Ex-Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers laments difficulty with club's transfer committee
Former Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers spoke rather candidly in regards to his old team's method of operations during the transfer window, calling the process of signing new players "difficult" at Anfield.
Rodgers explained that the club deliberates in an unorthodox way during the transfer window, where he, as a manager, doesn't have "the final say" in which players are made available for purchase. Instead, a recruitment team offers him a shortlist of players from which he can choose.
"It's difficult because you want a player in, and there's a list of players, but if the player that you want isn't on the list, you have to take someone," Rodgers told Sky Sports, as quoted by NBC Sports. "If you haven't got a left back, but for whatever reason you can't bring in (the one that you want), if there's a list of three or four, you have to take maybe what's the best in that group."
Rodgers says the problems with this method of signing players was most evident when the Reds attempted to replace ace striker Luis Suarez and eventually settled on Italian forward Mario Balotelli.
"What we were wanting, what we were needing, was that replacement for a player who could really press at the top end of the field," Rodgers explained. "It wasn't just a goalscorer we were after. Luis Suarez was giving us so much more than that.
"I felt that Mario wasn't someone who profiled what we were after, but come the end of the summer when we were struggling to get in the type of player we wanted, I think the ownership group thought this was a player I could develop, because he'd had his issues."
Rodgers also revealed that the club had come close to signing now-Arsenal star Alexis Sanchez, who Rodgers had identified as a suitable replacement.
"There were other conditions that meant we couldn't get other players in," he said. "The huge blow for us that season was, we thought we were getting Alexis Sanchez. We thought that Luis was gone … as a like-for-like replacement, if you look at how (Sanchez) plays, he was going to be perfect for us, in how he presses the game, how aggressive he was, and his quality."