GM football fans. Route One here, we serve as your daily aggregator, analyst and entertainer. It’s a 3-for-1 football special.

Welcome back, Router.

Luton vs Bournemouth will be replayed in full following Tom Lockyer’s collapse. A new date and kick-off time will be scheduled.

Let’s get into it, shall we…

Today’s briefing is a ~4 min read:

1. Dyche’s redemption arc 🕺🏽

2. Around the world in 30 seconds 🌍

3. The one man that changed Liverpool’s trajectory 📈

DYCHE’S REDEMPTION ARC 🕺🏽

If you’ve ever been through a breakup, you’d know they suck - especially when it wasn’t your decision.

Being a Premier League manager sometimes feels the same. Like the time when Sean Dyche was sacked from Burnley, with many thinking it was unfair at the time.

And just like a breakup, being sacked can sometimes feel like the world is against you.

Things just keep getting worse…

…you hold more weight than you’d like after your seventh Ben & Jerry’s…

…your phone bill goes up “in line with inflation”…

…you’ve been deducted 10 points at your new club.

All the same right?

Right?

You get the picture.

Anyway, slowly but surely, things start to turn around… for the better.

This is the story arc that Sean Dyche has had this season. And it looks like Dyche - and Everton - have their groove back.

After their 10-point deduction, Everton has:

• Won four in a row

• Not conceded in all four games

• Bypassed by their deducted points

And the win against his ‘ex’ - aka Burnley - on the weekend, would’ve tasted sweeter than Toffee…

AROUND THE WORLD IN 30 SECS 🌎

🇩🇪 Harry Kane scored two goals - one inside 90 seconds - against Stuttgart last night. With 20 goals in 14 games, Kane becomes the fastest to score 20 in Bundesliga history. Uwe Seeler is second (21 games) and Erling Halaand is third (22).

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Manchester City broke a record against Crystal Palace on Saturday. For the first time since records began 10 different players created a chance for one team in the first half of a Premier League game.

🇮🇹 Victor Osimhen pulls off an outrageous assist to help Napoli beat Cagliari. The match ended 2-1 with all goals being scored within 5 minutes of each other. Thriller!

🇪🇸 Jude Bellingham now has 20 goals in 17 games after scoring in Real Madrid’s 4-1 win against Villarreal last night.

🇹🇷 Fenerbahce’s Edin Dzeko, 37, and Dusan Tadic, 35, have contributed a combined 42 goals so far this season to the Turkish side.

Michael Edwards: How One Man Changed Liverpool’s Trajectory 📈

Sporting directors are really important.

They sit between the coach and the chairman and yield huge amounts of authority and influence over the decisions made at all levels. 

And one part of their role is more than anything else: recruitment.

The best sporting directors install an effective recruitment strategy that begins with the youth team to the first team. 

Liverpool is a case in point.

While last night’s performance wasn’t the pinnacle of what the Reds can do, the former sporting director Michael Edwards took The Reds to new heights.

His recruitment strategy was responsible for identifying Jurgen Klopp as manager, as well as bringing the list of players to Liverpool:

• Mohamed Salah

• Sadio Mane

• Virgil van Dijk

• Allison

• Andy Robertson

But what was his strategy?

Let’s get into it. 

1/ Collaboration

Edwards’ strategy relied on collaboration, particularly with the club’s manager.

Edwards’ office sat parallel to Klopp’s.

It’s said that his door was open to Klopp at all times in case the German manager wanted to discuss players.

The pair were keen to collaborate and have honest conversations with each other. They kept an open dialogue on all matters of concern and weren't afraid to disagree with each other.

Through this collaboration, they made some of the most cost-effective recruitment decisions in modern football.

Despite having some of the best signings in history, Klopp’s net spending and total spending were half of his managerial rival Pep Guardiola":

• Every point won by Pep Guardiola has cost Manchester City £667,000.

• Every point won by Liverpool under Klopp costs around £243,000. 

2/ Controlled autonomy

Edwards’ would only let a manager make decisions once they understood the wider philosophy of the club.

This learning phase for a manager would be crucial to working towards the long-term objectives of the club.

Edwards believes it’s important to have long-term visionaries at a club, who plan the long-term vision and make sure it’s nurtured.

Managers come and go. It shouldn't be the same for sporting directors.

3/ Analytical first approach

Another core pillar of Edwards' approach is data.

While he was an IT teacher in his early 20s, Edwards’ early experience in football didn’t lend itself to becoming data-obsessed. At the time he moved to Portsmouth as a young analyst, recruitment in sport was a subjective process. Scouts would attend matches and rely on their intuition to assess a player’s potential.

From the offset, Edwards showed his recruitment credentials. He convinced a Cambridge doctorate in theoretical physics Dr Ian Graham to head up Liverpool’s research department.

He then paired him with Will Spearman, a former Harvard graduate student.

It was the most formidable data-led team the Premier League has ever seen.

They used sophisticated algorithms and statistical models to analyse data and identify patterns that might have gone unnoticed by human scouts. 

Edwards’ data-led approach was met with opposition by some of the old guard at Liverpool. In one interview, talent spotter Mel Johnson said: “Some of these IT guys have come straight out of university and landed jobs at top clubs, despite having no football background whatsoever.”

But Edwards still encouraged scouts to attend games to ensure that the data wasn’t skewed and that the players had genuine potential.

It’s rumoured that Edwards is making his way to Manchester United… so it’ll be interesting to see just how

EXTRA-TIME ⏱️

Ian Wright is to step down from MOTD at the end of the season. The ex-Arsenal striker says he’d like to do “different things with my Saturdays” after being a regular on the show for over 20 years.

At 76 Roy Hodgson is still loving life as a Premier League manager. Watch him laugh with at Pep Guardiola after Crystal Palace came back from 2-0 to steal a draw.

Sergio Ramos is a centre-attacking centre-back. The Spanish legend has more club goals than Iniesta and Pirlo. More international goals than Tevez, Beckham and Totti. And more Champions League goals than Zidane and David Villa. Crazy stat.

Is this Roberto Carlos’ best goal ever? The Brazilian has produced some of the most memorable goals in history but this forgotten gem might top the list.

Neil Warnock has suggested changes to VAR. Two words to sum up the suggestions, common sense.

MEME 😆