It has taken a while but there can be little doubt that it was the right decision to appoint Kenny Dalglish as the permanent Liverpool manager. But Liverpool’s management strategy doesn’t always go down well in English football and in particular the idea of having a director of football working alongside the manager. Normally I would say this simply doesn’t work and should not be considered in any way. However, for some reason it does seem to work at Liverpool.
There are many roles that a football manager has to take on from the coaching & tactical side to the managing different personalities within the squad and in addition to that the coach has to look for new players to bring into the squad. Buying players could be considered a full-time role in itself and that is a lot for one man to do. This is particularly true for a big club like Liverpool.
Therefore Dalglish needs some people to work alongside him to make sure Liverpool become the team they once were again. Buying players will be an important part of that on-going strategy so Dalglish needs to have a solid scouting set-up to indentify players and scouts to go watch them. The Liverpool director of football Damien Comolli plays a very important role is assisting the Liverpool manager with identifying transfer targets and using his vast contact book to help conclude such deals. Managed in the correct way it could be considered a marriage made in heaven.
The only potential issues are the personalities of the two men and a mutual agreement on those all important transfer targets. Problems can start to develop when managers feel players are being bought or sold without their consent. However, if Comolli can work closely alongside Dalglish and they can mutally agree on targets and the manager stays involved in the process throughout, it could turn out to be a very successful partnership in the future of Liverpool Football Club.
This article is courtesy of James Kent at Football FanCast
