LFC Sporting Director thread

The Albert
1089

Just to make it clear, I’m not one of them, and have never been. If anyone gets credit from me when we can spend big, it’s the owners, certainly not the SD.

On your previous point. Yes, some top players were ageing, but that’s why it was important to keep the rest together and replace these players with top talent. But he let a lot of players leave who weren’t among these top players, but still were part of that perfectly balanced squad which made us champions in Slot’s first season. He let Slot down by letting him with an unbalanced squad at the term of the summer after we had become champions. Basically a train wreck imo.

Not everything is his fault. Edwards and Slot must bear a lot of responsibility too of course. But still, it was his job to provide a balanced squad for Slot to compete in his second season, and he made a mess of that.

3 Likes
1090

The only question I have about Hughes is whether he is the one who spearheaded the almost 180 degrees change in our transfer ethos and suddenly spending big on a single player and not once but twice in a window. Or was there a collective agreement after Klopp left.

1091

I get what you’re saying but it’s overly simplified. We sold Jones because either he or us wasn’t keen on a new deal. Great, but that’s your depth piece gone. But in a year he’s another gone for nothing. Same happened with Kelleher.

We could have tried to sell Konate with two years to go but it sounded like both parties wanted to reach an agreement so carried on. Again, had we given him a £300k a week deal and then watched him flounder last season everyone would have been on Hughes’ back for that the way they are with Gravenberch now.

We could have tried to sell Trent but if he wants to sit and wait for Madrid then you can offer him round as much as you want but he can sit tight and there’s nothing we can do. Same with Endo and Chiesa, you need buyers in order to sell.

And when I say exciting young players I’m talking about Jacquet, Kerkez, Leoni, Barcola, Ekitike, Munoz. They’re the guys who will determine how much I enjoy the season.

Again though, I don’t think he’s done a great job, just not as bad a job as some other people think. I also think there’s a lot of simplifying being done when we don’t know what his remit or direction really was. This notion that it’s down to “his mismanagement” when we all know none of this is his decision alone.

4 Likes
1092

If someone were falling into quicksand, soon for death, some here would try and say at least its sunny and we can make castles whilst we wait.

2 Likes
1093

Diaz aside who did he let go after the title winning season?

Darwin - right to cash in when we could
Quansah - Slot didn’t fancy him
Doak - robbed Brentford of £20m
Kelleher - last chance to cash in or another gone on a free
Trent - was heading out the door for 12 months
Morton - never going to make it here
Elliott - Slot didn’t fancy him. Nor does Iraola it seems
Kostas - was third man behind Kerkez and Robbo.

So really, in that group we’re talking about Diaz and maybe Quansah who was replaced by Leoni.

And we can say he left Slot with an unbalanced squad but it wasn’t Hughes on the phone to Wirtz selling him the project, that was Slot. It wasn’t Hughes who benched Quansah after 45 minutes if the first game and then never used him again. Those aren’t decisions a Sporting Director is forcing on a manager.

The one change was really adding Wirtz at an out and out number 10 instead of replacing Diaz with a winger. Everyone else who left that needed replacing was replaced.

2 Likes
1094

Darwin - he didn’t become the striker we all hoped he would be, but we knew what we had with him. It was wrong to let him go that summer, and I don’t care one bit about the money we could get from his sale.
Quansah - Slot didn’t fancy him indeed, but Hughes could have signalled his valiue to the squad and the club’s long term future. He did nothing to address that glaring problem which reared its ugly head as soon as in summer 2024.
Doak - agreed
Kelleher - here is the question of contract renewals, making the player still feel welcome. As far as I can see, neither Slot nor Hughes made an effort to try keeping him. Mamardashvili isn’t as good as Kelleher in my opinion. The club should have done more to retain him, and instead, spent big on an inferior goalie.
Trent - That’s a problem of not renewing his contract earlier, and that he must have known that we were heading towards a period of chaos with that SD and that manager.
Morton - never going to make it here, apart maybe as a valuable squad member in a year in which we lost plenty of players already?
Elliott - Same as above.
Kostas - was third man behind Kerkez and Robbo, and yet, Kerkez showed problems to perform, and Robbo had problems too. Tsimi would have been handy to keep around.

That summer was a train-wreck in my opinion. Yes, players leave and come, but on the back of a champions winning season, all of this was too much, far too much, and I see Hughes as the main culprit for it, although he was ‘competently’ helped by Edwards and Slot.

