DOF- Director of Football discussion

I think it's fair to say we'll see a shake up of some sort in the structure after FSG's meeting with rodgers next week. From the articles of Echo and Barrett, it looks imminent.

It could be a chance in manager, committee,the whole structure...something will make way.

Which brings us to DOF. Which was FSG's preferred structure before Rodgers refused it back in 2012, and no with almost zero leverage, if FSG tell Rodgers you either work with a DOF or get sacked, either way I think we'll be in for a DOF.

There've been rumours of Monchi visiting Liverpool a few times recently...He's the DOF OF Sevilla in the past decade that's done a phenomenal job.

What qualities in a DOF should be targeting ? we need someone experienced, respected in the game, and with a good track record. Also, a DOF shouldn't be a current manager because it's always poisoned chalice no matter who the manager is when things go wrong. We offered DOF job to LVG 3 years ago from what I remember.

Monchi is the stand out candidate

How about Heyneckes ? Retired from management, massively respected...among all-time greats and has great footballing and business nous.

a DOF makes facilitation from one manager to another easier, and leads the direction of the club and its philosophy (Barca most obvious example). It's a model that is being implemented all around Europe in modern football....Arsenal are perhaps the last club with a manager runs everything and after Wenger retirement, the "Manager to run all" era will be done forever in football IMO.

I'm very much pro the idea of DOF. What do you think ? Who should we be getting ? Comely didn't work out great because he wasn't qualified for the job. Baldini at Spurs hasn't worked out great. Jury is out with Txiki and City ...However, Zurc at Dortmund is doing miracles. Bayern/Barca don't have a "single" person as DOF, but they have running philosophies bacause of years with identity which is equivalent of DOF (Cruyff, Kaiser, etc). .Leverkusen have Fuller, Sevilla with Monchi, Fiorentina have a DOF too.

DOF is the middle man between football and business. Something we don't have at the club now to identify players, and get the deals done quickly. DOF will basically makes Ayre purely a business person and demotes him, so that's a good start.

I don't really want a DOF, I think it's a flawed system where someone makes signings over the manager. If we put a DOF system in place and some time after that hire an overall competent manager, the DOF would be a hindrance on the competent manager.

I actually like the idea of a DoF as long as that person has a very good working relationship with the manager and similar philosophies.

What's Cruyff up to these days?

Flawed system how Art? Most top clubs are using it and they are doing just fine. Dortmund had a DoF. Juventus have a DoF. Atleti have a DoF and they have all gotten to CL final recently and won their leagues and they have less financial muscle than us.

^ Even Chelsea have a sporting director who makes the signings....and they have a "great" manager so to speak.

I think Art knows deep down that Lambert/McCarthy wouldn't work under a DOF, so if we adopt to the DOF idea, his childhood dream wouldn't ever materialize

The manager needs to know better than anyone what the team needs. He's the one who works with the players, chooses line-ups and tactics, rises or falls with the team. Not a DOF. DOF is like a glorified head scout. You should have a head scout, but they shouldn't be making signings to the senior squad over the manager. I firmly believe that the manager and only the manager should be the one making the final calls on whether or not to sign a player to the first team.

I think Chelsea is a fantastic example of how a DoF can operate.

As you can imagine, I am 100% for them.

Emanelo (our DoF) has been directly responsible for signings such as Courtois, KDB, Lukaku, Bamford, and Zouma.

He also deals with a lot of our senior purchases exluding players like Fabregas, who wanted to leave.

And he has been a major player transfer fees we've gotten. Although, that isn't entirely down to him.

But I think Liverpool would be better off with one.

If we did have a DOF, what would the roles and responsibilities of the following people include

-Manager
-DOF
-Transfer committee(or is this done with)
-Scouts


Seems the more layers of people just might make it all messy.

mr-r34 wrote:If we did have a DOF, what would the roles and responsibilities of the following people include

-Manager To manage the team, work with the DoF on transfers but not heavily (E.g. asks for a certain type of player or a certain player)
-DOF Transfers and managing all the non playing football related staff
-Transfer committee(or is this done with) Would be gone
-Scouts Same as always, to scout and write reports about players, then hand the job of transfers to DoF.


Seems the more layers of people just might make it all messy.

Kick wrote:I think Chelsea is a fantastic example of how a DoF can operate.

As you can imagine, I am 100% for them.

Emanelo (our DoF) has been directly responsible for signings such as Courtois, KDB, Lukaku, Bamford, and Zouma.

He also deals with a lot of our senior purchases exluding players like Fabregas, who wanted to leave.

And he has been a major player transfer fees we've gotten. Although, that isn't entirely down to him.

But I think Liverpool would be better off with one.

Those have been almost solely "development squad" signings and that's fine by me, but it's not really DOF stuff, that, it's more like head scout stuff. What a DOF means to me is someone who spends the transfer budget reserved for instant first-team signings and has the mandate to do it over the manager.

I'm all for having a scouting department who sign up-and-coming youngsters, but a DOF is different. DOF is someone telling the manager how to do his job - and that's no good.

Kick wrote:

mr-r34 wrote:If we did have a DOF, what would the roles and responsibilities of the following people include

-Manager To manage the team, work with the DoF on transfers but not heavily (E.g. asks for a certain type of player or a certain player)
-DOF Transfers and managing all the non playing football related staff
-Transfer committee(or is this done with) Would be gone
-Scouts Same as always, to scout and write reports about players, then hand the job of transfers to DoF.


Seems the more layers of people just might make it all messy.

So in essence the only thing changing is the fact that Ayre won't be dealing with transfers.

I think most of the top clubs and managers have pervasive authority with regards to player transfer. I guess that’s natural given the managers have built a reputation for spotting the right talent. Also, the clubs have the reputation to attract just about any talent. It’s also my understanding that the mid-level clubs rely heavily on DoF. They need greater groundwork given the limitations of their resources. A DoF, typically a person with football background, may have the intuition, competency and network to land a great (player) deal just as Ayre has those in terms of commercial deals.

Rodgers have a very weak record as far as transfer goes. Ayre shouldn’t be anywhere near player transfers. I’m also not very confident with our scouting department. In this circumstance, a DoF may bring the dynamism in spotting and buying the right player.

How should the system work? One way would be, the DoF will have an elaborate discussion with Rodgers (NOT FSG and their shitting ‘buying for future’) to get a clear idea about the types of players he needs. He will then direct the scouting department to search for compatible players. After receiving the scouting reports, the DoF will screen the players and negotiate deal.