The Soccer Blog: Damien Comolli Joins Liverpool and Previewing Napoli

Wednesday, 3 November 2010

Damien Comolli Joins Liverpool and Previewing Napoli

By: Ed | November 3rd, 2010

Decently-sized bit of news before we get to tomorrow’s match.

And, as is so often the case with Liverpool of late, the biggest news happens off the pitch. From the official site:

New England Sports Ventures (NESV) and Liverpool FC are pleased to announce the appointment of Damien Comolli as Director of Football Strategy for Liverpool FC.

NESV Principal Owner John Henry said today: “Damien has a proven track-record of identifying exciting young footballing talent and we are delighted that he has agreed to join Liverpool. Working closely with Roy Hodgson and the coaching staff, I know he will make a valuable contribution to strengthening the Club and the squad as we move forward.

“Today’s announcement is just the first step in creating a leadership group and structure designed to develop, enhance and implement our long-term philosophy of scouting, recruitment, player development and all of the other aspects necessary to build and sustain a club able to consistently compete at the highest level in European football.

“We intend to be bold and innovative. We will not rest until we have restored Liverpool Football Club to the greatness Liverpool fans expect.”

There’s also quotes via the above link from Roy Hodgson, which I didn’t copy for obvious reasons (namely, to keep Noel’s Photoshop program from melting), and from Comolli himself that are sort of worth checking out. But not really, because it’s the same party line about the need to rebuild and the tall task and omigod Liverpool are in shambles. Time to put that narrative to rest, please.

As Galahad mentioned in the comments thread of the previous post, by all accounts this is a positive-seeming move, although it’s nothing to shoot me through the roof. Comolli’s got experience in the Premier League through his time at Spurs, he seems to be in line with the NESV way of thinking (if anyone mentions “Moneyball” or sabermetrics one more time I’m going to stab them), and, building on the previous point, he’s apparently the result of a well-measured move by the new owners.

It’s hard to get a read on what exactly this means beyond the role to which he’s appointed—hopefully this assuages some of the concern about Hodgson’s skill in selecting talent to bring in, as a gaggle of Christian Poulsen clones probably isn’t the type of big spending anyone’s looking for. As with anything at the club right now, I’m mostly interested in Comolli bringing stability and positive influence to the role. But you know, he brought in Gareth Bale, who’s now the closest thing to the reincarnation of Jesus that we have on earth.

Anyhow, it’s the usual welcome to the club, and best of luck to him in helping move the club forward.

On to Napoli, which will be brief, in part because I deleted half of this post when the Comolli news broke. It’s also partly down to the fact that, despite the last result falling in the “slightly above average” category for Liverpool, I was left confused about what exactly Napoli are capable of. Yes, Liverpool got a good result, Roy Hodgson was in dreamland, and we’ll no doubt see the commemorative DVD released soon.

But Napoli were passive and unimpressive, and they rarely strung together anything of note to threaten Hodgson’s side. Since that meeting they’ve lost to AC Milan 2-1 and got all three points late at Brescia, which means they’re now in the fifth spot in Serie A, level on points with Juventus. The only team news I’ve been able to track down for Napoli has Cristiano Lucarelli still out with a knee injury, so outside of that I’m left to assume that it’ll be a somewhat similar squad to the one Liverpool faced two weeks ago.

For Liverpool:

1. Who will start for Liverpool?
2. What’s the most important factor for the Reds?
3. Who’s going to win and what’s going to be the scoreline?

This will be a brief version, as the Comolli news makes this post long enough. As usual, though, chime in below.

1. Who will start for Liverpool?

Reina
Johnson Carragher Skrtel Aurelio
Lucas Meireles
Maxi Gerrard Jovanovic
Torres

—Tough to say here, as Hodgson’s stated that he doesn’t want to rest many of the big names. That’s something Rafa would have done, that bastard. But there’s still injuries to Daniel Agger and Dirk Kuyt, and now we add Joe Cole and apparently Sotirios Kyrgiakos to that mix.

—I won’t pick Christian Poulsen. I much prefer Lucas and Raul Meireles to anything involving Poulsen. I much prefer Jonjo Shelvey as well. Even Jay Spearing. Maybe Sammy Lee, on current form.

—I suppose the rest of the front four can remain the same, although I wouldn’t be surprised to see Ngog in place of Torres or as part of a two-striker system. Maybe we see Dani Pacheco wide after the lip service he got from the official site earlier. But probably not.