1 Like
1095

Why would’ve Kelleher remained at Liverpool until at least 2027, with Alisson still here? He had a career to think about, actually playing football, as he was a 26-year old international goalkeeper with not even or just short of 100 games in his life.

He had one of the summers a few years ago when a lot of clubs that he and his entourage must have targeted went for new goalkeepers and we obviously didn’t get the fee we wanted and he didn’t get the interest in relation to these shouts from some that he’s one of the best goalkeepers in the league.

In return, we got a few more years of having a quality backup. That also in a way means “money”. But I was sure he would leave at some point and when we arrived to the last year of his contract (I thought it would’ve happened a year earlier and he pushed for a move then, but again the fee we wanted didn’t arrive), it was always going to happen.

I really can’t fault anyone in Kelleher’s case, it was a nice story and a simple and natural evolution. We’ll see if our paths cross again. Probably not, as you get more cases when fans hope for it, but it rarely happens.

2 Likes
1096

Really? We knew we had a guy who couldn’t hit a barn door 90% of the time. Isak and Ekitike are both superior players.

So what, keep a player around the manager didn’t want to use instead of selling him and getting him someone he might? How does that help give Slot the squad he needs? The fact the lad does his ACL in his first game is no ones fault.

Kelleher wanted to play football. For that to happen we either sell or bench Alisson. Is that a decision Hughes should be forcing on the manager? Or is it just a case of the timing not aligning and us doing the right thing for all involved.

So keeping more players the manager doesn’t want and won’t develop instead of trying to cash in when their value is highest.

You can’t keep saying he didn’t give the manager the squad he needed and he let too many players go on the cheap or for nothing and then suggest he should have kept players the manager didn’t want or that needed to be cashed in on before their values plummeted.

3 Likes
1097

I already accepted that it was the combination of Slot and Hughes who led to our downfall. I’m perfectly fine if you think that Hughes did a good job with us, but I’m not convinced at all. Hence me being rather relieved to see the back of him.

5 Likes
1098

Don’t know how many times I need to add the caveat of “I don’t think he did a great job” to the end of posts for people to get that I don’t think he did a great job but for one last time so there can be no doubt, I’m not saying he did a great job.

But the notion that he didn’t build the squad Slot wanted or he’s wasted half a billion quid on a bunch of players that aren’t good enough are ideas I don’t think stand up to even the lightest of scrutiny.

Yes, I would have liked to see a couple more players in the squad. Yes I’d like it if players stopped leaving for nothing. And yes it’d be nice to be shot of Endo and Chiesa given their limited value. But we’ve also had some of those same complaints with previous people in charge of recruitment business.

And as always, some of the language used around this and the comfort some have with insulting the person not their performance doesn’t sit well with me.

6 Likes
1099

It’s a thankless job. Every single decision that has to be made is one that some element of negativity to it and the job is one of perpetually balancing the trade offs.

  • getting the best player now means fewer years and a quicker turn around time for replacing them
  • bringing in someone with an eye to a long future at the club means them having to experience their learning curve in your shirt
  • Spending the money needed to buy the big impact player needed to improve the XI means less money to bolster the squad with quality rotation options
  • Doing the opposite means lots of interchanging pieces but none of whom really move the needle
  • So you say fuck it and just spend a lot of money to do it all, but now you have quality players not getting the games they need and being sulky about it.

All to often the assessment that are made are only ever on the downside of these trade offs. We look at Arsenal at marvel at the strength in depth they have acquired yet stories are already brewing about dissatisfaction with the job Berto has done there. Left them short in the one area they needed, put together a squad that has an age profile that means they’re going to continue to have to be active and may struggle to raise the money to fund the purchasing of the replacements. There are even questions about his approach to negotiating that has previously allowed him to be able to assess the state of the market really well is being viewed as too impersonal resulting in several targets not feeling sold on their supposed interest and declining a move there.

2 Likes
1100

Not to mention the six years or so it took them to get there and the huge amount of money they’ve spent.

They’re now also going to start to feel the financial impact of that success. Everyone’s next contract just got that bit more expensive. Rice, Odegaard and Havertz all have contracts up in two years time and they’ll each be 29. Are they going to give them what they’ll all think they’re worth despite their ages?

I think Arsenal are interesting. They’ve balanced the stars and squad players better than us but at the same time they lack a striker, all their full backs are primarily CBs, they don’t seem to be quite sure in midfield and players like Eze, Maduweke and Zubimendi haven’t really convinced despite the fees.

