Mo Salah has become an all-time great at Liverpool, scoring 245 goals in his eight years at the club. However, it wasn’t always written that he would sign for the Reds in 2017.
One European Cup, two Premier League titles, two League Cups and an FA Cup later, it seems unthinkable that Salah might never have come to Merseyside.
While it has been well documented how Julian Brandt was the preferred signing of choice for Jurgen Klopp in 2017, Liverpool’s former director of research, Dr Ian Graham, has now explained how he turned the boss’ head.
“Liverpool were the first club to have an in-house analytics department and our job was to collect data from 60 different leagues and report insights to the decision-makers,” Graham told BBC Sport.
“Jurgen was really open-minded. If you could demonstrate why this player he hadn’t thought of before was a really good player, he would say, ‘OK, I can see what you’re saying. Maybe we should sign this player’, for example Mo Salah.
“From our data analysis point of view, Mo was the best young wide-forward in Europe full stop. Roma were under pressure to sell but Jurgen’s preferred option was Julian Brandt.”
At the time, the German winger had just turned 21 years old and had played over 130 times for Bayer Leverkusen which included Champions League experience.
Klopp had seen his ability first-hand in the Bundesliga and was keen on the attacker, who would go on to sign for the manager’s former club, Borussia Dortmund, two years later.
Graham continued: “The question marks were about his fit; we already had some great attacking midfielders in our team.
“We agreed that Brandt was a very young player but not a standout in the same way Mo was. I was lucky enough not to be in the meeting where the transfer committee, Michael (Edwards) and Dave (Fallows) and Barry (Hunter), had to argue their case for Mo Salah against Jurgen’s case for Julian Brandt.
“I think it’s to Jurgen’s credit that he engaged in that debate in a sort of honest way with his eyes open to say, ‘OK, I’m open to be convinced. Show me that Mo is better’.”
Klopp’s assistant coach, Peter Krawietz, added: “After doing one analysis meeting seeing what Mo is able to do, it was clear.”
A perfect example of Jurgen Klopp’s leadership qualities
As Graham said, it is testament to Klopp that he was willing to take on board the advice of others.
Listening to others who have more knowledge on certain topics is an area the German has pointed out as being an important aspect of leadership.
In 2019, he said: “I need experts around me. It’s really very important that you are empathetic, that you try to understand the people around you, and that you give real support to the people around you. Then everybody can act.
“That’s what leadership is: have strong people around you with a better knowledge in different departments than yourself, don’t act like you know everything, be ready to admit, ‘I have no clue in the moment, give me a couple of minutes and then I will have a clue probably.’
“That’s how I understand it but it’s no real ‘philosophy’, it’s just my way of life.”
One week after saying that, Liverpool won their sixth European Cup in Madrid, beating Tottenham 2-0 with a team made up of players signed thanks to the help of the data department.
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