2. What’s the most important factor for the Reds?

Hodgson pretty much said it in the link above—Liverpool are in a good place to progress, and getting the points is the main objective. I don’t think he and I mean the same thing when we talk about getting points; he wants “four from the next three” and I’d be inclined to say that somewhere in the ballpark of nine points from the next three would be something worth shooting for. But there I go again, setting expectations that are only based on my own foolish hope and optimism.

So yeah, pretty much the same record on repeat. Don’t play Roy Hodgson football.

3. Who’s going to win and what’s going to be the scoreline?

Hoping against hope we see Liverpool break out here, so I’m saying 3-1 to the hosts. I have no idea why or where three goals are going to come from, but it seems irresponsible enough for me.

Match will be covered as usual tomorrow, which means live on Five in the UK and DirecTV as well as GOLTV (thanks to Rhymenocereous for the assist, who’s like global warming, you can’t ignore him) stateside. Matchday post up early tomorrow with the usual links to streams for those without TV coverage.

Have a nice Wednesday everyone.

Some Related Liverpool Posts:State of the Blog, Purslow Steps Down, and a Napoli PreviewMatch Preview: Liverpool v. Bolton, 10.31.10Match Preview: Liverpool v. Birmingham City, 09.12.10Squad Announced; Fernando Torres Has Been Paying AttentionMatchday: Liverpool v. Steaua

Category: Europa League, Match Previews, Team News

Tags: Christian Poulsen, David Ngog, Europa League, Fabio Aurelio, Fernando Torres, Glen Johnson, Jamie Carragher, Jay Spearing, Jonjo Shelvey, Lucas, Martin Škrtel, Match Previews, Maxi Rodriguez, Milan Jovanovic, Paul Konchesky, Pepe Reina, Raúl Meireles, Ryan Babel, Steven Gerrard, Team News
« Wednesday Miscellany, Dropbear Edition | Home | RhymenocerosI believe the game is live on comcast goltv tomorrow as well (stateside)...for those who don't have DirecTV. A win or tie tomorrow and no injuries is all I want from this game. Chelsea on Sunday is much more important in my eyes. I hate them. Also, lets hope Comolli can find us some exciting, young talent as well. YNWAEdThanks for the help on GolTV, you're right, went ahead and updated the post.Red2deathMixed about having a DoF. Not least that Hodgson's name was mentioned in a statement concerning the future of the club (but I guess to expect his omission on paper might be asking a bit too much). Anyway, back to the DoF, I think it's good as long as it doesn't alienate future managers who might not be used to such a system. Potential dressing room snafu if the wrong pairing is chosen, especially since Premier League culture is very different from NFL or MLB. Comolli had some unclear connection to Gareth Bale, you say? Well, based on how he's been ripping Inter open, why not?

For the game, I'd pick Hodgson to go with his strongest 11. Putting on my small-club hat, when you have a possibly winnable midweek cup game and one of the big boys at the weekend, might as well focus on the former, no? In any case, every game is a great game to play Torres. He should play until he's scoring regularly again, nevermind if it's against substandard defences. 1-0 Pool.
NoelI like that line up, but with Chelsea coming up and the way he's taken to switching out the entire side, and with at least three by my count that probably wouldn't/shouldn't play a full 90... I just can't see that. Though by all means, keeping Poulsen as far away as possible works for me. Trying to mix hope with realism, I'll guess:
----------------Reina---------------
Johnson Carragher Skrtel Aurelio
-----------Lucas Shelvey----------
---------Maxi Gerrard Jovanovic--
----------------N'Gog---------------

With Pacheco and Kelly getting "planned" cameos, and a third sub as needed, preferably Torres if there are no injury or fitness concerns. And I'll say attack attack attack and 2-0, because Napoli showed nothing at home and for one reason or another we've been willing to press a bit more since that match.lfc4eternityBoth Ed's and Noel's look fine.
I'm still worried about Johnson's defending, given that the big Greek resumed training today perhaps even pushing Johnson to right midfield, bringing Soto in with jamie at Right back. Rafa centre mid but going forward in the 'hole'.
And leaving Stevie and Nando also on the bench. (just in case)
---------------Reina-------------
Carra---Soto-----Skrtel---Aurelio
-------------Lucas--------------
Johnson-----Shelvey--------Jovanovic
-------------Rafa---------------
------------N'Gog----------------GalahadThreepwoodFWIW, here are my thoughts on Comolli:

I come from the US, where most teams employ a general manager, who's responsible for identifying and signing players, and a coach, who's responsible for developing tactics and molding those players into a competitive team, so the idea of appointing a Director of Football to select talent isn't that odd to me. The GM-Coach system can work beautifully: in the NFL, the New England Patriots built a dynasty with Scott Pioli selecting players and Bill Belichick coaching them. And it's not only used in American sports; continental football teams like Bayern Munich and Real Madrid employ a similar system, and have been very successful with it.

