Is Edwards now more of a consultant, through his new company? I.e. available for hire by multiple teams?
It’s hard to know how that would work or what he would do, as if you get into specifics, clubs don’t want other rivals to know their moves or potential moves in the market.
If it’s more of a high level structural thing, then I could see that not being a conflict of interests.
Man Utd need sorting out. They have spent a fortune on different types of players, there appears to be no rhyme or reason, and the structure at the club is lacking. It appears ripe for someone like Edwards to improve, but I would rather he didn’t!
Call me a little old fashioned here but after a pretty much unparalleled success with Liverpool certain clubs should be be outside of who he’s prepared to work with/for.
With agents fees becoming capped, it might be the beginning of the footballers agents as we know them. I think Edwards has hit upon the idea, of filling such a void that will be left… by representing numerous players, backed with full analytical data of these players… not just to offer to clubs, a player plus their details… but to ensure the buying clubs, they will be buying a square peg for a square hole need…
As Kevin DeBruyne demonstrated to The Cheaters, his value via analysis data… My feeling is, Edwards, across many clubs and individual players… will provide a supply and demand scenario based upon the playing style and ambitions of the buying club…
If he was ahead of his time on transfer data a few years back, it stands to reason, he will be ahead of his time in aligning players with their perfect clubs in this new one-stop style of recruitment
Perhaps that’s why he has gone down the route he has. He might help rivals with the odd deal, but he isn’t rebuilding their internal processes to make them run more efficiently and he can work with smaller clubs that otherwise would probably not afford him.
Just imagine how much better run Chelsea and Utd could be with him actually there full time.
The key part of our success during his tenure was not that we were unusually good at doing what Edwards’ team did, but we had a top to bottom buy in and alignment among the various parties about the importance of their role in decision making. There are lots of clubs who have genuine experts in these roles, but are at clubs with muddled priorities and so the fruits of it never shows up. So I am 100% confident there are plenty of clubs he could rock up to, many who are our direct competitors, perform exemplary service for them and have it make not a bit of difference to them.
I would actually go as far as to say that his sort of services (with the caveat that we dont know exactly what services they are offering) is the sort that clubs who want to appear trendy and cutting edge will pay a lot of money for and then never use.
It always warms my heart to hear former players speak highly of Liverpool, though it is bittersweet when a player who had a dismal time here speaks like that. Hopefully this environment will continue to thrive long into the future.
Wisdon - one of the many CB’s that we had high hopes for. Down in the 6th tier of football now, but has made a long term career for himself with property investments, some of which he rents to the club. Always good to see players that don’t make it go on to have a decent life/career.
I hope I get back to England this year and can see him play, used to go to Warrington Town games quite a bit back when I worked there. David Raven was the old Liverpool player on their books back then.