No he doesn't. Which is the only reason Ashley Williams will not be a Liverpool player this season and nor will Vorm who were both BR 1st choices. The final say is had by Werner & JWH who take advice from everyone involved (but take more notice of some indivduals and less notice of other individuals). If we were to sign Vorm or Williams, or another past player of BRs this Summer, then this will suggest that BR has wrestled full control back to himself. BR wasn't 100% convinced about Sturridge, not just in August, but in Jan too, but we still have him. BR also had absolutely nothing to do with the Assaidi signing either. When individual who does have a lot of sway over targets is our Stats & Analysis guy. He is the one responsible for Assaidi, not Jen Chang as popular myth would dictate.
If BR doesn't have a say, why is he still at the club? Afterall, it was made perfectly clear that he would only take the job if there was no DoF and he had control of transfers. Sure, he may not of heard of/known much about Assaidi but isn't it the job of scouts to find players? A club being run where a manager does not have a say in transfer is a club in an shambles
He's obviously got a say, but the 'committee' (of which he is part) makes the ultimate decision. As we discussed before it'd be interesting to see how that works in practice, if the manager has a very strong (pro or anti) view on a particular player. The fact that it's only come in towards the end of his first year in charge, either means that it was always going to happen & it's just taken that long to put together OR that he's lost the universal control element, in the aftermath of spunking £26m on Borini & Allen As he could hardly put up a strong argument against the principle in the wake of those 2 donkey signings.
There will be a committee rule that BR must agree to a signing. However, he won't be able to sign.a player without the backing of others either, not all the panel but a majority I would imagine. There will also be terms of reference that highlights some FSG favoured recruitment criteria. BR (and Ayre) said on his arrival that a recruitment panel would be setup.
It could work, but it could also lead to conflict It'd be the nightmare scenario for 'Arry, "slip me a bag of used £50's & we'll call it a deal" Wednap
Happy with this signing, cheap, scores goals, looks like a hard worker, bit of guile thrown in, could be a super sub or one for the big occasion. I expect to see him out wide rather than down the middle. If we keep Luis anyway... As for Reina, I think he'll stay. With Valdes saying he'll leave Barca in 2014, then I think the door to Camp Nou will open.
Just waiting for him to do the medical stuff and to sign on the dotted line I think, fee's been agreed.
BR has the biggest influence but he doesn't have exclusive veto power. its complicated. The whole setup is to ensure that one person alone isn't identifying and buying all the players as this, statistically, has a much higer chance of producing poor signings and wasted money. FSG last Summer were VERY keen to install a Committee approach to ensure every new signing would have the backing of at LEAST 2 or 3, maybe more, of key staff they trust at the Club. The transfer Committee is made up of BR, the Stats & Analysis Guy, Barry Hunter, and Dave Fallows. There may one other but there the only ones we know for certain. Its unclear how much, if any, sway Ayre has, or if he simply goes after the players when they have passed through the Committee. Players are identified, scouting intensely and a dossier/presentation is put together for each target that the Committee decides to go after. They have 2/3 for each position needed in order of preference. A max transfer fee and max financial package for the player targetted are decided by the committee and then all the info is sent to FSG who will make a final decision on whether they will sign the deals off if we get them within the financial parameters set. The majority of all this work is done during the season so as transfer windows are left solely for negotiating and signing the identified players. In the case of Sturridge it went so smoothly it was just a case of sending the FA/FIFA the paperwork as soon as the Jan window was open officially. This is why for the first time in years with summer windows, were already making good progress with our Summer business. Brendan has as much say, maybe a more, than anyone else involved in recruitment. he just doesn't have 100% say and veto power. If he was to protest against a proposed signing enough he could probably stop it happening, but this didn't stop Assaidi, and even rumours (off different person so dunno how true) that Sahin wasn't a Brendan signing either. However, if, like with the Ashley Williams/Vorm example, he is the only person on the committee who thinks that this player, at the price quoted to us, is a deal we should do, its highly unlikely that said deal would happen (think Dempsey last Summer were he was overruled on value).
This is where were very lucky to have Brendan, as opposed to someone with the personality of say LVG. He accepts that this approach is a good way of doing business and makes it less likely that huge amounts are paid for failures. He accepts that this approach is more likely to give a better success rate and doesn't have an ego big enough to think that he knows better than everybody else at the club bar none. It also helps that this approach has been shown to Brendan to work so far. Borini and Allen (so far anyway but this could yet change ala Henderson) were big money signings that were made on the back of Brendan's desire alone with no other real input (the Recruitment Committee wasn't in place until at least October last year as Hunter and Fallows were on forced Gardening leave from Man City) and don't look the best value for money. If you compare this with the 2 players signed by Committee and its obvious to BR why this is a good approach. Not saying though that this could blow up down the line though. BR might be okay in the short-term being out-voted etc, but there may come a day where they out-vote him on someone he REALLY wanted and it could breakdown. It must be said though, that what we know of Brendan so far, he seems like the ideal type of man/Coach to have in charge within this setup.