In order for the system to work, though, you need people who understand their roles, and who are good at performing them. A bad coach or a bad GM can ruin the whole thing. This is where my concern about Comolli comes in--if he's bad at picking players, LFC could be in trouble really quickly. But the same could be said about a Premier League team with the standard all-powerful manager, if that manager had no ability to identify talent and pay the right price for it. I think we all agree that letting Roy pick transfer targets in January would be a stupendously bad idea; having a DOF to override him might be just what the doctor ordered.

The bottom line is, NESV said they want to be bold and innovative, and to me this move shows that they're serious. They obviously have the will to try something different (at least for the Premier League), and for that reason I think they--and Comolli--deserve our support. Let's see how he does in a couple of transfer markets before questioning his appointment or writing the whole thing off as a bad idea.lfc4eternityWe do have to keep believing and I completely understand the model, but it's also fair to say that the Director of Football for some reason, has never worked in England.

Perhaps it's because the traditional English manager is too precious about his position and feels he may be undermined by the DoF, or perhaps there's an element of the 'built in excuse'...i.e the manager will accept the plaudits when the DoF unearths a gem, but it's too easy to say 'he found them, not me' when the brown stuff hits the whirry thing.

The working relationship HAS to be excellent, with neither playing the blame game, as you say Galahad, 'People who understand their roles'.

You guys know more about NESV than I, if they are bold and innovative, let's hope Liverpool are the first over here to make it work.

I the last post I listed some players who Kopsource.com suggest may be available come January, please have a look and would welcome your thoughts.Red2deathThe only one who gets me really excited is Hazard. Don't think we've been linked with many other impressive names recently. Behind Hazard, the second most exciting transfer would be this guy named Pellegrini...GalahadThreepwoodYeah, the fact that the system hasn't worked in the PL up to this point is worrisome to me. I think the reasons you mentioned for why it hasn't taken off are spot on. For some reason, in the US the coach-GM backbiting doesn't usually happen in the press--it's rare for a coach over here to say, "The team's failing because of the crappy players the GM gave me". Not to say that there isn't tension, but it usually happens behind the scenes, whereas in England it all happens in the public eye, with managers happy to throw the DOF, or other managers, under the bus when things start going bad.

Obviously if that happens with LFC, the whole thing will fall apart. NESV are taking a significant risk here, and I have to respect them for it. I hope for their sake--and ours--that it works out for the best.

As far as players: I would like to see Hazard or Afellay come in. Krancjar (sp?) has shown signs of promise at Tottenham too, at least in the games I've seen, so I wouldn't be unhappy if we somehow managed to land him. I agree with Noel that Everton would never sell us Pienaar, so that's out.EdWas that you who provided the link to Wenger's thoughts on Comolli's time at Spurs? Can't remember, but he essentially said what you're saying about role definition and the impact that can have on one's ability to succeed.

Completely agreed across the board, particularly about NESV showing how serious they are--so far, so good regarding the steps they've made. It's still early, but they're living up to their word about doing more showing than telling.GalahadThreepwoodI think that was actually Nate over at Oh You Beauty. He also mentioned that European leagues have used the DOF system to good effect. I know it hasn't worked particularly well in the Premier League, but that doesn't mean it can't work. But you have to have people who understand what they're supposed to do and are willing to commit to making the system work.

It seems to me that NESV are applying the strategy they used with the Red Sox to LFC--find a good, young GM with an eye for picking good, young players, and let him build the team. Not a bad idea; remains to see how it works in practice. But as you said, they're leading with their actions instead of doing a lot of talking (unlike H&G, who were really good at expending hot air but bad at backing it up), and that's encouraging. I'm excited to see how this turns out, especially if it ends up with Roy heading somewhere else.NoelWell, they do have some time left in that 28 (or was it 30?) day window where they're supposed to be able to show Roy the door with less of a penalty, and firing the manager first was never the most likely option, so now that they have the beginnings of a backroom staff in place we've got a week or two for a window on that front. Then, if he's still here, is when it means he's probably going to be around all season.LFC4LIFESOmething tells me that NAPOLI is gonna give us !@$#$ because their fighting for first place.i think we might lose.And i'm happy about the new 'scout',he's optimistic and creative.he found Gareth BALE for tottenham and BALE is on TODAYS FOOTBALL FRONT PAGE!!!blog comments powered by Disqus

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Wednesday, 3 November 2010

Damien Comolli Joins Liverpool and Previewing Napoli

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