Liverpool just welcomed back statistics guru Michael Edwards. Despite the absence of its former sporting director, the club may have executed a classic ‘Moneyball’ move.
In truth, the latter years of Edwards’ dominance were not instantly recognizable as Moneyball. As Liverpool improved, the tactics had to adapt – the pool of players capable of improving the club dwindled, and identifying hidden gems among that elite group was difficult. The transfer strategy shifted towards determining who was worth paying significant money on.
Edwards was also successful in this regard, with Virgil van Dijk, Alisson, and Fabinho all proving to be transformative transfers. There were certainly more typical Moneyball movements taking place on the outskirts of the squad, with Kostas Tsimikas serving as a prime example, but Liverpool had to react to the realities of being one of the finest clubs in the world.
Unfortunately, by last season, it had lost this status. Alisson remained a vital player, having by far his greatest season as the deficiencies in front of him put him to more tests than ever before. However, Fabinho had struggled, and Van Dijk lacked a conducive environment in which to develop.
As a result, a midfield reconstruction was planned. Looking back, it’s funny to think of how much of an overhaul it was portrayed as, especially when this summer has proven to be even more seismic. Nonetheless, it was a significant transfer transaction, with Jürgen Klopp virtually creating a new engine room.
Jörg Schmadtke, the Reds’ temporary sporting director, was there to help him, no certainly supported by Will Spearman and the rest of the data crew – the Reds did not abandon the analytical approach when Edwards was originally removed. Despite the flimsy construction, Liverpool’s discovery of Wataru Endō is astounding.
Endō, a product of Schmadtke’s Bundesliga knowledge and undoubtedly backed up by the data, arrived with modest expectations due to his rather low-key career at relegation-threatened Stuttgart. He appeared to be an emergency signing after Moisés Caicedo and Roméo Lavia’s moves fell through.
However, Liverpool definitely spotted something that others had overlooked. With Endō and a new role for Alexis MacAllister, the Reds have reproduced prime Fabinho in the aggregate, to paraphrase a famous sentence from the Moneyball film.
People frequently refer to Moneyball as a “buy low, sell high” strategy, although this is a misunderstanding of the concept. Endō’s age limits his resale value, but Liverpool found a guy who was underestimated in the market. Only those in power will know how much of that was revealed by the statistics and how much was due to Klopp and Schmadtke’s astute observations, but the eventual result was one for which even Edwards would have been proud.
Endō and Caicedo are strikingly similar, with Chelsea struggling in the league and Liverpool aiming for a quadruple. Edwards, who oversaw a succession of transfer successes during his first tenure, is unquestionably the man to lead the club into a new age, but his predecessors deserve credit for a classic Moneyball masterstroke.
