Liverpool are still yet to truly replace the fabled Michael Edwards as sporting director.

Edwards spent over a decade at the club, leaving in 2022, and was widely regarded as the mastermind behind some of Liverpool’s best transfers of recent times. Two years on from his departure, the Reds are once again searching for a new man to fill his role.

During his time at the helm, Edwards barely seemed to miss for Liverpool in the transfer market. So, as a result, Reds legend Jamie Carragher told the Stick To Football podcast that he once went to meet the analyst to see what all the fuss was about.

“People talk about Liverpool’s recruitment and Michael Edwards is always famed for what he did alongside Jurgen Klopp and people at the club,” Carragher says. “So I went to see him once, because I wanted a bit more information, it wasn’t for me to come out and speak but this is years later. I was expecting some real big insight into how many scouts they have, how they watch them, how they see different things.

“He just said the biggest thing for us about getting the players we want is relationships with agents. I was expecting more than that! But he was just saying it’s massive basically.

“You see about agent fees every year, and I’m not saying it’s just about the money, but he was talking about having good relationships with their agents.”

This is a really interesting insight from Carragher, as the Liverpool legend often provides.

It is a little surprising to hear that Edwards credits a lot of his successes at Anfield down to relationships with agents. It did always feel as though there was much more to it than that. But maybe it shouldn’t be such a shock – Carra has actually mentioned this point before.

Of course, that doesn’t mean Liverpool’s recruitment was one-paced. They also employed an advanced data collecting model to seek who would fit into Jurgen Klopp’s system the best.

Edwards was one of the very first on the scene where analytics in football are concerned and you could see that in the Reds’ recruitment over the years.

But you can’t simply rely on data analysis alone to bring in the players that you need. As in any business, relationships are always going to be key.

In this day and age where agents are so influential to players, it makes sense to get on the right side of them.

If an agent is advising their client on where to sign and they have a good relationship with one club and a poor or indifferent relationship with the other, where do you think he or she will suggest to join?

Often, that can be the difference between a player signing and not signing. When you’ve gathered all the hard data and narrowed down your scouting, why would you let a thing like that stop you from getting things over the line. This is just smart work from a smart man. How we miss Edwards.

But you can’t simply rely on data analysis alone to bring in the players that you need. As in any business, relationships are always going to be key.

In this day and age where agents are so influential to players, it makes sense to get on the right side of them.

If an agent is advising their client on where to sign and they have a good relationship with one club and a poor or indifferent relationship with the other, where do you think he or she will suggest to join?

Often, that can be the difference between a player signing and not signing. When you’ve gathered all the hard data and narrowed down your scouting, why would you let a thing like that stop you from getting things over the line. This is just smart work from a smart man. How we miss Edwards.