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

A sporting director’s role is the most important at a football club.

Most of their work is behind closed doors, so it’s difficult to imagine how influential their role is. But, as they sit between the coach and the chairman, they yield huge amounts of authority and influence over the decisions made at all levels. 

They’re often responsible for the overall philosophy of a club. And one part of their role is more than anything else: recruitment. They are in charge of recruitment across the whole club. The best sporting directors install an effective recruitment strategy that begins with the youth team to the first team. 

It’s a difficult role that can be damning if done poorly. But the opposite is also true. If they can put in place a recruitment philosophy that aligns with a club's long-term vision, the sky is the limit.

Liverpool is a case in point.

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 likes of Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane, Virgil van Dijk, Allison, and Andy Robertson to Liverpool.

But what was his strategy? Let’s get into it. 

Collaboration

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

This is partly why his relationship with Brendan Rodgers ended sourly. Rodgers wanted complete autonomy when making transfer decisions and insisted on overruling Edwards. At the time, Edwards wasn’t senior enough to have full authority over transfer decisions. With Rodgers making a bulk of the transfer decisions alone, it led to a scatter-gun approach to recruitment. Over three years, Rodgers bought 33 players for £296,550,000. Yet, most signings were short-term in nature including the likes of Victor Moses and Rickie Lambert.

This proved costly for the Welsh manager after he pushed for Liverpool to sign Mario Balotelli – a player who Jose Mourinho described as “unmanageable”.

According to The Athletic, a person close to the deal recalled Rodgers’ reluctance to collaborate with Edwards.

The source said: “(Balotelli) was not a deal Liverpool wanted to do but he insisted on it. Basically, it got to the point where there were a few transfers in which Brendan said, ‘It is my way or the highway. I need this player and you need to back me as manager.’”

“Liverpool said, ‘OK, that is fine, but under our model, if we all fuck up together on a few transfers, it’s everyone’s responsibility and we share that.”  

But Rodgers never warmed to the idea of forgoing his authority to Edwards and his team. 

The next season Rodgers’ side underperformed, and he was sacked. 

Jurgen Klopp and Edwards shared a completely different relationship. One based on collaboration, deliberation, and respect.

Edwards’ office, located up the stairs at the Melwood training ground, sat parallel to Klopp’s. 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.

“It is a very good relationship,” Klopp admitted at the time. “We don’t always have to have the same opinion from the first second of a conversation, but we finish pretty much all our talks with the same opinion. Or similar opinions.”

Edwards’ strategy relied on creating a ‘mutual purpose’ with the Liverpool manager. In the book Crucial Conversations, mutual purpose is: “Others perceive that you’re working toward a common outcome in a conversation, that you care about their goals, interests, and values.” For Edwards and Klopp, this was the case. Their goals aligned, so everything they deliberated on was for the betterment of the club - not their egos. 

Through this collaboration, the pair made some of the most cost-effective recruitment decisions in modern football. Throughout Premier League seasons, Klopp’s net spend and total spend were half of his managerial rival Pep Guardiola. More striking is the cost per Premier League point. Every point won by Guardiola has cost Manchester City £667,000. Compared to every point won by Liverpool under Klopp costing £243,000. 

Controlled autonomy

As technical director at the time, Edwards was tasked with finding the manager to replace Brendan Rodgers. He had a few options available, none less than Carlo Ancelotti and Jurgen Klopp. 

Ancelotti had the best record on paper, but Edwards decided he wanted Klopp at Anfield. He felt the latter moulded better to Liverpool’s philosophy. Ancelotti, on the other hand, had a history of demanding transfers from the offset, most of whom were experienced players and nearly past their peak. This wasn’t Edwards’, or Liverpool's, philosophy. He preferred players that were entering their peak and it also helped if they had re-sale value a few years after joining.  

So, Edwards and his team wanted a manager who was willing to take a backseat in their first season. Then, after two, three or even four years, the manager’s input would increase, and transfer decisions would require their input. This was to ensure that the manager had time to align with the club’s values and long-term vision. 

In Edwards’ view, Klopp was the man for the job. He had competed at the highest level but also maintained a level of flexibility and cooperation that Liverpool required.

The signing of Mohamed Salah showed how this steady integration process proved fruitful. Upon taking charge, Klopp’s main transfer target was Julian Brant – a player he knew well from his time in Germany. But Edwards pushed back. He believed that, despite Salah’s underwhelming time at Chelsea, the Egyptian would better suit Liverpool’s long-term vision. It’s fair to say that Edwards made the right call. It’s only when Edwards saw Klopp buy into the club’s long-term vision that he awarded him greater influence.

Clearly, Edwards’ recruitment strategy relied on a principle of controlled autonomy. In essence, he would only give autonomy to a manager once they understood the wider philosophy of the club. This learning phase for a manager, akin to an onboarding process, would be crucial to working towards the long-term objectives of the club.

Yet, as with any onboarding, people crave autonomy. As Daniel H. Pink said, “Control leads to compliance; autonomy leads to engagement.” This was something that Edwards recognised and gave to Klopp.

Edwards’ strategy to gradually onboard the manager proved effective. It shows the importance of long-term visionaries, like Edwards, at a football club. They plant the long-term vision of the club and make sure it's nurtured. It's an effective way to ensure that short-termism doesn't detriment a club's long-term vision.

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.

But, he remained curious about statistics and how they are applied in the real world. So, Edwards began experimenting with data-driven decision-making in football.

After a short stint at Spurs, then Liverpool’s director of football Damien Comolli headhunted Edwards. The hierarchy at Liverpool wanted to push forward a data-led approach, and Edwards was the man for the job.

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. Liverpool’s ownership, FSG, had tried to recruit Graham by buying his previous employer, Decision Technology. But, as the company had contractual ties with Spurs, this plan never came to fruition. It was Edwards who convinced Graham to leave. He then paired him with Will Spearman, a former Harvard graduate student. In short, he created one of the most formidable data-led teams the Premier League had ever seen. 

This talented team was able to predict performance based only on objective measures. 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 claimed that Liverpool missed out on Dele Alli because the club relied on their “computer and stats-led” approach.

“The game isn’t played on a computer,” Johnson added. “Some of these IT guys have come straight out of university and landed jobs at top clubs, despite having no football background whatsoever.”

There is some truth to this. But Johnson’s criticism doesn’t acknowledge that Edwards’ strategy married a data-led approach with more traditional recruitment methods. He encouraged Liverpool’s scouts to attend games. This would ensure that the data wasn’t skewed and that the players had genuine potential. 

Despite criticism from old-fashioned scouts, clubs are flocking to emulate Liverpool’s and Edwards's player identification approach. Edwards, alongside some others, pioneered a data-led recruitment strategy in top-flight football. And with the success followed, it’s no surprise that most clubs are following suit.