Pushing out Michael Edwards in 2011 was the big mistake, Michael had been the man behind the scenes for our transfer successes under Redknapp, he was the money-ball whizkid who identified the 'right' player based on metrics and statistics ... when Redknapp left he should have been made DoF but Liverpool came calling (Comolli) and he left, he restructured their performance analysis, their academy, and then became a member of their transfer committee, which was based on the one at Spurs, since then he has become their Technical Director and many see him now as the most important man at the club ...
Hindsight is easy but we had the makings of Liverpool's success only for Redknapp and Levy to miss the opportunity ... no question we want, need a top DoF but they are like hen's teeth, having no DoF under Poch was a feckin' disaster it left us playing catch up with serious under-staffing in the technical set-up ... in modern football you need a full-time DoF with a full team, Mourinho and Levy are not even close to being able to fulfil that role, luckily I suspect they both know that.
If they didn't know the very fact that Poch leaving meant going back to square one with players would have highlighted that complete lack of professionalism. Mourinho is temporary all managers are, Levy will not want to fall into that hole again when Mourinho goes ... Luis Campos maybe, stealing Edwards from Liverpool, yes please, or some other highly qualified individual ... whoever it is it can't happen soon enough.
Loads of ifs buts and maybe's.
Edwards and Liverpool's transfer committee was completely and utterly derided for many years (I'd say about 7yrs!), especially under Rodgers, when they overpaid buying half the Southampton team that Poch made into stars (Lambert £5m, Lallana £30m, Lovern £20m, Clyne £15), Borini for £10m, Joe Allen for £15m, Sturridge, Luis Alberto, Mingolet, Sakho £20m, Ings £15 after comp deal, Benteke £35m, Balotelli £20m, Moreno £15m.
Under Klopp:
Grujic £10m, Steven Caulker (to be played as CF!!), Grabara, Karius, Klavan, Manninger, Solanke, Sahquiri £15m.
There have been a total of 67 players bought, for a total pf £842,048,500. Taking them to the 2nd highest wage bill in the league.
This isn't to deride him in any way, but it wasn't until Klopp things were no different at Liverpool than they were anywhere else. Just like Spurs, they choose not to sign anyone in the summer, will this backfire on them? If it does the fingers will be pointing at Edwards and the committee for fucking it up. This is how it works.
They also took Alex Inglethorpe who's the Academy Director and also on the transfer committee.
Utd took Kieran McKenna who had been at Spurs for 15yrs as an academy graduate, Jose made him assistant manager after Rui left. Utd had also taken our long-standing highly regarded Company Secretary (to replace the retiring one, also an ex-Spurs Co-Secretary).
Southampton was regarded to have one of the best scouting systems in the Country, we went recruited it and the magic black box and we hired Tripps, N'Jie, N'Koudou and Wimmer. Turned out that it was probably Les Reed was the guy we should have gone for??
Leicester's David Walsh was the other hailed as the "genius" of the scouting scene, snapped up by Everton spunked hundreds of millions on players and got the boot within 18months.
The ying and yang of football transfers and their committee's. Too many places to hide behind when things go tit's up and a lot of spin when things are going right. When should they be measured? When they first start, when the budget and objective is to breakeven? When they win the league? When they "do a Leeds"? Look hard enough and you can dig up a ton of shit, look hard enough and you can see brilliance.