Below this posting I'll copy-paste the article from the link posted by @Hansern in another thread, not because I'm pimping for likes (honestly, I'm not!), but because it's worth reading and discussing. I like Rodgers as a manager, but I do think the current structure of the "transfer committee" is not nearly effective enough. We can argue about the merits of this or that particular signing – this has been done to death and that's not the point. What's damning for me is that I don't see in those signings a coherent unified vision. What I see instead is a clear-as-day distinction between "Rodgers signings" and "committee signings."
"Rodgers signings" betray a pretty narrow scope of vision of a manager who doesn't have a particular breadth of knowledge about football worldwide and, though it may sound harsh, no obvious talent for scouting. That's OK actually – not every great manager is a great scout, in fact true manager-scouts are rare. Rodgers' tactical ideas are absolutely cutting-edge and progressive, this along with man-management is his core strength. So who are the players Rodgers was clearly pushing for? Borini, Allen, Lallana, Lambert, Sturridge, Moses, Lovren, Origi and ones we pursued, but which didn't work out: Dempsey, Sigurdsson, Ashley Williams, Walcott, Remy, Bertrand, currently Delph and Milner and Berahino. I'm sure I missed a few, but you get the point. There are some good players among this list, some less so, but from a glance on this list it's clear that if we only rely on Rodgers' suggestions we clearly won't build a club that's going to secure a place among the European elite.
Rodgers has an idea of what qualities he wants in a player, but he is not blessed with an intimate knowledge of a vibrant market that has great value for money, like Arsene has (or had in the past) with French league, Rafa to some extent with Spain, many Italian, Spanish and Portugese managers with Argentina, Colombia and Brazil or Dutch managers with North Europe or Germans with Eastern Europe and Turkey. The market Rodgers knows best (and even there he is probably not the keenest scout) also happens to be the most overpriced market in the world. Therefore even some of the best Rodgers' signings are not really great value for money and in many cases there is no other way to judge it than to say we are (or were ready to be) overpaying for mediocrity.
The signings I would consider "committee signings" have been of generally uneven quality. There is a clear emphasis on getting value for money (that's why they are so easy to distinguish from "Rodgers signings," where we seem to be willing to pay any price for the player manager wants), which led to some inspired signings of great value (Coutinho, Can), some duds (Aspas, Balotelli) and a lot of investment in potential (Ilori, Luis Alberto, Assaidi, Markovic, Moreno). Overall it would not be so bad – every great scout will have a few duds – but it's worrying to see that at times Rodgers has no idea what to do with some of the players we end up signing through the committee, they just don't fit what he's trying to build at all.
Modern football is not what it was 30 years ago and now every big club necessarily has to have someone who is intimately familiar with at least some of the most productive world football markets. When that person is the manager – great. If not, then a few different problems can arise. You will either get the "manager's picks" which means severely limiting the pool of talents you can pick from and therefore limiting your ambitions. Or you will get a situation where the picks will reflect the state of the power balance inside the committee rather than being a part of a coherent vision for building up the club.
Maybe the worst thing about the manager-as-part-of-the-committee structure is that the most inspired and innovative ideas are often also the most difficult to defend in a group setting – precisely because they are innovative. So a scout who has an idea to spend £5-10M on some unknown Eastern European player – who will later go on to become a superstar – might not have enough weight in the committee to push his idea through at the expense of the competing ideas and the opportunity will be gone. I'm sure in the next few years we will hear a lot about players who were considered by LFC, but made it big elsewhere.
By its very nature a committee cannot have a coherent vision, we know it all too well from politics where the surest way to kill or hopelessly dilute an idea is to throw it down to the committee. The only way that's proven to work effectively in sports as in business or politics is trusting one person with the abundance of knowledge and skills for the job and holding him/her accountable for the results. There is a reason why Southampton is in 3rd place despite a change of manager and losing half of their best players. (They might not stay there come May, but this is clearly not a fluke) There is a reason why clubs such as Porto, Sevilla, Ajax, Borussia Dortmund, Atletico Madrid and yes, Spurs, keep reinventing themselves and always rising near the top in their respective countries – and that reason is fundamentally sound transfer policy and decision-making structure.
