LIVERPOOL MANAGER BRENDAN RODGERS has insisted he was in charge of the Anfield club’s transfer policy.
Questions had been raised after the Merseysider’s US-based owners, Fenway Sports Group (FSG), made changes to the regular English system, where a manager has total control. They had wanted Rodgers to operate as a coach under the kind of director of football set-up common to many European clubs but instead settled for a committee arrangement.
Now the panel features Rodgers, head of recruitment Dave Fallows and chief scout Barry Hunter as well as analysis chief Michael Edwards.
But Rodgers is adamant that he will make the final choice, subject to the financial backing of FSG. That was evident in pre-season when the Americans refused to sign Fulham’s Clint Dempsey as they believed he was over-priced for a then 29-year-old. Dempsey subsequently joined Premier League rivals Tottenham Hotspur.
“There is absolutely no way a player will come in here if I don’t want him,” Rodgers told the Liverpool Echo. “I will always be the first person it comes to. That’s not being arrogant, that’s how we operate here and how it works in this country.” He added:
Abroad it works differently where you have a coach and the club will bring in the players. The coach then works with the players he’s given. A lot has been made of it but the fact is the process that happens here is no different to what happens at other English clubs.
“We have a number of people, scouting staff and analysts, who will look for targets who fit the profile of the players that we want. Then I will sit down with those guys, look at those targets and make a shortlist from that. I know the club will go and do the best it can to get the players we want.
“But it’s very clear that anyone we sign will be because I want him here.”
