Michael Edwards is argumentative, “brilliant”, incredibly thorough and far from his laptop geek image, according to a Liverpool source quoted by the Times.
The newspaper deliver insight into the 39-year-old Anfield director of football who has negotiated so many of the deals that have transformed the Merseyside giants into Premier League title challengers and European heavyweights.
Edwards has progressed through the recruitment ranks at Liverpool after initially joining from Tottenham in 2012 and now is in charge of the whole transfer and contract process.
“Michael is brilliant at taking all of the information from the scouts who have been watching games, all the analytics, and pulling that together,” said a Liverpool source to the Times. “But his character means he can be quite argumentative as well and that’s healthy.
“He will stand his ground if he really believes in something: ‘Here are the three targets. I know you like that one better, but let us show why you might want to think about this.’
“It is not to be disrespectful but he will say [to the manager], ‘You are wrong’. You need arguments to get the best for the club. The role is not about just agreeing with everything.”
OPINION
What has stood out about the work done by Edwards at Liverpool is not only the super-shrewd recruitment, with the list of hits endless in recent years, from Virgil Van Dijk and Alisson in 2018 to Mohamed Salah and Andy Robertson the previous summer, but the forward-planning and outside-of-the-box thinking. Signing Naby Keita a year in advance has yet to pay off, but few would bet against the Guinea international eventually being a driving force in Klopp’s side. Then, there was the move to insert a £100million surcharge into the Philippe Coutinho record-breaking sale should Barcelona try and sign another Liverpool player before 2020. Edwards is ahead of the game. Operating in the background and far from the limelight hogged by Klopp and his players, the director of football is emerging as a hugely influential figure in the transformation of one of Europe’s grandest clubs.