3 Likes
1101

I thought the Edwards/Klopp combination was nearly perfect in the player acquisitions and player sales. It’s a damn shame that they didn’t get on with each other and Edwards decided to leave.

It’s after that we start getting into some questionable signings. Starting with Darwin. He played his part in the trophy wins but he was supposed to be a top dog (given his price) which he never was.

Jorg put together our new midfield 3. We’ve discussed their drawbacks ad nauseam so I won’t rehash that. Let’s just say we could have done better.

My biggest gripe with Hughes, above anything else, is his spending on Wirtz instead of replacing Diaz, and getting Isak when we already had Ekitike. Firstly because if one of the points @Limiescouse made that investing that much money on someone and it not potentially working out means you have hamstrung the entire budget and can’t cater for other areas (and we have quite a few deficiencies to address in the short term). And as good as Isak is, I still think he was an unnecessary purchase. And he’s already 27. Are we going to be a bona fide title winning contender/CL contender by the time he’s 30?

1102

The Isak thing I totally get and despite being a huge fan there were definitely times last summer when it felt like the right thing was to walk away. But I think this is part of the challenge of evaluating a job like this - the chronological sequence of events we see play out are not a reflection of priorities or strategy. What it seems like is we were always very confident Isak was going to happen and that he was our Darwin replacement. Then when we lost Jota we decided we had to go into the market and get a second forward and hugo was just an easier deal to get done so came in first. But at no point would our thinking have been “we’ve now got the younger back up we didnt think we would have needed to get, but now we’ve got him lets pivot away from our priority.” And had we have done that I suspect fans would have lost their shit at losing Jota and Darwin and having a player of Hugo’s profile as our main option.

5 Likes
1103

I for one did repeatedly express my disappointment about his job, but never insulted the guy himself. Well, unless you think that wishing someone all the best for his new job in the Arabic desert is an insult. :wink:

Oh yeah, I called him bizarre, true. But that was about his professional choice to leave LFC for Al-Hilal, not what he did at LFC.

This choice looks bizarre to me, and that’s how I should have worded it in the first place I guess.

1104

That was more of a general comment rather than one aimed at yourself. Sorry that wasn’t clear.

1 Like
1105

If I look at the team and squad right now we have some smashing talent, of a good age, and an imaginative coach at the helm who has a plan and a style he will continue to implement.

There are holes, and we should be strengthening in a few areas as we go.

As for how much credit/blame Hughes gets in all that, I haven’t the foggiest. We completed some big deals on his watch, but then having the means to do that is not down to the Sporting Director.

He did show an ability to negotiate, for example, what we paid for Barcola was a lot less than what PSG were asking for, and as the summer unfolded, while a lot of fans wobbled, Hughes was resolute in getting his man, at a better price. But hardly a bargain.

And on the flip side of this he also paid top dollar for Isak and Wirtz, and while I’ve no doubt they are both really good players, we have not seen their true worth at Liverpool yet. Hopefully it’s coming.

Not really sure what else to say! He’s a Sporting Director. I didn’t like him living so far away. That always felt transactional, rather than a man who truly ‘got’ us.

As a Sporting Director it just felt like a business relationship with him. Football is a great escape for all of us, and we are caught up in the heart and passion and soul of it. I never really felt like Hughes was part of that side of things, so there’s an inherent disconnect there.

Now he has jumped ship and taken the Saudi money. Whether we were pushing him out, or whether he saw the writing on the wall with a likely ownership change, who knows.

But overall in the annals of LFC, we will not be talking about this man for long.

5 Likes
1106

I’ve been unimpressed by Hughes but he hasn’t even been the worst SD in the last 4 years.

A lot of the issues are a legacy of Ward’s almost complete inertia. 12 months lost. Creating the culminating contract issues and the lack of succession planning that his temporary replacement was never going to be able to address.

Hughes then comes in and, frankly, his tenure smacks of a trolley dash. Very little thought.

13 Likes
1107

Very fair assessment, and I think it’s absolutely the case that it was in the spell between Edward’s and Hughes that we really lost control of the contracts side of things. Schmadtke wasn’t really there to think about the long term - he was there to get the deals done.

2 Likes
1108

The Ward situation was so strange, even more that we welcomed him back given how much his exit that soon would have been viewed as a borderline betrayal under normal circumstances. I wonder if there is a sense of acceptance from Gordon and Hogan that we forced the role begrudgingly onto him.

3 Likes