I think I've made my case clear. It's time for FSG to dismantle the committee and appoint a sporting director. It can be one of the current members of the committee or someone from outside – what matters more is the structure. This structure is better for the club and better for Rodgers too – they just need to find a right way to explain it to him. Then he can concentrate on his core strength and will get a more consistently high-quality supply of players for fulfilling his tactical vision. He will find it easier to find common ground and common vision with one person than with five. And maybe not having to sit at the committee meetings will finally free some time for him to work on the defense.
"Rodgers signings" betray a pretty narrow scope of vision of a manager who doesn't have a particular breadth of knowledge about football worldwide and, though it may sound harsh, no obvious talent for scouting. That's OK actually – not every great manager is a great scout, in fact true manager-scouts are rare. Rodgers' tactical ideas are absolutely cutting-edge and progressive, this along with man-management is his core strength. So who are the players Rodgers was clearly pushing for? Borini, Allen, Lallana, Lambert, Sturridge, Moses, Lovren, Origi and ones we pursued, but which didn't work out: Dempsey, Sigurdsson, Ashley Williams, Walcott, Remy, Bertrand, currently Delph and Milner and Berahino. I'm sure I missed a few, but you get the point. There are some good players among this list, some less so, but from a glance on this list it's clear that if we only rely on Rodgers' suggestions we clearly won't build a club that's going to secure a place among the European elite.
Rodgers has an idea of what qualities he wants in a player, but he is not blessed with an intimate knowledge of a vibrant market that has great value for money, like Arsene has (or had in the past) with French league, Rafa to some extent with Spain, many Italian, Spanish and Portugese managers with Argentina, Colombia and Brazil or Dutch managers with North Europe or Germans with Eastern Europe and Turkey. The market Rodgers knows best (and even there he is probably not the keenest scout) also happens to be the most overpriced market in the world. Therefore even some of the best Rodgers' signings are not really great value for money and in many cases there is no other way to judge it than to say we are (or were ready to be) overpaying for mediocrity.
The signings I would consider "committee signings" have been of generally uneven quality. There is a clear emphasis on getting value for money (that's why they are so easy to distinguish from "Rodgers signings," where we seem to be willing to pay any price for the player manager wants), which led to some inspired signings of great value (Coutinho, Can), some duds (Aspas, Balotelli) and a lot of investment in potential (Ilori, Luis Alberto, Assaidi, Markovic, Moreno). Overall it would not be so bad – every great scout will have a few duds – but it's worrying to see that at times Rodgers has no idea what to do with some of the players we end up signing through the committee, they just don't fit what he's trying to build at all.
Modern football is not what it was 30 years ago and now every big club necessarily has to have someone who is intimately familiar with at least some of the most productive world football markets. When that person is the manager – great. If not, then a few different problems can arise. You will either get the "manager's picks" which means severely limiting the pool of talents you can pick from and therefore limiting your ambitions. Or you will get a situation where the picks will reflect the state of the power balance inside the committee rather than being a part of a coherent vision for building up the club.
Maybe the worst thing about the manager-as-part-of-the-committee structure is that the most inspired and innovative ideas are often also the most difficult to defend in a group setting – precisely because they are innovative. So a scout who has an idea to spend £5-10M on some unknown Eastern European player – who will later go on to become a superstar – might not have enough weight in the committee to push his idea through at the expense of the competing ideas and the opportunity will be gone. I'm sure in the next few years we will hear a lot about players who were considered by LFC, but made it big elsewhere.
By its very nature a committee cannot have a coherent vision, we know it all too well from politics where the surest way to kill or hopelessly dilute an idea is to throw it down to the committee. The only way that's proven to work effectively in sports as in business or politics is trusting one person with the abundance of knowledge and skills for the job and holding him/her accountable for the results. There is a reason why Southampton is in 3rd place despite a change of manager and losing half of their best players. (They might not stay there come May, but this is clearly not a fluke) There is a reason why clubs such as Porto, Sevilla, Ajax, Borussia Dortmund, Atletico Madrid and yes, Spurs, keep reinventing themselves and always rising near the top in their respective countries – and that reason is fundamentally sound transfer policy and decision-making structure.
I think I've made my case clear. It's time for FSG to dismantle the committee and appoint a sporting director. It can be one of the current members of the committee or someone from outside – what matters more is the structure. This structure is better for the club and better for Rodgers too – they just need to find a right way to explain it to him. Then he can concentrate on his core strength and will get a more consistently high-quality supply of players for fulfilling his tactical vision. He will find it easier to find common ground and common vision with one person than with five. And maybe not having to sit at the committee meetings will finally free some time for him to work on the defense.
