The Anatomy of Liverpool by Jonathan Wilson (January 2018)
Hi,
The Anatomy of Liverpool is Wilson’s search for the soul of Liverpool Football Club. Through the unusual approach of using the context, tactics, and aftermath of ten defining matches, he constantly asks the question – what is LFC? The unique lens he uses to examine this question made for a compelling read that I, a Liverpool fan for over a decade, thought resulted in a phenomenal look into every aspect of the club’s decorated history.
A couple of days ago, I touched on one of the basic ideas from Wilson’s in-depth study in the context of the New England Patriots – when the organization is in a period of decline, the manager is usually the first to leave. We’ll look at that thought in much more detail over a few upcoming posts.
Today, I want to take a closer look at some of Wilson’s other ideas.
Thanks for reading.
Tim
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It is hard to validate any process strictly by results.
You can’t score a goal every time you get the ball.
Most teams should try to extend their philosophy before taking steps to overhaul it.
The flower begins to wither at the height of full bloom.
Despues del visto, todo el mundo es listo (everyone’s a genius after the event).
These thoughts all speak to the inherent challenges of the manager’s role. They caution against relying strictly on results to measure performance and remind the manager to always retain a process-oriented approach. Good managers do not count goals as a measure of the offense – instead, they understand that the goal-scoring process consists of many inputs such as movement, passing, or positioning. They study these inputs to understand why something happened instead of merely relying on the final goal tally to tell the whole story.
A good way to understand someone’s injuries is to watch the way they walk. An even better way is to track how someone’s walk changes.
This extends the above idea. A manager who looks at the players and only notices their current speed will lose to a manager who can pick out the player that is speeding up within a pack. A manager must always remember to know not just the present condition but also the underlying trend.
A top manager might not always be able to identify the next great talent. However, a top manager will never sign a bad player. Perhaps the fairest way to assess managerial ability is by how few bad players the manager signs.
A great manager improves every player in the team. If a bad signing comes in, the manager must still improve the player until the transfer is considered a good signing. Otherwise, why have the manager work with the players at all?
The manager’s colleagues – scouting, assistant coaches, sporting directors, and so on – must help assess available players and offer input into prioritizing new signings. If a team chooses not to sign a player who goes on to succeed with a rival, the entire organization must take the blame for the failure. But if a player arrives at the club and stagnates, the only person at fault is the manager.
A good team will improve on one or two players a year (or perhaps three players every two years).
I believe this thought references the starting XI. Using the above math, every position on a stable team will go through a cycle of improvement once every four to five years. From my experience, this feels about right in terms of what I’ve observed in the top teams. Most top players have a peak of three to four years. Thus, the best managers sign players as they approach their peak, offload players as they begin their decline, and always have the replacement ready to go at the exact time the change must be made.
Teams in any industry must apply this lesson. If too many of the same faces stick around for too long, the thinking becomes stale and opportunities are increasingly missed. If too many new faces keep coming into the team, however, inexperience and unfamiliarity lead to simple miscues. The right balance preserves a core of talent and experience while allowing room for growth through the process of integrating new team members or reorganizing existing responsibilities.
Shankley thought courage encompassed both mental and physical attributes. It meant having principles and sticking by them, staying up when being pulled down, and doing the right thing regardless of its popularity.
In the way a horse responds to its jockey, players will take on the mood of their manager.
I’m reminded here of Rafa Benitez’s quote in Champions League Dreams – explain decisions to the team whenever possible so that they would have faith when an explanation was not possible.
This ethos shapes part of Shankley’s thought. Managers should know their principles, communicate them regularly, and abide by them at all times. If a player cannot understand a decision and there is no time to explain, the managers who have stuck by their principles will get commitment because players trust managers who keep their word and commit to principles.
On the other hand, a manager who makes decisions that account for factors unrelated to what is best for the team will lose the trust of the team. Once the horse grows suspicious of the jockey’s motives, it will no longer respond to the whip.
