee, set Liverpool back at least a season. Whoever bears the blame for the eye-popping £35million paid for Andy Carroll, what is clear is that whilst Luis Suarez did not propel Liverpool to Champions League football, Andy Carroll (and the rest) almost certainly cost them it.
Of course Liverpool isn’t the only club to fall foul of Guruism when it comes to transfers. In April of 2012 Queens Park Rangers brought in Mike Rigg from Manchester City as Technical Director with a view to a future in the Premier League. Rigg had previously been responsible for completely overhauling Manchester City’s antiquated Scouting system, and alongside Mark Hughes his team brought in twelve players for a combined outlay of £13.8million. Amongst that twelve were the likes of Júlio César, David Hoilett and Esteban Granero. QPR took only four points from their opening twelve games, but in terms of players signed there is still value there in the squad; certainly there were no massive ‘flops’ amongst those signed by Rigg and Hughes, and regardless of coaching and motivation their transfer record does not stack up badly.
In addressing their management issues with Mark Hughes though, QPR abandoned their long term, balanced approach to transfers, and allowed Harry Redknapp to obliterate Rigg and his infant Scouting system. QPR again fell for a Transfer Guru, the loquacious potato features of Harry Redknapp seducing yet another owner into parting with fortunes. But with absolute power comes absolute fallibility, and no checks or balances systematises transfer gambling. Because that’s what Transfer Gurus do: they gamble. Transfer Gurus win big, but eventually they always lose bigger, and in QPR’s case they are not just paying Christopher Samba’s £12million transfer fee (nearly as much as Rigg and Hughes spent in total), but his estimated £100,000 a week wages too. QPR find themselves in a mess because they gave a gambler all their chips without anyone to tell him when it was time to stop.
Football is different these days, and the ‘misses’ are as important as the ‘hits’. Liverpool, at least, seemed to have learned their lesson. Giving up on their search for a Transfer Guru, Liverpool sent Damien Comolli skidding back down Anfield Road on his briefcase and he will not be missed.
In the absence of Comolli, John Henry and co. moved Michael Edwards from his position as Head of Analytics to Head of Performance and Analysis. When Edwards was Head of Performance at Portsmouth, he was championing the same Amisco® performance analysis software Rafa Benitez was using at Liverpool, and there is a surprisingly small inter-linked network of these types of people in football. Liverpool have been cherry-picking them one by one.
Edwards took on a key role in the selection of what was now to be a ‘Transfer Committee’, later chaired by Brendan Rodgers, and comprising Dave Fallows and Barry Hunter (former colleagues of Mike Rigg) and a collection of Scouts, Analysts and Coaches new and old. Within the last month Edwards has been promoted further to Director of Technical Performance, and is obviously making a huge impression at Liverpool Football Club.
Though we’re conditioned to love the individual and idolise the superstars in football, the fact is specific signings aren’t central to sustainable, organic growth. Everton fans might wish it wasn’t so, but the Premier League is back every year, and provided you’re in those top seventeen teams you get a shot at it all again. We shout and scream that ‘this is the most important summer in years’ but it rarely is. The key reason for having a Committee is not to find that one superstar who might completely turn the tables and propel Liverpool into Europe, but instead to avoid the Christopher Sambas and the Andy Carrolls that set you back and burden you for years.
Anyone who has ever had a team meeting or built a presentation knows the drawbacks of decision by committee: Liverpool will miss out on targets when they’re slowed down by process; Liverpool will also miss out on genuine talent because some players don’t get an overall vote of confidence. This summer’s expedited transfer business would at least suggest that Liverpool have spotted the former of those potholes before falling into it.
Even if progress is incremental Liverpool need to finally stick to their model: they led the way for QPR, it would be stupid to now follow them. Climbing the Premier League ladder is important, but avoiding the snakes even more-so. When it comes to transfers: always beware the Roy Hodgson in the photograph; always beware the Guru; always beware the gambler.
