Chelsea keen rope in former Liverpool Sporting Director Michael Edwards
According to reports from The Express (h/t Liverpool Echo), Chelsea, under new owner Todd Boehly, have started talks to persuade former Liverpool Sporting Director Michael Edwards to join them this summer. This comes after he vacated his role at Anfield at the end of the 2021/22 campaign.
Edwards initially joined Liverpool as head of analytics in 2011, before being promoted to Technical Director and later, Team Director in 2016. He played a major role in recruitment, overseeing some of our defining transfers of the Jurgen Klopp era.
After Chelsea saw a change in ownership from Roman Abramovich, Marina Granovskaia who was in-charge of overseeing transfers at the club, was relieved of her services. This has left a void in the Blues hierarchy that Boehly is keen to fill.
Under Edwards’ leadership, Liverpool did extraordinary business, with one of the most high-profile pieces of negotiation being the transfer of Phillipe Coutinho to Barcelona for £125m. It subsequently funded the signings of Virgil van Dijk and Alisson Becker for a combined fee of just £132m.
Now with a league rival looking to sign Edwards up, Liverpool are not in the most ideal of situations as Edwards’ transfer negotiation strengths come into play and give an upper hand to Chelsea in the signing of high standard footballers.
With Edwards at the helm, Liverpool went from strength to strength in terms of transfers, and also sold fringe players for substantial amounts. For example, Rhian Brewster was sold for £23.4m to Sheffield United , which is a lot for a player who didn’t even play a single league game for The Reds.
He also oversaw the signing of Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane, both going on to become among the best players in their position in world football.
As far as Chelsea are concerned, their American owners might be looking to emulate what Liverpool’s owners , Fenway Sports Group did in terms of handling the club and developing them into a footballing superpower once again.
It won’t be a cakewalk for Chelsea to lure Edwards out of his break from the sport, and Liverpool would certainly hope this break doesn’t end with their rivals racking up his services.
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Kopites would have been rightfully fearful that it would be difficult for the club to replace the transfer talisman. But new Sporting Director Julian Ward has been doing a great job overseeing the big money signing of Darwin Nunez and ensuring key players at the club signed long term deals.
While Chelsea look to emulate Liverpool, the Reds have moved on and left their rivals trailing in the rear-view mirror.
